So, this whole state trooper/overtime/pension-padding thing. (And Randy Brock’s ham-fisted effort to cash in on it.) A few thoughts to pass along…

Governor Shumlin’s initial handling was brilliant. He got word that the story of Sgt. Jim Deeghan’s alleged time-sheet falsification was about to break, and within a few hours he’d called a news conference with Tom L’esperance and Keith Flynn and Michael O’Neill of the troopers’ union closing ranks behind him. He took what could have been a damaging election-year scandal and owned it — in political and managerial terms.

This is one of the things that Peter Shumlin does best, and it’s one of the most important things an executive has to do. I don’t always agree with the decisions he makes, but he is decisive. The buck stops here, don’t ya know.

It would have been easy to let the story come out, issue a statement through a spokesperson, and let Flynn shoulder the load. Then, of course, he would have been back on his heels playing defense, and handing a nice juicy “wasteful government” issue to Randy Brock, who desperately needs an issue.

(And who made a royal hash of this one. First, the timing: he waited two full days after the initial Deeghan revelation, and then he held his belated news conference right after Maine Governor Paul LePage had left a turd on his doorstep. Brock’s issue, naturally, got buried in the LePage fallout. Completely foreseeable. Second, the substance: his figures included the last six months of the Douglas Administration, and the first six of Shumlin’s. The waters were muddied from the very beginning. Which is why Jeb Spaulding’s response to Brock’s charge was basically a horselaugh.

Yeah, those expensive consultants are really earning their keep.

Speaking of which, $48,000 in salary for Darcie Johnston? For four or five months of work? Astounding.)

Anyway, Shumlin got off to a great start, setting the hounds loose and promising a thorough and transparent investigation. Deeghan was indicted within a few days.

Now comes the hard part: the follow-through.

The state is looking at six years of Deeghan’s time sheets, six months’ worth of sheets from the Williston station where Deeghan worked, and three months of sheets from other VSP posts. And Shumlin is sounding a bit optimistic: (Warning: link will take you to the partially-paywalled Freeploid.)

“So far, it is our belief, based upon what we’ve seen, that this is an isolated challenge,” Shumlin said at a news conference Tuesday.

…”What we’re looking at now is, since it appears – it’s alleged – that that system was abused, what went wrong. Was it a system problem, or was it a personnel problem?” Shumlin said. “I think probably it was a personnel problem.”

Yes, he hopes it’s a personnel problem — a bad apple in a healthy barrel. But frankly, I’d be surprised if it’s not a system problem. The system seems to contain ample motive and opportunity for overtime-fudging. If Deeghan is the only one who took advantage, that’d be somewhat remarkable.

From what we know so far, Deeghan (allegedly, allegedly) claimed absurd amounts of overtime, fabricated incidents that never happened, and screwed around with the VSP’s contract for policing the town of Jericho. He reportedly approved his own time sheets. If all this is true, then the system gave Deeghan an unconscionable amount of freedom to play fast and loose with his own salary.

And his potential reward: a pumped-up lifetime pension based on the two top-earning years of his VSP career. Now, I understand there are good reasons to base a pension on top earnings, to reward a loyal soldier who rises through the ranks and has an honorable career. But when a person has an opportunity to claim overtime pay without any review, basing a pension on top pay is like a bank putting its vault on the sidewalk and leaving the door open all night.

It may turn out that Deeghan was the only one taking advantage of the system. I hope so, and Governor Shumlin certainly hopes so. But that wouldn’t mean there aren’t severe problems with the system itself.

This is an important issue for us liberals. We believe in a government that provides a broad array of services that make our society a better place. We believe in fairly compensating the public workers tasked with providing those services. Scandals in public-sector pay are doubly damaging — to the liberal official in charge, and to the cause of liberalism. Nothing erodes the public’s faith in government and in unions like a public-sector worker charged with defrauding the taxpayer. For Shumlin’s own political sake, and for the liberal cause, I hope he follows through on his initial response to this issue.