MURRIETA - Voters have an important tool to ensure elected leaders are keeping their trust, gover... Ousted city councilman to

In California, they call it a statement of economic interests -- a yearly digest of an official's financial books laid out for public scrutiny.

Signed under penalty of perjury, elected leaders must divulge their employment, sources of income, investments, clients, property holdings and other personal business activities.

The forms are at the root of a criminal case involving former longtime Murrieta Councilman Jack van Haaster, who was ousted in a recall last year.

He faces an arraignment Tuesday in Riverside County Superior Court on 10 felony charges of failing to report a half-million dollars in loans over a five-year period and his financial link to his daughter's proposed day-care center expansion.

Experts admit the documents -- also known statewide as a Form 700 -- can get complicated, especially if officials do not understand their purpose or financial-disclosure laws.

However, ignorance of the laws is never an excuse, said Steve Levin, political reform project director of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies.

The documents also are a good way for elected leaders to learn where they may have a conflict since laws bar officials from decisions that could affect their financial interests, said JoAnne Speers, executive director of the Institute for Local Government in Sacramento.

Disclosure forms spanning van Haaster's 13 years on the Murrieta City Council show he was an owner of a home on First Avenue and the Washington Avenue building where he works as an accountant.

Missing from the forms are a half-million dollars in loans to van Haaster between 2000 and 2005 from business associates, friends and employees, prosecutors said in court documents detailing the investigation.

Also unreported is more than $100,000 shuffled within that time in and out of a bank account set up for his daughter's day-care center, the documents said.

Her father met individually with four planning commissioners at his accounting office and showed them plans for the proposed center. The commission approved the project a few weeks later.

Around the same time, the councilman came under fire from residents near the proposed facility for voting on nearby street improvements that included a road close to his daughter's project.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission typically is charged with holding public officials accountable for their statements. Prosecutors can also file charges.

To ensure elected leaders understand the form, the commission offers an online step-by-step guide and a toll-free advice line they can call with questions, spokeswoman Whitney Barazoto said.

In October, the commission fined former Newark Unified School District board member Eileen McDonald $29,000 for voting in 15 decisions that had a "reasonably foreseeable" financial effect on her self-owned travel agency, a staff report said.

Former Chino City Councilman Larry Wahl was fined $12,000 in 2004 for voting as a planning commissioner on projects involving local developers who donated to his campaign and not disclosing those contributions during hearings, a report said.

Signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last year, Assembly Bill 1234 mandates that officials receive guidance by 2007 on core topics such as conflicts of interest, campaign contributions and open-meeting laws. Training will repeat every two years.

"Ninety-eight percent of public officials aren't trying to do a runaround on the public," said Leah Rush, director of state projects at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.

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