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House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said Thursday that he supports increased funding for the state ethics commission but not necessarily expanding the board’s membership as Gov. Nathan Deal originally suggested.
Ralston, speaking to reporters before Monday’s start of legislative session, said the current commission is doing its job.
“I don’t think any of the drama has occurred because of members of the commission,” Ralston said. “I think it’s been staff.”
The commission, formally known as the Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, has begun to emerge from a years-long funk that included multiple lawsuits and nearly $3 million in taxpayer-funded payouts to former employees.
Deal last year called it an “inherently bad” agency and suggested expanding the board from five to 12 members and for the first time giving the judiciary several appointments. The governor also said he’d support increasing the agency’s resources.
But Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said Thursday that his boss, too, is convinced the current commission deserves time to show it can meet the agency’s mission. A member of the commission briefed the governor on its progress, Robinson said.
“By all accounts, the commission appears to be functioning again, which was always the governor’s top priority,” Robinson said. “The commission wants time to prove it has turned the ship around. The governor is willing to do that, and obviously he and the speaker have the same view there.”
Ralston on Thursday also said he would support more money for the agency to hire auditors and attorneys to do its job.
“I don’t think adding members of the commission solves the problem,” Ralston said. “I think we have a commission that is committed now to making good decisions on staffing, and I’d like to give that a little more time to work. I would support additional funding so they can add some lawyers and auditors and others as they deem appropriate, and let’s give it more time.”
Commission Chairwoman Hillary Stringfellow, whom Ralston appointed and praised Thursday, agreed with the speaker.
“I am not aware of any criticism, complaint or suggestion leveled toward the commission or any commissioner that is solved by adding members to the commission,” Stringfellow said. “I would submit that at this time we have five fully engaged, hardworking commissioners who are serving the commission and the state exceedingly well and that this body is more than capable of doing the work that is necessary to lead and direct the commission.”
Since hiring two new staff attorneys in the fall, the commission has begun to crawl out of the hole its found itself in for the past two-plus years. The agency is plowing through a massive backlog of cases and is in the process of adopting new rules and regulations for the first time this decade.
All of this, however, is happening without an agency director. The job has been vacant since the commission fired then-chief Holly LaBerge in September.
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