Gov. Rick Scott and Florida lawmakers are struggling to find dollars to close a $3.6 billion budget shortfall, but a state agency is considering walking away from more than $300,000 in fines owed by almost 300 former public officials.
The Florida Commission on Ethics has been urged by its executive director, Philip Claypool, to abandon efforts to collect penalties of as much as $1,500 each on elected and appointed officials who failed to file their state-required financial disclosure forms when they were due.
Most of the 280 officials cited formerly served on professional boards, soil and water districts, fire and rescue districts, and similar citizen boards which make up the low-minor leagues of state politics.
But at least one scofflaw, Joe Celestin, is a former North Miami mayor who unsuccessfully ran for the state Legislature and last year for Miami-Dade County Commission. Celestin, who could not be reached Monday, owed $1,500 on fines that accumulated in 2006.
Some of the fines stretch back nine years. But most were accumulated about five years ago making them impossible to collect since the commission considers itself bound by a four-year limit on an action for a statutory penalty or forfeiture, Claypool said in a memo to commissioners, who will take up the matter at the commissions Feb. 4 meeting.
I recommend that the commission enter an order declaring these financial disclosure fines uncollectible, Claypool wrote.
The commission couldnt immediately make available affiliations or contact numbers for the 280 former officials who have managed to repeatedly duck two collection agencies the panel uses to pursue debtors. The News Service also unsuccessfully tried to contact several of those on the list.
But the prospect of abandoning efforts to collect the fines disappointed some members of the Senates Subcommittee on Ethics and Elections, which is expected to review in coming weeks the commissions legislative package. The commission wants authority to launch investigations without having to wait for a citizens complaint as current law requires.
Theyre walking away from these fines and they want more responsibility? said Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, who was penalized for two ethics violations involving lobbying in the 1990s, before and after serving in the state House.
Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, also said he found it hard to believe that former public officials could not be tracked by collection agencies.
Where Im from, if somebody hangs up the phone on them, bill collectors will come out and meet you face-to-face, Evers said. These guys are former public officials. But, apparently, theyre deadbeats.
Financial disclosure forms are required to be filed annually in July by public officials. The Ethics Commission, which collects the documents from some 37,000 filers in Florida, sends postcards to those who fail to file by Sept. 1, warning that $25 daily fines will commence with a maximum penalty of $1,500 possible.
Kerrie Stillman, an Ethics Commission spokeswoman, said these notices usually prompt those who havent submitted their forms. Last year, 99 percent of those required to file had submitted their forms, a compliance rate that has climbed from 92 percent a decade earlier, she said.
The commission collected $74,333 in fines last year from public officials penalized for not submitting financial disclosure forms, records show.
Still, writing-off what the commission said was $317,257 in outdated fines, comes after the states disclosure laws have moved into sharper focus.
Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, acknowledged last month that he had failed to fully disclose his financial holdings over a five-year span, including a $325,000 Lake County home he and his wife own but overlooked on earlier disclosures. Haridopolos settled the case by amending his forms, with a penalty unlikely to be imposed by fellow senators he leads.
Tampa Sen. Jim Norman, a Republican, needed an appeals court ruling to be reinstated after a lower court disqualified him as a candidate for filing a flawed financial disclosure form. In his case, Norman failed to disclose a $500,000 house listed in his wifes name. Norman now faces an ethics complaint over the matter, although he has filed an amended disclosure in which the house is claimed.
A statewide grand jury last month also issued a 127-page report citing Floridas reputation for corruption and calling for criminalizing several acts currently only punished by civil penalties under the states ethics code.
The grand jury also recommended that the Commission on Ethics be allowed to initiate its own investigations. It also called for expanding the definition of public officials to include private employees under contract with state agencies or other entities that provide government services.
Within an hour of his inauguration, Scott signed an executive order recognizing the grand jurys work and calling for his office to move forward in implementing its findings. So far, however, Scott has not provided any details about what steps he may recommend.
