Financial Disclosure: Legislative Branch Systems Improved but Can Be Further Strengthened

Highlights

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO evaluated the effectiveness of the legislative financial disclosure process, focusing on whether: (1) individuals accurately and timely filed their required reports; (2) the House and Senate committees took steps to obtain overdue reports; (3) the committees reviewed the reports to ensure that individuals properly filled them out and, if in error, whether the corrections were timely; and (4) the committees made the reports available to the public.

Recommendations

Matter for Congressional Consideration

Matter	Status	Comments
To improve filing compliance among House, Senate, and legislative agency employees, the Senate Ethics Committee and the Senate Disbursing Office should work together to revise procedures for more quickly identifying all new Senate employees who must file and notifying them of requirements to file.	Closed – Implemented	New public employees' names are sent by the Disbursing Office to the Senate Ethics Committee as soon as they are appointed, along with an initial form letter which the Ethics Committee uses to notify the new employee to file.
To deal with the late filing and nonfiling among candidates, the House and Senate Ethics Committees should request state election offices to notify candidates of filing requirements and promptly provide names of candidates to the committees for followup.	Closed – Implemented	The Ethics Reform Act of 1989 redefined a "candidate" for the purpose of financial disclosure requirements, which should help to improve filing compliance.
To deal with the late filing and nonfiling among candidates, the House and Senate Ethics Committees should adopt policies of publicizing, at an appropriate time, the names of candidates who file late or refuse to file.	Closed – Implemented	The Committee shows the status of filing on the reports access list maintained at OPR so that any member of public or press can know if a candidate has filed late. The press is increasingly knowledgeable about filing requirements and exposing late filers. Candidates also are exposing each others' filing limitations this year.
The House and Senate Ethics Committees should explore options for obtaining legislative agencies' assistance in improving filing compliance of their employees. For example, the committees could ask for agencies to assist in tracking filing timeliness by their employees and following up when reports are overdue.	Closed – Implemented	The Ethics Committee has obtained more rigorous follow-up by Chuck Roney at GAO and Mr. Roney is providing more guidance than previously given on filing correctly. There were only two late GAO filers this year. Also, a copy of a notice of late reports is being transmitted this year to overdue filer's supervisors.
To strengthen its report review procedures, the Senate Ethics Committee should track the status of requested amendments until they are received and approved to improve the timeliness of the amendments.	Closed – Implemented	Last year's tracking system was manual and has been computerized into a database so that filing, review, and amendment status can be instantly called up for monitoring purposes rather than waiting for periodic reports. Two GAO employees in 1990 are initially reviewing reports, allowing faster completion, including getting amendments faster. Senators' reports were completely reviewed.
The House and Senate Ethics Committees should work with the Office of Records and Registration and the Office of Public Records (OPR), respectively, to institute a procedure for notifying the public that the reports are undergoing committees' reviews and are subject to change.	Closed – Implemented	No large sign in OPR about reports, but any Senators' reports given out have a notice on top that reports may be subject to change. Members of the public who request reports are given oral notice that reports are subject to change. Senators' reports are reviewed and corrected within 15 days of receipt before being given to the public, so chances of needed corrections are diminished.

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Topics

Government Operations

Congressional employeesDisclosure lawErrorsFinancial disclosureModificationsNoncompliancePolitical candidatesPublic officialsPublic recordsReports management