Six months after the story broke, the footage of St. Paul city road workers loafing instead of filling potholes still rankles. With thousands of Minnesotans unemployed, some Public Works employees earning an average of $23 an hour were caught by KSTP-TV cameras spending as much time on coffee breaks as they did fixing roads.

The latest developments should further stir taxpayers' ire. Despite St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman's good intentions to "reassign [workers] when necessary and fire where possible," so far each one of the permanent employees involved -- from rank-and-file workers to management -- still holds a city job, though three cases are pending. In fact, many of the 17 road workers accused of laziness have had their penalties reduced.

On Tuesday, the Star Tribune reported that 13 of the 17 facing disciplinary action have gone through the grievance process and had their punishments finalized. At most, these employees will face a two-day suspension. Some written reprimands will also likely be downgraded to verbal admonishments.

Although an outside investigation identified a poorly managed department, Bruce Beese, the former director, remains employed by the city in another position -- earning about $112,000 a year after taking about a 10 percent pay cut. Beese and City Engineer John Maczko both received letters of reprimand. Maczko, too, still has a job.

Coleman's office has defended its handling of the situation, saying that "strong, swift action was taken consistent with the record before us." Coleman's office also said key operational changes have been made: There is new leadership, and there have been efforts to deliver asphalt more efficiently and minimize down time. There will also be additional road crew oversight, though it's sad that workers need monitoring to make sure they put in a full day. The workers and their union should be embarrassed it's come to this.

Coleman certainly deserves credit for launching an outside investigation and aggressively following through to the extent that he could -- in some cases, skipping over layers of disciplinary action to suspend employees. But the reality is that meting out harsh discipline to public employees too often is an uphill battle. Only one clerk from the now-defunct Metro Gang Strike Force has been fired, for example. And because arbitration makes it difficult to terminate public employees, Anoka-Hennepin school district officials decided against firing two teachers after a state agency found they had harassed a student.

Arbitration is at the heart of growing concerns about public employees' accountability. Many workers are allowed to appeal disciplinary actions through this controversial process, which frequently upholds firings only in extreme cases or after a lengthy record of unsuccessful efforts to improve performance. Some critics contend that this occurs because arbitrators are rewarded with more cases if they split the difference between union and management -- that is, they favor corrective action over discipline or termination. It makes public agencies leery of terminating employees when needed, and it creates the appearance that misbehaving employees are let off the hook. That in turn fuels mistrust of government and public-sector unions and employees, the vast majority of whom are dedicated and hardworking.

Discipline has yet to be finalized for three employees facing some of the most serious pothole allegations. The public is watching closely to see how this last chapter of the discomfiting saga is resolved.