OPINION

Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan has proposed a simple and reasonable change to the state’s ethics rules, one designed to reduce the personal financial liability that now hangs over many state employees.

The proposed rule changes, released Tuesday, would revise state regulations so they clearly allow the government to reimburse the legal expenses of employees who are exonerated of ethics charges. The state probably can offer such reimbursement under current rules, but the proposed revision is a worthwhile step to eliminate any ambiguity.

Of course, an offer of “reimbursement” alone does not remove the risk for state employees. Given the expense that such cases can require, the promise of some distant reimbursement after exoneration isn’t all that comforting. An innocent state employee could go broke long before charges are dismissed.

The attorney general’s policy appears to address that risk, though. It authorizes reimbursement for legal services not only to state employees who have been exonerated but also to those who agree in advance “to repay the money or payment if the public officer is not exonerated of the violation.”

The regulations grew in part from the concerns about the legal bills that former Gov. Sarah Palin accumulated while defending against accusations that she violated the ethics law. The rules proposed Tuesday are important for not just governors but also many other state employees. They deserve assurance that a persistent critic or political foe will not use the ethics law to drive them into personal bankruptcy. Without that assurance, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would take on a top state job.

Many of the accusations against Palin seemed frivolous, but a few brought up important questions that at least needed answers.

One of those questions was this: When should the state pay travel expenses for family members accompanying the governor and lieutenant governor? The attorney general’s proposed policy would answer this. It would allow payment when the family members’ presence at an event “benefits the state,” i.e., “is required for state business or has some public purpose related to the governor or lieutenant governor’s official duties.”

Examples of allowable events include state-sponsored affairs that a family member “customarily attends,” where the family member serves as an official representative of the state or where the family member’s “attendance is appropriate for the event, such as youth or family related events.” If this all looks a little soft and subject to interpretation, that’s probably unavoidable. We shouldn’t adopt such a strict policy that a governor’s family is sent off to Juneau and never seen elsewhere for four years.

The proposed regulations are open for public comment through Jan. 22. They can be viewed online executive branch ethics page at the Department of Law’s Web site.