13 Investigates: Pueblo County Clerk owes $4,450 in unpaid fines to the Secretary of State’s Office
PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) -- Campaign finance documents obtained by 13 Investigates show Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder Gilbert "Bo" Ortiz owes thousands of dollars in unpaid campaign finance funds.
The documents show Ortiz failed to record campaign contributions from 2014 to 2019. Those amounts totaled $21,600. However, the Secretary of State's Office provided Ortiz a waiver on fees which brought the amount down to $4,450.
According to campaign finance documents obtained by 13 Investigates, Ortiz reported his campaign's contributions and expenditures late nine separate times between 2016 and 2019. Those fines ranged between $50 and $10,700 before the waiver was applied.
The waiver to reduce the fine amounts was granted to Ortiz, despite the Secretary of State's Office trying multiple times in recent years, to contact Ortiz to pay off the fines.
The waiver document obtained by 13 Investigates says, "this office has tried repeatedly to contact the candidate and the committee over the past several months to resolve these outstanding penalties."
Their numerous attempts to reach Clerk Ortiz were unsuccessful. Those attempts are outlined below, along with the number of fines waived.
In 2014, Matt Arnold, the director of Campaign Integrity Watchdog, filed a complaint alleging that Ortiz failed to report numerous "In-kind" contributions while he was running for re-election that spring.
The complaint states 10 general allegations. They range from unreported contributions of facilities and goods for fundraising events to receiving online donations via Paypal on his website gilbertortiz.net, both of which were not disclosed in campaign finance documents.
"He's the County Clerk. That's his job to enforce these same kind of violations at the County level, so yes he knows better," Arnold said. "You have an expectation that the person in charge of that office actually discharges the duties of the office in a full and conscientious manner."
Arnold said minor campaign finance violations are not uncommon in his experience investigating the issue. However, he has investigated some elected officials that have a propensity to not follow the rules.
"There are elected officials that are serial, repeat offenders," Arnold said. "The [violations] that are egregious violations and are repetitive and recurrent, there's not a lot of people that do that."
The unpaid fines continued to accrue during each reporting period. $50 per day for as many days as the organization's disclosure to the Secretary of State's Office was inaccurate, according to court records.
13 Investigates asked Clerk Ortiz for an interview regarding the campaign finance violations. He declined but did say he's "not sure" how much he currently owes because he is in the process of negotiating to lower them.
The Secretary of State's Office told 13 Investigates, "the fines are outstanding and Mr. Ortiz will be unable to close his candidate committee unless they’re resolved."
Additionally, the Secretary of State's Office has struggled with the enforcement of unpaid fines because, "until July 2020, fines for the state of Colorado were collected by Central Collections Services." Since then, "the Office of the State Controller (OSC) issued a draft fiscal rule on the collection of state debt. The proposed implementation date/deadline is late this calendar year," a spokesperson with the Secretary of State's Office told 13 Investigates.
"Even if he is no longer a candidate, even if he is no longer an elected official, that is money that Bo Ortiz owes to the state, period," Arnold said.
