CORRUPTION RISK REPORT: FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE

RESEARCH REPORTS

30 July 2012

Nonpartisan, nonprofit government watchdog group Integrity Florida published Corruption Risk Report: Financial Disclosure on July 30, 2012.

Key Findings:

• 11 legislators worked for lobbying firms during the 2012 session.
• 12 legislators disclosed a total of 33 potential voting conflicts in 2012.
• More than $100,000 in gifts reported by legislators and top state officials in 2012.
• 4,284 current Florida public officials and employees failed to disclose 2012 financial interests as of July 26, 2012.
• 66 current and former Florida officials and employees owe a total of $87,199.03 in fines for late filing of financial interests in past years as of July 9, 2012.

Key Integrity Florida Recommendation: Florida should adopt the more detailed financial disclosure form used by Louisiana.

The clearest way to see where Florida needs to go to improve financial disclosure is to compare the 2011 financial disclosures of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Florida Gov.Rick Scott.  According to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), Florida earned a D grade, ranking 26th in the U.S. for financial disclosure in 2009.  Louisiana ranked No. 1 on CPI’s disclosure ranking, up from 44^th in 2006.  Jindal worked with his state legislature in 2008 to pass new ethics laws that moved their state from the bottom to the top of the list.Louisiana Economic Development, that state’s counterpart to Enterprise Florida and theFlorida Department of Economic Opportunity, touts ethics reform on its website. Jindalsaid he set out to "completely transform the ethics laws in (his) state to encourage increased business investment and job creation".  According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Louisiana has maintained a lower unemployment rate than Florida every month from January 2008 through June 2012.

Key Integrity Florida Recommendation: The public should have access to an online, searchable database of state officials' financial disclosure information, potential voting conflicts and gifts received.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, 27 states put financial disclosure filings of state officials online, but Florida does not.  Integrity Florida has posted more than 600 documents online, including the personal financial disclosure filings from 2011, 2010 and the first term in office for Florida’s legislators and top state officials towww.integrityflorida.org.

Click here to read the report