(Reporter's Notebook by Steven Allen Adams - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Another week has passed and more drama has occurred regarding the contract the State Auditor’s Office entered into late last year with Senate President Pro Tempore Jay Taylor, R-Taylor.

In summary, Taylor was brought on as a contract worker in the State Auditor’s Local Government Services Division from Nov. 11 through Dec. 31 of last year.

According to the contract, Taylor was to provide professional services related to county and local government accounting and budgeting, including providing technical assistance to local governments, working on training programs related to fiscal transparency and accountability, and other services. Taylor was to be compensated at $25 per hour, capped at $5,000 for the entirety of the contract.

Article VI, Section 15, of the state constitution states in part that “No senator or delegate … shall be elected or appointed to any civil office of profit under this state, which has been created, or the emoluments of which have been increased during such term, except offices to be filled by election by the people.”

According to further reporting by Kyle Vass for Dragline, sponsored by the ACLU-WV, State Auditor Mark Hunt reached out to Attorney General J.B. McCuskey for a written opinion on whether using Taylor as a contract employee would violate the law. In a Oct. 16 written opinion, McCuskey told Hunt that hiring Taylor as an employee would violate Article VI, Section 15, “But without more information, we are unable to offer an opinion as to whether a ‘contractor’ role would offend any prohibition.”

“… A person should exercise caution before purporting to act as both a ‘contractor’ of an executive agency and a sitting legislator,” McCuskey wrote. “But without more details about the specific nature of the ‘contractor’ relationship your letter contemplates, we are unable to confirm every legal provision that might apply and whether any such provision would prohibit concurrent service to both the Legislature and the agency.”

So, the question is whether or not a state department or agency entering into a contract with a lawmaker violates the state constitution and the answer is … well … it depends. It comes down to whether Taylor was acting as a de facto state employee. According to Vass’ reporting, Taylor had his own email and government-issued computer.

Beyond brief statements to Dragline and WV MetroNews, Taylor has remained mum, as has Senate President Randy Smith, R-Preston. I was told this week that the Senate President’s Office would not be commenting. I also reached out to State Auditor Hunt and have not received any response, but Hunt was on WV MetroNews Talkline Thursday defending Taylor’s contract work for his office.

“These contracts actually save the state a great deal of money,” Hunt said. “When we hire someone – well, contract with someone for a position – we don’t pay them any backside benefits. We don’t pay them annual leave. We don’t match their Social Security. We don’t give them retirement. We don’t give them PEIA. They’re completely contractors, so they do a job that’s really necessary, and they do it for a lot less than we can hire a full-time employee.”

Hunt said his office also researched advisory opinions issued over the years by the West Virginia Ethics Commission, and indeed, there are examples of the commission allowing lawmakers to contract with state departments and agencies, such as offering engineering services, court-appointed legal work, etc. There are also legal tests, which Hunt believes Taylor’s contract status satisfies.

“Jay was substitute teaching,” Hunt said. “When he took this contract, he continued to substitute teach. Jay didn’t have any benefits, so we think that there’s no way in the world he could be considered an employee.”

I’ll leave it up to you, the reader, as to whether Mark Hunt and Jay Taylor skirted the state constitution. It certainly isn’t a great look, and Hunt’s attitude on Talkline probably won’t make this go away anytime soon.

“The people elected me auditor of West Virginia,” Hunt said. “I got 500,000 votes. I shouldn’t be questioned on a $5,000 contract.”

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Yet, questions are being asked by the West Virginia Democratic Party and now State Treasurer Larry Pack, who sent a letter to Hunt last Wednesday seeking specific information regarding the contract with Taylor.

“Upon review of Attorney General McCuskey’s response to your request for an Opinion, and the other publicly available data and documents … I have concerns about this relationship and request some additional information regarding this situation,” Pack wrote. “As West Virginia State Treasurer, I have a responsibility to ensure that taxpayer funds are properly spent, and this additional information requested will assist me in analyzing the funds that have already been spent on Senator Taylor’s services.”

Just to be clear, here is how the West Virginia Blue Book describes the relationship between the state auditor and state treasurer: “The Auditor has the constitutional and statutory duty to examine claims presented to the state for payment and make determinations whether money is due from the state and authorized by law. After approval of a claim, the Auditor issues a warrant, the state’s version of a check, in either paper or electronic form, which is then funded on the Treasury.”

I reached out to the State Treasurer’s Office to ask what their authority would be should they determine that Taylor was operating as a de facto state employee in violation of the state constitution.

“Our first step is to gather all the facts and understand what actually happened,” said Carrie Smith, communications director for the State Treasurer’s Office. “If there was an inappropriate use of funds, we ultimately expect the dollars to be returned to the people of our state. Further conversations can occur depending on what we uncover.”

That doesn’t sound to me as if they can do much about it even if they determine on their own that Taylor was a de facto state employee. Hunt would seem to agree, even though he said he would answer Pack’s question as a courtesy.

“Larry Pack’s a dear friend. And Larry Pack, I won’t say anything negative about Larry Pack, but he’s absolutely out of his lane,” Hunt said on Talkline Thursday. “He’s asking the state auditor a question as to how we do adjunctions on day-to-day business. That’s like me telling him to invest in T-Mobile instead of Verizon.”