HELENA – A judge has ruled that the state must make available specific information on the employee salaries requested by a Bozeman-based think tank, despite claims it was not required to provide such information.

On Dec. 14, the Montana Policy Institute (MPI) asked state 1st Judicial District Court Judge Dorothy McCarterthrough a writ of mandamus to order the state, the Department of Administration (DOA) and DOA Director Janet Kelly to grant its public records request.

MPI made multiple requests to DOA officials dating back to August 2010 for “state employee actual compensation data,” according to an affidavit by Carl Graham, president of MPI, which publishes Montana Watchdog.

MPI was also granted attorneys’ fees and costs by McCarter in her Jan. 27 decision.

“The court concludes that the most liberal application of the public’s right to know applies to the state of Montana and requires the Department to provide the information requested by Policy Institute,” McCarter wrote.

She said Montana has a strong commitment to access to public records.

“These laws should therefore be liberally construed to effect that commitment,” she wrote.

“Moreover, it makes little sense to maintain computer systems that have large capacities for storage of information and the capability to produce that information quickly, while quibbling about the physical format of the information requested rather than the intent of the right to know laws,” she wrote.

“That’s a good win for us,” MPI attorney Art Wittich said Monday. “I think it was the right decision. She was correct that the state was quibbling over what we saw was clearly public information. We’re looking forward to receiving the information, analyzing it” and informing the public. He said he would be working with state to get information transferred.

Mike Manion, the DOA’s chief legal counsel, said Monday he was reviewing the decision and could not offer comment.

Manion said at the Dec. 14 hearing the MPI request would involve 14,000 state employees including salary, hourly wage and overtime. Manion said even though the information was available and MPI was willing to pay the estimated $700-$800 to gather the data, right-to-know laws did not require the state to program the data to satisfy such requests.

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Democracy isn’t always pretty.

Look no further than the nasty business surrounding Wisconsin’s recall campaigns for daily proof.

The Kenosha teacher harassed and ostracized simply because she supports a governor that many of her peers don’t. Or the West Bend man charged with election fraud after allegedly trying to scribble out the names of recall petition signers in a reported burst of anger.

Then there is, to many observers, the general childish behavior of lawmakers so swept up in partisan politics that they’ve forgotten that they’re in Madison to do the people’s business.

There are a lot of people in Wisconsin who will tell you the state’s longstanding recall laws represent the best in democracy, putting the power to change the face of government in the hands of the people.

Plenty of others see an ugly, endless season of recalls, subverting the will of the people, aimed at killing the continuity of governance in the name of party.

These days, Wisconsin recall democracy, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.

But there’s a point that many liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, agree on: Wisconsin’s recall process should be fair and transparent.

While voters on both sides of the aisle may debate the fairness of Wisconsin’s system of recall and the current taste for removing government officials, they had, up until Monday evening, been able to count on an open showing of that system — at least when it came to recall petitions.

The Government Accountability Board, the state election board better known as GAB, decided it would postpone posting the reported 1 million signatures in the recall against Gov. Scott Walker after hearing concerns that making the names public could compromise victims of domestic abuse and stalking, and others.

Earlier Monday, GAB spokesman Reid Magney assured Wisconsin Reporter the signatures would be posted on the board's website by the end of the day, just as the accountability office promised on Friday when it released a scanned copy of the petitions to Walker’s campaign.

The sudden change of heart comes after the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin in December asked the board to hide the names of domestic abuse victims who request their names be kept out of the public eye.

“The GAB is under no obligation to make it easier for stalkers to find their victims by having a searchable database online,” Chris Ahmuty, of the Milwaukee ACLU, told WISN-TV.

The concern is understandable.

No one but perhaps the stalker or the abuser wants to compromise the safety of a victim.

But recalls are different political animals than the standard election system, demanding petition signers stand up and be counted, as GAB Director Kevin Kennedy rightly pointed out in the same WISN story.

“When you’re petitioning, there’s a strong public interest in allowing the public to see who’s on those petitions because it gives them confidence that the petitions meet the thresholds,” Kennedy told the TV station.

And confidence, for some, is sorely lacking in what they see as a politically driven system that sacrifices election integrity for political advantage.

