Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon may finally be coming into his own.

After taking the reins as a wide-eyed and reform-focused new mayor, Corroon was quickly bogged down in a slew of scandals and eager whistle-blowers inherited from former Mayor Nancy Workman's administration.

But six months after taking office, the new county mayor hopes he can shed that stigma and embrace an open, scandal-free government. Equipped with a campaign pledge to scour out corruption in neglected county corners, Corroon is determined to "set a new tone" for Salt Lake County.

"I equate it to renovating a house. It always gets worse before it gets better. We've been in the tear-down stage and now we're in fix-it-back-up mode," Corroon said.

But that digging brought several deep-rooted and long-neglected problems to light as allegations spread of improper hiring practices, falsified time cards and abuse of the county's tuition reimbursement program. For Corroon, the first several months as mayor were spent immersed in scandals and taking heat for problems that began long before he even ran for office.

"Initially I had a firehose turned on me. Employees felt they now had a voice and were willing to step up and speak their minds," Corroon said. "It was a little bit like therapy. Now it's out there and we're ready to tackle it."

So Corroon jumped on each new scandal as it popped up, immediately freezing fleet operations during an investigation of mismanagement, tweaking the tuition reimbursement system and opening his weekly Cabinet meetings to the public.

Most recently, Corroon bunched several scandal-ridden departments under a new Administrative Services Department. The new branch will have its own fiscal administrator to keep closer watch on how money is spent and monitor to see that policy is followed in areas such as fleet, personnel and facilities management.

Though the new department will cost about $178,000 to get started, Corroon said it will help close some tempting loopholes that may have caused some of the county's more infamous scandals, such as personal use of gas cards and vehicles.

"If you keep dropping dollar bills on the floor, somebody's going to eventually pick them up," Corroon said. "If we've got issues we'll let everybody know. We're not trying to hide anything or sweep anything under the rug."

And that new aura of openness has permeated the entire county, spokesman Jim Braden said. Braden, who is one of only a handful of leftover appointees from Workman's office, said employees and residents know that Corroon is always ready to listen and fix problems.