Many Officials Confused about Disclosure Forms' Rules

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. – Sullivan County Board of Education Vice Chairwoman Betty Combs ran unopposed for her most recent term. She didn’t spend or raise campaign money, so she was not required to file anything about her finances.

Or so she thought.

Campaign finance laws require filings only when candidates raise and spend money, but all state and local public officeholders in Tennessee are required to annually file statements disclosing their personal financial interests. The “statement of disclosure of interests” forms must be filed with the Tennessee Ethics Commission by Jan. 31. And the penalties for failing to comply with the 3-year-old law amount to fines of $10,000.

Combs said she was confused.

She knew candidates must file campaign finance reports if they plan to spend more than $1,000 in seeking office. But, she said, she didn’t “get a penny” for her campaign. When she realized she was being asked about something entirely different, however, she became flustered and said she would send her son, who is an attorney, by the newspaper to pick up a form.

He didn’t, however, (and the newspaper doesn’t manage those forms.) Combs also didn’t return a promised call.

“Don’t you dare put anything about me in the paper that I don’t want in there,” she said.

Combs said she lives on Social Security and other retirement money, and, she asked, “Who would want to know about my income?”

On the disclosure form she did file with the state, according to the Ethics Commission Web site, Combs lists no sources of income, no investments, no lobbying or professional fees, and no bankruptcies or loans.

She isn’t the only public official whose memories were shaky when asked about the information they included or omitted on their 2009 disclosure forms.

The Bristol Herald Courier and its broadcast partner, News Channel 11 Connects, spent the past four months gathering and reviewing the financial disclosure forms submitted by about 700 local and state officials in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia.

In Tennessee, the review focused on 420 of Northeast Tennessee’s local officials. Chief among the findings: 51 of the forms contained little more than the official’s name, title and signature. Additionally, 25 public officials listed no income whatsoever, and 41 people filed their forms late – after the Jan. 31 deadline.

The law requires that they report all private income, but not what they receive for serving in the public office they hold. The law states that as a general rule, any private income that must be reported to the IRS should be included on the form, including wages, capital gains, lecture fees, dividends, business income, bank account interest, payments from annuities, and trust income.

Still, many of the public officials questioned about their disclosure forms said they confused the requirements with campaign finance reports.

Others said they were just confused about the requirements in general.

At least a handful of officials returned and corrected their forms after they were contacted by reporters. Yet in some cases, those corrected forms were still, essentially, blank.

The forms are fairly simple, asking only a handful of questions, which is among the reasons Tennessee received a poor rating from The Center for Public Integrity in its 2009 survey of state financial disclosure laws. One area that Tennessee did receive high marks was in the public access to its forms: All can be viewed online and without charge through the Ethics Commission’s Web site, www.state.tn.us/sos/tec/.

Little to say

When it came time for Sullivan County Property Assessor Bob Icenhour to file his disclosure statement last winter, he had very little to disclose, so his form was essentially blank, but correct.

“I always thought it was fairly simple,” Icenhour said last week.

Nine Sullivan County officials filed incomplete forms, representing 12 percent of the total forms filed by its officials.

Only three of those nine people – Icenhour, Highway Commissioner Allen Pope and Kingsport General Sessions Judge Duane Snodgrass – filled out their forms correctly by answering every question that applied to them.

The rest came up with a slew of excuses when asked why they filled out their forms incorrectly, with one Sullivan County Board of Education member putting the blame on the state Ethics Commission itself, which he said failed to let him know a mistake had been made.

And Bluff City Alderman Don Weaver, when asked about the incomplete form he filed Jan. 17, said: “If I’ve done wrong, tell them not to hang me.”

The state law was adopted with the intent of allowing the public to have an understanding of the financial interests of the folks who vote yea and nay on everything from government contracts to tax increases.

“The general assembly recognizes that a public office is a public trust and that the citizens of Tennessee are entitled to a responsive, accountable, and incorruptible government,” states the statute setting up the filing requirement and the Ethics Commission’s duties.

Those duties, states the law, include “increasing the integrity and transparency of state and local government through regulation of lobbying activities, financial disclosure requirements, and ethical conduct.”

Excuses, excuses

Don Weaver said he logged onto the Tennessee Ethics Commission’s Web site and submitted a form with only basic information because he didn’t think members of the Bluff City Board of Mayor and Aldermen were required to fill them out.

He then asked whether any other board members filed a form and was shocked to learn that all but two of the other board members had done so and
completed the work on time. The exceptions were his nephew, Alderman Mark Weaver, and Alderman Melvin Carrier.

Carrier submitted his disclosure form almost three months late. Mark Weaver also filed an incomplete form.

When asked about his form, Mark Weaver refused to comment or provide any information about the details it lacked.

Sullivan County Commissioner Buddy King of Bristol said he “filled out the form according to how it read,” but when shown a copy, he said he didn’t remember filling one out.

Board of Education Chairman Ron Smith remembers filling out his disclosure form. He still has a copy of the confirmation e-mail he received from the Ethics Commission’s Web site after he filed it in January.

Smith mentioned that e-mail when asked why his form did not disclose his job as director of student services at Northeast State Community College. He said
he left that position off the disclosure form because it does not pose a conflict with his position on the board.

“We haven’t had anything to vote on with Northeast State,” Smith said. “I don’t recall it ever coming up.”

A confirmation e-mail would have helped school board member Jerry Greene, who was surprised to learn the form he filled out on the commission’s Web site was incomplete. Greene said he figured everything had been done correctly because no one at the Ethics Commission informed him of any problem.

“They never said anything about it,” Greene said, referring to the Ethics Commission. “You’d think that if it wasn’t filled out right, they’d send it back to me.”

The reviewers

The Ethics Commission’s staff reviews “somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,500 disclosure forms each year,” said compliance officer Barry Woody. “We’re looking for anomalies right now.”

The commission recently hired a third person whose sole job is to review what’s been submitted on a county-by-county basis, he said.

Woody’s office has the ability to refer those who don’t properly fill out disclosure forms to the full commission. And it’s the commission that is responsible for taking action against those who don’t comply and assessing the $10,000 fine, Woody said.

But for now, Woody said, his office has referred only those who refuse to submit the document, regardless of what is or isn’t on it.

“Sometimes you can tell that somebody is saying, ‘yeah, this is just paperwork,’ and they put none, none, none, none,” said compliance offer Dave Harrell.
“We’re not here to try to get someone,” Harrell said. “At this point, we’re not going back and contacting them and trying to clear that up.”

Greene County Commissioner Samuel Riley is one of the few who have drawn the commission’s full ire. After four warnings, Riley has yet to submit his 2008 disclosure form and has been assessed the full $10,000 fine.

“That’s just the people who we’ve contacted and contacted and contacted, and they still haven’t filed their forms,” Woody said when asked to describe the people he targets.

Last year, Woody referred 10 or 11 people to the commission.

This year, he’s expecting to report 15 to 20.

When asked about Carrier, who filed his form May 5, Woody said his office “may have sent out a reminder letter, but he did file a form so [the process] ended at that.”

gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518