The California State Legislature bonked CSU Chancellor Charles Reed over the head when he was summoned last week to explain why he is spending $662 million on a centralized computer system. Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn, the Saratoga Democrat who chairs the Legislature's audit committee, did the summoning, and rightly so.

As California falls into a $37- billion deficit, every public entity needs to be accountable, including Reed's California State University System. But it wasn't the CSU that raised some eyebrows last week. It was an arrogant, fumbling and misinformed Legislature.

The focus of the hearing was a centralized management system that the CSU has been working on since 1993, when campus presidents launched a comprehensive technology planning process. The presidents believed that a common data center would minimize individual campus expenditures for data center support. The CSU had been operating an outdated computer system since the 1980s. Chancellor Reed says the current system is within its planned budget, on schedule, and operating successfully at 16 campuses. It will be operational on all but four campuses by the end of the year.

But the Legislature apparently didn't want to hear that. Instead, Cohn threatened to punish Reed and the Cal State System with the biggest hammer it has budget cuts, which will eventually hurt some 408,000 students attending Cal State campuses. It wasn't the first time Reed trekked to Sacramento to defend the system.

Some weeks ago he was summoned to the Capitol. When he got there, a note on the door to the hearing room said the meeting was canceled. It was the state Legislature playing vindictive politics.

Some legislators are even calling for Reed's head, which if it needed to be done should be at the hands of the CSU Board of Trustees. However, if anyone in the state has shown any leadership in these years of crises, it is Charles Reed.

To show their stuff, a number of legislators have introduced bills to make the CSU more accountable. One would require CSU trustees to offer ethics training for certain employees. The Legislature some years ago introduced a similar bill requiring the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to hire an ethics officer and a plan to train certain employees to be more ethical. They didn't offer any funds to do it, however.

Interestingly, recent behavior by some legislators underscores the need for an ethics officer to oversee the California state Legislature. Take Assemblywoman Cohn, who is most vocal in calling for an investigation into any possible wrongdoing with the company installing the CSU computer system.

Months ago she did everything she could to thwart an investigation of a computer debacle involving a $95-million software contract with Oracle Corp. Even worse is Cohn and a Legislature that looked the other way when Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson doled out more than $490,000 in public money for consultants and jobs for friends, termed-out legislators and campaign losers.

It wasn't state agency executives such as Reed who caused the current deficit. It was the excessive spending by a bloated Legislature and the lack of action by the governor, who took six months to realize an energy crisis existed. By that time the state's $12-billion surplus was wiped out.

Sen. Tom McClintock of Northridge says he would seek Reed's ouster. Before that happens many arrogant and fumbling legislators should get the boot.

Tony Fellow is head of the journalism and broadcast journalism program in the College of Communications at California State University, Fullerton. He also is president of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District and represents the Valley on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, where he is chairman of its Ethics Committee.