State gets taste of Campbell's snoops.

AuthorCline, Ned
PositionCAPITAL

You don't have to be smart or honest to work for the state. A smart person wouldn't use a government computer to store pornographic material, fail to delete the dirty pictures before turning in the machine as surplus, then use a new computer to download more porn--plus keep a video of his own sex acts in his desk drawer. An honest person wouldn't ferret out expansion needs of the agency that employs him, create a shell company to buy land and double his money by selling it to his own department.

A smart person wouldn't run up almost 7,000 minutes, equivalent to nearly three weeks of work, on a state cell phone jabbering with a friend, then claim it was work-related. Honest people wouldn't use prison labor under their command to repair their churches. Nor would they list the phone numbers of their sideline businesses on government letterhead. Nor moonlight at work and use state offices, phones and staff to win votes for a son seeking--of all things--a judgeship.

These are just a few of the hundreds of cases uncovered by State Auditor Ralph Campbell Jr.'s staff. Though a few of the perpetrators have been fired or reprimanded, many are still on the job, and some have never been punished. Even more disturbing than their presence among the tens of thousands of decent, hardworking state workers is the mindset among officials that these things don't really matter. If you think that way, look at the figures involved. Over the last decade, Campbell's staff has uncovered an estimated $45.8 million of fraud and waste in state government. And that's with only five full time investigators. If so few have found so much, just imagine what hasn't been uncovered.

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Granted the $45-plus million is equal to only 0.3% of this year's state budget. But it's enough to hire 1,800 new teachers or to give a small raise to employees who don't lie, cheat or steal. It's enough to fill 1,000 more slots in the governor's early-childhood education program. It's four times the annual budget of the auditor's office.

The state auditor has the constitutional duty to examine the finances and administration of every state agency. But until Campbell came on the job 11 years ago--the first (and still the only) black elected to statewide office in North Carolina--the office had been a bureaucratic backwater that historically seemed to be in a state of hibernation.

Campbell, now 57, was no novice to the wormy, if not always wily, ways of some state workers...

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