As we head into the summer months, the Office of State Ethics has a lot going on of interest to the regulated community. As we posted last week, the agency drew 40 names of client lobbyists who will be subject to audit during the coming months. In addition, a recent email notified public officials that they will for the second year be auditing a 10% sample of their Statements of Financial Interest or SFIs. Last year’s audit demonstrated that 30% of SFI respondents had incomplete forms with the most common errors being “failure to disclose state income, failure to disclose spouse’s income, failure to adequately disclose the name of the person or entity that provided income to the filer or the filer’s spouse, failure to adequately disclose the name of securities with a market value in excess of $5,000 owned by the filer particularly securities held through mutual funds or retirement funds, and disclosing personal lease details, which are not required.”
At last week’s Advisory Board meeting, Executive Director Carol Carson reported to the members that the Enforcement Division would begin sending out notices to public officials 30 days after a report has been filed by a lobbyist indicating that a benefit for that public official has been made. This is in accordance with a statute that has been on the books but the previous administration of the agency had never enforced. She also reported to the members that the lobbyist community had responded with great concern over the agency’s proposal to create a lobbyist photo id badge and photo online directory. During the public comment period of the meeting, several representatives of the lobbying community reiterated those concerns, chief among them being safety. They expressed their thanks to Ms. Carson for her willingness to sit down and hear their concerns on the matter over the interim.
Finally, the Board members discussed the need to find replacements for the three open seats on the nine-member Advisory Board. At their current roster of six, they are at quorum and must have perfect attendance in order to take action. Their discussion centered on the restrictive nature of the policies for past, current and future actions by members and that the nature of these restrictions is the reason for the difficulty in finding people to serve. The Board members discussed going over the merits of the restriction to see if each was necessary and then reviewing them at the next meeting.
More next month….
Tags: benefit, Citizens Ethic's Advisory Board, lobbyist audit, lobbyist photo id, Office of State Ethics, SFI
