Kelley needs to step away from being state auditor

After Washington state Auditor Troy Kelley was indicted, a bipartisan chorus of politicians called for him to resign. So did editorial boards, including this one.

It didn’t matter whether he was technically guilty of the various charges related to turbulent times at his real-estate services business. What mattered was the integrity of a public office reliant on high ethical standards.

In short, for the good of the organization.

Remember that phrase, because Kelley invoked it in firing three senior staffers on Friday.

As it turned out, Kelley was not convicted on any of the 15 counts; jurors could not agree on 14 of them. He was acquitted of one count of lying to the Internal Revenue Service.

However, that does not mean he acted ethically. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said he kept $3 million in reconveyance fees that should’ve been refunded to homeowners. Jurors seemed confused as to whether that was illegal. A reconveyance is when a lender wraps up business after a loan is paid in full. Kelley’s business contracted with title and escrow companies to track whether reconveyances were posted.

In 2008, when a class-action lawsuit was filed over unrefunded reconveyance fees, Kelley shut down his business. He also didn’t pay taxes in a timely manner.

As a candidate for auditor, Kelley was not forthright about his business practices and his legal woes. He paid $1 million to a former employer who accused him of wrongfully taking $1.2 million. When asked about it, he called it a “nuisance” lawsuit that had been dismissed.

So even without criminal convictions, Kelley is the wrong person to lead an office that had built a strong reputation for keeping government honest.

Kelley is not running for re-election and his term ends this year. After the trial, which ended on April 26, the best hope was that he would let others run the office, as they had during his extended absences.

That hope was dashed when he asked for the resignations of his chief of staff, Doug Cochran, and deputy communications director, Adam Wilson. He ordered Thomas Shapley, a part-time assistant to Deputy State Auditor Jan Jutte, to stop working.

The Associated Press reported that when Cochran asked for a reason, he said Kelley told him, “For the good of the organization.”

If that were Kelley’s true goal, he would’ve resigned long ago. Instead, Jutte has actually run the agency, and Kelley was nowhere to be found when the Legislature cut its budget.

The firings took place with Jutte on vacation. She told the Seattle Times, “I don’t think Troy has been very respectful in his firings this week.”

That’s putting it mildly. It’s a total lack of class. She has been doing his job, and performing quite well under the circumstances. Now she must be concerned with her fate.

If Kelley truly cared, he’d turn the job over to her and clear out.