Dunn Daily Record

 

July 6, 2005

 

Editorial:  Follow the Money

At the request of state Auditor Les Merritt, Attorney General Roy Cooper is reviewing the auditor’s report on $14 million in accounts controlled by three top legislators last year.

Mr. Merritt asked Mr. Cooper to examine if such large slush funds are legal.

Mr. Merritt’s report offers a look at a budget process that is far removed from the state’s citizens; It’s almost as far removed from rank-and file lawmakers.

In other words, this process is of the leadership, by the leadership and for the leadership.

Back-benchers don’t even get time the read the budget, much less understand what’s really in it. And lawmakers were given little time to review the new slush funds when they were created last July.

According to The Associated Press, William McKinney, a spokesman for Mr. Cooper, said the attorney general plans to issue a legal opinion, but he offered no timetable.

The accounts came to light in March after reports that Hose Speaker Jim Black of Mecklenburg County had helped land a state job for former Rep. Michael Decker. Rep. Decker defected from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party to assure Speaker Black’s reelection as speaker.

Rep. Decker later switched back to the GOP, but lost his primary-election bid to win another House term.

That’s when Speaker Black’s friendship paid off for Mr. Decker, who quickly found a job at the Department of Cultural Resources. His salary came mainly from $45,000 in a fund controlled by Speaker Black.

The money was part of $4.6 million in “reserve funds” — in other words, a slush fund — at Speaker Black’s discretion in the state’s 2004-2005 budget. The budget also included a $6.5 million slush fund controlled by Senate leader Marc Basnight of Dare County, and a $2.9 million slush fund for then-Co-Speaker Richard Morgan of Moore County.

Only after a healthy dose of public criticism, Mr. Basnight and Mr. Black now say they will no longer use the slush funds. Mr. Morgan is no longer co-speaker.

But those funds should have never been in place. They, in fact, gave executive-branch powers to these few legislators. And they enabled these legislators to spend our money however they pleased with no public input.

Mr. Merritt, our state auditor, was right to question these slush funds. And it will be interesting to see how Mr. Cooper, a man who is seen as having gubernatorial ambitions, will respond to this practice which, at best, was legally questionable.