Louisiana House Bill 80 (2008)
From Sunshine Review
House Bill 80 applies to all cities in Louisiana with a population greater than 250,000 people. This law was passed with the intention of making it easier and delegating authority to local governments to create their own watchdog positions, such as inspector generals, to assure accountability, transparency and good ethical behavior among the local government. This is one of several pieces of legislation passed during the special session on transparency and ethics reform held from February 10th to February 26th 2008.
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[edit] Scope
Any municipality may create an ethics review board, an office of the inspector general or both. The municipality may designate either entity as a law enforcement body, giving them all of the authority and responsibility included with that title.
[edit] Investigative Powers
A local board of ethics or office of the inspector general may make investigations inside or outside the state of Louisiana in connection with their duties in any 'legally appropriate manner'.
The local ethics review board, or office of the inspector general may:
- Administer oaths and take testimony
- Compel witnesses to testify upon subpoena issued by a circuit court judge in the parish they are based in.
- May subpoena for access to private records, subpoena must be issued by a circuit court judge in the parish they are based in.
- A local board of ethics or office of inspector general has the authority to examine, review, audit, inspect, and investigate the records, books, reports, documents, papers, correspondence, accounts, audits, inspections, reviews, recommendations, plans, films, tapes, pictures, computer hard drives, software data, hardware data, e-mails, instant messages, text messages, and any other data and material relevant to any matter under audit, investigation, inspection, or performance review of all entities of municipal government or entities receiving funds through or for the benefit of municipal government.
- This includes every municipal officer, employee, elected official, department, agency, board, commission, public benefit corporation, quasi public agency or body, contractor, subcontractor, licensee of the municipality, and every applicant for certification of eligibility for a municipal contract or program.
[edit] Quasi-Governmental Entities
This covers quasi-governmental entities, which are defined as:
- Any organization that is a component of local government that serves a public purpose
- Any organization that is created for a public purpose and the governing body is elected by the general public, or a government entity appoints most of the governing body, or the entity receives public funds collected specifically for it, or the entity my issue debt that is tax free from federal tax, or the entity may be dissolved and its assets assumed by a government entity.
- Any not for profit organization that receives or spends $25,000 or more of local assistance in a year. This includes grants, loans, awards, transfer of property, and tax revenue
- Any organization subject to open meeting laws
[edit] Confidentiality of preliminary investigations
Any records that the board of ethics or office of inspector general has obtained in the course of an investigation must remain confidential until all investigations, internally, civil, or criminal are completed. The exception to this is if the local ethics review board or office of the inspector general chooses to issue a report or to file charges after a preliminary investigation all records of the preliminary investigation may become public.
If any member of a local board of ethics or office of the inspector general, secretary, or employee, who makes public any confidential records will be guilty of a misdemeanor offense and subject to up to one year in jail and $2,000 in fines. [1]
[edit] House Votes
- Yeas:99
- Nays:0
- Absent:5
[edit] Senate Votes
- Yeas:37
- Nays:0
- Absent:2
