SB 64- DISCLOSURES & ETHICS  CHAIR FRENCH announced the consideration of SB 64. 4:39:20 PM DAVID JONES, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, Opinions, Appeals and Ethics, Department of Law, stated that SB 64 proposes improvements to Alaska's disclosure laws and ethics laws. Disclosure improvements would apply to the three branches of government, to candidates and political groups, and to some municipal officers. Improvements to the "Ethics Act" [Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act] would apply only to executive branch members. Disclosure improvements include requirements for: electronic filing with APOC (Alaska Public Offices Commission); more detailed legislative financial disclosures; disclosures from former legislators and certain others. Sections 1, 4, and 7 require electronic filing; Sections 2 and 6 require more detail in the financial disclosures that are filed with APOC; and Sections 3 and 5 require certain former officials to file financial disclosures within 90 days of leaving office. The four improvements to the Ethics Act appear in Sections 8-11. Section 8 defines an insignificant business interest; Section 9 bans most gifts from lobbyists; Section 10 tightens the existing restrictions on types of work that former executive branch members may perform within two years of leaving state service; and Section 11 extends the reach of the existing ban on lobbying to apply to deputy commissioners and others who held policymaking positions in the governor's office. "That ban applies under existing law for one year," he said. 4:42:05 PM MR. JONES explained the bill sections as follows: Section 1 on page 2 requires electronic filing of campaign disclosure reports that candidates, groups and others file with APOC. In extraordinary circumstances APOC could grant an exception in extraordinary circumstances. Section 2, 3, and 4 on pages 2 and 3 apply to the legislative branch. Section 2 requires more detail in the financial disclosures that legislators, public members of the Select Committee on Legislative Ethics, and legislative directors file with APOC. For all income exceeding $1,000, the disclosures must describe the amount received, the number of hours spent to earn the income, and details regarding the services that were provided. He noted that Section 3 of SB 20 approaches that subject somewhat differently. Section 3 requires former legislators, public members of the Select Committee on Legislative Ethics, and former legislative directors to file financial disclosures with APOC within 90 days of leaving service. He noted that Section 2 of SB 20 addresses that subject somewhat differently. Section 4 requires legislators, public members of the Select Committee on Legislative Ethics, and legislative directors to electronically file financial disclosures with APOC. The commission could grant exceptions in extraordinary circumstances. 4:44:17 PM SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if a FAX is regarded as an electronic submittal. MR. JONES replied the intent is for Internet submissions. Currently APOC currently enters the data before it can be incorporated onto the APOC website. CHAIR FRENCH asked how many candidates do not file electronically, how long it takes APOC to enter that data, and how long it takes before the data is available online. 4:45:31 PM TAMMY KEMPTON, Project Coordinator, Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC), said about half of the candidates file electronically. [Ms. Kempton subsequently sent a letter correcting her statement. About 15 percent of the candidates file electronically.] She did not know how many hours it takes to enter the information into the database, but this year for the first time all the seven-day reports were online prior to the election. CHAIR FRENCH asked if APOC hires temporary staff at election time to do data entry. MS. KEMPTON said yes when funds are available and APOC did receive extra money this last election cycle. CHAIR FRENCH said he would like to get information on the level of burden on the commission including the hours it takes to enter the data and the time span between the filing deadline and when the information is available online. MS. KEMPTON agreed to provide the information. SENATOR HUGGINS asked if the rationale is the workload or that candidates are exploiting the system. MR. JONES said part of the rationale is to avoid gamesmanship, but largely the idea is to make the information available to the public as quickly as possible. The information is important in helping the public make informed decisions when voting. SENATOR HUGGINS expressed the view that most people don't check that information very closely, but activists might. He then asked what would constitute an extraordinary circumstance. MR. JONES said that is intentionally vague because there are a spectrum of circumstances that might justify exceptions to the electronic filing requirement. Thus it seems appropriate to give APOC the discretion to decide when extraordinary circumstances exist. He clarified that the intention is that reasons such as, "I don't feel like it." or "I prefer to do it by hand." would not be acceptable. SENATOR HUGGINS disclosed that he's proud that his wife does his filing and he might be in trouble if she weren't available. "I don't know whether that would be extraordinary or not," he said. CHAIR FRENCH asked if it's correct that handwritten reports are available at the commission office the day after the filing deadline so a person could request that the information be faxed or copied. MS. KEMPTON said that is the current system. When talking about the public seeing these reports, she said it's important to note that only campaign reports are currently available online. Legislative financial disclosure reports, public official disclosure reports, and the lobbyist and employer of lobbyist disclosure reports are not available online, she stated. CHAIR FRENCH asked if this bill changes the distinction between candidate reports and the other disclosures. MS. KEMPTON said SB 64 would make electronic filing for all those reports mandatory. Currently APOC has the ability to require electronic filing from lobbyists and employers of lobbyists. APOC is working on implementing that, she said. CHAIR FRENCH asked if electronic filing would be required for all the legislative disclosures that APOC receives. MS. KEMPTON said yes. 4:54:01 PM SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if the current requirement is that campaign disclosure information must be received on the specified day or postmarked on the specified day. MS. KEMPTON said when filing by mail the current requirement is that it is postmarked on the specified day. SENATOR THERRIAULT noted that some reports come in days or a week later if the mail system is used. MS. KEMPTON agreed. SENATOR THERRIAULT disclosed that he is treasurer of his campaigns and he does the reports by hand. CHAIR FRENCH disclosed that he pays someone to file his reports and that person files electronically. SENATOR THERRIAULT asked about the sophistication of the system. MS. KEMPTON explained that the system will have drop-down menus to select the desired report. Currently candidates have two ways of filing electronically. One is ELFS (Electronic Filing System) and the other is by means of a spreadsheet. APOC supplies a list of field names to set up the spreadsheet such that the information can be imported into the APOC database. SB 64 will provide a third way, which "hopefully will be the best ever," she said. SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if he could start a report, save it to a different location, and then return to complete the data entry before submitting the report MS. KEMPTON said absolutely. SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if each candidate has a PIN number. MS. KEMPTON said that is her understanding. SENATOR HUGGINS commented that this is a worthy goal, but the terms are onerous considering that 50 percent of the people are currently out of compliance with concept. [The committee subsequently learned that 85 percent do not file electronically.] SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI commented that a significant upgrade is needed in the ELFS program. "The software is not intuitive, it is really inadequate," he said. MS. KEMPTON said the new system is nothing like ELFS. 4:59:19 PM CHAIR FRENCH announced he would hold SB 64 in committee.