Rep. Lon Burnam wrote a letter (PDF) to House Investigations Chair Larry Phillips in the matter of the so-called “ghost workers” and asked a question: What about Terry Keel?
As you know, the House Parliamentarian, Terry Keel, is a “permanent full-time” employee of the Texas House earning nearly $140,000 a year. If Speaker Craddick is going to use taxpayer dollars to investigate three of his foes for employees earning a few hundred dollars a month, the importance of ensuring taxpayers that a $140,000 a year employee — a substantially higher cost to the state — is actually dedicating 40 hours per week tot the Texas House over and above his own criminal defense firm cannot be overstated.
Additionally, I would greatly appreciate assurance that whatever system Speaker Craddick currently uses to track work time of his employees, including those with outside employment and those running for elected office, will be included in your investigation.
Perfectly reasonable, I think. For those of you in and around Austin, BOR would like for you to help Phillips with his investigation by keeping an eye out for Keel. Let’s all do our part to help ensure compliance.