ELIZABETH MABRY’S departure as director of the state Transportation Department is an important first step toward bringing the state’s largest independent fiefdom into line and into the service of the taxpayers.

But it is merely a first step — and a small one at that.

Ms. Mabry may have been more adept than her predecessors at using the state’s resources to mollify the agency’s governing board and operate with no effective oversight, but the far larger problem is with a system that allows and encourages such manipulation.

The seven-member Transportation Board learned as early as September that a year-long audit found top officials squandered precious state resources with sloppy or overly generous contracts, engaged in high-level favoritism, ignored the law and deceived the Legislature.

Yet it has done nothing to address those problems.

Chairman Tee Hooper told a legislative panel last week that four board members were unwilling to fire Ms. Mabry. When her surprise retirement was announced two days later, it included this particularly offensive caveat: The state would spend $40,000 to buy credit for Ms. Mabry to receive full retirement benefits.

There’s nothing new about buying out people who should be fired, and the cost pales next to what the Legislative Audit Council says has been wasted on Ms. Mabry’s watch, but that doesn’t make it OK. The Budget and Control Board should not approve the buyout.

Nor should the Transportation Board hire a replacement. With lawmakers talking seriously about abolishing the commission and finally letting the governor hire and fire the director, no competent administrator would even apply for the job without the guarantee of a golden parachute that taxpayers would have to finance. More importantly, this board has proven itself incapable of making wise decisions in the best interest of the public.

That is less an indictment of the individual members of this board — although some have proven quite adept at putting their personal interests above those of the state — than of the governmental structure. The director is hired by a part-time board with a chairman appointed by the governor and six board members, each appointed from a congressional district by the legislators who live in that district.

That means as few as a third of our legislators can select the working majority. As outrageous as that is, even they don’t control the board: Board members can’t be removed before their four-year terms expire unless they break the law or are found incompetent.

That’s a prefect recipe for a board that can’t be bothered with such niceties as spending tax money wisely, treating employees fairly or telling the Legislature the truth about how much money it’s hoarding while griping that it can’t fix potholes without a tax hike.

We deserve better than that. We deserve a Transportation Department that spends our limited resources wisely and on our priorities, rather than the pet projects of favored politicians. The best way to achieve that is to let the governor hire and fire the agency’s director, as governors do in 41 states. Ms. Mabry’s departure should allow legislators to stop worrying about their personal allegiance to her and fulfill their duty to give the public a road-building agency that works for us all.