By Sean Whaley, Nevada News Bureau: Faced with a two-year backlog of unpublished opinions, the state Ethics Commission is seeking $65,000 from a contingency fund to hire an attorney to help deal with the situation.
The request for funding from the Legislature’s Interim Finance Contingency Fund would allow the commission to contract with a temporary full-time attorney for six months beginning in January 2012 to help in getting the backlog of opinions written and published.
The funding request will first go to the state Board of Examiners on Tuesday. If approved by the board, made up of Gov. Brian Sandoval, Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and Secretary of State Ross Miller, the request will be considered by the Interim Finance Committee at its Dec. 15 meeting.
Caren Jenkins, executive director of the state Ethics Commission, reported the backlog at an Ethics Commission meeting earlier this year. In an interview with the Nevada News Bureau in November, Jenkins said the agency has fallen behind in issuing written opinions because of a major increase in public officials seeking guidance.
There were 67 requests for opinions in 2004, and she expects 172 this year. Jenkins said she has one investigator for the entire state who must review each case.
“The demands on our staff have become almost laughable,” she said in the interview. “We have three-times the workload for when they thought we needed five full-time staffers.”
As a result, the publishing of its formal opinions in the cases has fallen about two years behind with 50 opinions yet to be written, Jenkins said.
The agency sought two new positions in the 2011 session to help address the backlog, but the Legislature did not approve them, given all the other critical demands on the budget, she said.
The opinions, when written, are published on the agency’s website to provide guidance for others, Jenkins said.
The inability of the commission staff to get the opinions written has had real word consequences.
Former Lyon County Manger Dennis Stark, who appeared before the commission on an ethics matter in November 2010 and January 2011, was still waiting for a published order in his case when interviewed by the NNB last month.
Without it, Stark said he has been unable to pursue a court appeal on the one charge for which he was found to have violated state ethics laws. With no final record of the hearing, Stark, who called the one infraction minor and the result of fabricated testimony, said he cannot successfully seek employment either.
