Opinion: Not a good excuse

Tampa fire Chief Pete Botto sure had a sweet thing going -- taking the department van on an out-of-state family vacation, slipping off during work to play jai alai in Orlando, not deducting play hours from his accumulated vacation. Mayor Dick Greco suspended Botto for misappropriating the van, but did nothing, as usual, about his other, and more serious, abuses of power.

Botto's behavior goes beyond the tiresome record of ethical lapses by department heads in the Greco administration. It shows a pattern of a public official taking advantage of loose controls on the public's purse, and the state attorney should investigate the extent of what Botto has dismissed as "bad oversight on my part."

Bad oversight does not explain why the chief felt free to use a city van for personal use. It does not adequately explain why he failed to deduct vacation hours from a lump-sum payment for unused leave Botto expects to receive when he retires next year. Nor does bad oversight or Botto's secondary excuse of promoting morale explain why the chief would load a half-dozen firefighters in the city van and drive to Orlando to play jai alai during work hours.

Though Greco and Botto try to minimize the problem, the chief clearly has benefited from lax controls over how he spends public time and money. As St. Petersburg Times staff writer Amy Herdy reported Tuesday, Botto did not take vacation hours for several dates in the past year that his personal work calendar shows him gone. Botto said he had "no idea" if he had actually gone on vacation on those days. His practice of using the honor system makes it difficult to determine if Botto skips out on public time. It certainly doesn't give Greco any basis to defend Botto's work habits.

If the city is interested in determining whether Botto did anything wrong, it would ask Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober to investigate. Three areas need exploring. One, can Botto reconcile his vacation time with city payroll records? Records show the cash value of his accumulated leave exceeds $92,000. The money involved is no small sum, especially if other officials have emulated the chief. Two, when and why did he use the city van? Third, has tax money been misspent by others who used the van for personal trips? Botto defended himself by saying, "Hey, it's been done for other things . . . That's something people don't want to hear. But that's a fact."

It reflects Botto's poor leadership that he defends his own misdeeds by alleging abuses by other city employees. He and Greco treat the entire episode as a minor annoyance. The city can do some things, like tighten rules on payroll and on using city equipment, to keep these obvious abuses from happening. But as a practical matter, residents will have to wait until next year, when voters elect a new mayor, for the culture to change at City Hall.

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