Supervisors Scrutinize Ethics Commission Budget

Only one conclusion can be drawn – as the City department that monitors and prosecutes campaign finance, lobbyist, and conflict-of-interest violations, the Ethics Commission cannot adequately serve its mission with the current resources that it has. What good are laws on the books if there is no money out there to enforce them?

“When the Ethics Commission was created in 1993, some of its work had previously been done by other agencies,” said Mary McAllister, who served on a Civil Grand Jury in 2005 that investigated the department. “But those agencies had more than $25,000 to enforce the budget than what the City gave the Ethics Commission. It’s a funding gap that began from the start – and has only been further exacerbated every year.”

John St. Croix, Executive Director of the Ethics Commission, acknowledged that the department has a history of being under-funded – but that its staff has increased in the last two years. Nevertheless, it is currently only at 50% of the funding of where it should be to fully satisfy its mission. That’s an improvement over the previous level of one-third, but it’s still a glass that’s half-empty.

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