During a regularly scheduled meeting today, the Campaign Finance Board assessed penalties against one campaign. Penalties were assessed against the 2005 Borough President campaign of Scott Stringer. For details, see below:
| Candidate | Office | Public Funds Received | Violation | Penalty | Total Penalties |
| Scott Stringer (2005) | Borough President (Manhattan) | $708,950 | Exceeding the expenditure limit by $48,262 | $72,393 | $73,743 |
| Failing to document transactions in the form of joint expenditures | $750 | ||||
| Accepting two unregistered political committee contributions | $250 | ||||
| Failing to file daily pre-election disclosure statements | $150 | ||||
| Failing to provide an intermediary affirmation statement | $100 | ||||
| Failing to document a transaction | $50 | ||||
| Failing to document a transaction in the form of a reported joint expenditure | $50 |
The Board also considered a petition for adoption of rules. The Board denied a petition by Eric Gioia, a 2009 candidate for public advocate, for the Board to adopt rules regarding expenditures to reduce campaign-related carbon emissions. Mr. Gioia proposed for the Board’s consideration rules that would (1) consider any expenditure for carbon offsets to mitigate campaign-related emissions to be a “qualified” campaign expenditure (i.e. an appropriate use of public funds), and (2) exempt any expenditure to offset campaign-related emissions from the Campaign Finance Program’s expenditure limit.
The Board determined that the Campaign Finance Act precludes the adoption of these rules. Because the market for carbon offsets is largely unregulated at this time and the value of carbon offsets is difficult to determine, the Board cannot be assured that campaign spending on carbon offsets would represent an appropriate use of public funds.
Furthermore, the narrow and specific exemptions to the expenditure limit contained in the Act cannot be interpreted to encompass spending to reduce a campaign’s carbon “footprint.” While the Board finds Mr. Gioia’s efforts to reduce or offset his campaign’s carbon emissions commendable, the proposed rules are not the appropriate vehicle for Mr. Gioia to achieve this objective.