It’s a common practice in private business to extend financial packages to certain departing staffers that allow them to stay on the payroll after they’ve packed up and left.

But in the state of Texas for government workers, severance pay is against the law.

That’s why it was troubling to learn that at least three ex-staffers in Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office were paid long after they’d stopped doing any work for the state.

And now comes the disturbing news that dozens of former highly paid workers across a wide spectrum of state agencies were paid hundreds of thousands of tax dollars for months after they’d left their jobs.

Paxton and other agency heads say they’re allowed to use “emergency leave” provisions for “good cause” to continue to pay the ex-staffers. But that sort of pay is supposed to be for real emergencies — like family deaths and health issues — and for employees who are returning to work.

Take the Teacher Retirement System. It doled out $235,000 in unworked hours. An ex-investment manager there received pay for four months to the tune of $58,000 after she’d left.

And that’s just a single department amid myriad departments.

Unacceptable.

Gov. Greg Abbott should call for a full accounting to end this practice. Sen. Jane Nelson of Flower Mound and Sen. Royce West of Dallas have vowed to crack down on the leave misuse, which apparently has been going on for years, but it would help for the governor to drive the reforms home.

So why has the practice been allowed to occur for so long? Chalk it up to political backscratching: “Sorry, we have to let you go but here’s some extra money to soften the blow in hopes you’ll go away quietly.”

It’s this political backscratching that has so infuriated the electorate, giving rise to anti-establishment protest campaigns. Ironically, Paxton is the beneficiary of just such a protest campaign, yet he perpetuates the very sort of political backscratching he rails against.

Surely this money could be put to better — and legal — use. After all, these sorts of expenditures do nothing to close the persistent inequities in state pay.

The News’ analysis showed that ex-employees were paid at least 5,248 unworked hours, hours that could be better spent elsewhere — say, hiring enough caseworkers in the besieged CPS agency to save the lives of abused and abandoned children.

Through an aide, Paxton has defended his decision to pay his departing staffers by calling it a “compassionate” way to continue to pay people “who worked tirelessly” for the state. And then he’s consistently dodged questions to justify the payments.

You’d think the state’s top law enforcement official, of all people, would be eager to show how he’s following the law. We urge him and his colleagues to do so now.