Ghost busting

We hope recent developments spark a new era in which public officials become less inclined to rip off their constituents. In the past few weeks, courts in Corpus Christi and Brownsville have ruled that elected officials can't claim insurance and other employee benefits that aren't provided in a city's charter. While the Corpus Christi City Council is appealing its ruling, Brownsville officials, to their credit, have announced that they will abide by the ruling of the court - and the will of the people.

Additionally, Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick last week asked the House Investigations and Ethics Committee to investigate the practice of listing state workers as full-time employees even though they might work just a few token hours, so that those people can receive full state benefits.

No criminal prosecution is expected, but officials say this should lead to changes in the way the state legislature does business.

"Designating a state employee as a forty hour per week employee, when the employee is in fact not a forty hour per week employee, brings discredit on the House and undermines the financial structure of the Employees Retirement System of Texas," House Administration Chairman Tony Goolsby wrote in a letter warning House members that such practices violated House rules and state law.

Sadly but not surprisingly, the practice came to light in the Rio Grande Valley. Former state rep. Miguel Wise of Weslaco was found to be listed as a full-time employee for current state Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco. Dunnam reportedly has been paying Wise $100 a month for the token job, which obviously is not full-time employment, especially since Wise still lives in Weslaco, some 500 miles south of Waco.

This isn't the first or only such arrangement. Officials say a few dozen of these "ghost worker" relationships exist, to enable friends and supporters to avail themselves of state insurance and other benefits - all at taxpayers' expense, just like what Brownsville commissioners were claiming. In essence, these officials, most of them well employed or owners of their own businesses and thus able to use their corporate insurance plans, were instead throwing the cost of their insurance onto the backs of local taxpayers, many of whom can't afford to insure their own families.

"This kind of thing has been going on forever," Buck Wood, a, Austin ethics attorney and former Capitol worker, told The Associated Press last week. "The House has allowed them to do that."

Such misuse of funds is outright theft, as it takes money from unwilling taxpayers and diverts it from projects that might actually benefit the public, instead of only those people who have finagled such sweetheart deals.

It's sad that so many people see government as just another business, where people work to help themselves. Unfortunately, it's to be expected since government has gone beyond the original idea of public service, and been expanded into a clearinghouse of favors and benefits that are parceled out at taxpayers' expense.

It's clear that public service has far overreached its boundaries. Members of the public at large should remember that government only acts only with the permission of the people, and demand that the scope and cost of government be severely reduced to only those duties that protect individual and public rights and freedoms.

Public officials should be dedicated to helping the community at large, not just themselves.