Candidate's employment questioned

WESLACO -A school board candidate is accused of being a "ghost" employee for a state legislator, maintaining a full-time position on paper while accumulating insurance and pension benefits.

Miguel Wise, who operates a Weslaco law practice, has earned $100 a month since October as a full-time employee for state Rep. Jim Dunnam, D - Waco, the Austin American-Statesman reported last week.

Wise, a Democratic state lawmaker who served from 1996 to 2005, joins more than a dozen other people who are paid a salary of less than a few hundred dollars a month but are still considered full-time state employees, according to the news report. Only full-time workers are eligible for benefits, but full-time regular employees are required to work 40 hours a week under state personnel rules, the American-Statesman reported.

Wise is running against Jeff Everitt for the Place 7 slot on the Weslaco school board to replace member Felix Guajardo, who is not running for re-election.

Wise did not return messages left at his office and on his cell phone Wednesday. Dunnam also did not return a call for comment.

State legislators told The Associated Press that the report could result in changes to the long-standing policy of hiring so-called ghost employees to work in Texas House offices.

House Speaker Tom Craddick has asked the House's General Investigating and Ethics Committee to look into the matter.

"Our committee is reviewing ... the allegation that employees are treated as full-time employees but not working as full-time employees," committee chairman state Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, told The Monitor.

Phillips said the committee has the authority to call the state auditor's office and the Attorney General's office to assist with its investigation, which he said could result in changes to House rules.

"At the end of the investigation, we'll decide what recommendations to make to the body as a whole," Phillips said.

Dunnam told the American-Statesman that Wise serves as his on-call legal adviser.

"He probably would have done it for nothing, but I thought I should pay him something," Dunnam was quoted as saying.