Agenda Item Title:
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Council Office providing initial feedback and recommendation regarding campaign disclosures.
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Presenter:
Mike Applegarth
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Description/Background:
On November 11, 2020 the City Council directed staff, "to provide analysis on campaign contribution limits in Sandy elections, as well as enhanced reporting requirements and report back to the Council with recommendations and with a draft ordinance for consideration..."
To date the Council Office analysis has included identification of relevant policy options and additional areas for research, a review of academic research on local campaign limits, consultation with a leading researcher in the field, and a detailed quantitative analysis of actual campaign contributions in Sandy elections. The quantitative aspect of the analysis is still in progress.
One of the major lessons so far is that the ability to access campaign finance disclosure information in a truly digital format would make the data much more accessible and usable for staff and the public. In the absence of a digital disclosure system, the City Recorder has done well to ensure that candidate disclosures are available on the website. This requires Recorder staff to physically stamp a hard copy of the disclosures (which are often hand-written), scan the document to create a PDF file, then upload the document to the website. While this allows easy retrieval and review of documents individually, it does not allow for batch download of the data, or facilitate analysis. Somewhat analogous to the City's budget dashboard, a digital disclosure system would render the campaign finance data in a much more user friendly format.
Initial research from the City Recorder indicates that some Salt Lake area cities have moved to an online digital filing system. It is possible that such a system could be acquired by a third-party software vendor, or built in-house with existing city tools. However, candidate filing will open in early Jun...
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