Here's why Sen. Steve Yarbrough can turn tax-credit program into personal cash cow

Readers have flooded my e-mail, Facebook page and azcentral this week, mouths (figuratively) agape that one of our esteemed leaders could be using his position to essentially line his pockets.

While the Arizona Legislature sees no problem with this activity, citizens, it seems, are outraged at how Senate Majority Leader Steve Yarbrough has been able to turn the state's private tuition tax-credit program into his own personal cash cow.

Yarbrough is perhaps the Legislature's biggest supporter of diverting tax revenues away from the state treasury and into private school tuition. Just coincidentally, he profits handsomely from his efforts.

He draws a six-figure salary running one of the state's largest student-tuition organizations -- non-profits set up to collect tax-credit donations and dole them out as scholarships. The non-profit is allowed to take an astonishing 10 percent for overhead – meaning the more money he can divert from the state the more money his STO makes.

Meanwhile, he owns a for-profit company that his STO pays to process individual tax-credit donations and scholarship applications.

And his STO rents space in his law office, a building that he owns. So does a second STO – one where he just happens to be a member of the board.

It all adds up to a nice chunk of change for Yarbrough and nice bout of nausea for the rest of us.

"What Steve has done should be illegal just like insider trading...," wrote Ed, of Chandler. "Where does it end???"

"How is this not a conflict of interest issue? Is there no ethics or conduct code for our legislators?" wrote Karl.

"Today's article on Yarbrough left me so mad," wrote Amy. "How does this happen? Why can they get away with all this conflict of interest?"

It happens in three ways.

No. 1 the Legislature writes the laws and their attorneys have determined that there is no conflict here because Yarbrough is not the only guy who benefits from the tax-credit boondoggle. Apparently, since there are at least nine other people who can line their pockets at taxpayer expense, it's A-OK for the legislator who sponsors bills that expand the program to dig in.

No. 2. It doesn't hurt that Yarbrough is chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee and not likely to bring a complaint against himself. His fellow Republican legislators could make a stink about this if they wanted to. They just don't want to. (Democrats have but nobody listens to them at the Capitol.)

And No. 3. It's because of us. We allow stuff like this to happen every time we re-elect the same old self-interested suspects to (supposedly) represent our interests.

And if they're representing their own interests first? Well, shame on us for not doing something about it.

Yarbrough's opponents in his Chandler district have brought up Yarbrough's activities in previous elections. He's been re-elected every time.

"This is the very issue I raised in 2006 when I ran against Yarborough," wrote Donna Wallace, in a response to my column on azcentral.com. "At the AZ Republic Editorial Board, when I raised this issue with his tax returns, and much other evidence, you didn't seem to think it was a big deal. All that did was embolden Yarborough making him realize he could take as much money for himself from the taxpayers and NO body would do anything about it. You are a part of the problem in creating this monster."

I am – not because I was at that editorial board meeting. I wasn't. But I wasn't paying close enough attention.

I will be in the future.

But what sort of place might this be, I wonder, if voters also paid attention to stuff like this? To self dealing and a systematic starvation of the public schools.

This, in a state where people say that public education is important.

And then vote for the same old crew.