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It may be legal but it ain't right The stench coming out of the Alabama two-year college system just won't go away. While some of the shennanigans have been illegal, a lot of the wrongdoing has been more along the lines of taking advantage of the system. Of course, that doesn't make it right. As the wise old sage observed, "It may be legal but it ain't right." The latest in the legal-but-not-right category is the news that the wife of fired two-year system chancellor Roy Johnson, who was employed by the system as an executive assistant at Southern Union Community College in Opelika, claimed 232 days of sick leave when she stopped going to work after her husband was fired. The Birmingham News also reported that she claimed 69 days of vacation and four personal leave days. Linda Johnson had been paid an annual salary of $125,000. She continues to receive her regular salary for 14 months after she quit working and she also received $48,000 in deferred retirement payments for the period she was on paid leave. Her situation isn't unique. Many state and federal workers accumulate way too many vacation and sick days and then stick the taxpayers when they retire or quit. By contrast, folks working in the private sector are lucky to get five to 10 paid sick days per year. The days aren't usually allowed to accumulate. The deferred retirement payments are through what is called DROP, a legitimate but questionable program to discourage veteran state workers from retiring. Sometimes it might be better if some of them would go ahead and retire. So Mrs. Johnson netted about $125,000 from the state without having to do any work for it but she didn't break any laws in the process. Chancellor Bradley Bryne, trying to clean up a lot of inherited messes, said, "It may be that we need to take another look at system policy. It does seem to be pretty excessive." He may be overly mild in his criticism. This isn't just about the two-year colleges but about a policy that allows all of state government and the taxpayers to be milked to excess. It ain't right, as the sage observed, and it ought not to be legal either. Jim Cox
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