A former Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) employee was sentenced Friday to 90 days in prison and ordered to pay $124,455 in restitution after she charged thousands of dollars to a PennDOT credit card.

Tina A. Smith, 49, of Bellefonte, pleaded no contest to 27 counts of felonies and misdemeanors including theft by deception, forgery and access device fraud.

According to court documents, Smith used Visa credit cards provided to her as a purchasing agent with PennDOT between 1998 and April 2003 to make about $18,000 in non-business related purchases. She also admitted to forging the signatures of her supervisors on multiple PNC Bank Visa Purchasing card statements.

Smith also allegedly stole $84,827 from PennDOT from advance account vendor checks issued to various suppliers, according to court documents.

Centre County probation and parole director Tom Young said the offenses carried a maximum penalty of 60 to 120 years in prison. Young said Smith will report to Centre County Prison Feb. 21 to begin serving the prison term, which will be followed by nine months of in-home detention and five years probation.

Nils Frederiksen, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, said a maximum sentence was "not expected," but the charges were serious and the sentence of jail time is appropriate.

"We would have liked to have seen perhaps a longer period of incarceration, but this is the judge's order," he said.

Frederiksen added that the Attorney General's office was satisfied with the sentence. "She was sentenced to serve time in jail, I think that sends a clear message," he said.

Smith used the credit cards to pay her monthly utility bills, which totaled more than $11,400, according to court documents. She also ordered more than $175,000 worth of unneeded office and cleaning supplies.

Judge Charles Brown said an intermediate sentence, like the one Smith received, was "designed for exactly this kind of case" rather than just probation.

"My own final decision was that the sentence should be in the standard range," he said. "I also believed it would be counter-productive to put her in jail for a great length of time, when [now] she'll be able to pay restitution."

Frederiksen said the $124,000 in restitution from her illegal use of PennDOT credit cards was an important aspect of the sentence.