Half of legislators had findings in their financial reports

On November 9, 2021, El Nuevo Día published — as the first report in an Investigation and Data Unit series — that half of the legislators had findings in their financial reports. According to the primary’s kicker, at least 38 members of the Legislative Assembly submitted incomplete or inconsistent information, per a preliminary evaluation by the Office of Government Ethics (OEG).

The piece carries bylines of Wilma Maldonado Arrigoitía, David Cordero Mercado and Laura M. Quintero. In the same series, the paper found that legislators’ financial reports are not substantively audited — described in a related item as a “cosmetic procedure” — when confronting the OEG director and the chairs of the Senate and House Ethics committees.

This desk does not invent the list of the 38, the types of inconsistency or any sanctions: the detail sits behind a subscription paywall on the primary (THIN — paywall).

A finding in a financial report is not a judgment. A preliminary Ethics evaluation is not an adjudicative ruling.