Financial disclosures hit Web site snag at deadline

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Sometimes new technology isn't a good thing.

A new financial disclosure Web site in the Lieutenant Governor's Office got its first test with a filing deadline Monday. It flunked, according to many who tried to use it.

Candidates, political action committees and corporations all faced a deadline and many attempted to disclose their finances electronically. The problem was, few could. And for those few who could, some weren't accessible by outsiders.

For example, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s "Special Initiatives" PAC filed its contributions and expenditures, including $148,613 for gala expenses. But you could only get the information on a paper copy. The online version was blocked because of errors.

EnergySolutions' online report showed the company with deficit spending of $4.6 million in its political account.

Many frustrated candidates, PACs and corporations had to file using paper reports because the online system wasn't working properly.

"It was a disaster," said Sen. Howard Stephenson, who spent hours Monday handwriting all of his campaign's donations and expenses. "What's worse is the media and public won't have access tomorrow morning like they should have had."

Mark Thomas, office administrator for the Lieutenant Governor's Office, was the butt of much of the anger and frustration felt by filers. He realizes there should have been more testing before releasing the Web site for use. But, he says, his office didn't have any choice in the matter. He points to an old Web site that couldn't have handled new filing requirements and the Department of Technology Services, which didn't get the Web site running until the first week of December.

"We should have tested more," he said. "We did do some testing, but testing would have been the big thing here. But we had to get it out, waiting wasn't an option."

Stephenson was shocked at the lack of trial runs.

"It was just unbelievable that this roll out would have been attempted having it obviously not proven first," he said.

Rep. John Dougall said he spent hours over the weekend waiting for the input page to reload so he could enter his information, but it never did.

"One of the things we need to do is to make this system as simple and as easy as possible for folks to enter information," he said. "If you make it cumbersome, and it takes hours to do, it starts defeating the purpose."

Thomas said the "one good thing" to come of Monday's fiasco is that it was a learning experience.

"We know what the issues are because people have let us know what they are," he said after a day filled with fielding angry phone calls. "Now, we can go through and get them fixed."

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