Hundreds of documents containing employee financial disclosure that originated with a state agency were found flying around a south side neighborhood on Thursday.
The personal information was seen blowing around an alley near Hinkle Avenue, NBC 4's Beth Dal Ponte reported. Hundreds of documents containing employee financial disclosure that originated with a state agency were found flying around a south side neighborhood on Thursday.
The personal information was seen blowing around an alley near Hinkle Avenue, NBC 4's Beth Dal Ponte reported.
Bill Ward, who lives in the area, spotted the documents and collected them.
"I started to pick them up and then I realized they belonged to the Ohio Ethics Commission," Ward said. "They had Social Security numbers and financial statements, so I was worried."
The documents monitored state employees' finances, Dal Ponte reported. The state's archives were supposed to have them, but how they escaped state custody was a mystery.
"We're upset the records aren't where they should be and that they're out floating around in some way," said David Freel of the Ohio Ethics Commission. "These documents were originally public records. At the time, they were filed in the 70s."
Michael Upton's father's information was among the stray paperwork.
"It seems like human error. That is the most common occurrence. It's just incompetence, really," Upton said.
Bill Laidlaw of the Ohio Historical Society's state archives said his agency could account for all of the volume of papers it is supposed to have.
"We began looking through all of our files to see if anything was missing," Laidlaw said.