That must be some book. Perhaps you have read it, too - it's the one that says you can break state laws, disregard the state budget process and cost the state money. And you can do all that as ... the state's chief financial officer!

That's the book that state auditors read about ex-state Treasurer Krolicki's administration of a college savings plan after allegations of mismanagement and possible improprieties were raised by his successor, Kate Marshall.

It's easy to dismiss the story as a nobody-cares-about-this partisan brouhaha between Krolicki, a Republican, and Marshall, a Democrat. After all, these two once squabbled about whose desk was whose and whose office was whose.

But the recent release of the audit in Carson City indicates just how off the books Krolicki was operating this fund, which, coincidentally, was used for television ads for the college savings program but were thinly veiled campaign commercials for him.

Showing a marvelous gift for understatement, Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie (yes, a Democrat, too), described the work of the treasurer's office as "sloppy." This is akin to a teacher who catches a student cheating on a test and then chastises the kid for "sloppy" work.

This is very simple, actually: Krolicki broke the law. He can blame his staff or say he did what he was advised to do - although even he acknowledges "I know where the buck stops."

But the problem is that the money he was charged with overseeing did not stop with him - or, perhaps it did. The auditors, in impressive detail, showed how the supposed financial maven kept $6 million off the state books so he could do it by his own book. The interest lost - $38,000 - may seem like a small amount in the scheme of things. But there is a reason that state lawmakers are given oversight of executive branch functions and a reason that state budget laws erect procedures for spending money. If they didn't exist, you wouldn't have to do anything ... by the book.

To be fair, in the annals of financial crimes against the state, this ranks somewhere below Teapot Dome, or even G-Sting. Yes, the potential for abuse and fraud was there because of an oversight board that deferred to Krolicki, who reveled in being a lone wolf. But the money for the college-bound kids is intact; not a penny was lost.

And, yet, it is Krolicki's arrogance in dealing with this and his blithe disregard for rules that he, considering his background, should have known that is most disturbing. He obviously bristled at being questioned by Marshall, but she has now been proven correct in all of her allegations.

The new treasurer has tried to be as - what term should I use here? - by the book as she could have been in detailing what she knew and what she didn't know. And she has been born out by the facts the auditors presented this week.

So what's the upshot?

Nothing criminal will happen to Krolicki. It's not as if people are prosecuted for violating the State Budget Act. In this case, I am sure, public humiliation will suffice, and Krolicki can continue down his path of denial.

The hope here is that the experience will chasten the preternaturally ambitious pol and that this might change the way he conducts himself. If not, this episode will be seen later as the one that closed the books on his career.