Those who are required to make public financial disclosure reports—including many high-level careerists along with many political appointees—are subject to several additional requirements with the signing of the STOCK Act.
For the short run, the law primarily affects about 28,000 individuals who file public reports, called OGE Form 278, but longer-run some 325,000 more employees who file confidential reports also would be impacted, since the law calls for creating a publicly searchable central database of all disclosure forms, effectively erasing the current line between public and confidential reports. Establishing that database promises to be a lengthy process.
Meantime, by the end of August agencies are to post online all Form 278s filed in 2012 and after. Currently some of those forms, mainly from certain high-level political appointees, are available online through the Office of Government Ethics’ site, www.oge.gov, but the remainder are at individual employing agencies and typically must be requested through a paper-based system.
At least one agency, the Energy Department, has warned its employees against including extraneous information not required on the form, which is due May 15. A memo said that many employees have included information such as Social Security numbers, investment account numbers and other personally identifying information on the forms.
The memo said the department is preparing to scan in the forms and "if you include such information, we cannot guarantee that we will catch it. If you have already filed, please look at the copy you kept to make sure that it does not contain any non-mandatory information," the memo said.
