The Importance of Public Financial Disclosure

According to an article yesterday in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, there's a battle going on in New Orleans, but this time it involves a flood of public documents, as well as a trickle of financial disclosure forms. The battle is between the mayor and the city council, on one side, and a civil rights organization called the Louisiana Justice Institute on the other.

The trickle is of greatest interest here, because it clearly shows the need for annual (and public) financial disclosure.

The LJI made a public records request last week for the annual financial disclosure forms filed by the mayor, city council, and other officials. According to Section 2-692(d) of the New Orleans Ordinances:


R.S. 44:1-41 is the state public records act. None of the state exceptions appear to apply to financial disclosure forms of city officials.

According to the LJI, the LJI requested the financial statements on March 24, 2009, and on March 30, beyond the date written notification was required, "Penya Moses-Fields [the city attorney] refused to release the records of the City Council members because Council Attorney Steven Lane insisted he be allowed to redact information from the forms, or completely withhold the council records."

Sadly, the most important piece of information is that the mayor filed his 2007 financial statement on March 30, 2009. Later that day, apparently, the financial statements were turned over to the LJI, and they were immediately placed online and made available to the press.

The next day, the Times-Picayune wrote about the fact that the mayor and his wife had owned 40% of a company that had done business with a company seeking tax breaks and several streets at a bargain price from the city. The mayor's company stopped doing business earlier this year.

Many officials argue that financial disclosure is an invasion of privacy. In fact, when asked about the mayor's company, his spokeswoman said, "the city does not comment on the personal matters of the mayor."

But the mayor had hidden the extent of his family's ownership of the company until after it had closed its doors. And he appears to have entered into a contract with a company that was seeking concessions from the city. Where is the personal matter here? The mayor was doing business with an applicant. There is a strong appearance that his firm was hired in order to get his support. No official has the right to keep private his attempts to benefit personally from public business.

Without the LJI's request for the financial statements, this information would have remained private. The city attorney clearly alerted the mayor to the request, and the mayor filed his statement nearly a year late. The council attorney tried to prevent public records of his clients to be made public. They both were representing the people they answered to, but neither was representing the public interest in knowing about their elected officials' possible conflicts of interest. And neither of them was following city or state law.

If government attorneys will go to this trouble to prevent financial disclosure forms from being made public, if a mayor will suddenly file a statement when it is requested, then it is very clear how valuable annual financial disclosure is. And how important it is that it be made public not only in law, but also in fact.

As for the flood, that involved a request for city council e-mails, which was filled. But then the city council filed a suit to prevent the LJI from making the public records public. It is currently being litigated.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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