Settlement funds just raise questions

It wasn’t too long ago that we learned there was a little-publicized slush fund for congressmen to pay off (mostly) women who brought charges of sexual harassment or abuse.

Since 1995, Congress has paid out $17 million in “awards and settlements” through something called the Congressional Accountability Act. To us, it sounds more like a Congressional Avoiding Responsibility Act, and we were glad that various senators and representatives had to face the music when their involvement with payouts was exposed.

But recently, we learned that Montana state government has its own Avoiding Responsibility Fund. In fact, it has two separate funds that have paid out nearly $3 million in just the last four years. By comparison, the funds disbursed just $1.2 million in the 10 years between 2003 and 2012. Does that mean we have a “Government Gone Wild” in Helena?

Maybe. That’s why we are glad that Republican legislative leaders have formed a new bipartisan legislative committee to investigate how the settlements were made and whether they should be revealed to the public.

Gov. Bullock’s budget director says the amount of money paid out in recent years has been skewed by an accounting change. That’s fine, but we still think the public has a right to know about — and possibly to be disgusted by — the taxpayer money that is being shelled out to protect public officials from public scrutiny.