The state auditor reports that the president of a public college spent public funds to build a parade float for the Utah County Republican Party, then used phony payroll documents to cover it up.
In its response to the audit, the board of the Mountainland Applied Technology College wrote that it was told by the state auditor's office that "a few" members of the Legislature and Republican Party officials may have pressured the college's president, Clay Christensen, to do what he did.
Yet the co-chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, Sen. Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, told The Tribune that no ethics investigation is necessary because no legislator was named in the audit.
He can't be serious.
Perhaps a saying with roots in the Bible is appropriate in this context: None are so blind as those who will not see.
The money only amounts to a little more than $1,100. But Utah law is clear that public entities can't spend public money for political purposes. What's more, this kind of thing is clearly beyond ethical bounds. If the Legislature turns a blind eye to this crime, it is asking for worse.
If Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, the powerful majority leader, is involved, he should be investigated. He claims that Rep. Becky Lockhart, R-Provo, took the lead in the float project. Yet the House hasn't called for an ethics investigation, either.
In terms of misappropriated public funds, the parade float is small potatoes compared to another episode exposed by the auditors. When Robert Brems was promoted from campus president of MATC to president of the Utah College of Applied Technology, he asked for and got a $158,000 sweetheart deal called a "transition package."
The institution's board claims it gave most of that money to Brems to compensate him for a monetary penalty he otherwise would have suffered by taking the new job and making himself ineligible for an early retirement benefit. But the auditors say that Brems did not qualify for the program because he did not have the required number of years of service at the campus.
Brems used other money in the package to set up an endowment at the school that has benefited only his own dependents, and he underreported his income to the IRS.
Brems is on paid administrative leave. Christensen has been suspended. If further investigation essentially confirms the audit's findings, they should be sacked.
Utah law is clear that public entities can't spend public money for political purposes.
