D.C. city officials get a five-month delay to disclose their potential conflicts of interest, meaning 2011 data won’t be available until nearly a year after the fact because of newly passed ethics legislation intended to increase accountability.
That responsibility of collecting officials’ financial disclosures — which includes outside incomes and business dealings — was officially transferred to the Board of Ethics and Accountability in January when the mayor signed into law an ethics reform bill. The Office of Campaign Finance recently issued a statement notifying officials that the May 15 filing date for the disclosures no longer applies.
Public officials — including agency heads and political appointees — now have until Oct. 2 to file disclosures with the new board. The delay has frustrated advocates for transparency.
“The [disclosures are] extremely important, especially in the times we’re in,” said Dorothy Brizill, executive director of DC Watch. “People want to look at the documents, people want to connect the dots. I’m almost jumping out of my skin, I’m so outraged.”
It’s the second delay connected to the ethics legislation. Last week Mayor Vincent Gray missed the deadline to name his three nominees to the board that will handle the disclosures. Gray spokesman Pedro Ribeiro said the delays are one reason the mayor asked the council for more time to review the bill during the final reading. That request was denied, he said.
“Sometimes when legislation is moved quickly there are drafting errors,” Ribeiro said. He added that Gray is looking at tweaking this year’s requirements, perhaps through legislation.
“The mayor prefers disclosure,” he said.
But Ward 4 Councilwoman Muriel Bowser, who was tasked with blending nine ethics proposals into one reform law, said the delay was a strategic one. She said that the new ethics law requires far more extensive and detailed disclosures than before and that May would have been too early to corral all the new information.
“To me it was more important to have the October filing than to have two filings in a given year,” she said, adding that she was “open to consideration if there’s some concern.”
She said in 2013, the filing date will likely be moved back to May.
