Only 22 of 140 reports made public

Only one in six of the approximately 140 board members affected by the state’s new financial disclosure law have had their financial interests made public under the state Ethics Commission’s interpretation of Act 230.

That’s because the state Ethics Commission, which uses the annual financial disclosures to help identify conflicts of interest, agreed at its July meeting that only disclosures filed by those members on or after the law’s July 8 effective date can be made public and posted online.

That move was based on advice from the Attorney General’s Office against applying the law retroactively to sitting members who filed statements before the law took effect. As a result, only 22 of the affected board members have had their financial disclosure statements posted online.

To help raise that tally and better align with the legislative intent of the law, Ethics Commission Executive Director Les Kondo recommended asking the affected members to voluntarily agree to have their disclosures made public now. He added that the public won’t have access to detailed financial information for most of these members until mid-2016.

"We feel that the Legislature intended to make the disclosures of the members of the 15 boards available to the public and didn’t intend that there be some difference between the current board members — in other words, people that filed after July 8 versus people that filed before July 8," Kondo said at Wednesday’s commission meeting.

The law — which was unanimously approved in the state House and Senate — adds members of 15 state boards and commissions to the list of public officials whose annual financial disclosure statements are public records. Gov. Neil Abercrombie allowed the measure to become law without his signature.

The affected boards include the Ethics Commission, University of Hawaii Board of Regents, Board of Land and Natural Resources, Public Utilities Commission, Hawaii Community Development Authority and Land Use Commission.

The financial forms ask public executives and officers to disclose such financial information as income, investments, ownership or interests in businesses, and real estate holdings for themselves, their spouses and dependent children.

Privacy concerns led to the resignations of more than two dozen members serving on the affected boards, including from the UH regents, Land Use Commission, Land Board, Hawaii Public Housing Authority and Hawaiian Homes Commission.

The forms must be filed annually by May 31 for sitting board members, or within 30 days of an appointment for new members.

Under the commission’s interpretation of the law, members of the 15 boards won’t have their disclosures made public until they file again next year. But only so-called "short form" disclosures are required in odd-numbered years, meaning some members won’t have a detailed disclosure made public until the following year.

"Because 2015 is a short-form year, the disclosures that people file may not be very meaningful because if they don’t have changes, the (form) allows them to check ‘no changes,’ and unless you have the long form to reference, to understand what that means, that document is not meaningful," Kondo said.

"For those members, it will be 20 months, roughly 20 months from now, before a member of the public actually gets information as to the members’ financial interests, and from the staff’s perspective, that is not the intent of the Legislature," he said. "The Legislature intended that the information be available now, and not the public having to wait."

The commission voted 4-0 (with one abstention) in favor of asking the affected board and commission members to voluntarily agree to have their statements made public. Kondo said a letter would likely go out within two weeks.

Although the Attorney General’s Office previously raised concerns about such a request, a deputy attorney told commissioners Wednesday that it shouldn’t pose any legal problems.

Financial disclosures for Ethics Commission Chairman Edward Broglio, Vice Chairman David O’Neal and members Ruth Tschumy and Susan DeGuzman have been posted online, at their request. Commissioner Melinda Wood’s statement was automatically made public under Act 230 because she was appointed after the law took effect.