LegiStorm

Summary:
What GAO Found

A key component of the federal ethics program is the financial disclosure program, which applies to the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. As the supervising ethics office for the executive branch, the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) interprets ethics laws and issues regulations and guidance for the executive branch financial disclosure programs, among other functions.

Regular disclosure of personal financial interests helps ethics officials to identify and address conflicts with the filers' government responsibilities. There are two categories of filers in the executive branch.

Public filers are typically high-level officials and career senior employees.
Confidential filers are typically lower-level employees whose job duties involve a heightened risk of conflicts of interest (e.g., contracting, procurement, and grants administration). More than 29,000 public reports and 420,000 confidential reports were filed in 2023.
Public filers are required to disclose detailed information on assets, nonfederal income, liabilities, positions held outside government, employment agreements, gifts and travel. The public reporting requirements were fixed by law in 1978.

Confidential filers generally disclose similar information as public filers, but in less detail. OGE has regularly updated and modified the reporting requirements for the confidential financial disclosure program through the regulatory process.

Evaluations of the financial disclosure program have been conducted in its 45-year history. Notably, these studies—spanning 25 years—found that the statutorily-defined reporting requirements for public filers in the executive branch are outdated, inconsistent, and, in some cases, unnecessary.

The studies presented recommendations to Congress to revise the public reporting requirements, generally falling into four categories: (1) raising reporting thresholds; (2) changing and reducing the number of categories for reporting value; (3) ensuring consistency across regulations and laws; and (4) eliminating the disclosure of unnecessary information.

These studies and their recommendations provide policymakers and lawmakers with information to consider updates or legislative changes to the government's ethics program, as needed. Changes would help reduce filing and review burdens while ensuring that agencies continue to have relevant, reliable, and appropriate information for their conflict of interest reviews.

Absent changes to the requirements, public employees will continue to report information that may be too detailed or may not be necessary for an effective conflict of interest review. Legislation would be needed to address these issues. As of October 2024, we had not identified any enacted legislation addressing these specific recommendations.

Moreover, while the changes described above may still be relevant and warranted, OGE's last evaluation is almost 20 years old. An updated evaluation could provide Congress with valuable information as it considers changes to the public financial disclosure program.

Why GAO Did This Study

Since 1989, the Ethics in Government Act has required GAO to report on the effectiveness of the financial disclosure system. The report addresses various aspects of the executive branch financial disclosure program, including requirements for filing and how conflicts of interest may be addressed.

To answer these questions, GAO reviewed relevant federal statutes, regulations, and guidance from OGE. GAO reviewed several evaluations of the financial disclosure system over the years. GAO interviewed OGE officials and analyzed data from OGE's Annual Agency Ethics Program Questionnaire from calendar years 2014 to 2023. GAO also reviewed documents and interviewed ethics officials from the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and National Science Foundation.