Steven Greenhut Sr. editorial writer and columnist The Orange County Register sgreenhut@ocregister.com

Last week, Orange County Register readers were treated to one of those small stories that says volumes about government officials, their priorities, and the way they constantly waste your tax dollars to promote their own well-being and their own agendas.

Often it's the small examples that tell big stories, which is why the public yawns when the government wastes billions of dollars, but gets outraged when, say, a city council member names a park after himself, or when the Navy spends $1,000 for a toilet seat.

The public appears outraged at Orange County Sanitation District General Manager Blake Anderson after the Register printed a front-page article titled, "O.C. has joined the sewage of enlightenment." Reporter Teri Sforza details the sanitation district's $570,000 expenditure in a little more than three yearsto a management consultant who specializes in imbuing workplaces with what can fairly be described as New Age spirituality.

This is unusual stuff. Moneywise, the $15,000 a month is a drop in the toilet compared to the other ways the sewer district wastes money. The Register Editorial Page has written extensively about the sewer agency's approval of a $270 million to $400 million project to subject all sewage to another level of treatment, known as secondary treatment.

Advocates for secondary treatment argued it was necessary to protect beachgoers at Huntington Beach in particular from future beach closings. Right after the vote, scientists largely confirmed what we and others had argued: beach contamination was most likely the result of urban runoff, not the sewage plume.

That colossal waste of ratepayer dollars is harder to get a handle on than whooshing public dollars down the sewer to pay for a management guru who helps companies find their "corporate soul."

Anderson told me that his goal is to help sewer agency employees remain committed and energetic. "We want to get people lit up and working hard ... [They should]leave every day feeling fulfilled and satisfied with the work they have accomplished."

Notice Anderson's focus on them - the fulfillment of the employees, as opposed to the quality of service provided to us, the customers - but I digress.

Dharma Consulting is run by Eric Klein, who claims to be "one of the few westerners to be ordained as a yoga priest in a 5,000 year old lineage." Anderson insists there is no religious component of the program, although Klein's Web site says the following:

"As a consultant, professional speaker and retreat leader, Eric is helping business leaders help companies create workplaces of profit and spirit. He has brought his insights from the wisdom [of]ancient spiritual teachings into the board rooms of companies including: AT&T, Hewlett Packard ..."

Note the words workplaces of spirit, and bringing into the workplace ancient spiritual teachings.

Klein's main book, "Awakening Corporate Soul" drips with such spiritual stuff. The book the sanitation district is using, co-author Klein's "To Do or Not to Do," by contrast, is straightforward Dilbert. It's all about "the power of letting go," "creative conversations" and so forth. The workshop materials offer more of the same, although they are smattered with sayings from the gnostic gospel of Thomas, Krismnamurti, Thoreau and Lao Tsu.

It's pretty harmless, admittedly, the equivalent of one of those books of trite sayings that urge you to listen to your inner you. (One saying: "Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom." That's as deep as a sewer line.)

The main point, regardless of curriculum, is that you, the Orange County ratepayer (the sanitation district serves Irvine and northwards), gets to pay for this touchy-feely endeavor.

The sewer agency's board of directors recently imposed dramatic rate hikes on county residents. Rates have gone from $115 a household to $151 in one year and will hit $217 in two years. That's almost a doubling of fees. According to the sanitation district's budget, the agency is not done with the fee-raising. It intends to push rates above $300 by fiscal year 2010-11 to pay for system upgrades. Infrastructure spending is legitimate, but in the government the taxpayer always gets stuck with the bill, even as the bureaucracy wastes money hand over fist.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore raised the obvious hypocrisy issue in a recent column about the issue. If a government agency hired a consultant whose management program was deeply steeped in Christianity, "The ACLU would sue more quickly than you could say, 'Establishment Clause.'"

The hypocrisy is hard to take, for sure. Sanitation district board member Norm Eckenrode, who said Anderson did not adequately present the expenditure to the full board of directors, told me that employees have complained about having to participate in meetings that resemble a "yoga temple."

Going back to DeVore's analogy, imagine having to endure a program at a public agency rooted in evangelical Christianity. That wouldn't pass the smell test, even at a sewer agency.

Again, the bigger issue is one of government, how it behaves and evades accountability.

The above-mentioned Dharma Web site notes that AT&T and many other corporate entities have embraced this feelgood nonsense. But corporations are free to waste stockholders' money because, ultimately, no one is forced to buy their products or their stock. They must answer to the consumer. A poorly run company can lumber along for a long time but factories close, stock prices fall, consumers shop elsewhere.

It's an old cliche, but the definition of insanity - doing the same thing in the same way over and over, yet each time expecting a different result - is the perfect definition of government.

Every day, as I write about public policy as it affects any number of areas from land use to education, from transportation to law enforcement, I find the same old story line.

The government agencies charged with their particular task a) fail to perform that task competently; b) demand more money from the public so that they can perform said tasks; c) promptly spend the money on increased pensions, salaries, consulting fees, building new administration buildings and in ways that advance the bureaucracy.

Yet public officials think that the latest reform or new infusion of cash or new leadership will change things. The agencies get more money, but nothing much ever really changes.

Anderson argued that it's necessary for the Orange County public to understand the importance of investing in infrastructure, as population grows and the old infrastructure crumbles. He wants to create the expectation in the public that such spending is needed, and to give politicians the necessary cover to vote for higher fees.

But the public does not always embrace that idea because it sees what government agencies do with the money they already have. This is true even for agencies such as the Orange County Sanitation District, which is the rare agency that actually provides services that cannot easily be replicated in the private sector.

Government agencies cannot be reformed because there is no bottom line, there is no going out of business, there is no competition, but there is plenty of political influence. By all means, be outraged at the never-ending list of waste, fraud and abuse that emanates from government. But don't be incredulous when guys like Anderson raise your rates to help pay for gurus.

It would be crazy to expect otherwise.