Local elected officials complained Friday that new campaign finance filing requirements and a balky state computer system are making their lives miserable.
Myrtle Figueras, a 15-year member of the Gainesville City Council, said she thought she had filed her campaign disclosures to the state ethics commission on time until she was "beat in the face" by a headline in her local paper in July saying she had been fined by the state.
“I try to do everything I’m supposed to do,” she said. “I try all the time to do everything right.”
More than 100 officials have requested relief from fines for failing to file on time, and several were on hand Friday to plead with the commission to fix its system.
Holly LaBerge, the commission's new executive secretary, said she did not know how many of the thousands of local elected officials who now have to file disclosures with the state office were late.
Last year, the General Assembly passed a law requiring all elected officials in the state to file disclosures with the ethics commission starting this year. State officials and lobbyists already file with the commission, but prior to the change, local officials filed with their local clerks.
Ball Ground City Clerk Karen Jordan said her City Council members were "just overwhelmed" by the new requirement.
“Some of our council members are older and they are not computer savvy," she said.
The rules require candidates to file, even in cases where no money is raised or spent. That's everybody in Ball Ground, Jordan said.
“They normally run unopposed. They pay their qualifying fee and that’s it," she said. "Then you throw that form at them with all these different lines. All they need to do is put zeros, but it’s uncharted waters for them."
In non-election years, candidates have to file a midyear and end-of-year report on their fundraising activities. In election years, they have four deadlines or more.
Along with the reporting requirements, the changes in the law included dramatically increased fines for late filers. Officials who filed late were hit with fines in excess of $1,000, while fines previously had been capped at $75 for tardy reports. The fines are sometimes greater than the salaries local officials make, said Susan Moore of the Georgia Municipal Association.
LaBerge said many of the late fees already have been reduced to $125 because the commission did not meet its own deadline to send filers late notices by certified mail.
Supporters of the law's changes said the aim is to make campaign disclosures more available to the public, but several people representing local government said the system is unwieldy.
"The change in the law has put an undue burden on local officials," Thomson Mayor Kenneth Usry said. "Your system is not friendly."
Usry said he and his wife spent hours negotiating the commission's online filing system, barely making the deadline. Several other local officials in Thomson are listed on the commission's website as filing late or not filing at all. Those officials were named in the local press as violating state ethics laws, the mayor said.
LaBerge said she is going through the cases individually. Most of the problems were with local officials who are filing with the state for the first time, she said.
“The bulk of them have not been an error on our end,” she said.
Commissioners were sympathetic to the complaints of the officials, but they said they were just following the law.
"We file on the same system you do," said Commissioner Hillary Stringfellow. "We are charged with following the rules, not making them."
Chairman Patrick Millsaps asked the officials to submit suggested improvements to the ethics panel by the end of the month.
"I'm looking for solutions, not problem identification," he said.
The changes to the law have increased the amount of work for the ethics commission, which has seen its budget cut by 42 percent since 2008. Stringfellow said the commission will spend $28,000 on certified letters to late filers across the state.
House Ethics Committee Chairman Joe Wilkinson, R-Sandy Springs, said the Legislature is open to making “technical adjustments,” such as allowing the commission to email filers. But he said he believes most of the complaints are because the system is new.
"The purpose is full, open and immediate disclosure, so that citizens with a click of a mouse can get all information on their officials at all levels," he said. "If we need to make some technical, midcourse correction, then that's exactly what we will do."
Lawmakers made one such change already, passing a bill earlier this year that, in part, allowed local elected officials to file paper disclosures through the mail. Wilkinson said the Georgia Municipal Association had complained that officials in some rural areas did not have access to the Internet and needed to file paper records.
He was unimpressed with complaints about the commission’s computer system.
“I’m a computer illiterate, and I don’t find that to be the case,” he said.
Wilkinson said he is convinced the ethics commission has the staff and the budget to handle the job and expressed confidence in LaBerge, who was named to the post in August.
“She has committed to me to make this work, and so has Patrick as chairman," he said.
Barrett case dropped
The state's ethics commission has a backlog of cases, some many years old. On Friday, the commission unanimously agreed to drop a 2004 complaint against former Fulton County Sheriff Jackie Barrett for accepting donations above allowed campaign limits when her attorney said a judge likely would dismiss the case as being beyond the statute of limitations.
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