Compliance Officer Finds Many Glaring Errors Made by Politicians

On the 18th floor of a Nashville skyscraper, Dave Harrell spends all year looking through every financial disclosure form filed with the state of Tennessee – from the governor’s statement of economic interests to the one filed by every school board member in every county.

Soon after the Jan. 31 filing deadline, Harrell, who is a compliance officer, starts the process again.

Of the 7,500 forms he reviews each year, Harrell finds many that contain glaring mistakes.

“The only ones I flag are the ones that appear to have some anomalies,” Harrell said. “Sometimes you can tell that somebody is saying, ‘yeah, this is just
paperwork.’ They [check] none, none, none, none.”

In a given year, Harrell might flag hundreds of politicians. Very few of them, however, will be called out for breaking the law.

“At this point, we’re not going back and contacting them and trying to clear that up,” he said.

Harrell’s boss, Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance Executive Director Drew Rawlins, said the agency doesn’t have the staff to properly enforce the law.

“There’s just no way with the manpower we have to review every single statement and ensure that everything is disclosed,” Rawlins said.

So for now, the bureau is focusing on educating public officials about the 3-year-old disclosure law.

“We’re just gathering information so that [we] can make decisions based on the trends that we’re seeing,” Harrell said. “I think the idea will be, for this coming up filing year … what we’ll be able to do is set aside an example with some common mistakes that we’re seeing across the board.”

Although most elected officials will learn their lessons next year, the mistakes they’ve made so far won’t come with legal ramifications. Still, the law is not completely toothless.

The commission has the legal authority to impose civil fines up to $750 if the official does not file within 30 days after receiving an assessment notice, and up to $10,000 if the official files more than 35 days after receiving the notice.

In 2008, the commission imposed civil penalties against late filers in amounts from $50 to $10,000.

The state Attorney General’s Office is still pursuing a $10,000 fine assessed to Greene County Commissioner Samuel Riley. According to a Tennessee Ethics Commission order, the third-term county commissioner failed to file his disclosure of interest form in 2008. Riley was supposed to file by Jan. 31, 2008, but had not filed as of November. So the state, after four warnings, fined him $10,000, which he has yet to pay.

“It was filed in June or July,” Riley insisted when contacted by telephone. “When I got the [late] notice in July, I called them. I don’t remember who I talked to, but I did file, as I recall by e-mail.”

Former Tennessee Ethics Commission Executive Director Bruce Androphy said Riley did file in March of this year; 14 months past the deadline.

For now, it appears only the people who completely ignore the law will face legal repercussions. There might be one way to change that, however. The Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance says the public can help ensure its leaders follow the law. Because a resident likely knows more about his or her elected official than a state employee in Nashville, the agency urges individuals to check the online database and report major discrepancies.

“Hopefully, the citizens will go out and look at who their local officials are and look at what they filed and you might say, ‘I know that they own this little store down there and they’re not putting that down there,’ “ Harrell said. “A public complaint can spur us to do an investigation, and that’s where we would get the Attorney General’s Office involved.”

The commission’s Web site has a link to a complaint form that citizens can use to flag their concerns about disclosure forms.

To check up on leaders in your area, visit:  https://www.tennesseeanytime.org/conflict-app/search.htm.

To contact the Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, call (615) 253-8634.

nmorabito@11connects.com | (423) 232-8751

The Tennessee disclosure of economic interests law states that all public officials must reveal:
* All sources of private income above $200 a year for the officeholder and spouse, and $1,000 a year for the officeholder’s children. Private income includes bank and bond interest, business income, capital gains, clinical practice income, employment wages, income from contractual relationships, directorships, stock and security dividends, compensated fiduciary positions, honoraria, lecture fees, payments from annuities and settlements, rental income, research grants, research foundation income, retirement income and trust income.
* The following sources of investments with values of $10,000 or more, even if they are not immediately producing income, 401k, 403(b) and 457 plans, annuities, bonds, certificates of deposit, college savings programs, state deferred compensation plans, estates, stocks and securities, IRAs, Keogh Plans, limited liability corporations, mutual funds, notes, pensions, real estate (though not primary and secondary residences), retirement plans for states other than Tennessee, real estate investment trusts, supplemental retirement plans, treasury notes and blind trusts.
* Any lobbying firms in which the officeholder or household family member holds an interest.
* Any profession in which the officeholder or spouse holds a license from the state of Tennessee, including architecture, chiropractic, law, medicine, dentistry, massage therapy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, pharmacology, physical therapy, podiatry, public accounting and veterinary medicine.
* Loans, although there are many exceptions, including loans from federally financial institutions, that would likely cover most home mortgages.
The law does not require the officeholders to list the dollar amounts of private income, just the name of each source.