The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, a nonprofit group of journalists committed to investigating the inner workings of the state government, has been doing some important work in the past few years. They’ve exposed the woefully backed-up dam inspection schedule, ethics concerns with legislative conflicts of interest, and the failures of Maine’s outdated method of setting bail for those who are arrested. Their efforts have led to state officials rethinking how they conduct their business, even going as far as to convince the governor and other officials to propose bills to fix the problems.

Now the MCPIR has helped bring to light many other shortcomings of our state, through their participation in the State Integrity Investigation, the results of which were released earlier this week. The study, a thorough examination of 14 categories with 330 indicators of the state’s laws and practices,  focuses on exposing how susceptible the state government is to corruption.

The Center took part by doing the research for the State of Maine, and their work was then analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity. The entire project was funded by Omidyar Network, the Rita Allen Foundation, and the Rockefeller Family Fund.

What they found was disheartening to say the least: Maine scored an “F” overall grade in the investigation, failing in nine out of the 14 categories, such as public access to information, legislative accountability and ethics enforcement. The study shows that our new governor is less accessible to the press than his predecessors; notes that we have a law that prohibits the public from knowing how the governor uses his $30,000 expense account; and found that it’s difficult to appeal a denial for Freedom of Information access to public documents.

Maine wasn’t the only state that failed, as we were accompanied by seven others, and only five states earned a grade of B, with no As awarded. But just because no one else did well either is no excuse to rest on our laurels.

The shortcomings made clear by this study show that Maine can do a lot to improve its government ”“ most notably to clean up its ethics.

We are one of 11 states that do not have an independent agency to regulate the ethics of the executive branch, according to a 2009 study completed by the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices. If there’s any one issue to tackle that will result in immediate improvement in our government operations, it’s that. We have all sorts of unethical practices going on, from sins of omission to commission and conflicts of interest in between. Top state officials are not barred from taking jobs in the private industries they previously regulated, and many do so, while legislators regularly get away with making only minimal, undetailed disclosures about their income and investments, and do not have to list possible conflicts such as overseeing companies in which they or their family members have a financial interest.

Addressing this one category to improve the oversight of our government will result in much improvement and is certainly the place to start. Thanks to the MCPIR’s previous work, that process has already begun. Earlier this month, the Center reported that a legislative committee approved a bill to close the ethics law loophole ”“ the bill was proposed by Gov. Paul LePage himself, spurred on no doubt by the MCPIR story on the subject, and it’s encouraging to see that their investigative work is making a real impact on improving our state. This study, and all of MCPIR’s work, is journalism at its best: Pointing out the shortfalls of government so that those in power will take note and change things for the better. And it’s only just begun.

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This editorial has been updated from its original version to correct an error. Today’s editorial was written by Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski on behalf of the Journal Tribune Editorial Board. Questions? Comments? Contact Kristen by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via email at kristenm@journaltribune.com.