The Center for Public Integrity gave Montana an "F" for its weaknesses and loopholes in personal financial public-disclosure laws for governors.

Montana got 53 out of 100 points to rank 39th among the 50 states in ratings released Thursday by the center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C., group.

Also flunking were South Dakota and North Dakota, which had higher scores than Montana, and Wyoming and Idaho, which ranked lower than Montana. Washington was the lone state to receive an "A."

Montana requires a public disclosure filing not only by the governor but other state elected officials, including legislators, but excluding judges. However, the form requires minimal information and not much about the specific financial holdings of elected officials.

"As the top elected official in each state, governors sign legislation into law, recommend and approve state budgets and have wide-ranging powers to appoint department and agency heads and fill board and commission positions,'' Leah Rush, the center's states projects director, said in a press release. "Requiring them to disclose their private financial ties could reveal possible conflict of interest.''

In Montana, the reports are filed with the state political practices commissioner.

Montana got marked down by the center for not requiring disclosure of the governor's outside income and the specific investments and real estate owned by the governor and their estimated value. Some states require governors and other officials to list the values of their investments and real estate, while others allow it to be reported within a certain dollar range, as the federal congressional forms do.

The state also was penalized for not requiring this same information about the governor's spouse.

In the ratings, Montana received points for requiring these reports and insisting that governors list any other offices or directorships they hold. In addition, this state received positive scores for charging less than 50 cents a page for copies of the reports and not requiring people to pick up the reports in person.

Political practices commissioner Dennis Unsworth said at least part of the Montana's personal financial disclosure law goes back to a citizen initiative passed in 1980 to require lobbyists to file financial disclosure reports. Parts of the law were thrown out by the Montana Supreme Court, while others remained in the law.

"I think for our part, the next step is disclosure,'' Unsworth said. "I think if that information was more available to people, we'd get a higher rating. We're also working on a system to make those records more readily available to people over the Internet.''

At present, these reports are available only in paper copies from the office. Montana requires personal financial disclosure reports to be filed by governor, other statewide elected officials and legislators, but excluding Supreme Court justices.

Starting Jan. 1, the commissioner's office for the first time allowed elected officials to file their reports electronically via the Internet, Unsworth said.

As to the adequacy of Montana's law and its failure to require specific information about elected officials financial, investment and real estate holdings, Unsworth, who's been on the job less than a year, said previous commissioners generally have left major policy decisions up to the Legislature.

"I think if there were a few more people besides reporters and citizen groups looking at these things and they were more accessible, there could be more support for change, more details, more consistency,'' Unsworth said.