North Carolina's legislative leaders control millions of dollars in "reserve funds," which they parcel out according to their own whims.

That isn't news. The General Assembly has operated like that for many years.

What did make news recently -- at least on inside pages of many newspapers -- was state Auditor Les Merritt's report about legislative spending practices and his forwarding of the document to N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper for his review.

This overdue official attention finally addresses the question of whether the principle of checks and balances applies to the legislative branch of state government.

Merritt looked at how $14 million in designated reserve funds were allocated during the 2004 General Assembly session. The state budget approved for the 2004-2005 fiscal year authorized legislative leaders Marc Basnight, Jim Black and Richard Morgan to decide how that money should be spent.

"The limited time in which the budget was finalized, printed and then voted on by the legislature limited budget transparency, especially as related to the Reserve Funds," the auditor wrote.

In other words, most legislators had little idea where the money was going.

It ended up as "pork barrel," the term given to spending often intended to serve political as well as public purposes.

Organizations receiving funds may provide worthwhile services, but as the auditor noted, there's no application process that treats everyone equally. Funding occurs solely at the discretion of a few legislators.

In some instances, that may violate the law, the audit report implies, citing a statute titled "No expenditure for purposes for which the General Assembly has considered but not enacted an appropriation." Which means: If the legislature has said no, someone else isn't allowed to say yes.

The auditor noted that legislative leaders direct executive agencies how to spend this pork-barrel money. The report detailed the process by which House Speaker Jim Black's staff initiated creation of a job in the Department of Cultural Resources for former legislative ally Michael Decker and provided the funding for his salary.

The auditor suggested that Cooper might want to consider whether separation-of-power issues are raised in relation to the allocation and control of reserve funds.

Executive agencies are run by the governor. So, why are legislative leaders telling them what jobs they should create and whom they should hire?

Maybe the attorney general will leave these questions alone. He depends on the legislature to provide his own budget. But it's worthwhile to ask how much power one branch of government should have and how much of that power should be exercised by just a few individuals.