Louisiana Board of Ethics has not collected millions in late fees
The Louisiana Board of Ethics has been lagging behind processing late fees and debts, with millions in late fees not collected, according to a recent report.
The Louisiana Legislative Auditor found the ethics board had a total of $2.7 million in outstanding late fees as of March 18. The 2,100 late fees are associated with campaign finance disclosure reports, lobbying expenditure reports and personal financial disclosure statements.
This has been an ongoing problem. Auditors first addressed the issue in a 2019 procedural report, stating that the ethics board had a weakness for missing deadlines for delinquent debt transfers. The ethics board is supposed to turn debt over to the attorney general after 60 days, but has failed to do so in many cases.
In an analysis of 30 late fees from 2019 to 2021, auditors found that 60 percent of these late fees weren’t sent to the attorney general because the ethics board never sent a demand letter for collection to the debtor. In 20 percent of these cases, the demand letter was sent late to the debtor, preventing the debt from being confirmed as delinquent.
Read more: https://lailluminator.com/2021/08/09/louisiana-board-of-ethics-has-not-collected-millions-in-late-fees/