Five months after an acrimonious shake-up and four months after launching an ambitious overhaul, the state ethics commission has yet to fully regain it's footing.
While watchdog groups urge the commission to quickly get back to the business of enforcing the law, commissioners and others say progress has been made. The ethics commission is the state agency responsible for making sure Georgia public officials are following laws on campaign fundraising and spending, while also monitoring lobbyists' spending on state officials.
"We have really made nice strides over the past three or four months," commissioner Kevin Abernethy said. "I'm confident we can work through this initial transition period."
In June, then-executive director Stacey Kalberman and Patrick Millsaps, at the time the commission chairman, engaged in a public spat over whether Millsaps pushed to eliminate her deputy's position and cut Kalberman's pay over the pair's investigation into Gov. Nathan Deal's campaign spending practices. Millsaps, who cycled off the commission this month, said that had no impact on the commission's decision to make major changes to the agency's structure.
Instead, Millsaps said at the time, it was about the 40 percent cut in the commission's budget since 2008, and the need to better manage its finances and its operations. It's working, Millsaps said this month.
Kalberman agreed to resign over the summer and her replacement, former lobbyist Holly LaBerge, is tasked with being more of an administrator than an investigator, a role in which Kalberman and her deputy, former prosecutor Sherilyn Streicker, were more involved. A new auditor was hired to help review the thousands of reports elected officials and candidates file each year. The commission contracted with an outside attorney to handle advisory opinions and Laberge is in the process of hiring a staff attorney and an information technology director.
Millsaps, Abernethy and state House Ethics Committee chairman Joe Wilkinson, R-Sandy Springs, said their confidence in the commission's direction begins with LaBerge.
"She is a tremendous asset," said Wilkinson, who has great influence in the Legislature over anything related to the commission.
Wilkinson said he and his Senate counterpart, Sen. John Crosby, R-Tifton, met with LaBerge and "we had very lengthy discussions about the changes that she is going to make or is in the process of making to make the commission as efficient as possible."
LaBerge refused to comment for this story.
Millsaps and former vice chairman Josh Belinfante crafted the overhaul that split the commission staff into an administrative division, an investigative division and a compliance-education division. While LaBerge will oversee all three, she will focus most of her own work on administration.
"The prior two executive directors really put themselves almost exclusively over on the prosecution side of what we do," Millsaps said. "If the top of your organization is focused on one of your responsibilities the other responsibilities kind of don't get as much time as they should."
The prosecutorial division will include staff auditors and the attorney LaBerge will hire, plus assistance from Attorney General Sam Olens' office.
While these changes are being made, however, core functions of the agency have suffered. The agency is also swamped with thousands of local officials who are filing with the state for the first time, thanks to a change in state law. Those elected officials and candidates had previously filed with their local court clerks.
Hundreds of local mayors, school board members, judges and even some coroners are delinquent and agency staff must devote time and resources to each case. Lawmakers also required the commission to contact anyone in arrears via certified mail, adding tens of thousands of dollars in expenses.
Meanwhile, larger investigations have stalled -- or worse. Earlier this month the commission dismissed a case filed in 2004 because the statute of limitations had expired.
Abernethy, the current commissioner, said all investigations, including the one into Deal's finances, are "ongoing."
"They were never suspended," Abernethy said. "Now, we did have some personnel change and that took some time. But the file was never closed and put on a shelf."
Abernethy would not discuss specific cases.
But there have been significant delays. William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, a good-government watchdog group, said no action has been taken on a complaint they filed 10 months ago regarding a lobbyist who paid for Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, to travel to Europe.
"That's a fairly easy case to figure out," Perry said. "He filed after the deadline and he was not registered as a lobbyist. So what's the hold up?"
Perry said they received an e-mail from the commission warning that cases were delayed.
"I feel really conflicted," Perry said. "There has to be a certain level of understanding to implement a new system, they just brought in two new board members and hired an executive director."
But, Perry said, "at the same time there's really important work that is on hold. These are serious complaints and advisory opinions and so much needs to be done going into a legislative session and an election year."
"You want to be understanding," Perry said. "But at the same time there is work that has to go forward."
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