The Board of Ethics is responsible for enforcing the City’s Public Integrity Laws and is required to include information concerning its enforcement activities in its Annual Report.

The Board’s Executive Director can initiate an investigation either upon receipt of a complaint or a referral or if he determines that a potential violation of a law within the Board’s jurisdiction has occurred. Upon completion of the investigation, if the Executive Director finds probable cause to believe a violation has occurred, he can initiate an enforcement action. If, after conducting an investigation, the Executive Director does not find probable cause, he will terminate the investigation. Similarly, the Executive Director will reject a complaint that does not state a potential violation of a law within the Board’s jurisdiction.

At any point, the Executive Director can seek to resolve a matter through a settlement agreement. In a settlement agreement, subjects of enforcement admit to violations and, in most cases, agree to pay a civil monetary penalty. All settlement agreements must be approved by the Board.

In FY2020 , Board Enforcement staff terminated six investigations after determining that probable cause did not exist to believe a violation had occurred. Of those investigations, five involved potential violations of the City’s Campaign Finance Law and one involved a potential violation of the City Ethics Code’s prohibition on representation.

In FY2017, the Board implemented procedures to efficiently resolve violations arising from the late filing of campaign finance reports with the Board. The procedures expedite and simplify the assessment of penalties for the late filing of campaign finance reports, except in certain delineated cases. Descriptions of the procedures can be found on the Board’s website.

In FY2020, Board Enforcement Staff used these procedures to collect $19,700 for the City from 14 filers that did not timely file campaign finance reports with the Board in 2019 Cycles 4, 5, 6, or the 24 Hour reporting period. Board staff routinely updates the penalties list on the Board’s website, which includes late filers from FY2017-FY2020.