Kentucky is one of those places where ethics go to die. We still have public officials, for instance, who use their power to employ relatives.

This February, Kenton County Circuit Court Clerk Mary Ann Woltenberg hired her daughter, Lisa Cook, to fill a new position as her top assistant.

I checked state records. Ms. Cook makes $41,208 a year and is the highest-paid staffer in the office.

The average salary for a Kenton court clerk is $24,550, with an average seven years of service.

Job not advertised

Ms. Woltenberg, a Democrat first elected in 1992, says her daughter is a college graduate - unlike the other clerks - with strong computer skills that were badly needed in the office.

Previously, Ms. Cook had been a manager at Cincinnati Bell, where she earned $51,840. She got laid off three months before her mother hired her.

Ms. Woltenberg acknowledges that she neither advertised the position nor interviewed anyone else.

"I knew what her qualifications were, and you know in your family, you can trust them," she says.

Ms. Cook's duties include updating the clerk's Web site. She set up voicemail and e-mail for 50 employees. She compiled the phone numbers of all court officials and put them on spreadsheets. And when her mother is gone, she runs the office.

Both she and Ms. Woltenberg come and go more often than other employees, according to records from the county parking garage. They are more likely to be gone for an hour or two around lunchtime, for instance. On one day, May 9, mother and daughter both entered the garage at 8:20 a.m. and left an hour later, not to return that day, records show.

Ms. Woltenberg isn't sure what was happening then, but she has taken her daughter to the state capital several times for training, she says.

"I treat her the same as I treat everybody else....If she's left the building, it's because I've sent her to do something or it had something to do with work."

Ohio law tougher

Some might say Kenton County is lucky to have Lisa Cook. Regardless, parents shouldn't be hiring and supervising their children on the public dime. It's too easy for favoritism and waste to creep in. Too easy for other workers to perceive unfairness.

Ohio law prohibits such nepotism. Hamilton County Court Clerk James Cissell has an even stricter rule: He refuses to hire not only his own relatives but also those of any current employee.

"The relative may be highly qualified, but to do away with not only impropriety but the appearance of it, I think the rule is important," Mr. Cissell says.

Not in Kentucky.

Ms. Woltenberg's hiring of her daughter was approved by the state's Administrative Office of the Courts, which also authorized the high salary.

AOC works for the chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court. Neither the justice nor the legislature has established an ethics code for court clerks.

If the clerks won't police themselves, somebody else should.

kgutierrez@enquirer.com or 859-578-5584.