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

DATE: SATURDAY, November 25, 1995                   TAG: 9511270010
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DID ALLEN PLAY COMPUTER POLITICS?

Doling the funds out through his political-action committee, Citizens for Honest Change, was legit. Until such time that state law says otherwise, such money remains his, to do with as he pleases.

Surplus state property is another story. It does not belong to the governor, not by any reckoning of gubernatorial privilege.

If, indeed, Allen or his flunkies used surplus computers as political payola to gain favor for Republican candidates, it is a travesty beyond the pale of anything heretofore considered ``acceptable'' partisan politicking by a Virginia governor.

The Allen administration, of course, denies that politics figured in the distribution of 324 surplus computers to various school districts around the state. But as our staff writer, David Poole, reported the other day, all of the computers happened to go to school systems represented by Republican lawmakers who faced tough re-election campaigns, including state Sen. Brandon Bell of Roanoke County and Del. Allen Dudley of Rocky Mount.

A coincidence? Oh, forsooth, say the flunkies. Gov. ``Folks, it's time for honest change'' Allen is, after all, the guy in the white cowboy hat.

Which assurances should satisfy one and all, except ...

Why did the distribution begin before the state Department of Education had developed guidelines to ensure that the computers would go to school districts with the greatest need for computer equipment? Even the state's school superintendent, Allen appointee William Bosher, seems puzzled at the way it was handled:

Computers were shipped before some school systems had the chance to apply for them, before the Oct. 31 deadline for the schools to request them - and without his department's ``knowledge or acquiescence.''

Since Donald Williams, director of the General Services Department, acknowledges that he lacked the expertise to determine which school systems had the greater need, who gave him his marching orders to begin the giveaway?

Why were some GOP legislators, including still-House Minority Leader Vance Wilkins, allowed to choose which school systems in their districts would get the computers? If not to grease squeaky political wheels, what standards did the legislators use to decide?

Williams said the state will have plenty more computers to give away once the Education Department establishes guidelines. Even if the equipment is mostly obsolete, schoolchildren will get some training benefits from the government's castoffs.

It's a prospect that gladdens the heart. Since taxpayers throughout Virginia own this equipment, they'll be happy to know their computers will serve a purpose other than as electronics for Allen's political machine.