My First Financial Disclosure Act Filing

I recently completed and submitted my first Financial Disclosure Act Report to the State Board of Elections (SBE) using their new COMET web based system.

The three-hour training course provided by the SBE was excellent and all seasoned disclosure candidates and treasurers during the training session agreed it is far better than the non web-based software that was previously used. The report includes all expenditures, contributions, loans, rebates/refunds, in-kind contributions (nine different schedules in all). I found using COMET to be very user friendly and the overall processes to be easy and accurate.

The deadline for the first report is April 16, so SBE should be making them all available to the public soon after that date on their website, which you can find by clicking here. Names of those contributors that gave $100 or less are not listed in the report (only a combined amount) and anything prior to January 1, 2012 will not show up in the reports. However, I do have my own spreadsheet that shows ALL and will provide it to the press if requested.

I'm delighted the Herndon Town Council voted in favor of taking the action and "volunteered" to abide by the Financial Disclosure Act requirements.

• SBE campaign finance information online: 
http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Campaign_Finance_Disclosure/Index.html