And some, fair or not, have cast GAB as partly complicit. Kennedy, for instance, late last year said it was not the board’s responsibility to scour petitions for false names and duplicate signatures. A judge later demanded it must.

State election laws provide checks and balances, affording incumbents and their supporters the ability to review and challenge signatures, but GAB critics have said the independent board’s failure to thoroughly review petitions would put too much vetting onus on the shoulders of politicians under attack.

Transparency is what ultimately levels the playing field  —  not just for incumbents and challengers, but for the average citizen interested in or concerned about the recall system.

Let’s be real here. Your average Cheddarhead isn’t going to delve into hundreds of thousands of signatures in search of similar handwriting or phony names.

But some will, and it’s nice to know it’s there.

It certainly has been there before.

Last summer, confronting a spate of Senate recall campaigns, the GAB posted all recall signatures online.

“In Wisconsin, election petitions have always been public records, and the Government Accountability Board previously published the 2011 State Senate recall petitions online in the interest of transparency,” the GAB’s website states.

Search there today and you will find the recall signatures in the campaigns targeting Republican state senators  —  Pam Galloway of Wausau, Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls, Van Wanggaard of Racine, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau.

Magney on Monday told Wisconsin Reporter that the reported 845,000 signatures in the recall campaign against Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch were expected to be online later this week.

So why the line in the sand now?

The issue has brought together some interesting allies in the battle for transparency. Conservative news organization the MacIver Institute and Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and Money and Politics Project director at the liberal Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism,  have criticized the GAB’s postponement.

The Center for Investigative Journalism, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization like MacIver, has not taken a position on the matter.

For those with serious, legitimate safety concerns, there should be some way of individually keeping names from the public while protecting the integrity of the process.

Wisconsin Reporter believes transparency in government and public life is the best antidote to the diseases of corruption and incompetence, and we stand by all who ask the GAB to quickly reinstate its decision to post online the recall petition signatures.

Wisconsin Reporter, like other media outlets have advised, will seek the documents through open records requests if need be.

Transparency isn’t always easy, and it isn’t always pretty — much like democracy.

But there can be a manageable balance between the public’s right to know and the protection of victims.

Let’s find that balance and protect democracy.

HELENA – If you spot what you think are shenanigans during the upcoming elections, just remember, help is a mouse click away.

On Friday, Montana Secretary of State and Chief Elections Officer Linda McCulloch launched www.montanafairelections.com, a new website that she said will make it easier for citizens to report potential state election law violations.

The “Fair Elections Center’ provides an online submission form for people to report potential election law violations for state and feral violations. And it provides five ways to report potential violations: phone, online, fax, mail or email.

McCulloch said the new website will complement efforts to enhance the security of elections and streamline the successful reporting procedures she put into place in 2010.

She said about 50 reports were received by her office in 2010 and expected that number to increase in this next round of elections, which includes several ballot issues,  high-profile state seats and the federal elections. But of those 50 reports, with several about signature gathering, none resulted in any actual illegal activity. Her office, by statute, is not allowed to prosecute. Those findings are turned over to the proper authorities.

The state’s 56 county election administrators have the option to add a direct link to the site on county webpages, state officials said.

McCulloch said the site, paid for through the use of staff time and the use of an existing survey tool, was not to be used for “political attacks or partisan agendas.” She also said people suspecting improper election activity can still go to other sources such as local election boards and county attorneys.

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CHARLESTON — West Virginia is opening the doors of state government to more sunshine.

Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, acting as governor, and State Auditor Glen Gainer III announced a new transparency website at a press conference Wednesday.

The website, http://transparencywv.org, will put budget and spending information in one place. State agency budgets will all be online and readily available – a first for many state agencies.

In March, the Public Interest Research Group criticized the state's lack of transparency regarding spending. In response, three months ago the Auditor's office approached the Acting Governor's office about creating the website.

"When the Auditor came to me about creating the website, I knew it was an excellent idea," Tomblin said. "Like any company or business, when you receive a critique, there is always a positive to find out what can be done better. A transparent government is a responsible government, and it's what the people of our great state deserve."

"In less than three months we went from a concept to a finished product," Gainer said. "That only comes from strong leadership and a willingness to work and make ourselves transparent."

