Municipal Attorney Dennis Wheeler said reasonable people might disagree with some of his conclusions faulting Mayor Mark Begich's financial reporting to the Anchorage Assembly last year. It appears he was right.

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Sen. Mark Begich

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Matt Claman

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"I'm sure there are other attorneys in the community who could look into the same things and reach an equally reasonable conclusion that Mayor Begich did nothing wrong," said Assemblyman Matt Claman, who chaired the Assembly during last fall's deliberations on the budget and labor contracts and later took over as acting mayor when Begich stepped down to take a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Claman, who announced a $17 million budget deficit less than two weeks after following Begich as mayor on Jan. 3, still said he is "absolutely" comfortable with the information the Begich administration provided to the group.

The Assembly "was very much aware that the potential for financial problems was there," Claman said, as the city's year-end financial decisions were made at a time of national and global economic calamity.

Wheeler's report, requested by the Assembly at the end of September, looked into the quantity and quality of information Begich gave the group about the city's revenues and financial outlook during a critical period last fall. He said that Begich knew revenues for last year and this year were not going to match approved spending levels, and that the former mayor failed to report that adequately to the Assembly.

Begich insists that the Assembly was fully informed and that the attacks on him are politically motivated. Mayor Dan Sullivan said he had "absolutely no input" into Wheeler's review.

The day after the report hit the street, Assembly members were digesting the material and coming to conflicting opinions. Assembly members Jennifer Johnston and Chris Birch said they don't think the Assembly got answers to all its questions.

"In 20-20 hindsight, looking back ... you can see where we asked leading questions and never really got a full disclosure," Johnston said. Both she and Birch were still working their way through Wheeler's 60-page report, which was e-mailed to the body late Wednesday afternoon.

"I do feel that there's been a breach of public trust, but what does that mean?" Johnston asked. "Legally, what does it mean?"

The Assembly probably will tackle that question at its next regularly scheduled meeting in early December.

"I think the real question, myself being one who voted against the labor contracts, (is) whether or not knowledge that was withheld during the process would have changed any other votes," Birch said.

But that's a moot point. Wheeler said the labor contracts are valid, and Birch said he doesn't foresee support for trying to change them after the fact.

Wheeler's report says the Assembly should consider adopting new standards covering when mayors are required to disclose bad news and what happens if they don't. Claman said a couple of measures already introduced would cover some of that ground, including one by Assemblywoman Elvi Gray-Jackson that would require mayors to notify the Assembly when budget changes of more than $100,000 are made.

In a written statement issued after Wheeler's report was released Wednesday, Begich said the Assembly was fully informed of the city's financial circumstances.

"The suggestion that the Assembly was not fully informed about the Municipality's financial condition is absurd and totally at odds with the record," Begich said. "I could not, however, hold their collective hand to make sure they retained and analyzed the information provided."

Begich also noted that the Assembly had eliminated an employee whose job was to help them understand budgets and financial records. Both Claman and Gray-Jackson agreed that move hampered the group's ability to analyze information that came to them. Gray-Jackson once served in that position before her election.

"They hurt themselves, they really did, and this latest issue with then-Mayor Begich confirms that fact," she said Thursday.

But Gray-Jackson also said Begich and his executives provided a lot of information and answered a lot of questions about city finances.

"In my opinion we got what was available at the time it was available," she said. "I was at those work sessions, I was at those committee meetings, I worked with (budget director) Wanda Phillips ... and we got a lot of information. All of us did."

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