Questions surround parole board therapist

ATLANTA - The state&#39;s parole agency paid a North Carolina psychotherapist $167,000 over six years to help with communication problems in what a spokeswoman for the restructured agency calls ``a very bad use of taxpayer money.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Donald Cabaniss, a friend of former Georgia Pardons and Paroles Board member Bobby Whitworth, was hired in 1996 and paid about $30,000 a year, more than a parole officer&#39;s starting salary of $27,700. <br> <br> Cabaniss&#39; contract said he was to ``address communication problems&#39;&#39; in the agency. Most of his duties included traveling around the state to agency management gatherings and meeting with supervisors. Occasionally, he would invite a handful of them to his North Carolina home. <br> <br> ``This is a law enforcement agency, not a communication agency,&#39;&#39; Pardons and Paroles spokeswoman Heather Hedrick said. ``This is just ludicrous a very bad use of taxpayer money.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Cabaniss was paid about $125 per hour, plus expenses, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Sunday. <br> <br> But some, including Milton E. ``Buddy&#39;&#39; Nix, the agency&#39;s new chairman, say programs such as the communication facilitator taint the image of an already problem-plagued operation at the parole board. <br> <br> Cabaniss saw his departure as a sign of the new regime sweeping out the old. <br> <br> ``Any friend of Bobby Whitworth is under the gun,&#39;&#39; he told the newspaper. <br> <br> Whitworth and former chairman Walter Ray stepped down amid a criminal investigation into allegations of corruption. <br> <br> Last August, the state attorney general began investigating whether Ray and Whitworth accepted thousands of dollars in exchange for influencing legislation. Whitworth and Ray have said the money was for consulting work unrelated to their public positions and that they have done nothing wrong. <br> <br> Nix, a one-time FBI agent and former head of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, was appointed to the agency in June after Whitworth and Ray resigned. <br> <br> Since then, Nix has been busy reviewing contracts and services. <br> <br> He has spoken openly about holding agency employees strictly accountable to the public. <br> <br> Last week, Nix canceled a program that matched paroled prisoners with faith-based organizations that would help them rejoin the community. The Re-entry Pilot Project had spent $40,000 and was progressing too slowly, Nix said.