The culture Illinois needs

Jim Burns, the inspector general for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, visited the newspaper this week to tell us that he really didn't have much to tell us. It was great news.

In the past nine years since Burns' arrival, the office that was a scandal-plagued, corrupt mess under former Gov. George Ryan has cleaned up its act. It adopted an attitude of zero tolerance for corruption. And it did it while the pay-for-play culture of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich swirled in Springfield, no small feat.

So how did White's office make the change? It starts with White. Jim Burns, a former federal prosecutor, said White never interfered with an investigation but encouraged them -- the opposite of the George Ryan regime. Jim Burns' staff first rooted out corruption within the office, and stopped practices that contributed to it such as requiring workers to sell political fund-raising tickets.

Now the focus is mainly proactive. For instance, the office has an audit committee that regularly evaluates departments and seeks to identify the potential for problems and fix them.

They changed the culture of the office, and the rest of state government leaders should take note. That really is the key to good government. Lawmakers can pass ethics laws and prosecutors can remove corrupt officials. But without a change in the culture, the problem is likely to keep repeating -- a fact Illinois residents know all too well.