Legal Services Corporation (LSC) hasn't been known as of late for skimping on luxuries. And one expense in particular, an elevated three-story slab of white stone in Ft. Worth, Texas, might be a catalyst for instituting overdue cost controls at the nonprofit legal network whose annual budget is set to rise to more than $400 million from the current $390 million. On Monday, August 10, the LSC Office of the Inspector General released the results of its audit of the purchase of a slab of imported Italian stone costing $188,582 adorning the building occupied by an LSC grantee, Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. The addition, part of a renovation project, has received continuous attention since its revelation two weeks ago. The original reported cost was $150,000, a figure representing the amount paid for out of funds on hand.
Misuse of Legal Services Corporation funds is nothing new. The most publicized cases typically involve lawsuits by affiliated nonprofit legal groups that run contrary to the LSC charter. Recent months, however, have witnessed a different kind of problem: use of public money for private pleasure. New reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the LSC Office of Inspector General, plus 
