State's Compliance Officers See Many Errors, Omissions

BY NATE MORABITO
NEWS CHANNEL 11 CONNECTS
and MAC McLEAN
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

High incomes but no investments, a lot of stock last year but none this year; doctors who don’t list their licenses, a blank income field, or the same moniker in the filer’s name box that is found in the witness box.

A public official can’t be his own witness on Tennessee’s statement of financial disclosure forms – but several have tried.

All of those things are red flags, said Barry Woody, a compliance officer with the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance.

So is leaving the income field blank – because it signals that the official and their family members have no money coming in above the form’s $1,000 threshold, other than whatever they earn for serving on their local board, commission or council. That money, they don’t have to report.

Woody and others who work for the ethics bureau review about 7,500 financial disclosure forms each year. And they see a lot of errors and omissions.

The Bristol Herald Courier and News Channel 11 Connects, which conducted its own review of 420 forms filed by public officials in East Tennessee, also saw quite a few.

It’s unclear if public officials purposely withhold important information. Many insist their lack of cooperation is the result of an honest mistake.

An often-provided excuse is that the public official confused the disclosure requirement with campaign finance reporting, which is expected only when candidates raise and spend money.

“I guess it’s stupidity on my part,” said Jimmy Sexton, a Bulls Gap alderman and Hickory Springs Plant [Morristown] employee. “I was under the assumption I only had to put down what I contributed to the campaign.”

Errors of omissions

The most common error found seems to be a simple one of missing information. Often, the omission deals with income.

Woody said incomplete forms are “quite common” among full-time county officials who earn salaries. In many cases, he said, their public office salaries are enough for a person to live on.

Woody likes to calls those salaries “government money,” but he’s quick to clarify that term. He wants his listeners – and particularly Tennessee public
officials – to understand that federal benefits such as Social Security payments, another form of “government money,” must be reported on disclosure forms.

Filing prompts

During the initial review of Tennessee’s disclosure of interest forms, there was a handful of public officials who had failed to file, but did so after speaking to a reporter.

Among them was Town of Erwin Alderman Mark Lafever, who filed his form April 24, a few days after a reporter called him. Lafever said the filing was not the result of our phone call, but instead the result of a reminder from the state.

“They sent me a letter reminding me to fill out the one for the Town of Erwin,” said Lafever, who also serves as a gas commissioner for the Unicoi Gas Utility District. “It mentioned that if I went past a certain date, it gave me X amount of days to finish or there would be a fine.”

“I filled mine out for the gas commissioner before the deadline, and I thought that took care of both of them,” Lafever said. “It was miscommunication. It was a misunderstanding.”

Get a witness

According to the ethics bureau, a witness must sign each disclosure form to ensure that somebody else does not fabricate that official’s statement.

According to the state, the signature of Washington County School Board Member Keith Ervin’s witness was illegible on his form.

The signatures for Mount Carmel Aldermen Kathy Roberts and Thomas Wheeler were legible, but their forms had another mistake dealing with witness signatures. Both Roberts and Wheeler signed as their own witnesses.

Unicoi County Commissioner Mitzi Bowen did the same. However, after a reporter contacted her, she updated her form on May 1. On that amended form, Gary Bowen signed as her witness.

Attention to detail

Working on the 18th floor of a Nashville skyscraper, the ethics bureau compliance officers know that some elected officials across the state just aren’t following the rules.

“There’s just no way we have the manpower to review every single statement and ensure that everything is disclosed on those statements,” said Drew Rawlins, the executive director of the ethics bureau. “Even when you do a review in-house, currently you can’t verify everything that’s on every form without doing, say a complete background check on every candidate, every official and their spouse.”

For now, the state hopes the public will help police the law. Citizen complaints could spur an investigation by the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office.

“Right now, the focus has been on just gathering all of the information we can, educating the officials as to what their requirements are and how to best go about doing it,” said Dave Harrell, another compliance officer. “I think the teeth of the law, if necessary, will come later.”

gmclean@bristolnews.com
nmorabito@channel11connects.com