Our view: Double-dipping ban
With experience as an official elected to both the Alabama Legislature and the state board of education, Bradley Byrne seemed an obvious choice to ferret out corruption in state’s postsecondary education system. He appears to have done a good job so far, and he hasn’t pulled any punches.He also hasn’t endeared himself to those working in the system he oversees — particularly lawmakers who are employed by two-year schools. Byrne’s most controversial accomplishment is the state school board’s approval of a policy that would require legislators who work in the two-year system to use vacation time when they are away from their jobs to attend the legislative session.
This week, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge temporarily blocked that policy, and those lawmakers went back to “flex time.” In theory, they would make up the time they were away by working flexible hours at their jobs. One can easily imagine how well that works. Terry Spicer, a Democratic House member from Coffee County, is employed by Enterprise-Ozark Community College in Enterprise as assistant to the president for economic and community affairs, a position that pays him between $90,000 and $100,00 annually.
A review of Spicer’s work records at EOCC and his voting record in the Alabama House shows that Spicer apparently cast votes in the legislature while he was on the job in Enterprise on two different days. Spicer’s explanation is that he lets people vote for him when he’s not in the legislative chambers. That questionable but routine practice is allowed unless a member specifically asks for invocation of Rule 32, which requires each member to vote his or her own machine.
The Coffee County lawmaker also wrote off the entire concept of Byrne’s double-dipping ban as a Republican conspiracy to gain control of the Legislature. He’s not alone; of the 18 lawmakers who hold jobs in state government in addition to their elected positions, 15 are Democrats and 10 work for the two-year college system.
Certainly one would not expect those who benefit from two state paychecks to agree with a policy that would adversely affect their ability to get paid for both jobs when they can’t possibly be in two places at once. However, chalking the policy up to politics is, frankly, a lazy response. It’s not unreasonable to require public employees to use their leave time to go to Montgomery for legislative duties for which they’ll be paid more than $40,000 a year.
Doing so benefits the taxpayers, who have every right to demand such accountability from those who work for them.
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