A finding of "serious corrupt conduct" after two years of being stood down and collecting a full salary?
It's enough to make any taxpayer angry.
But Leanne Cover, the former chief executive of the Canberra Institute of Technology, received just that.
While the government is now seeking legal advice to claw back some of the money, a key question is how this situation could have been prevented.
Ms Cover received an exorbitant salary. She would have received more than $700,000 over the two years, including a pay rise of $11,500.
She was paid her full salary to ensure procedural fairness while the integrity investigation was ongoing. The CIT risked an unfair dismissal lawsuit if they had fired her and the watchdog cleared her of any wrongdoing.
But the integrity report makes it clear Ms Cover's conduct was always going to result in her being dismissed.
Indeed, many board members were unaware of the enormous $4,999,990 contract the CIT signed with "complexity and systems thinker" Patrick Hollingworth until June 2022. This alone may have been grounds to terminate her from the position.
The board were going to conduct a review of Ms Cover's performance in mid-2022 but the commission asked them to stop this to ensure the integrity of its investigation.
This left the CIT board in a tricky place. This only became trickier as the commission's investigation dragged on.
The length of this investigation, which had significant repercussions for public money, was a problem.
The report released by the commission only includes initial findings with the wider investigation still ongoing.
Given the interim report found "serious corrupt conduct" from Ms Cover and she is no longer in her position there won't be the same urgency to release these findings but the two years already taken was too long.
The commission has previously complained about a lack of resources and has faced staffing issues including significant staff turnover. The watchdog has been hamstrung by a rule preventing former ACT public servants from being employed but this is set to change.
The commission said it has examined 3 million pieces of evidence, conducted 37 private examinations over 92 hours and there were 1866 pages of transcripts. This took 542 business days.
The interim report from integrity commissioner Michael Adams KC appears to be based on a few dozen documents with most of the hearings having occurred in 2022, including Ms Cover's.
The report was handed to 35 people in November 2023 for people to respond to the findings. Ms Cover and former CIT board chair Craig Sloan provided a "comprehensive response".
An amended report was handed out in late-April and extra people were identified, with a total of 58 parties given a report in advance.
The process was lengthy and ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum noted this had gone further than what was required under the Integrity Commission Act.
The Chief Justice made this comment when Ms Cover lawyer's were seeking an injunction to prevent the release of the report, arguing procedural fairness had not been followed.
But Chief Justice McCallum said there was "an unusual level of disclosure".
One could argue this lengthy process ultimately meant the court was able to throw out the injunction attempt by Ms Cover.
However, it did mean the public release of this report simply dragged on and Ms Cover received an extra seven months salary following the commission's findings.
The CIT board did make a finding early last month that Ms Cover's contract should be terminated but they were beholden to the release of the integrity commission's report. Ms Cover resigned the day before the commission was due to release the report.
The watchdog needs to be able to work quickly when necessary in investigating matters of significant public interest and money, whether its extra resourcing or a review of processes needs to be determined.
The Legislative Assembly's justice and community safety committee should conduct an inquiry to answer these questions.
This whole episode has shown the government and the commission need to ensure a situation like this cannot occur again.
