Demand credible house-cleaning in S.L. County

Peter Corroon should be careful about making statements such as the one last week that he'll give himself a year to clean up all the scandals in Salt Lake County. After that, he told this newspaper, he'll have to own up to them himself rather than blame them on a previous administration.

Careful there, mayor. It seems few people have gone broke betting that the county will generate new scandals the way springtime generates tulips.

The latest wave of trouble involves the misuse of tuition assistance, timekeeping and hiring practices and appears to include the personnel office and the county clerk's office. The county clerk is an independently elected office, which means the line of accountability to the public doesn't run through the county mayor.

And yet, as Corroon surely knows by now, all county scandals run through the mayor's office, at least as far as much of the public is concerned.

To be clear, many Salt Lake County employees are hard-working and honest. Many come to their jobs each day dedicated to staying within rules and procedures, regardless of how they might profit if they strayed just a little. But the county is an enormous bureaucracy, run by a mayor and a part-time county council. Some administrators apparently believe it is large enough to make hiding a few indiscretions easy. And through the years, political considerations have added to those problems.

Voters have at times become riled by this. They changed the form of government a few years ago to one that is inherently more accountable. This came after a particularly nasty public fight between what was then known as the county commission and the county attorney. But while one form of government can provide better representation than another, it cannot guard against corruption in high places, nor against a tuition assistance program that is set up so that the same person can both make and approve requests for funds.

To avoid looking like part of the problem, rather than the solution, Corroon needs to demand a thorough and completely public airing of the problems at hand. That includes helping this newspaper obtain information about sexual harassment claims against former chief deputy county clerk Nick Floros, which the county so far has refused to provide.

He also should demand a series of independent audits of all county agencies. In particular, policies and procedures should be airtight, and employees should feel comfortable that their complaints will be taken seriously. Everyone must see clearly that he demands the same out of fellow Democrats as he does of Republicans.

Corroon was right to jump out in front of the charge to swab the decks. After all, he is where he is today because the former mayor, Nancy Workman, wilted under the weight of scandals during her own administration. But he has to remember that at least one of those scandals involved the county auditor, another independently elected official.

Ownership can be a tricky thing. Corroon may set a one-year limit before he has to take the blame, but he could go much longer than that if he sincerely leads an effort to clean house. Ultimately, however, the public will decide.