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If the Department of Transportation was as innovative in completing highway projects as it is in acquiring office equipment, most of Florida's traffic problems would be solved.

When the Legislature did not provide money for desktop computers, DOT executives came up with a novel scheme that produced 40 of them for the transportation department. As part of their contracts, construction firms doing business with the state in 16 counties were required to include the cost of computers in their engineering contracts. The stipulation inflated 32 contracts by at least $490,000.

When the ploy was discovered by the office of Comptroller Gerald Lewis, the DOT reaction had a disturbingly mild "tut tut" tone.

Assistant Secretary John Goodknight said that, while the "purchase of the computers really does circumvent the budgeting process," it was not clear to him "that it's a violation of state statutes."

What could possibly be unclear? A request for an appropriation was made and the Legislature turned it down.

When pressed about the legality of the DOT's imaginative accounting, Jana Walling, assistant director of the comproller's division of accounting and auditing, said the DOT has been informed that the procedure would be "totally unacceptable in the future."

To that, add a loud "Amen."

According to DOT Assistant Secetary John Goodknight, the executives involved in working out the purchasing system were unaware that legislators had vetoed the agency's request for computers. The innocence by ignorance defense doesn't work any more convincingly in Tallahassee than it does in Washington. The accountability buck stops at the top, on the desk of Transportation Secretary Kaye Henderson.

Whoever cooked up the scheme no doubt figured it was a good deal for everybody. They got the computers they wanted, the state-approved vendors who sold the computers made a profit, the highway contractors who purchased the equipment and sent it on to the DOT pocketed a handling fee and up to 90 percent of the cost came out of the federal treasury.

That kind of reasoning and finagling is one major reason why the taxpayers' burden grows ever heavier. The comptroller and Gov. Bob Martinez should take a long look at the DOT's creative purchasing. It rates more than a tut tut.

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