FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE GETTING BACK ON TRACK @ 07 Jul 2006

Ethics Matters is pleased to report that the financial disclosure requirements of the ethics law are now back on the road to being implemented. Ethics Matters’ attorney Stephen Sachs wrote County Attorney Patrick Thompson expressing Ethics Matters’ belief that the County had improperly distributed obsolete financial disclosure forms and had not met the legal requirements of the new law. (See Sachs letter to Thompson re financial disclosure in Documents on this website) Subsequently, the County Ethics Commission voted last week to distribute a financial disclosure form that carries out the requirements of the current ethics law.

The new disclosure form will be distributed following a 14 day public comment period. The deadline for completion of the financial disclosure form has been extended to April 10. You can view the proposed form at the Ethics Commissions website on the County website (<A title=http://www.qac.org/ href="http://www.qac.org/">www.qac.org</A>.)..

There are still some problems with the financial disclosure form as posted on the County website. Ethics Matters has submitted comments to the Ethics Commission pointing out them out.   Below is a summary of the problems. (For a complete account, see Ethics Matters’ comments on financial disclosure form under Documents)

(1) There are a number of key words and phrases used in the disclosure form that have a special meaning in the context of the Ethics code. They are carefully defined in the definition section of the code. But the definitions are not provided as part of the financial disclosure form. This lack of information is sure to cause filers to omit required information, which defeats the purpose of financial disclosure accountability to the public -- and subjects officials/employees to complaints for non-disclosure.

(2) Unfortunately, in the one instance where the form seems to provide a definition, it misleadingly provides only a partial definition and so invites evasion of the disclosure required by law. The form states that “reportable real estate holdings or interests include those held individually, jointly, in partnership or corporately,” omitting the rest of the definition, including “directly or indirectly.” This is a serious omission that could invite evasion of the disclosure required by the law. For example, a person filing the form might take the position that he does not need to report an ownership interest in a parent corporation whose subsidiary owns real estate in the County, claiming that he does not “individually, jointly, in partnership, or corporately “own real estate in the County, inasmuch as the only corporation he has an interest in is not itself an owner of County real estate. It should be made clear, by providing the complete definition, that ownership interests held “indirectly” must be disclosed as required by law.

3) A third problem with the disclosure form is its expansion of the code’s provision requiring disclosure of “any office, directorship, partnership, or salaried employment in any business entity” held by an official/employee or spouse. The form expands this to include such positions held by a family member in the household. While this may be a good idea, the form cannot add requirements that are not written in the law it is implementing. Perhaps the Ethics Commission may want to suggest this expansion of accountability as one of the amendments to the new law.

Ethics Standards for Planning and Zoning Boards
            Ethics Matters gave testimony in support of Del. Smigiel’s bill, HB 85, to establish a “Task Force to Create Standards of Ethics for Planning and Zoning Boards.” You can read the testimony in Documents on this website.
February 3, 2006