Bianchi must cut tax-supported office eats

Longtime public officials sometimes spend so much time in office or with others of their own ilk that they forget how the private sector lives.

McHenry County State's Attorney Lou Bianchi, who is still in his first term, really shouldn't suffer from that affliction yet.

But based on his petty cash expenditures since he took office in 2005, his perception of what is acceptable is different from ours, and likely from the average taxpayer's, too.

Since 2005, his office has spent about $60,000 from those accounts. Yes, he says $43,000 of that was spent on operations, but that only raises additional questions about intermingling of funds and poor tracking of operational costs. After meeting with various county officials, Bianchi apparently will now separate such operational expenditures from petty cash, a sound move.

But the remaining $17,000 in expenditures is still nearly triple what Bianchi's predecessor spent over a full four-year period. And we think most taxpayers would object to paying for many of them.

Bianchi is right when he points out that $17,000 is a drop in the state's attorney's budget bucket. But the average taxpayer has to buy his or her own meals, coffee, candy and snacks even when working late. For the 50 or so who work for Bianchi, however, taxpayers have been kicking in for lunches, snacks, food and drink to the tune of nearly $6,000 per year. And beyond that, taxpayers likely find as ludicrous as we do Bianchi's argument that the candy he tosses at parades isn't political public relations, but a front in the anti-drug war.

In a guest column we published Sept. 23, Bianchi also argued that these expenditures were more than outweighed by putting attorneys back on 40-hour work weeks, a reduction in the use of outside legal counsel and other changes he implemented. If true, those actions are laudable, but they don't alter the reality that he was mingling operations in petty cash or that the petty expenditures were excessive. If taxpayers think even one small part of a budget is poorly managed, they tend to question the whole, something a man running for re-election might want to keep in mind.

It appears the mingling has been or will be addressed. What remains now is for Bianchi to understand that he, as the top law enforcement official in the county, simply must be above reproach ethically in everything he does. He must understand providing this level of sustenance for employees is excessive and that taxpayers are too smart to accept his explanation of the parade candy-tossing.

Yes, buying pizza or taking staff members out for a reasonably priced thank-you lunch a couple of times a year is something most taxpayers likely would find reasonable.

But his and his staff's caffeine, candy, doughnut, bagel or sub sandwich desires should come out of their own pockets. Just as his candy tossing should be acknowledged for the political behavior it is.