|
|
Keep the rule
By Wayne Trotter, Tecumseh Countywide News
Gov. Brad Henry has a rare opportunity to strike a blow for open government and plain old honesty in one swoop. All he has to do is stop a rule change on the part of the Council of Bond Oversight. He has the authority, even the obligation, to do that and he must act one way or another by August 10.
Confused? You have a right to be. It breaks down this way.
About a year ago, the State Council of Bond Oversight adopted a new disclosure rule. The council required local governments — cities, counties, school districts and trusts — to report bond and legal fees along with other elements of new bond issues. Government entities which floated bonds were asked to fill out a simple two-page from listing basic facts about the issue including pertinent information about those fees. The form included spaces to name who got the money and to report how much they received.
Simple enough? You'd think so. But the bond community acted as if it had been nuked. Some attorneys, who otherwise are sworn to uphold the law, said they simply wouldn't do it. The Oklahoma Municipal League also got in the act, characterizing the requirement as an "unfunded mandate." OML Executive Director Danny George, a former legislator, said the requirement compels municipalities to duplicate their work. Besides, he maintained, bond legal fees are subject to the Open Records Act and anyone who wants that information can request it from the issuing authority.
So at a meeting on June 25, the Council of Bond Oversight capitulated. In typical government fashion, it adopted a second rule repealing the first one. Under the law, Gov. Henry has until August 10 to sign off on the latest change or leave things the way they are. If he is as much a believer in open government as he says he is and we believe he is, he will leave things the way they are.
Why? Because with all due respect to the financiers, the bond attorneys and even the OML, that information is rarely available at the local level no matter what existing law may require. Those who try to get it are immediately plunged into the neverland of the bureaucratic runaround or worse. We can tell you from bitter and frustrating experience that no one seems to know or somebody else has the figures or maybe it's in New York or even it's none of your business – even though that money is ultimately charged off to the taxpayers. They play the waiting game and unfortunately, they usually win.
In 21 years of covering government in Oklahoma, we can recall only three instances in which we were sure we obtained all the figures. To the governor's everlasting credit, two of those instances involved his own law firm and were revealed by his father and one of his partners, not the government involved. In the rest of the cases — and there were a dozen or more — we were outwaited, outmaneuvered, outsmarted, stonewalled or just plain lied to.
The attorney's assertion that they just won't comply speaks volumes about their motives. It is instructive to recall that two or three of the biggest Oklahoma scandals of the last two decades were rooted in failure to disclose this kind of information.
And OML's argument falls under its own weight. If the information is as readily available as the league maintains, filling out a two-page form is hardly an onerous task. It should take a clerk only a couple of minutes. But if completing that short form is such a burden that it rises to the "unfunded mandate" level, then the information must not be all that easy to get to. OML is trying to have it both ways and this governor will surely see through that.
When the Council of Bond Oversight initially ruled that the information should be gathered in one p lace for everyone to see, it acted in the interest of open government. By trying to repeal that rule, it is now attempting to provide cover for people who don't think it's to their own advantage to tell the taxpayers how much public money they're taking home. As Mark Thomas, executive director of the Oklahoma Press Association commented, "Something is very wrong with the attempt to reverse this new rule. It is good public policy to allow easy access to information about persons and firms that are profiting from bond issues.'
Do the right thing, governor. Leave the old rule in place.
|
