The Fair Political Practices Commission has begun its effort to provide a system to electronically file Form 700 Statement of Economic Interest (SEI) forms directly to the commission.
The $2.9 million project has hired a project manager and the project charter was completed. The RFP is being developed this fall, according to a project update.
“To help identify potential conflicts of interest, the law requires officials to file forms called Statements of Economic Interests (SEIs). These forms include information about the sources of an official's income, investments, business positions, real property holdings and gifts. Merely reporting an economic interest is not a conflict in itself; a conflict may arise when a governmental decision, made by the official, impacts their economic interests,” FPPC explains on its website.
Filers submit an estimated 500,000 SEI forms to state and local government agencies each year, the commission says. One of the goals of the centralized electronic filing system is to reduce manual processing and the staff time spent validating forms submitted on paper.
The FPPC envisions that the new solution will be built on subscription-based, modified off-the-shelf software with some customization needed.
