Come join the party.

A liberal advocacy group wants the state auditor’s office to investigate whether Attorney General Ken Paxton broke the law by continuing to pay top staffersafter they resigned from the agency. Progress Texas, a self-described “progressive” public relations firm based in Austin,sent a letter to the auditor Friday asking the office to look into whether Paxton “committed abuse and violated state law by misusing government funds” to pay two ex-staffers after they quit working at the agency. “Paid leave policies are great, but it looks like Paxton violated state law. The facts clearly warrant a State Auditor’s Office investigation, particularly since Paxton’s justification for doling out 64 days of paid leave to two ex-employees has changed multiple times,” Progress Texas Advocacy Director Lucy Stein told The Dallas Morning News. She added: “We welcome a thorough and independent investigation. It’s important that Texans are confident that no elected official is abusing or misusing taxpayer dollars, especially to advance the work of a political campaign.” […] First Assistant Attorney General Charles “Chip” Roy and Communications Director Allison Castle left the agency on March 9. A month later, both remained on the payroll,The News first reported. Roy formally resigned the next day and backdated his departure from the agency, but Castle remains on the payroll and is scheduled to be paid a second full month’s salary of nearly $13,000 on May 2. After more than a week of refusing to answer questions about the issue, the agency’s human resources director, John Poole, wrote a piece for a conservative websitedenying Paxton did anything wrong. “Attorney General Paxton acted in a compassionate, legal, and ethical manner when he granted paid leave to two staffers who had worked tirelessly for the state of Texas,”Poole argued. “I stand by his decision.” Poole added that Paxton had extended the offer to Roy and Castle under Texas’ emergency leave law, which allows officials to approve paid time off for employees who give “good cause.” But Roy – in remission for Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma – said he was never on emergency leave and was only using up his accrued vacation time. He had been extended the option to take advantage of his health care benefits as a state employee,he added, if his health took a turn for the worse.

See here for some background. As of this writing, I don’t know if the State Auditor will follow up on this request or not. I don’t believe the Auditor has any power to issue fines or other punishment, but his findings could be used to spur another agency, like the Ethics Commission or a district attorney, to take a look. In the meantime, the Trib talks to one of the other beneficiaries of Paxton’s largesse.

A former aide to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday that he asked for her resignation and that she did not ask for nor negotiate a now-controversial departure package that left the state paying her thousands of dollars in salary and benefits. “The attorney general wanted to bring in a new team and go in a different direction, and that is certainly his prerogative,” said Allison Castle, who resigned as senior communications director for the embattled attorney general on March 9. Paxton’s request for her resignation was unexpected, said Castle, who was a veteran adviser to former Gov. Rick Perry before she joined Paxton’s team. After being handed a pre-written resignation letter including the terms of a compensation package, she said she signed it, packed up her belongings and was out of the AG’s office that afternoon. Castle said she had no reason to question the appropriateness of the terms. The benefits and compensation deal granted Castle 64 days of paid leave. […] In addition to Castle and Roy, the agency has recently lost a number of other employees, including chief of staff Bernard McNamee, scheduler Katie Lawhon and two spokeswomen, Katherine Wise and Cynthia Meyer. Lawhon, who, like Roy and Castle, also received administrative leave upon her resignation, told The Texas Tribune on Friday she did not negotiate paid leave beyond her earned vacation time. She said she was informed that she would be getting additional administrative leave, details that appeared in a pre-written resignation letter she later received. Amid the staffing shakeup, Paxton, a McKinney Republican, has filled several key positions with longtime allies from North Texas.

Here’s the Chron story on Employee #3. My guess is that the payoff to Chip Roy was a favor for a friend, and the other two were motivated by a desire to get more of Paxton’s cronies in the door, with the payout being an incentive to go quietly. I’m just guessing here. You’d think the state’s top attorney would understand the law better than this, but then no one ever claimed Ken Paxton was a legal genius. I do hope the auditor takes this up, if only to see what official explanations are offered.