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COLUMBIA -- State Department of Transportation officials appearing before a House committee on Wednesday didn't dispute allegations that officials manipulated cash balances in 2004 to hide money from lawmakers.

Their response Wednesday was a dramatic change from the agency's response last month to senators, when Executive Director Elizabeth Mabry and others flatly denied the charges. Mabry, at the time, told senators she "resented the implication" that her agency would hide funds from lawmakers.

Two top DOT executives testified Tuesday before a Senate committee that the agency's management ordered cash balances to be manipulated in 2004, in part to hide money from lawmakers.

DOT comptroller Angela Feaster and deputy state highway engineer John Walsh told a Senate Transportation Subcommittee they both participated in a December 2003 meeting at which plans were made to delay payments from the federal government totaling $78 million and to defer billing on more than $100 million on other projects.

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Walsh said Mabry told him once while the two were attending a meeting of York County officials that the cash balances had to be kept low while the Legislature was in session. Feaster said the fear was that lawmakers in South Carolina would do what legislators had been doing to highway funds in other states.

Both were called by a House committee Wednesday to repeat their testimony.

Mabry is ill and her doctors have told her to stay away from work for 30 days, state highway engineer Tony Chapman told the House panel on Wednesday.

Chapman, who was a deputy highway engineer in 2004, told House members that he didn't recall any of what Feaster and Walsh were talking about.

"I do not remember hearing a concern about an overabundance of money in cash balances," he said.

Chapman said he was also unaware of any order to lower cash balances out of fear of legislators trying to grab it. But he didn't dispute Feaster or Walsh's story.

The subject of manipulated cash balances stems from last month's Legislative Audit Council report of the agency, which concluded that there was evidence that cash balances were purposely lowered during the legislative session, costing the state about $1.5 million in interest.

In a written response to the audit last month, Mabry attacked the finding, accusing auditors of being unfair, making false statements.