JACKSON SHERIFF NEEDS TO SET EXAMPLE ON EXPENDITURES

On the scale of controversies involving sheriffs in Western North
Carolina counties, it's easy to view the dustup surrounding Jackson
County's Jimmy Ashe as bush league.

After all, the bar for scandal set by former Buncombe County Sheriff
Bobby Medford, currently serving a 15-year prison term for taking
bribes from illegal video poker gambling operators, is quite high. The
flak Ash has been catching is over a matter that's a far cry from
anything of that nature. But the flak he's catching is justified
nonetheless.

The N.C. Department of Revenue assesses a tax on illegal drugs, and
local sheriffs and police get 75 percent of what's collected from drug
dealers in cases they investigate. An N.C. Department of Justice memo
to sheriffs says those funds are intended to help "deter and
investigate crimes, especially drug offenses." Since 2007, in Jackson
County more than $10,000 of the funds has been directed at booster
clubs, a high school chorus, trophies and youth sports programs. One
expenditure was $3,000 to youth baseball teams, including one Ashe's
son played on.

This type of spending is unorthodox, not employed by other departments
in Western North Carolina. Ashe says giving kids something
constructive to do helps keep them away from drugs, a point that's
hard to dispute. But other expenditures are more problematic, such as
shelling out $1,200 for exposure on Who's Who lists -- something Ashe
now says he regrets. The crux of the issue here is that this spending
was unsupervised, and it should have been. Ashe said the spending was
in response to community requests, sometimes unwritten requests, and
that his captain over investigations signed the checks. The agency
charged with tracking government spending, the county finance office,
didn't see what the money was being spent for until the checks cleared.

Last week, the Department of State Treasurer asked the county to
exercise better control over the drug dollar spending. Sharon
Edmundson, the state's Fiscal Management Section Director, said in a
letter two county officials need to sign off on checks disbursing
money from the narcotics fund. County audits found no wrongdoing on
Ashe's part. But there's a little phrase called "the appearance of
impropriety" that comes into play here. Public funds are public
funds, and deserve strict oversight. No public official, particularly
an elected official, should have access to a kitty to dispense funds
without public oversight, regardless of whether the spending might be
viewed as benign.

It's not hard to find defenders of the youth sports spending in
Jackson, and easy to view this sort of spending as a good example. As
the top law enforcement official in the county, Ashe also has to set a
good example in knowing proper procedures and following them to the
letter. That's the task ahead, and nothing less should be expected
from the people of Jackson County.