Local Officials Must Take Financial Disclosure More Seriously | Editorial

Why so secret? Required for the first time to disclose more personal financial information under a new Florida ethics law, scores of mayors and commissioners have quit rather than reveal the details of their finances. It’s overreach, they say. Many are challenging the law in federal court. Delving into specifics of a person’s stock portfolios, personal debts, partnership income and the names of those who bought property is a bureaucratic form of TMI — too much information. Form 1 is a bare-bones statement of financial interests, yet hundreds of political appointees and government workers refuse to submit it, or don’t fill it out properly. If too much information is the grievance, what are we to make of local elected officials, board appointees and key government workers who for years flouted state law by failing to provide a financial equivalent of name, rank and serial number? The plain vanilla questions of Florida’s Form 1 apply to certain government employees and appointees.