COLUMBIA, S.C .— Imagine being an investment broker without the information necessary to keep clients apprised of how their assets are performing: no price-to-earnings data, no quarterly profit statements, no tax liability numbers.

More than two years ago,  the South Carolina General Assembly — with no prior public discussion and in a rare, special session — unanimously approved the first chunk of the biggest corporate-welfare package offered to a single Palmetto State company in more than 20 years.

In exchange for receiving state bonds, state sales and corporate income tax breaks, and a variety of other taxpayer-financed gifts, aerospace giant Boeing agreed to create at least 3,800 jobs and invest a minimum $750 million within seven years at a massive new North Charleston plant.

A 2010 review by The Nerve  projected the total incentives package offered to the Chicago-based company for its 787 Dreamliner assembly plant to be at least $500 million.

But although the plant, located near Charleston International Airport, has been operating since last June, state taxpayers still don’t know exactly what their investment is — short- or long-term — or what specifically they have received, or will receive, for their tax dollars.

Continue reading at TheNerve.org.

AUSTIN – While other states are finding evidence of school test score manipulation, the Texas Education Agency has managed to quash open records requests that would allow the public to investigate such a thing in this state.

In two recent open records requests, the TEA has successfully argued that the information that would make an investigation possible is not a public record.

The issue is what is called erasure data, or the marks on a written test that show signs of amending an answer. (This is a sample of a question on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS, test.)

A certain number of wrong-to-right changes is a flag to a trained eye, and metrics and formulas have been developed that can provide a high likelihood that cheating was part of the end result, be it by teachers or students.

Analyzing erasure data led to a scandalous revelation of widespread test cheating in Georgia last year that involved dozens of investigators including a specially appointed team from the governor’s office.

As the Austin American-Statesman points out, erasure data has been cited by both the New York Times and USA Today to find evidence of cheating.

The Statesman story also mentioned the efforts of both a former teacher and a reporter who sought to obtain erasure data in Texas but were refused in similar decisions by the Attorney General’s open records division.

On June 1, the office ruled against the former teacher, as it did six weeks later in another case. It also upheld the TEA’s contention that the erasure data was part of an audit working paper, whichunder state law may be withheld. TEA confidentiality officer Montgomery Meitler told Texas Watchdog that he provided the AG’s office with “actual audit working papers for a pending audit” in order to make his case.

“The information submitted to the AG’s office would be a representative sample of the data requested,” Meitler said.  “So if you had [asked] for a specific audit all the erasure data, we would have to provide a representative sample.”

Then in August, the Statesman requested erasure data for the school years 2008-2009, 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 provided to the TEA by its contractor, Pearson. Again, the AG’s office received evidence that the TEA was doing an audit of the erasure data and ruled in favor of TEA.

But, “they can’t just indefinitely say there is an audit going on and use that as a defense,” said Tom Gregor, an open records lawyer in Houston. Continue Reading…

MADISON — About half of those tips have warranted further investigation, leading to “savings and recovery… (of) about a million dollars a month,” said White.

White’s office launched the fraud hotline late last year and the website March 9.But the effectiveness of the hotline and website has yet to be determined.

“I think it’s too soon to say whether it’s working out. We certainly hope that it works, that it generates contacts that can be researched or pursued to save money for the state,”  said state Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay. “I’m not aware of any major things that have been brought to our attention.”Cowles serves as the co-chairman for the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, which addresses reports about waste, fraud and abuse among government programs.

The Office of Inspector General was tasked with combating fraud in the state’s Medicaid,Supplemental Security Income, FoodShare and Women, Infants and Children programs.The hotline number is (877) 865-3432. Click HERE for the website.

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HELENA — University of Montana journalism professor Dennis Swibold writes in a nationwide study that even though Montana enjoys a reputation for open government, due in part to such laws and the scrutiny bred by intense political rivalries,  “the reality in Big Sky country doesn’t always match the image. ” And says that’s in part because “finding money to boost transparency is a tough sell in light of more basic needs like schools and services for the poor.”

Montana received a letter grade of D+ and a numerical score of 68, ranking it 27th nationwide in a State Integrity Investigation study, which is a collaboration of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity, and Public Radio International. Its authors are calling the yearlong study it “a first-of-its-kind, data-driven assessment of transparency, accountability and anti-corruption mechanisms in all 50 states.”

