At its meeting today, the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board said it will randomly select 10 lobbyists for an audit by the Office of State Ethics.
The board will select “client lobbyists,” which are companies, organizations or other entities that spend at least $2,000 per year to lobby state legislators, staff and administrators.
The ethics office will also audit all associated “communicator lobbyists,” which receive payment and do the actual lobbying legwork.
Last year, there were lobbyists and communicators spent more than $51 million in Connecticut, with the largest lobbying effort done on health care and hospital matters.
The ethics office used to audit 40 lobbyists, but said budget cuts have forced it to cut that number by three-quarters. The audit of 10 lobbyists represents just a tenth of one percent of the 1,077 registered client lobbyists in the state.
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