Panelists at this morning’s Business Record Power Breakfast warned against over-regulation as the dust settles on last year’s Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium pay scandal. The state Legislature last year passed Senate File 2410, which increases state oversight of non-profits receiving $500,000 or more in state or federal funding and requires   them to publish legal notices of their expenses and disbursements.

That could prove onerous to small non-profits, said Steven Zumbach, a partner at the Belin law firm and one of the panelists for this morning’s session, “Implications of 2006 Board Scandals.” He admonished state lawmakers looking at increasing oversight to “be surgical about it, be tactical about it.”

Other panelists were United Way of Central Iowa CEO Shannon Cofield, Greater Des Moines Community Foundation President Johnny Danos, and state Ombudsman William Angrick. Polk County Supervisor E.J. Giovannetti moderated the discussion.

There are 14,000 public charities in Iowa, which in 2004 combined had $20.7 billion in assets, according to a yet-to-be released report from the University of Iowa. Those charities employee 9 percent of state workers, who earn 8 percent of the total payroll in Iowa. “They are an integral part of life in Iowa,” Danos said. “An over-reaction would be detrimental to the fabric of our non-profit structure.”

Attorney Jonathan Wilson, who has represented CEITC throughout its restructuring efforts, was in attendance and suggested that even the most rigid oversight might not have prevented such a scandal. “Just a hypothetical,” he said, “but with all the safeguards and internal controls, if the chairman of the board, the CEO, the COO and the CFO are complicit and colluding, and you’re getting clean reports from three individual outside auditors, would your agency catch that?”

A tape of this morning’s session will be made available to Des Moines’ public access channel.