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It's more than a little odd when the state auditor warns -- in bold print -- that a report she's issuing "should not be relied upon for any purpose."

Beth Wood used the word "extraordinary," not "odd," to describe her action in releasing an interim report of her office's "investigation of salary paid to Mary P. Easley" by N.C. State University. Either word will do.

In disclosing the preliminary findings, she indicated that shoddy work was done and "further investigation and analysis would be required before the report could be finalized.

"A final report will be forthcoming," she promised.

But, at this point, why bother?

Mary Easley has been dismissed from her $170,000 job at N.C. State. Other investigations are under way to determine whether improper influence from the office of her husband, who was governor at the time, landed her the lucrative position. No one will be surprised if the conclusion is yes.

This audit has followed a strange path. It was initiated last year by Wood's predecessor, Leslie Merritt, a Republican. She's a Democrat who defeated him in last November's election. She inherited the incomplete audit, which made preliminary findings that Easley's salary was too high by $91,000.

Asked for an official response, the university defended her compensation. That was then, before new information about Easley's hiring led to the resignations of the chancellor, provost and trustees chairman, and before the new, interim chancellor, James Woodward, concluded that N.C. State couldn't afford to keep Easley, by then the former first lady, on the payroll any longer.

Wood decided to suspend the investigation, but noted: "Since this decision was made, allegations have been made in the media and elsewhere that the Office of the State Auditor had not issued a report on the investigation as the result of political or other pressures." Wood reversed her earlier stance to "protect the integrity of the Office of the State Auditor and to provide information to interested parties," she said.

It doesn't protect the integrity of the office to issue a report and debunk it at the same time. Wood might intend to disparage the quality of work done under her predecessor's management, but the professionalism of state auditors should be unchanged from one administration to the next.

As for Easley's salary, N.C. State argued last year that there was value in having the governor's wife on the faculty because she could attract more prestigious speakers to campus. A few months later, after so much damage had been done, hiring her because she was the governor's wife didn't seem to have been such a good idea after all.

Neither does issuing this odd report.