David Y. Ige

The Hawaii State Ethics Commission (“Commission”) is pleased to announce that the House of Representatives and the Senate are the first recipients of the Commission’s Ethics Awards. The Commission wishes to congratulate all Representatives and all Senators for having completed their 2017 Disclosures of Financial Interests by the January 31 filing deadline, and has therefore issued Ethics Awards to both houses of the Legislature in recognition of their 100% success rate in completing the filing requirement on time.  Speaker Joseph Souki and President Ronald Kouchi were presented with certificates signed by all five Ethics Commissioners.

Approximately 1,900 state officials are required to file annual financial disclosures by May 31 of each year.  (Legislators must file by January 31.)  Ethics Awards will be given to every agency, board, and commission that achieves 100% on-time filing.

The Commission’s Executive Director, Daniel Gluck, stated: “The Commission thanks the Legislature for leading by example in meeting the Ethics Code’s requirements for filing financial disclosure statements.  We are hopeful that all other state agencies, boards, and commissions will follow the Legislature in meeting next month’s filing deadline.”  He advises that anyone with questions about the financial disclosure process – or any other ethics matter – is welcome to contact the Commission confidentially at (808) 587-0460 or [email protected].

State officials who do not file their financial disclosure statements on time are subject to fines of $50 plus $10 a day for each day the disclosure remains unfiled.  Last week, the Commission resolved cases against three state officials, two of whom paid fines of over $1,000 for failing to file their financial disclosure statements on time.  The resolution of those cases is available on the Commission’s website, www.ethics.hawaii.gov.

Hawaii State Ethics Commission

1001 Bishop Street, Suite 970

Honolulu, Hawaii  96813

Telephone:  (808) 587-0460