The Center for Public Integrity

Rhode Island garnered a respectable ninth in the nation ranking from the State Integrity Investigation in late March, but that was before elimination of the state’s internal auditing agency was proposed as part of the governor’s  budget.  

Rhode Island’s Chief Auditor, H. Chris Der Vartanian,  announced his resignation Wednesday in the wake of Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s plan to cut the Bureau of Audits, citing the state’s ranking as a reason to keep the independent auditing arm in place.

“Ironically, this proposed elimination comes at a time when the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) one of the country’s oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations categorized the Bureau as one of the highest performing state internal audit agencies in the country and one of the major factors leading to the state of Rhode Island achieving a ranking of [9^th] in the nation in terms of preventing corruption,”  Der Vartanian  wrote in a resignation letter to Gov. Chafee and Richard Licht, the director of administration.

Rhode Island received a B+ in internal auditing on its corruption risk scorecard. It received its highest grade, an A, for redistricting, and scored its lowest, an F, on state civil service management.  The state’s overall grade was C.  

Der Vartanian, who worked in state government for 21 years, said he thought it was important for public officials to review the report card to determine what policies need improvement.

In the past five years, Massachusetts residents have been forced to witness an embarrassing parade of fallen public servants caught up in corrupt acts, handcuffed and led away. Their names still prompt a wince: Finneran, DiMasi, Wilkerson, Turner, Marzilli and more. The scandals’ cost to the public purse is untold; the cost to public confidence in government leadership incalculable.

Yet the overwhelming majority of public servants embroiled in criminal or ethical scandals since 2007 are people most in Massachusetts have never heard of. They draw their paychecks far from power centers like Beacon Hill or city halls, but in small town schools and libraries, municipal police and fire stations, in local housing projects, on rural postal routes, in state prisons, county jails and courthouses dotting the Bay State. From a former Springfield school teacher accused of insurance fraud to a Lawrence police officer charged with rape to a Dighton town official sanctioned for hiring his relatives, hundreds of ordinary individuals paid to serve the public interest have been charged with or admitted to crimes and ethical misconduct in Massachusetts, according to a new analysis by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

The NECIR compilation of public servants accused of crimes or ethical misconduct was culled over the past several months from news reports, agency press releases, state and federal court records, Ethics Commission dispositions, government annual reports and interviews with municipal, state and federal officials.  

Citing the state’s F grade for redistricting in the State Integrity Investigation, Common Cause/NY filed an amicus brief earlier this week supporting a challenge to the constitutionality of New York’s newly-drawn 63^rd Senate district.

“The entire process was tremendously opaque,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause/NY. “It is a very discouraging for the average citizen to see the state carved up in districts as a result of political negotiations behind closed doors.”

The Common Cause brief supports a lawsuit brought by New York Senate Democrats who claim that Senate Republicans, currently the majority, manipulated the state constitution’s population counting formula – used every 10 years to determine the size of the Senate –  to their advantage. The lawsuit alleges that Senate Republicans  applied two different methods of calculating census growth in different  counties,  allowing them to manipulate the numbers to give them an extra seat in Republican upstate New York.

The lawsuit was dismissed by the state Supreme Court on April 13. The court ruled that increasing the size of the state Senate was not unconstitutional, but found the use of different counting methods “disturbing.” A spokesman for Senate Republicans said “we were required to add a 63^rd seat to comply with the Constitution.” Democrats appealed to the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, and arguments are set for today.  

Open government advocates in Florida are using results from the State Integrity Investigation to push for grassroots ethics reform. The Sunshine State received a C- on its corruption risk scorecard, ranking it 18^th among the states.

Dan Krassner, executive director of Integrity Florida, said the project’s scorecards provide an easy roadmap for reform, with 330 specific policy questions and measurable outcomes.

“We looked at where our state scored the lowest,” said Krassner, who noted that Florida received its only F grade for ethics enforcement agencies.

Florida is one of about 30 states where the ethics commission is unable to self-start investigations; commissioners can only investigate citizens’ complaints. But Integrity Florida, a group that aims to promote accountability in government and expose corruption, is pushing for changes that would allow the commission to initiate its own probes.  

“That is a direct response to the State Integrity Investigation,” Krassner said. “Our organization is following up with state-level research to pass that policy reform next legislative session.”

Integrity Florida, which launched in late March, aims to inspire reform by engaging with ethics organizations and government officials, while also producing reports on potential corruption risks in the state.  A report to be released this week will highlight the lack of transparency at Florida’s economic development agency.

AUGUSTA — Maine has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations run by legislative leaders or the spouses of high-level state officials since 2003. But because of a loophole in ethics law, the public didn’t know about it.

That won’t happen again.

A bill to require disclosure of state contracts with legislators and executive branch officials has sailed to approval through the House and the Senate.

The bill, L.D. 1806, now awaits the signature of Gov. Paul LePage, who said Thursday he will sign it.

“It is reasonable to ask our elected leaders to disclose who is paying them. It is good for the health of our democracy and the people of Maine,” said LePage.

“This will increase trust in the system and ensure that people have the opportunity to take appropriate action and make decisions accordingly.”

