Public Integrity Commission

PUBLIC INTEGRITY COMMISSION AGENDA April 21, 2015 10:00 A.M. Margaret O’Neill Building 2nd Floor Conference Room 410 Federal Street Dover, DE 19901

1. Minutes of March 3, 2015

2. Administrative Items

A. The website’s synopses of opinions for lobbying and financial disclosures have been updated to be organized by topic rather than by year.

B. Legislative matters

(1) PIC has been unable to get a commitment of support from legislative leadership for a Bill to require annual registration fees for lobbyists. This bill will likely not be brought to the floor. (2) Chairman Tobin contacted legislators and provided draft language for two Bills. (a) Bill would close a loophole in 29 Del. C. 5835(b)(6) which exempts lobbyist’s reporting campaign contributions to “members of the General Assembly.” The exemption does not recognize that campaign contributions may be made to elected executive branch officials (ex. Governor, Auditor, Treasurer, etc.). (b) Bill to allow Commission Counsel to issue advisory opinions affording legal protection to applicants when the Commission has been unable to convene for 60 consecutive days.

C. There have been a few glitches with the PIRS since the transition from DI to DTI. Most have been worked out. The majority of the problems stem from the systems failure to send automatic emails and generating reports. We will continue to work with DTI to resolve the issues.

D. April 21st is the first day PIC will be enforcing the lobbyist’s late filing fee.

E. As a marketing tool, we purchased 300 USB bracelets to give to attendees of our Ethics Training. Each USB will contain the complete ‘Synopses of Opinions’.

F. Counsel has been working with OMB on our online training module. The system will be up and running before the end of the fiscal year.

G. Financial Disclosure Filings—3 people have not yet filed their report. Counsel has sent reminders to them and to their supervisors. The News Journal has been provided copies of all 2014 filings pursuant to a FOIA request filed shortly after the filing deadline on March 15th. H. Trainings—The Department of Education has begun recommending Ethics training for schools that are under performance review.

(1) 3/23/15 DHSS—9 attendees (2) 4/8/15 OMB—9 attendees (3) 4/23/15 (day)--DelDOT (4) 4/23/15 (evening)—Odyssey Charter School

3. Executive Session

4. Requests for Advisory Opinions, Waivers and Referralsi

State employee wants to retire 15-06 Post Employment 10:30 and contract with former agency Allegation of misuse of public 15-05 Complaint 10:45 office in local municipality State employee seeks opinion for 15-07 Outside Employment 11:00 part-time job

5. Adjournment i Pursuant to 29 Del. C. § 10004(6) to discuss non-public records (29 Del. C. § 10002(6) Any records specifically exempted from public disclosure by statute or common law), as the written statements required for advisory opinions and complaints are subject to the confidentiality standards in 2 9 Del. C. § 5805(f), 29 Del. C. § 5807(d) Advisory Opinion Requests, and 29 Del. C. § 5810(h) for Complaints. Further, the proceedings, like personnel actions are, by statute, closed unless the applicant for the advisory opinion requests a public meeting, 29 Del. C. § 5805(f), 29 Del. C. § 5807(d), or the person charged in a complaint requests a public meeting. 29 Del. C. § 5810(h). No applicant for an advisory opinion, nor a person charged by a complaint has requested an open meeting.