Texan legislators push the steep penalties to local authorities who do not send reports on the company on the Internet after Investigation PROPUBLICA and Texas Tribune Found that some school districts did not do this.
The initial placement requirements, designed to make the electoral costs more transparent, came into force almost two years ago. Most school district executives stated that they did not meet the requirements until they resorted to them. Even after many areas have loaded any documentation they had to make their election of the trustee, the reports were still absent because the candidates did not include them or the schools lost them.
“I was surprised and disappointed,” said the Republican State Representative Carl Taper, who is the author of the requirements on the Internet. “I realized that we didn’t really put our teeth into the bill.”
Teper tends to fix this with A new account This is a legislative session. He cited the conclusions of the editorial offices In a written explanation why the state should fulfill more fulfillment.
The measure will require the Texas Commission on Ethics, an agency that causes state election laws, to control thousands of web -based local authorities across the state, and to inform them whether there are no reports on the company’s financing reports. If these government agencies do not load the records that have entered within 30 days after the state message, the commission can write them up to $ 2500 every day until they perform.
The proposed measure also recommends that the state -allocated financing of the ethics commission to hire two additional employees, the tasks of which will monitor all local government organizations holding public elections in 254 constituencies and approximately 1200 cities and cities. Earlier, the editorial offices found that the agency had no employees on the fulfillment of the requirements of the local elections, and instead investigated the missing or late reports only when it received a hint.
The bill cleaned Texas’s house, but still needs resolution from the Senate until May 28, when it has a chance to become a law.
Last year, the head of the independent school district Galveston, who was among those who propublica and tribune did not post any reports on the company’s finance last year, said this measure would help schools like it.
“I like the 30-day offer to reach the requirements after reporting on the question,” Matthew’s neighbors said about the new proposal in an email statement. “Our district, for example, had no objection to the placement of the necessary information about the company when our new employees knew about the requirements.”
Kelly Rasty, Deputy Executive Director of State Relations at the Texas Association of School Councils, stated that the districts did not intentionally throw the law. Rasta stated that employees who are instructed to engage in the school council’s election documentation are not always well versed in the rules of the state, but the association plans to provide additional resources at the end of this year.
The district’s staff are accustomed to addressing many education documents and the statements that are imposed by the state. But “the elections are simply different, and they seem to constantly develop the laws and rules associated with them,” Rasta said.
In particular, the TEPPER bill does not require directly the ethics commission to fine or monitor the candidates who have not been included in their reports. Initially, he included in his bill on the provision that would force the candidates unauthorized to run for a post if they did not submit these records, even if they won the election. He told the editorial offices that he had reduced the fine after realizing that the logistics problems he could present.
This means that the ethics commission still has to decide whether to investigate and write any of the candidates and offices of the estimates, according to estimates, 22,000 local posts when they missed the feed. Unlike this, the candidates running in the state office automatically fined the commission if they do not finish the term.
The ultimate goal of TEPPER is to create a unified system in which the ethics commission is to record the financing of the company for state and local candidates in one central database, rather than leaving local submission scattered on thousands of urban, district and school sites. The Republican legislator withdrew his proposal to create such a system in 2023 after the commission estimated that it would cost $ 20 million, but he said the editorial staff that he was hoping to receive sufficient support to make this investment in the next session in 2027.
As long as he sees his offer as a necessary advance.
“I really believe in the gradual,” said Tepper. “This is another step towards the best execution.”