LePage proposed the bill after a January investigation by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting revealed that organizations run by top legislators or the family members of executive branch officials had received $235 million in state contracts between 2003 and 2010.

In some cases, lawmakers served on the committees that controlled the spending that went to their organizations.

But the spending was never disclosed to the public in state ethics filings.

Sen. Kevin Raye (R-Perry) the senate president, was the lead sponsor of LePage’s bill. He said Thursday that the bill’s passage “means a greater degree of transparency” for citizens, who will be able to spot potential legislative conflicts of interests.

“They can be more confident that they’re aware of the circumstances surrounding individual legislators and their votes in the legislature,” said Raye.

In the aftermath of receiving an F grade on the State Integrity Investigation for corruption risk, Maine’s governor and state leaders plan to take legislative action. Maine ranks 46^th among the 50 states.

Gov. Paul LePage said in a statement that his office has been reviewing data from the State Integrity Investigation and already introduced a bill earlier this year to improve the state’s lax financial disclosure requirements. The proposed legislation calls for legislators and executive branch officials to report whether their outside private organizations received state contracts.  

“This is the direction we need to move in to improve Maine’s grade,” LePage said. “It’s clear that many states struggle with this issue. However, it is an issue that I will continue to work on improving on behalf of the Maine taxpayer.” The bill has been approved in committee, but has not yet reached the Legislature for a vote.

As reported in the State Integrity Investigation, the state doled out millions — nearly $253 million between 2003 and 2010 — to organizations affiliated with lawmakers and public officials. None of that information was disclosed, nor was it required to be.  

Delaware lawmakers have launched a new legislative effort designed in part to improve the C- grade the state received on lobbying disclosure from the State Integrity Investigation. The First State’s grade ranked it 22^nd among the 50 states in that category.  

The bill would require lobbyists to disclose the number of each bill or resolution on which they lobbied. The measure also calls for electronic filing of expenditures and registration forms by lobbyists, and requires the state’s Public Integrity Commission to post reports online “to allow public to review such information organized by bill, resolution, lobbyist, employer and subject.” 

In a press conference Wednesday, Senate President Pro Tem Anthony DeLuca (D-Varlano), called the proposed legislation a “big step” for public accessibility.

“If you look overall at what we’re trying to accomplish, and you look at the electronics involved in this and the fact that we’re going to be getting an updated system that the public can easily access, that is a major thing,” DeLuca said.

But the bill does not address several areas in which Delaware lost points in the State Integrity Investigation. Delaware lobbyists would still not be required to disclose their salary or overall compensation — only expenses related to food, travel, gifts and entertainment. And oversight would apparently not be affected. On a State Integrity Investigation scorecard question about effective monitoring of lobbying disclosure, Delaware scored only 16 percent. 

Citing the Buckeye State’s D grade from the State Integrity Investigation, Democratic legislators in Ohio have called for a bipartisan task force to review current ethics laws and consider new legislation to strengthen accountability and transparency.

“We have a responsibility to the people of Ohio and it is simply unacceptable for us to fail to ensure government is working for Ohioan’s best interest at all times, not for special interest or influences,” said Rep. Jay Goyal (D-Mansfield), in a press conference held Tuesday.  

In a letter to legislative leaders, the House Democrats noted “great concern over the recent ethics report from the State Integrity Investigation.” Among the 14 categories on the state scorecard, they pointed out, Ohio only received two grades higher than a C-.

The state failed three categories: legislative accountability, lobbying disclosure and redistricting. Ohio also received D- grades for executive accountability and judicial accountability, D+ grades for pension fund management and insurance commissions and C- grades for public access to information, political financing, procurement and ethics enforcement.

Rep. Ted Celeste (D-Grandview Heights) said the grades are not something to be proud of, especially since the state received F’s in a few individual categories. “We should do everything we can to improve our efforts here,” he said.

In response to South Carolina’s failing grade from the State Integrity Investigation, House Democrats there have proposed historic ethics reforms. South Carolina was ranked 45^th out of 50 states, with a score of 57 percent.

“It is time for South Carolina to get serious about ethics reform,” said Rep. Boyd Brown, (D-Winnsboro), in a press release that cited the investigation’s “scathing” assessment of South Carolina. “Corruption is plaguing our great state and it’s high time we do something about it. South Carolina is ripe for another ‘Operation Lost Trust’ and I refuse to stand idly by while that happens again.”

Operation Lost Trust, a vote buying scandal that involved more than two dozen lobbyists and lawmakers, sparked a major ethics overall in South Carolina in the early 1990s, severely restricting gifts and campaign contributions from lobbyists.The new proposal includes term limits, a revamping of the State Ethics Commissions and a two-year ban on the revolving door between legislating and lobbying.

South Carolina’s scores on the State Integrity Investigation indicate the state has a variety of problems. Out of the 14 categories investigated in the project, South Carolina received an F in nine areas: public access to information, executive accountability, legislative accountability, judicial accountability, state budget processes, state civil service management, state pension fund management, ethics enforcement agencies and state insurance commission oversight.

The state received B grades for lobbying disclosure, procurement, and redistricting.