Bill Would Force Town Officials To Disclose Financial Interests

HARTFORD (AP) — State lawmakers are considering a proposed new law that would require elected and appointed municipal officials to disclose all their financial interests.

Sen Donald DeFronzo, D-New Britain, said it is important for the legislature to address ethics at the local level while lawmakers consider changes at the state level in response to the scandal surrounding Gov John G. Rowland.

“We actually had a bill very similar to this we raised last year in the midst of the scandals in Bridgeport and Waterbury but it didn’t pass,” DeFronzo told The Herald of New Britain.

Local leaders are already opposing the legislation. Some expressed concern that it would deter potential candidates from seeking municipal office.

“I think it’s overkill,” Farmington Town Council Chairman Bruce Chudwick said. “What I have proposed to Senator Don DeFronzo...is that towns should be required to have something in place but what that something is should be determined by the towns themselves.”

DeFronzo is co-chairman of the Government Administration and Elections Committee, which proposed the bill requiring that every municipality and special district in the state create an ethics commission with subpoena powers.

As part of the proposed legislation, all local elected and appointed officials would have to fill out an affidavit to be kept on file that lists all financial interests including the assets and debts of their spouses and dependent children.

State legislators, state elected officials and certain state employees must file financial affidavits with the state each year they hold office or remain on the job. But mostly everyone who files at the state level receives some type of pay or stipend from the state.

Area town leaders said that most of their elected and appointed officials are not paid for their services, but rather they are volunteers who may not be willing to serve if they feel they are opening themselves to public scrutiny.

“That would mean anyone who sits on the Retirement Board would be open to public inspection,” Chudwick said. “Those people will say, I don’t want to serve if that’s the case.”

Several municipal officials who spoke to The Herald said they believed the legislation was an overreaction to the ethics gaffs made at the state or larger city level.

Newington Mayor Thomas McBride said his town already has an ethics commission and already has a system for dealing with employees who may run afoul of town ethics codes.

“This all stems from what’s going on with the governor’s office,” McBride said. “The more they stir the pot, the more they are going to find. There’s more fish to fry at the state level than at the municipal level.”

DeFronzo said the committee held a public hearing on the bill early last week. The committee has also invited regional groups, such as the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, to offer alternative proposals to the bill.

The proposed bill will be reviewed by several other committees before going to the full legislature, if it isn’t killed or left for dead in the process.