No state received an A.

Swibold says in Montana “ethics laws suffer from ambiguity and weak enforcement, and a rash of top-level hires by the current administration has raised questions of cronyism.” (To read his report, click here.)

“Partly as a result, access to public records varies by agency and sometimes lags behind advances in information technology,” Swibold writes. “Weak disclosure requirements and inadequate staffing frustrate efforts to monitor lobbying and track the assets of officials responsible for overseeing public funds.

“Ethics laws suffer from ambiguity and weak enforcement, and a rash of top-level hires by the current administration has raised questions of cronyism. Meanwhile, the state’s ban on corporate campaign contributions and its tough disclosure requirements for campaign financing are under legal attack.”

Elsewhere in the story he notes: “The public’s window on lobbying is clouded by weak disclosure rules, enforcement that depends on actual complaints and Montana’s failure to monitor the lobbying of executive-branch departments.”

Five states earned a B: New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington, California, and Nebraska. Nineteen states got C’s and 18 received D’s. Eight states earned failing grades of 59 or below from the project.

“State officials make lofty promises when it comes to ethics in government,” Caitlin Ginley writes in her story “50 States and No Winners” that takes a nationwide look. “They tout the transparency of legislative processes, accessibility of records, and the openness of public meetings. But these efforts often fall short of providing any real transparency or legitimate hope of rooting out corruption.”

Continue Reading…

AUSTIN — Texas does a pretty lousy job creating through its laws and implementation a system of government resistant to corruption.

But so do most of the states in the union, according to a new study headed by the Center for Public Integrity of the accountability of the three branches of state government, public access to information, maintenance of ethics laws and other categories.

Two other nonprofit groups, government transparency specialist Global Integrity and Public Radio International collaborated on the study.

Texas was one of 26 states given a grade of D+ or worse, eight of those Fs. No state got an A, and the apple polisher of the class, New Jersey, earned the top grade of B+ because its history of entrenched corruption prompted the passage of strong government accountability laws recently.

You can find the rankings of all of the states in several major accountability categories here.

The state earned its dismal grade by failing in five of the 14 areas examined in the study: Fs for the accountability of the governor, for public access to information, the accountability of civil service managers, state insurance commissions and the state’s handling of redistricting.

Political financing managed a D-.

In a profile of these open government areas written for Texas, the study was also critical of the Texas Ethics Commission, the problems of which were outlined this past October by Texas Watchdog.

Because it is a creature of the state Legislature, the Ethics Commission was never granted authority to undertake investigations, the targets of which would be legislators.

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OKLAHOMA CITY — The House adjourned Thursday – the last day for bills to pass out of their house of origin – with nine bills left unheard.  One of those was HB 1085 by Rep. Jason Murphey (R-Guthrie) which would have ended the exemption the legislature has from the Open Records Act and Open Meeting Act.

Murphey blames a combination of “vicious, intense opposition” to the measure from members of the Republican majority and more than 20 amendments added to the bill.  Many of the amendments were added by Rep. Mike Reynolds (R-Oklahoma City) who says without his amendments, the bill had no teeth.

Reynolds says he had to add so many amendments because if he had them all in one bill, it would have been tabled immediately “and I wouldn’t have ever got to describe what the amendments did.” (Click here for the interview with Reynolds)  He calls HB1085 “a do-nothing bill” adding that having a bill with teeth was “the last thing that the leadership of the House of Representatives wants.”  As for the charge that the number of amendments would take too much time, Reynolds says it would take 30-seconds to accept the amendments by unanimous consent, but “they absolutely didn’t want those amendments being recognized so the best thing to do was to kill the bill.”

Murphey disputes Reynolds’ claim that his amendments strengthened the bill.  Murphey says “they would have stripped the bill of all meaning” and that they “didn’t make sense, they weren’t coherent.” (Click here for the interview with Murphey)  He adds that hearing all of them would have made for a procedural mess and allowed opponents to insert poison pills.  According to Murphey, by not having the bill be amended and then voted down, the idea stays alive for this session.  The same language could be added as an amendment to another bill, although Murphey says there would still be strong opposition to work through.

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