For Gov. Tom Corbett, the decision of his special adviser on higher education to resign later this month, following a brief storm of controversy, is an uncomfortable news story that comes at an unfortunate time.

Corbett, who has been trailing Tom Wolf, his Democratic rival, in opinion polls three months ahead of the November election, has presented himself as a no-nonsense administrator focused on cost control, watching out for taxpayers and promoting efficiency in state government. Given that image he’s presented to the public, Corbett looked as though he was caught off guard by a Pittsburgh newspaper’s investigation that found that Ron Tomalis, the former state secretary of education. appears to have been doing little work in his job as the governor’s special adviser on higher education.

After being nudged out of the education secretary job by Corbett, Tomalis landed in the newly created special adviser job with the same $140,000 salary he had been paid in his cabinet post.

Tomalis, who has held the special adviser position since June 2013, was found by the newspaper’s examination of records, obtained through Right to Know Law requests, from the past 14 months to have sent only five e-mails and made an average of less than one phone call per day. The office calendar for Tomalis’ schedule showed very few appointments and he recorded no documentation, or expense reports, for job-related travel.

When the newspaper story first broke, Corbett rejected suggestions that Tomalis was a ghost employee, instead insisting that important work had been done.

Acting state Education Secretary Carolyn Dumaresq also defended Tomalis, saying he had worked closely with her during his entire time as the governor’s special adviser and she had diverted his efforts to special K-12 projects caused by shifts in education funding. She also deflected criticisms regarding Tomalis’ low volume of outgoing e-mails, explaining the department has its employees purge their e-mail folders every day.

That defense, unfortunately for Dumaresq and Corbett, has raised new questions about the department’s apparent violation of record retention policies and state law.

It’s possible there is nothing fishy about the Tomalis story, but it has raised more than a few eyebrows — and questions — about why there is not more evidence to support the work Corbett and Dumaresq claimed Tomalis did — and about the department’s e-mail deletion policy. In yet another questionable move by the education department, a Harrisburg television station reported that the department finally put a name plate on Tomalis’ office door, but only after the Pittsburgh newspaper’s story appeared.

The newspaper’s investigation into Tomalis’ work schedule does appear to have raised important questions about how taxpayers’ money is being spent in Harrisburg. Why stop with Tomalis? A similar analysis of other executive department leaders or state lawmakers’ schedules as well as the schedules of their staffers would be welcome. The review of how staffers spend their time would be useful, particularly in light of the fact that Pennsylvania’s lawmakers have more staffers per lawmaker than elected officials in any other state legislature.

No matter how this story turns out or whether or not it becomes a campaign issue, voters would be better off reading news stories about the race for governor that described both candidates’ ideas about pension reform, job creation, tax reform and education funding.