Who's watching the Nassau attorney?

The Nassau County attorney, John Ciampoli, must play by the rules if he wants taxpayers to pay his bills.

The county legislature Monday agreed to swallow a surprise $6.8-million tab -- three times the amount in the budget -- to pay private attorneys.

The outside counsel bills involve privatizing the bus system, the police lab probe, the failed Coliseum referendum and settlement of tax assessment cases. They also cover $1 million related to the fight over Ciampoli's flawed redistricting plan, which was thrown out by the state's top court. (Since the legislature's Republican majority rushed to approve that map in time for the 2011 elections, its members can't avoid some of the blame for the cost.)

At the start of Ciampoli's tenure in 2010, he ran afoul of the legislature by refusing to submit contracts over $25,000 for approval. Now the legislature wants to pass a law requiring all new contracts by the county attorney to be filed with the clerk of the legislature within 45 days or be terminated. Such a restriction may not pass legal muster as an attachment to a referendum, but the intent is clear.

Last week Ciampoli lost his fight to withhold an internal police department report about the murder of Jo'Anna Bird of New Cassel from the legislature, which must approve a payment of $7.7 million to her children to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit. To do so, they should know what the police may have done wrong.

Ciampoli's operation needs more oversight. If the legislature can't do it, then his boss, County Executive Edward Mangano, must.