TikTok Inc. US and the Connecticut AFL-CIO are among 30 lobbyists who will be audited in 2024 by the Office of State Ethics (OSE).
The Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board recently announced it has randomly selected 30 client lobbyists registered with the state to audit next year, in compliance with OSE’s requirement to annually audit lobbyists’ official filings.
Other lobbyists selected for audit include the National Alliance on Mental Illness of CT; Women’s Health CT, Inc.; Hartford HealthCare; Carvana, Inc.; CT Funeral Directors Assoc.; NRG Energy, Inc.; CT Conference of Independent Colleges; Charter Communications, Inc.; and Local 32BJ, Service Employees International Union.
The 30 lobbyists who will be audited were selected from a pool of client lobbyists, a party paying for lobbying services on its behalf, registered with the state between January 1, 2021, and December 31, 2023.
The state also maintains registration for communicator lobbyists, who are paid to lobby on behalf of client lobbyists. Communicator lobbyist records associated with client lobbyists selected for the audit will also be reviewed.
Client lobbyists selected for audit must provide OSE with a number of documents as part of the process, including all contracts with communicator lobbyists, all canceled check payments to communicator lobbyists, as well as various types of registration filings and financial reports. In addition, they are required to provide all invoices and bills, beneficiary names, and attendee lists for hosted events for expenditures made for the benefit of state employees and public officials. They are also required to provide all lobbying-related disbursements, including the number of checks, the dates they were issued, the amount, and the name of the payee.
According to data collected by OSE, the overall number of lobbyists registered with the state has decreased by 61 since 2022’s lottery but the amount of money spent has increased by $6 million.
For the 2023-2024 fiscal year, OSE reports that government and healthcare were the top two issues lobbied by clients, with 290 clients registered to lobby for government and 284 for healthcare topics. Real estate lobbying was at the bottom of a list of the top 20 most lobbied issues, with 95 clients registered.
In total, client lobbyists have spent roughly $32.7 million in compensation to date during the 2023-2024 fiscal year. The CT Hospital Association has the highest number of overall expenses for the year to date, spending roughly $1.1 million overall and just over $1 million in compensation.
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