Salt Lake County has been down this road before — or at least down roads that are eerily similar.

County Mayor Nancy Workman says she was just trying to help needy kids when she used Health Department funds to pay the salaries of two employees at the nonprofit South Valley Boys and Girls Club. She is alleged to have told county administrators the employees would perform county duties, but an independent panel investigating the matter says there is no evidence they did any county work.

That same panel announced earlier this week it had found "sufficient credible evidence" to charge the mayor with a felony. District Attorney David Yocom is now deciding whether to do so.

The facts aren't the same, but the mayor's stated intentions seem similar to what the old County Commission did several years ago when it voted to contribute county funds to certain charitable organizations. The county attorney at the time, Doug Short, called the commission on it. Commissioners, he said, had no legal right to give taxpayer funds to charities, regardless of how worthy the cause.

Short ended up in a protracted legal battle with commissioners — one that became bitter and impossibly complicated and ended up as an impetus toward a successful move to change the county's form of government. But in the end, the Utah Supreme Court agreed with him. The commission was wrong. Charity may begin in the home, but it doesn't belong in the halls of government, where elected officials are spending other people's money.

Workman's guilt or innocence has yet to be determined, of course. She says this is little more than a case of a procedural problem on her part, and that may yet be shown to be true.

Meanwhile, it is important to understand that there are good reasons why the county can't simply pay people who work for other organizations. For one thing, it raises questions about accountability. Taxpayers could well wonder why their money is being sent to a private group in a way that doesn't provide any direct tangible benefit to the county, and they could well wonder who is monitoring what such an employee does. For another, it puts the county in a position of favoring one charity over another.

Regardless of how this case ultimately unfolds, this principle must remain in place: Unless the county can show that it receives some direct benefit, it cannot simply contribute to any worthy cause.