What will it take to get public employees in Pennsylvania to understand that it’s not acceptable to trade in smut at the office?

If you guessed the Porngate scandal would do the trick, think again.

Porngate is the scandal that erupted in 2015 after former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s review of the Jerry Sandusky investigation. It centered around offensive and vulgar emails shared among some state employees and ultimately ensnared two Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices and numerous officials in the attorney general’s office.

Apparently seeing the powerful brought low by racist, pornographic and misogynist file-sharing hasn’t been enough to dissuade state employees from continuing to traffic in smut. According to the Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General, some are still sending each other porn and misusing state resources.

Maybe that’s because — as we so often point out — Pennsylvania has a problem with transparency. That extends to the IG’s office — though one can argue it’s not the IG’s fault.

Last year the office was rightly lambasted after it investigated allegations that Lt. Gov. Mike Stack and his wife mistreated their security detail and staffers at their taxpayer-funded residence, compiled a report and then ... failed to release that report to the public.

Here’s where we point out that the IG is a taxpayer-funded office that investigates alleged improprieties by — wait for it — public employees and elected officials. Why doesn’t the public — which is picking up the tab for all of this — have a right to review its findings in detail?

Stack wasn’t the only employee of Pennsylvania taxpayers that the IG’s office investigated in 2017. The office, which undertook 46 investigations into reported waste, fraud and abuse for the last fiscal year, also determined that state employees were engaged in a variety of unscrupulous conduct.

One employee who later resigned was found to be overbilling the state for hours worked; another employee who was ultimately fired was found to have used state “items and supplies” at their home and personal business; another used a state agency’s tax-exempt business account to buy thousands of dollars worth of commercial-grade mechanical items for personal use.

All that pales in comparison to the supervisor who used government resources to send and receive emails containing “sexually suggestive, pornographic and/or nudge images, and/or obscene content,” — including with a direct subordinate with whom the supervisor had a sexual relationship in a state office. The supervisor, who was ultimately fired, also used government resources to exchange pornographic pictures with yet another state employee, with whom they also had a sexual relationship, according to the IG’s office.

Or how about another state employee who, over a long period of time, “sent large amounts of vile and unprofessional emails” to a former co-worker they had been legally barred from contacting. That employee was fired, according to the IG’s office.

The IG’s office releases summaries of some investigations, but no information about the employees or agencies involved in the misbehavior, who are often shielded by personnel policies, union contracts and employment laws and regulations.

Why public employees who are found to have misused and/or abused taxpayer-funded resources should enjoy anonymity is beyond our understanding. Perhaps that is part of the reason this culture of vulgarity persists.