Eden Prairie voters deserve a better explanation than they've gotten from Mayor Phil Young, who is under fire for filing expense reports for meetings he did not attend.

Young, a trial attorney and former City Council member with a budget hawk reputation, should know better than most that stewards of public dollars must be especially scrupulous when some of that money flows into their own pockets. And yet, a city audit found that Young filed for payments totaling about $900 for 26 meetings of the Regional Council of Mayors that he did not attend.

Young, who was elected in 2006 and is running for reelection, declined to speak with an editorial writer this week. According to a Star Tribune story, he has acknowledged the lapses through his attorney and now considers the matter closed.

Voters shouldn't let him duck the issue. While Young will not face criminal charges, the expense-report controversy raises questions about his judgment. He needs to repair the public trust that he has broken.

Prosecutors who reviewed the matter were careful to say that they did not condone Young's conduct, even as they concluded that criminal charges weren't merited. The Hennepin County Attorney's Office explained that proving theft or related charges would have required Young to have requested more money from the city than he was entitled to.

In the prosecutors' view, Young went to more meetings than he claimed expenses for. Because Eden Prairie technically "owed" him money for these unreimbursed expenses, and because that sum was greater than the $900 he claimed for the unattended meetings, officials said they couldn't prove intent to commit a crime. Hennepin County officials said they "conservatively" estimated that Young was entitled to $1,200.

This may pass muster with Young and the legal experts, but it's an unsatisfying explanation to regular citizens, who have reason to feel they'd be held to a higher standards. Would the Internal Revenue Service let it slide if you didn't claim all of your eligible deductions one year and then subtracted the sum from the amount owed on next year's return? Would a private employer shrug it off if an employee repeatedly claimed expenses for nonexistent business trips?

The Young brouhaha is only the latest incident to raise doubts about public employees' accountability:

•A Minneapolis police officer fired last fall in connection with the Metro Gang Strike Force meltdown is back on the job with almost no explanation for his reinstatement.

•Because arbitration makes it so difficult to fire public employees, Anoka-Hennepin school district officials chose not to terminate two teachers after a state agency determined the pair had harassed a student. One of the teachers has filed suit against the state, and won a favorable ruling in district court, claiming at least $50,000 in damages because the agency named her. Pending a likely appeal, that payout could far exceed the $25,000 settlement the school district paid out to the student.

•After TV crews caught St. Paul city workers loafing instead of filling potholes, just two probationary workers were let go, though other workers were suspended or given letters of reprimand.

There are no easy fixes. But government officials are too cavalier about how escapes from accountability fuel distrust of government.

Voters often have little recourse for demanding consequences for misbehaving public employees. But Eden Prairie residents will have the last word on the Young incident come November.