The Arkansas Ethics Commission issued a letter of caution and fined the ballot initiative group Let Arkansas Decide $250 Friday for not properly filling out campaign disclosures.
The fine resulted from a complaint filed in September against the ballot-question committee, which pushed for a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the sale of alcohol in every county in the state. The Families First Foundation, Keep Independence Dry and Safe, and the Arkansas Faith and Ethics Council filed the complaint alleging the group had failed to report promised contributions or loans in its Aug. 15 financial report.
David Couch, chairman of Let Arkansas Decide, asked the commission to hold a public hearing and rejected an offer of settlement issued earlier this month. The settlement offer included a letter of warning, which implies that the offender intentionally did not follow rules and guidelines.
The letter of caution issued Friday is less severe, telling Couch to be more careful in the future.
The complaint takes issue with how Couch reported the group's expenditures. The August financial report shows that Let Arkansas Decide had spent $193,749 in July and $224,107 since it was formed. The same report shows the groups had raised $90,000 in July and $110,000 overall.
Larry Page, a member of the Arkansas Faith and Ethics Council, said when he filed the complaint that he wanted to know how the group could deficit spend.
The group spent money faster than it raised money but eventually raised enough to pay off its debt.
Ethics Commission staff advised Couch to revise his reports to show the deficit spending on the services provided by the canvassing company National Ballot Access as either a nonmonetary contribution or a loan, instead of showing the owed money as outstanding debt.
Couch said changes in Ethics Commission rules enacted this election cycle required committees to show expenditures in the period they were incurred, not when they were paid, as was required previously. He said he followed the law when he filled out his original forms, and that's why he rejected the settlement.
"I'm going to request that the Ethics Commission give an opinion on two issues," he said after the hearing Friday. "I'm going to ask for an opinion on whether a canvassing firm is considered a political consultant or advertising agency that requires individual expenditures to be disclosed. That is how I treated it, but some people did not."
Couch said he also asked the commission to tweak its rules to rewrite the committee financial disclosure forms.
"They will have to go through the rule-making process to resolve this problem with a new form. They need to include a line to report outstanding indebtedness," he said. "This wasn't a loan and it wasn't a nonmonetary contribution because they expected to be paid for their services. Candidate forms allow for outstanding indebtedness but not the committee forms, so that needs to be changed."
Metro on 12/20/2014