The campaign finance forms for candidates seeking county, school and city offices in many places in Minnesota need to be consistent with the forms used at the state level.

Candidates seeking office at the state level use forms that require them to declare a start balance and an end balance.

Forms often used by cities, schools and counties do not. They just state the dollars given and spent.

State-level candidates also understand that money from their own pockets indeed is a contribution to their campaign.

Many times, city and county candidates do not, so their forms show no contributions even though many dollars are spent. But candidates should be made aware of that fact. A better form would tell them.

State-level candidates can choose between filing electronically or via the paper method. The electronic and paper forms are quite alike.

Local candidates usually only file the paper way, which is fine, but it would be easier for the public to understand the filings if local governments used the same forms as the state government.

And we’ve seen campaign finance disclosure forms in many states. The one the state-level candidates use in Minnesota is fairly good. But local forms in Minnesota often are poor.

It’s not the most pressing issue in Minnesota, obviously, but in the efforts recently to better the election system in Minnesota in the wake of the Coleman-Franken recount, this could be another improvement — a simple one at that.

In many states, there is one form for campaign finance disclosure no matter the level of office. Let’s shoot for that in Minnesota, too.