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- Referred to finance
Companion bill
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Relates to filing requirements for the annual statement of financial disclosure
In Assembly Committee · Governmental Operations · Sponsor Sandy Galef
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
BILL NUMBER:S7135
Title of bill
An act to amend the public officers law, in relation to filing requirements for the annual statement of financial disclosure
Purpose or general idea of bill
This legislation amends subdivision 2 of section 73-a of the public officers law to require the filing of mandatory financial disclosure statements by all state elected officials or state employees who are subject to the financial disclosure laws under the Legislative Ethics Commission and the NYS Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE)for every full or partial year that they served.
Summary of specific provisions
Section 1: Amends Section 73-a of the Public Officers Law by adding a new paragraph (a-1)(2)(a) to require that every statewide and state legislative elected official, as well as all others required to file financial disclosure statements, must file those forms for all full or partial years in which they served in that role.
Justification
Currently, members of the New York State Legislature are required to file under both the legislative ethics law and the Public Officers Law sections that created JCOPE, by May 15th of each year, a completed financial disclosure statement to the Legislative Ethics Commission, which files the same with JCOPE. That form requires the disclosure of activities, finances and assets that may indicate financial impropriety or conflicts of interest.
The current law has been interpreted to not require disclosure by individuals no longer serving in the legislature on May 15th of the following year. This allows members of the legislature to serve an entire year or more without the accountability required by the disclosure law.
A review of the JCOPE filings indicates that no member of the state legislature who retired in 2012, or lost running for re-election or ran for another office and lost, completed 2012 financial disclosures by May 15, 2013, and still have not done so.
There are currently 11 vacancies in the state legislature which occurred on or before December 31, 2013 and another who left service by May 15, 2014 several of them due to criminal or other ethical charges having been brought - and none of the individuals who occupied those seats are required to disclose their potential improprieties and conflicts of interest while in office.
Therefore, the current state of the law is such that an elected official can decide early in the last year of their term to retire, knowing that they will not have to complete the ethical obligations of JCOPE and the Legislative Commission on Ethics when they are finished.
This legislation would close that loophole in the law, and require completed ethical disclosure forms for each and every day that a statewide elected official or a member of the state legislature serves in that office.
Prior legislative history
None.
Fiscal implications
None.
Effective date
This act shall take effect immediately.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.