As California grapples with an immense budget deficit, it's wholly appropriate -- even praiseworthy -- that the Legislature should turn a critical eye on wasteful spending by state agencies.
That's what Assembly Member Rebecca Cohn, who heads the Legislature's audit committee, said she was doing this week when she summoned California State University systems officials to explain why their $662 million centralized computer system doesn't work.

Cohn, a Saratoga Democrat, and other lawmakers beat up on Chancellor Charles Reed and other CSU officials for cost overruns, questionable shifts of funds, missing documents and an uncooperative attitude toward investigators.

The lawmakers threatened punishment in the form of budget cuts.

"The arrogance of the CSU is egregious and isn't going to be tolerated," Cohn thundered. "This will impact their budget, absolutely. We want to have the smallest impact on students and the largest on the folks running the CSU."

Cohn's high dudgeon would be justified if the CSU fiscal management problems were an isolated case. But five factors undercut any moral authority lawmakers might summon to critique what the university system has been doing, to wit:

The CSU debacle is the latest in a string of instances in which state agencies have proved themselves incapable of designing and installing new computer systems. The state simply doesn't operate like a private business. Perhaps it should, but it doesn't. That's one reason why the state's computer systems are often antiquated or dysfunctional.

When her predecessor in the audit committee's chair, Dean Florez, D-Shafter, tried to delve into one of those computer debacles, involving a $95 million contract with Oracle Corp., Cohn did everything she could to thwart the investigation. At one point, Florez chastised Cohn for divulging confidential papers to noncommittee members.

As an investigator of computer malfeasance, Cohn's credentials are weak.

The Oracle investigation is one of the few instances in which the Legislature has actually performed the much-vaunted oversight role.

News media report wasteful spending with depressing regularity -- such as The Sacramento Bee's recent article on evident cheating in giving preferences to disabled veterans in state contracts -- but few are examined by the Legislature.

Cohn and other Assembly Democrats turned a blind eye to Wesson's loading the Assembly payroll with a half-dozen former legislators, thus spending taxpayers' money to keep income rolling into ex-politicians' bank accounts for no reason other than Wesson believed he owed them.

Finally, and most importantly, the state is in a budget mess because Cohn and other legislators of both parties spent most of a one-time windfall of income tax money for ongoing programs and tax cuts, thus creating a huge budget deficit, and then tried to cover it with gimmicks. Their actions were at least as egregious as what they are accusing CSU of doing.

Some lawmakers are calling for Reed's dismissal as CSU chancellor for botching the computer project. Does that mean they and Gov. Davis should be dismissed for fouling up the state budget?

Dan Walters writes for The Bee's Capitol bureau. E-mail: dwalters@sacbee.com; mail: P.O. Box 15779, Sacramento, CA 95852.