Editorial: Hiring lawmaker invites trouble in Elba schools

“NO WORK” JOBS

It’s past time to vote these criminals out of office. It’s time we peasants got a wild-eyed mob together. We gather our torches and pitchforks we go to Montgomery, and we track these people down with hunting dogs, and revive the lost tradition of tarring, feathering, and riding miscreants out of town on a rail for robbing us blind. Dogs are too good for ‘em. I’m thinking rabid screech weasels.

Note: It’s appropriate to call Terry Spicer “Dr. Spicer” since he, like Roy Johnson and many other Postsecondary imposters, has an honorary degree. His is from Univ. of West Ala. He was the rudest of the rude at the Aug 23, 07 state school board meeting. His speech may still be on the DPE website.

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Mobile Press-Register

Federal prosecutors have kept busy the past two years probing legislators who allegedly held no-work jobs in the system or who used their college jobs for corrupt purposes. Recent developments indicate the prosecutors’ work is far from finished.

Former state Rep. Bryant Melton, D-Tuscaloosa, pleaded guilty in 2006 to abusing his position at Shelton State Community College. Last month, federal authorities accused state Rep. Sue Schmitz, D-Toney, of drawing $177,000 in pay from a program affiliated with the two-year system and doing very little to earn it. She has pleaded not guilty.

Former Chancellor Roy Johnson, a former legislator, has agreed to plead guilty to a variety of corruption charges, some of which may involve arranging jobs in the two-year system for legislators.

This week, the big news in Montgomery was that federal prosecutors had subpoenaed at least nine legislators to testify before a federal grand jury probing corruption in the two-year system.

The new double-dipping ban will protect the integrity of the two-year colleges by eliminating damaging conflicts of interest involving legislators who secure jobs in the system.

Regardless of whether they do actual work, legislators are not ordinary college employees. They hold the pursestrings of all state agencies; they can’t be disinterested budget overseers while they’re drawing salaries from those agencies. Moreover, agency employees who have control over agency budgets can never be viewed as truly subordinate to their agency bosses. Double dipping compromises legislators and their public employers.

That’s why Gov. Bob Riley is pushing for a ban on double dipping in all government agencies. The still-unfolding scandal in the two-year college system should convince lawmakers it’s the wise thing—as well as the right thing—to do.

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Don’t miss reading about the legislator who is paid $75,000 a year by the community college after she was elected. Another legislator was fired after system officials couldn’t determine what she did for her $50,000-a-year salary

-Cicero