PSC official may face $24,000 in ethics fines

Georgia’s newest utility regulator could face more than $20,000 in fines for state ethics violations stemming from a 2002 campaign.

State Public Service Commissioner Lauren McDonald didn’t quibble with the facts behind the ethics commission allegations, which were heard by an administratitve law judge Monday.

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HYOSUB SHIN / hshin@ajc.com

Commissioner Lauren McDonald asked that the case be dismissed because of its age.

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But McDonald said he’d corrected his campaign disclosures years ago, according to a transcript of his Monday remarks. He asked that the case be dismissed because of its age, and that his fine be $5,000.

McDonald’s violations happened during his 2002 PSC campaign. He lost to former commissioner Angela Speir, then won the seat back last fall.

The ethics commission said McDonald filed one report late and filed others with missing information. He failed to properly record 80 individual contributions totaling $46,000 and 14 expenditures totaling $76,000, for instance.

McDonald amended his filings to include the missing information after a complaint filed in 2004. He believed, he said, that “I was given a clean bill of health” then and was “surprised to say the least” last fall after learning the state was pursuing the issue.

State ethics law changed in 2005. It allows fines of up to $1,000 per violation, which the commission defines as each piece of bad information in a disclosure.

An ethics commission witness said McDonald’s fines could hit $24,000, based on an internal formula that weighs the seriousness of each violation.

The administrative law judge will rule sometime within the next 30 days. The commission can accept or overrule that recommendation.