Editorial: Choice of new two-year college chancellor worth watching

Bradley Byrne’s tenure as chancellor of Alabama’s two-year college system will be remembered for purging corruption from campuses and re-establishing trust with state taxpayers and students.

By letter, Byrne announced Monday he would step down in August from the position he has held since 2007.

His resignation letter said Byrne, a former Republican legislator from Baldwin County, plans “to take the reform fight to another arena.” It has been widely speculated that the other arena will be the governor’s mansion.

Inheriting a junior college system that was riddled with corruption and scandal, Byrne diligently worked hard to clean the mess. Byrne’s biggest challenge was the fight against double dipping, when lawmakers received pay from both their public duty and a state-funded position like in the junior college system. Dozens of legislators abused the system, either for themselves or relatives.

“That system in Montgomery has been deeply intertwined with the two-year system from the beginning,” Byrne told the Opelika-Auburn News in an interview last year. “We’ve had people in the Legislature working the system and setting our budgets.”

Byrne’s resignation is a loss to the two-year system because he absolutely brought it a long way and did all that could have been asked of him. Byrne’s changes were swift and non-discriminatory. Whether an abuser of the system was a personal friend in the Legislature or someone he had never met, changes were the same for all parties involved.

What’s next for the two-year college system’s chancellor’s office? That’s up to the Alabama State Board of Education, which voted 8 to 1 to appoint Byrne, at Gov. Bob Riley’s recommendation, after a series of less-than-stellar chancellors held the position. The selection of the new chancellor is something the public and our elected officials need to keep a close eye on because it’s obviously something that deserves close scrutiny.

Byrne has the two-year system headed in the right, clean direction. The last thing Alabama needs is a new chancellor with distorted objectives.