List of Lake County Officials Delinquent in Filing Ethics Disclosure Forms

Tavares, FL - Lake County, FL - Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2012

UPDATED to today, Sept. 4th -see UPDATE section at the bottom of this document from Integrity Florida regarding Lake's late filers.

This information was sent out by email yesterday to some local officials:

Below is a link to a list of numerous Lake County officials who will soon face fines for not submitting required financial statements.

Lake County

I received this notice below from a local officer of the North Lake Tea Party.

He received it from IntegrityFlorida, which apparently tracked people in public positions who have not filed required annual Financial Disclosure statements that were due July 1, 2012.

I have not verified the accuracy of this list or how

CURRENT it is (the memo below says as of August 29), and most of the names are city officials or in other smaller districts or agencies.  I did not see any major elected officials from the County or  School District on the list.

Since today (Sept. 3) is a holiday, I can’t contact the Elections Superintendent to determine if her office is even involved in ensuring compliance, since the reports are due tomorrow.   I know, that as a previous candidate for County office, the elections staff DID notify me if I was about to miss various deadlines.   But these folks appear to be incumbents, not candidates, and the process may be entirely different.

One name is Jeremy Martin, who WAS the Internal Audit Director in the Court Clerk’s office, but he left his office months ago, so some of these could be similar situations.  However, there are some zoning board members and other County employees on the list.

I am sending this to local press, selected Lake County officials and elections officials to see if they know how to handle this.

Anyone able to describe why this happens to so many people should let me know.

Contacts to verify this information should be to Dan Krassner from Integrity Florida, listed below.  Any ideas to ensure Lake officials don’t meet this deadline in the future should be sent to me.

Click here to go directly to the Florida Ethics Commission page listing delinquent Lake County filers or scroll down to read the memo from Integrity Florida

Lake County   

You can also go directly to the website of the Florida Commission on Ethics and search the website or call them:  http://www.ethics.state.fl.us/  

Update:  Marilyn Bainter, current Board member of the North Lake County Hospital District says these forms are due the year following the END of terms.  I am not sure if it is filed more frequently.

Vance Jochim

Lake County Fiscal Rangers

Chief Fiscal Watchdog

Volunteers Searching for Ways to Improve Local Government Fiscal Management, Efficiency & Effectiveness

PO Box 1042

Tavares, FL 32778

Mobile:  352-638-3578

FiscalRangers@comcast.net

www.FiscalRangers.com   

TWITTER:  @FiscalRangers 

"FiscalRangers" page on Facebook 

YouTube:  NEW 6/2012 - Videos of local political candidate forums and other meetings, like North Lake County Hospital District & Lake County Legislators' Delegation annual forums    -  visit the youtube channel "FiscalRangersFlorida" 

CLICK HERE to see recommended internet links related to Local Lake County government fiscal issues.

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From: "Dan Krassner" <dankrassner@gmail.com>

Sent: Monday, September 3, 2012 4:24:29 PM
Subject: Lake County officials could face fines for late disclosure

Wanted to bring to your attention that the Lake County officials named on the list linked below could face fines for late financial disclosure reports to the state ethics commission if they do not file by tomorrow (Tuesday, September 4):

Lake County

According to the Florida Commission on Ethics, 1,240 state and local officials and government employees have failed to file their 2011 financial disclosure reports that were due July 1, 2012.

These 1,240 late filers (as of August 29) will begin facing fines of $25 per late day (up to a $1,500 cap) if they fail to send their required financial disclosure forms to the Florida Commission on Ethics with a postmark on or before tomorrow (Tuesday, September 4, 2012).

Read more here: http://www.integrityfl.org/late-filers-financial-disclosure/

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Dan
--
Daniel B. Krassner
Executive Director
Integrity Florida
(850) 321-0432
dan@integrityfl.org
IntegrityFlorida.org | Facebook.com/IntegrityFL | @IntegrityFL
715 N. Calhoun St., #4, Tallahassee, Florida 32303

Integrity Florida is a nonpartisan research institute whose mission is to promote integrity in government and expose public corruption.

===============================================================

Updated Info as of Sept. 4 from Dan Krassner directly to FiscalRangers.com

Vance,

State and local government officials/appointees/staff must file financial disclosures with a postmark of today or they will be fined $25 per late day up to $1500. Here is the Florida Commission on Ethics database with the most current information to search the status of financial disclosure filers http://public.ethics.state.fl.us/.

I just did a quick review of Lake County compared to surrounding counties by population and late financial disclosure filers, according to data from the Florida Commission on Ethics website this morning.  Lake County definitely stands out as a county with a disproportionately high number of late filers based on its population.  Polk County has more than double Lake's population with less than half the amount of late filers (Polk has 16 compared to Lake with 37).  Orange County has more than triple the population as Lake with about the same number of late filers (Orange with 44 compared to Lake with 37).  Lake County has 37 government employees and officials in the community who failed to file their financial disclosure by the July 1 deadline and risk being fined if they do not send them in with a postmark by today (September 4), which is the end of the two-month grace period. 

Here is the county-by-county data I pulled together this morning based on counties surrounding Lake, population and number of late filers:

Orange County     1,169,107    44
Lake County     301,019    37
Polk County     609,492    16
Volusia County     494,804    11
Marion County     332,529    4
Osceola County     276,163    0

The Florida Commission on Ethics and County Supervisors mail all of the officials several times and at least twice after they miss the July 1 deadline at a cost of more than $20,000 to taxpayers statewide just for notifying the late filers.  The Ethics Commission is even trying to call late filers, which they are not required to do. 

Former employees and officials still have to file if they meet certain requirements.

Open to your ideas on what could be recommended to the Ethics Commission and County Supervisors of Election to improve the process.

Thanks,

Dan

--
Daniel B. Krassner
Executive Director
Integrity Florida
(850) 321-0432
dan@integrityfl.org
IntegrityFlorida.org | Facebook.com/IntegrityFL | @IntegrityFL
715 N. Calhoun St., #4, Tallahassee, Florida 32303