Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, December 27, 1993                   TAG: 9312300041
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BEDFORD'S SHERIFF IN THE COOKIE JAR

Imagine it turns out that the employee hadn't been spending the money on postage stamps or photocopies or other items used in the conduct of official business. Imagine that the secretary or clerk was found to have spent the money on his or her own personal expenses.

Now, what would happen to that employee? He or she would be out of a job, that's what.

While not precisely analogous to how Bedford County Sheriff Carl Wells until recently was handling the taxpayer dollars that finance his department, such a situation is close enough for serious discomfort.

And close enough that, unless somebody can come up with a heckuva better justification for his actions than any so far offered, Wells should resign.

One difference between the hypothetical secretary or clerk and the Bedford County sheriff is that Wells, as an elected official with two more years in what's expected to be his final term before retirement, cannot just be handed his pink slip.

But the crucial issue in both cases is the same. It is less the amount of money - which, though not trivial, is relatively small - than it is the violation of trust, the public's trust.

If you're responsible for the petty-cash fund, you don't have to be a mathematician to know that money belonging to someone else isn't yours to spend on your own personal expenses. And if you're a sheriff, responsible for managing an important county department, you shouldn't have to be a certified public accountant to know that it's foolish - actually, it's a misdemeanor - to mix up your own money with public money in a big departmental account under your control.

The law allowing Wells to use a personal bank account to deposit departmental payroll money, a provision since repealed, was an invitation to abuse. It did not, however, compel abuse. It did not compel Wells to pocket the interest earned on public funds deposited in the account, as much as $5,500 in three years.

On this point, the issue moves from sloppy bookkeeping practices to trustworthiness. What did Wells use the interest earnings for?

Possibly, if not at this moment very plausibly, it can somehow be shown that those public dollars stayed in the account, or were spent only on sheriff's-department activities. But if Wells can't show that public dollars were used for public purposes, and show it soon, he should get out - for violating the trust that the public deserves in its leaders.