Once again, state and local officials across Ohio have filed what the state calls “financial disclosure statements.” And, once again, the forms contain almost no financial information — that is, dollar amounts.
This year’s statements were due at the Ohio Ethics Commission by May 15. State law requires mayors, city council members, county commissioners, state officials and candidates for those offices to report their “personal financial interests.” That, the form proclaims, helps “increase confidence in government and openness” by helping identify potential conflicts of interest and giving citizens a glimpse into their officials’ financial picture.
On the Ohio disclosure statement, officials must list sources of income as well as gifts worth more than $75. They must list names of businesses owned or operated and names of creditors and debtors. They must list property owned and all investments worth more than $1,000. Actual dollar amounts must be entered for expense reimbursements.
That’s where the disclosure ends. Hamilton County Recorder Norbert Nadel doesn’t have to say how much the county paid him for “representation of indigent mental health patients” in 2016 after his retirement as a Common Pleas Court judge. County Treasurer Robert Goering can duck questions about his pay as a busy bankruptcy lawyer. County Prosecutor Joe Deters doesn’t have to say how much he made moonlighting for the suspended lawyer Eric Deters or businessman Charlie Shor. And Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley doesn’t have to specify the income he says he derives from his Jo De Company.
Under Ohio law, they would only have to report income received from parties doing business with or seeking to do business with an official’s agency. Or if they did work for a lobbyist.
Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist with Public Citizen, the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader, says financial disclosures should be made in greater detail to be of any use to people.
“These types of personal financial disclosure forms are all about trying to uncover potential conflicts of interest that can affect the officials’ public work,” Holman says. “It is imperative that not only are the amounts of sources of income and investments necessary, but also the dates.
“If in Ohio, for instance, if all you do is list the name of the employer or the name of the stock or investment without having any kinds of amounts or dates put to it, you don’t really have a clue if there’s any kind of serious conflict of interest,” he says. “The real red flags come into play when there’s significant money involved.”
If Ohio lawmakers wanted to make the financial dealings of state and local officials more transparent, they wouldn’t have to look far for a better model. The Joint Legislative Ethics Committee requires members of the Ohio General Assembly to file financial disclosure statements every year. Although it doesn’t call for specific amounts of income, it does call for ranges, as in $1,000 to $9,999, $25,000 to $49,999 and $100,000 or more.
So, for example, residents of Ohio’s 30th House District in western Hamilton County can learn that their representative, Bill Seitz, earned more than $100,000 in 2016 from his lawyer job at Dinsmore & Shohl and less than $1,000 in dividends from his stock in Duke Energy, PNB Bank and Cincinnati Financial Corp. What’s more, legislators’ reports can be read online.
A better model comes from California. Not only does it require state and local officials to disclose their income in dollar amount ranges, it does so for the value of any businesses, investments and real estate owned, as well as loans received.
California officials also have to provide the source, date, value and description of all gifts worth at least $50. Ohio gives its counterparts a veritable free pass on that front, only requiring gift givers’ names. So Prosecutor Deters doesn’t have to say what he took from disbarred lawyer Stan Chesley, First District Court of Appeals Judge Russell Mock or county Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou, among 12 others, in 2016. County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval doesn’t have to give any detail about the gifts he received from the five people he named.
Jay Wierenga, communications director for the California Fair Political Practices Commission, says many of his state’s disclosure reports are posted online. The rest are available on request.
“They all go towards giving the public a tool to see the public officials’ financial landscape so that it can be judged to see if they’re making decisions in the public interest or their own interest,” he says.
“This was passed 42 years ago, so there’s a long history of expectation among the public that their public officials adhere to a stricter code than what other states may expect.”
New York state horns into local officials’ financial affairs even more. It requires county officials to state a dollar amount range for any outside income greater than $1,000, but the ranges are tighter. The same goes for the value of investments, real estate, trusts and debts over certain amounts. And county officials in New York must report not only the value of gifts over $75, but what they were and who gave them.
No move is afoot to force greater transparency among Ohio officials, and no neighboring state requires anything beyond Ohio. Paul Nick, executive director of the Ohio Ethics Commission since January 2011, says he is not aware of any legislative measures during his tenure calling for dollar-amount details in financial disclosure statements.
But Holman, of Public Citizen, says detailed financial disclosures help citizens understand how money can lurk behind decision-making by government officials.
“Issuing contracts is one of the biggest official roles that local officials have, and these contracts could well have a direct impact on their personal financial status,” he says. “These are the types of conflicts of interest that all these personal financial disclosure systems are supposed to uncover and help assure the public that the conflicts of interest aren’t serious.
“If you don’t know know the money and you don’t know the date,” Holman says, “you really don’t know squat.”
CONTACT JAMES McNAIR: jmcnair@citybeat.com, 513-914-2736 or @jmacnews on Twitter
This article appears in Sep 13-20, 2017.