The focuses on three areas: revenue, budgets, and spending. The revenue section allows people to see a 10-year history of revenue collections. Charts will be generated at the top of the page to help people visualize the data. The budget page shows data in a stacked bar chart showing the general revenue budget, the special revenue budget, and federal funds. The spending page allows people to look at state spending down to the agency level and into specific unclassified spending, with data updated every evening. The website also links to vending and contract data.

"What we tried to do is make this very simple and a very navigable site…and one that will allow the user to quickly see how their tax dollars are being spent," Gainer said. "We believe it's probably one of the finest transparency sites in the country."

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Nine groups representing state and local government employees slammed a House bill Wednesday that would penalize state and local governments that failed to meet disclosure and accounting requirements for public pension systems.

“This legislation represents a fundamental lack of understanding regarding the strong accounting rules and strict legal constraints already in place that require open and transparent governmental financial reporting and processes,” reads a release endorsed by the National Association of Counties, United States Conference of Mayors, National League of Cities, International City/County Management Association, National Association of State Auditors Comptrollers and Treasurers, Government Finance Officers Association, International Personnel Management Association for Human Resources, National Council on Teacher Retirement and the National Association of State Retirement Administrators.

The Public Employee Pension Transparency Act would require pension administrators to report pension funding status and contributions to the government, and forbid federal aid to distressed systems.

The legislation comes on the heels of recent scholarship by Joshuah Rauh of Northwestern University and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Rochester that claims state and local governments face unfunded pension obligations of $574 billion.

The study also claims six major cities and several states are set to run out of assets to cover costs in the next decade.

The proposal, sponsored by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), would rescind federal tax breaks on municipal bonds for state and local governments that fail to comply with disclosure requirements.

“Unfortunately, the true level of unfunded liabilities associated with these plans … is being hidden thanks to unrealistic accounting standards,” Nunes said.

Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, said the findings of Rauh and Novy-Marx rely on pessimistic asset assumptions at a time when interest rates are historically low.

“We differ with their underlying methods and conclusions they use to arrive at that,” he said. “No one questions there has been some abuse (in pension systems) — and those abuses should be rectified — but federal oversight is not the answer.”

Brainard was critical of the federal government’s track record on worker retirement plans, citing current shortfalls in Social Security and bureaucratic regulations that forced many corporations to abandon defined benefits plans in favor of defined contributions plans like 401Ks, which he says provides workers a less stable retirement.

“And the solution is to take a reporting requirement to Washington?” he said. “The fact is there are core parts of public plans that work.”

Capitol Hill insiders said the legislation is unlikely to be debated this year, but lawmakers hope the bill will set the stage for deliberations in the 112th Congress, adding that the bill may get a boost from a non-partisan Government Accountability Office study published earlier this year outlining the fiscal condition of state and local governments.

The found state and local governments face a $10 trillion fiscal gap over the next several decades and steady erosion of government services absent policy changes.

Finance experts said the red ink has led to growing concerns among investors who have long regarded municipal bonds as nearly risk free investments.

“The people I talk to are moving away from them,” said Fred Sheehan, a former Director of Asset Allocation Services at John Hancock Financial Services in Boston. “Some of them have been investing in munis for 30 or 40 years.”

Sheehan said he sees investors shifting from general obligation bonds to revenue bonds, and the pace of the transition could quicken if distressed state and local governments fail to address rising debt.

“From what I’m seeing they are doing very little to help themselves,” Sheehan said. “It’s almost as if it’s a fight among 3rd grade boys. They can’t solve it themselves, an adult has to come in and break them apart.”

The fiscal challenges facing state and local governments has resulted in a growing warning from financial investment firms of a possible collapse in the $2.8 trillion municipal bond market, considered lifeline to state and local governments that have increasingly relied on debt to sustain government function in recent years.

Regardless of the outcome of the bill, a federal crackdown on state and local government accounting practices could be on the way.

In August, New Jersey was charged with securities fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for concealing from investors financial information about the funding status of two public pensions.

Brainard said he hopes to see abuses in states like New Jersey rectified, but he doesn’t believe they demonstrate a widespread problem. He said the fact that municipal bonds are still being purchased by investors shows the alleged crisis has been exaggerated.

“I think muni-bond investors are pretty smart people. They can read an annual finance report,” he said. “Bond rating agencies have known all along what New Jersey and other states were doing.”