The issue is expenditure of public money

Eagle Editorial Board

Some readers believe The Eagle has it in for some people recently hired by government agencies, but we don't. Rather, we are concerned with how state and local money is spent, particularly in these days of belt-tightening by virtually every government agency.

Take, for instance, Texas A&M University, which has laid off staff and faculty because of the sour economy. Very few administrators were dismissed, however, certainly almost none in the upper tier of campus authority. One who was is Jay Kimbrough, who as deputy chancellor was the No. 2 in command of the A&M System. One of the first things the system's new chancellor did when he took over in September was to eliminate Kimbrough's $300,000-a-year position, saying it was unnecessary.

For most folks, that would be the end of it. But, you see, Kimbrough is a good buddy of Gov. Rick Perry who, in his more than a decade in office, has filled every appointed position in the state.

So, while Kimbrough was gone, he certainly wasn't forgotten. In fact, the public has learned, Kimbrough continued to draw his full salary until Jan. 18. Nice non-work if you can get it. The explanation given was that Chancellor Sharp wanted to keep the 64-year-old Kimbrough's eligibility for state retirement benefits current.

Gosh, wonder if the custodians, maintenance workers and faculty who were let go got the same consideration.

In early January, A&M received word that Kimbrough had been hired as assistant director for homeland security for the Texas Department of Public Safety, oddly enough a position not created by the Public Safety Commission until weeks later on Jan. 26. After the position was posted, as required by state law, 28 other people applied for the job -- a job they apparently had no chance of getting.

Kimbrough will have to serve as interim assistant director of homeland security until Feb. 16, when the commission is expected to approve his hiring. It would have been bad form for the commission to approve his hiring before they got around to creating the position.

And, sadly, Kimbrough will have to take a 50 percent pay cut to take the new job. He would have been smarter to keep his old sweetheart deal with the chancellor: all pay and no work.

This isn't a complaint about Jay Kimbrough. No doubt he will do well in his new job and the salary sounds reasonable for the position.

No, this is a complaint about the "good-ol'-boy" system in which our governments operate, a system when the chosen few get treated far differently -- and far better -- than the rest of us.

At a time when thousands of Texas families struggle to send their children to college, when good people are out of work at Texas A&M because there is not enough money to pay them, it is obscene for one man, a good friend of the governor, to keep earning his large salary for four months after he was dismissed, no matter the circumstances. The $100,000 or so that Kimbrough "earned" in his weeks of unemployment is more than many Texas families make in a good year.

And that is why The Eagle is concerned.