The largest amount of money spent lobbying state lawmakers in 2015 was focused on healthcare issues, according to the Connecticut Office of State Ethics, which released a report Wednesday that showed businesses, hospitals and other special interests spent $50.1 million a year ago to influence legislation.
In 2015, special interest groups spent $50.1 million to hire 949 registered client lobbyists, 574 in-house communicators and 182 individual communicators to lobby on their behalf.
The top five issues lobbied were: healthcare systems and organizations, government financing and contracts, human services, business and environment.
The Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board will randomly select 10 lobbyists to be audited by the state panel at its meeting today. Dena Castricone, vice chair of the board, will make the audit selections at the 1 p.m. meeting to be held at 18-20 Trinity St., 5th floor, in Hartford.
The lobbyists will be selected from a pool of all registered client lobbyists.
As the audits are conducted, the state also will audit associated communicator lobbyists who receive payment from the clients for conducting lobbying activities.
A list of lobbyists selected to be audited will be available on the Office of State Ethics web site, www.ct.gov/ethics, after the drawing. Audits are expected to be completed this fiscal year.
