Here’s to a journalist who kept tabs on wasteful state spending

A popular narrative in Texas, this deepest of red states, is that government waste is a liberal thing.

And surely, the narrative is correct — just as correct as saying it’s a conservative thing. And a moderate thing. And a tea party thing. And basically an anybody-in-government-who-enjoys-unchecked-power thing.

While there are some out there who do the right thing when nobody’s looking, good government follows Ronald Reagan’s sage advice: trust, but verify.

Sadly, Texas government sometimes lags on that last part. One rather tense exchange in Austin last week illustrated just how much.

State Rep. Sarah Davis, RUniversity Place, who chairs the House Committee on General Investigating and Ethics, grilled officials with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission about taxpayer-funded trips to exotic locales and sloppy record-keeping that showed former employees still assigned state cars, along with other abuses of resources.

How did Davis and other state officials become aware of the myriad problems? Not through any audit or internal investigation, but by the good, oldfashioned reporting of the Texas Tribune’s Jay Root.

That’s right. An “enemy of the people” exposed the real enemy of the people: government waste. Happens all the time, folks. Sometimes, a reminder is good. And I’m choosing to laud a competitor, so you know my intentions are pure.

Over the past month, Root has exposed how the agency charged with the buzz-kill mission of regulating alcohol actually has been partying hard on the taxpayer’s dime and cozying up with the industry it regulates – a culture illustrated in a flyer produced on state time but apparently not actually used in an agency presentation.

It depicted TABC staff, including the agency’s head, the licensing director, a former analyst and a former contractor, in an airplane, guzzling beer on

the way to a 2015 national conference. “Here we come California!” it read. “Woo hoo!!!”

One of Root’s stories revealed how the state’s top liquor regulator, Sherry Cook, got “hazardous duty pay” – typically provided to state employees for risky work – while attending industry conferences at resorts in Hawaii, Florida and California, simply because she’s a trained peace officer. The designation also qualifies her and others with more pay, a state car and free gas.

Following the series of articles, and a fiery line of questioning at last week’s hearing, lawmakers cut the agency’s travel budget and Cook abruptly announced she was stepping down from her $153,503-a-year post. She called it a “retirement.”

Gov. Greg Abbott applauded the move, Tweeting: “It’s time to clean house from regulators not spending taxpayer money wisely. This is a good start.”

Davis on Tuesday agreed that it was a good first step. “But it shouldn’t be the last,” she told me in a text.

“I hope Governor Abbott continues to examine the top TABC officials, including the gubernatorial appointed commissioners, when ‘cleaning house’ because, after all, the TABC is an executive agency.”

Thank the media

Ultimately, the governor is responsible for any appointees who may have engaged in behavior similar to that of which Cook was accused. He shouldn’t stop until he truly uproots the wasteful culture that, to be fair to Abbott, was likely decades in the making.

Now back to my point: that wasteful culture would be continuing undisturbed if not for a nosey journalist.

“If the media hadn’t reported on the story,” Davis said, her committee “may have never known what was going on.” That much is clear. When Davis and others asked Andy Peña, head of the TABC’s Office of Professional Responsibility, about the allegations reported by Root, he said he had asked agency officials about it.

“They were able to explain to me that ‘we were on state time, and this is what we were doing,’ and I accepted that,” said Peña, whose job is similar to the head of internal affairs at a law enforcement agency.

Agency in the dark

He divulged an ongoing investigation related to other allegations but seemed in the dark about routine extravagances.

“Did you know the agency employees were going to Hawaii before you read the articles in the Texas Tribune?” Davis asked a bit later.

“No, ma’am,” he responded.

“Did you know that they were going to any conferences or executive board meetings all over the country from Chicago and Florida, California before you read those articles?” “No ma’am.” “Do you think that’s something you should have been aware of or you should have known?” Davis pressed.

“Well, there were no allegations of misconduct. There had been no hint to my office …”

“So you had no idea that they were just traveling all over the place?” “That’s correct.” At another point, Davis asked him about a vehicle accounting system that was full of inaccuracies about who was driving what state-owned car.

“Today was the first time I heard that,” Peña said.

“Well, add that to your list,” Davis responded.

Davis told TABC officials in the hearing that their actions “are why people no longer have faith in the government and our institutions.”

Let this story be one more reason you can still have faith in journalism.