The Office of State Ethics recently released its report on the completed audit of Statements of Financial Interest or SFIs. The staff of the OSE undertook the endeavor to take a glimpse at the 2709 public officials that are required to file the statements as defined in the code, and by a gubernatorial executive order. These are folks who are statewide-elected officers, legislators, commissioners and deputy commissioners or department heads, members of the Executive branch, officials who have say over state contracts and the like. The intent of the filings is to provide public disclosure of their financial interests to ensure they are not being swayed in their positions of power by any particular business or fiscal benefit.
This was the first random audit of SFIs ever conducted by the Office. Until now these reports have been dutifully filed, and as it turns out in some cases only partially completed, and have been stored away at the OSE for any interested party to view. But they have not been reviewed by the agency in any formal way until this report. Lobbyist filings, on the other hand, have been audited for years by the agency. According to the OSE website, there are 819 client lobbyists. At the recent lottery drawing of client lobbyist names for audit the Chair drew 40 names for review. This procedure will be repeated twice a year for the lobbying community.
The SFI audit randomly selected 5% of filers as their sample and reviewed their reports for the level of compliance with the statute. The results showed that 78.5% of filers completed their reports online. The lobbyist financial report system has a mandatory electronic filing requirement. Staff found that the majority of those selected for SFI review, 52.6%, filed without errors. Here are some of the other results (Source: Office of State Ethics 2008 Statements Of Financial Interests, July 9, 2009)
1. Approximately 29.6% of audited forms either failed to answer, or failed to check as not applicable, various questions on the 2008 form.
2. Approximately 15.6% of audited forms failed to adequately disclose the name of the person or entity that provided income to the filer in 2008.
3. Approximately 15.6% of audited forms failed to adequately disclose the name of the person or entity that provided income to the filer’s spouse in 2008.
4. Approximately 5.2% of audited forms failed to adequately disclose the name of securities with a market value over $5,000 owned by the filer in 2008.
5. Approximately 1.5% of audited forms disclosed personal lease details, and not details of leases with the state in 2008.
Link to Full Report: Click here
The OSE report concludes that “while a number of errors or non-compliant responses were discovered, none rose to the level of negligence or willful non-compliance. From this random sample, it can fairly be concluded that SFI filers take seriously their responsibility to report their financial interests and strive to provide accurate and complete responses.” The report goes on to conclude that the audit was a worthwhile exercise and should be replicated annually. We couldn’t agree more. But as in with the lobbyist filings, it should not just be about the completeness of the form but the accuracy of the information. In order to ensure that the intent of the statute is carried out the agency must also investigate the validity of the disclosures. Both regulated communities can then say they are equally assessed and the Office of State Ethics can say it is doing everything in its power to seek out corruption.
