There's a reason many elected officials don't mind filing their annual financial disclosure form: If fails to give the public a good sense of the person's finances and potential conflicts.

While perusing the forms submitted by state lawmakers, I came across loopholes so big you could put all 63 Assembly members and senators through them.

To be sure, a lawmaker who wants to err on the side of full disclosure typically provides more information than is necessary.

Several legislators listed a $300 gift from Station Casinos to attend the opening of Red Rock Resort last year, even though the Legislative Counsel Bureau has opined that attending such openings is more along the lines of an official duty than a gift.

Sen. Joe Heck, R-Henderson, listed the Red Rock event and a $1,500 ticket he got to the Agassi Grand Slam for Children event from Kummer, Kaempfer, Bonner, Renshaw & Ferrario in the spirit of "full disclosure." Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, does the same.

But many lawmakers who attended the Red Rock event didn't list it, keeping with the spirit of disclosure the LCB has enabled.

Then there are lawmakers who provide just enough of the required information to make you ask more questions.

We know, for example, that Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, received $1,000 gifts from both the Nevada Resort Association and the U.S. Tobacco Co. Turns out the gifts were tickets to the National Finals Rodeo.

Rhoads, a rancher by trade, is also required to list the specific property he owns. This can get tough when you're dealing with grazing land. And while Assemblyman John Marvel, R-Battle Mountain, a fellow rancher, painstakingly lists the legal description of his grazing land, Rhoads just satisfies the requirement by listing: "Elko, Lander and Eureka."

Heck, if Sen. Rhoads owns three of Nevada's 17 counties, he certainly doesn't need any presents from big tobacco and gaming. But we get the idea that he's a rancher with a lot of land in rural Nevada.

Where interpretation of the disclosure forms gets tricky is rooting out specific conflicts the lawmaker may encounter in his or her public life. Take the case of Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas.

At the start of the year, Care took a job with McDonald, Carano & Wilson, a law firm with numerous lobbying contracts that put its partners before the Legislature. We know about this new job because Care, ever the cautious attorney, has asked the state Ethics Commission whether he should automatically abstain from an issue merely because a law partner is representing a client with an interest in the issue.

But Care's financial disclosure form, due Jan. 15, contains no mention of McDonald, Carano & Wilson. It lists Care's old firm. "It's like when you're doing your taxes, you don't list the income you've got right now in this year, you report on what happened last year," Care said. "So, I reported where I worked in calendar year '06. ... I'm just following what the form asks me to list."

So, if you go to the main clearinghouse of financial disclosure forms, the secretary of state's office, you would have no idea that Care has potential conflicts because his firm is a major lobbying player in Carson City. You would have no idea, even though Care has raised the issue himself and has also filed information about his employment with McDonald, Carano & Wilson with the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

While Care takes the backward view of disclosure, other politicians use it to reflect current employment.

I was surprised, for example, not to see Payroll Solutions on Sen. Bob Beers' disclosure. Responding to an e-mail about his employment, Beers, R-Las Vegas, said: "Payroll Solutions may have a legislative agenda. I quit to avoid a possible conflict of interest, hence the new jobs and rapid rate of employment changes." Beers also accepted a volunteer position with a community group after he filed his annual disclosure and plans to submit an amended form to reflect his work as treasurer of the Tonopah Historic Mining Park Foundation.

But using the moving-forward method of filling out the form also has its downside.

For example, if you didn't already know that freshman Assemblywoman RoseMary Womack had decades of experience in real estate in Southern Nevada, you would never guess it from her form. Womack, D-Henderson, said she "didn't want any conflicts," so she put her real estate license "on ice."

An inactive license may not deactivate all conflicts in Carson City, but at least she's heading into her first session concentrating only on the matters before her and not wheeling and dealing in the residential and commercial real estate market.

There are also limits to the information you get when you know the name of a person's employer. Knowing someone is a sole proprietor doesn't give you any indication of their clients or contracts.

Lawmakers could go a long way toward transparency by making the disclosure form more meaningful. But they've never been good at shining too much light on themselves.

Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.