Editorial: Firings, apology shouldn't be the end of Wayne County severance scandal. Detroit, Michigan.

Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano may be hoping that two suspensions, the firing of a part-timer and his personal apology make the whole Turkia Awada Mullin severance mess go away.

It shouldn't.

Somebody outside of county government, preferably from outside Wayne County altogether, still needs to review what happened with this big pile of public money, and decide whether it went beyond what the Ficano administration has described as "mistakes in judgment."

(An encouraging sign: In addition to his apology, Ficano said Friday that employees who quit will no longer receive severance checks. That brings county government in line with the rest of the known world.)

Deputy County Executive Azzam Elder and corporation counsel Marianne Talon will take the fall for the $200,000 parting gift Mullin walked away with when she quit as the county's economic development director to become the boss of Metro Airport. Elder and Talon will serve 30-day suspensions, without pay.

Timothy Taylor, a former human resources director who OK'd a further payout of almost $25,000 for Mullin's unused sick days, was fired. Taylor retired from the county in April but has been back working part-time. Taylor also has been doing some part-time work for Mullin at Metro, although the airport says he hasn't been paid.

The Ficano administration has acknowledged a similar payment to Mullin's predecessor who was ousted from the economic development job and a parting payment to the administrative assistant Mullin took with her to Metro. This raises the question of how many other such deals existed, how much they have cost on Ficano's watch and who set such a generous policy for departures.

Mullin, who has said she will return her $200,000 severance -- not on principle but because it's become such an issue -- also has revealed that as economic development director, she received a $75,000 payment last year from a nonprofit business group whose secretary serves on the board that hired her for the airport job. Ficano appoints four of the seven members of the board that oversees the airport.

Mullin also received the sick-days money that was approved by Taylor after signing an agreement declaring that the severance check was "sufficient consideration" and nothing else was due her.

The aggregate of all this is at the very least unusual -- certainly enough so for someone other than another top Ficano appointee to be tasked with investigating.

Ficano has a decades-long résumé of decent public service, but that doesn't make Friday's actions adequate. Especially at a time when the executive is demanding pay cuts of county employees, a full and public accounting -- from the outside in -- is imperative.

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