Committee agrees to joint posting of candidate financial-disclosure form; staff and accessibility needs flagged

The House Government Operations & Military Affairs committee agreed to have the Vermont Ethics Commission post the candidate financial-disclosure form and FAQs and to have the Secretary of State link to that material, while committee members pressed for phone support and more staff to handle a heavy filing period.

Representative Waters Evans opened the discussion by urging urgency and accessibility: "The goal is to get this form available to candidates so that they can file properly according to what we've laid out already in statute," she said, arguing the panel should avoid creating barriers to candidacy.

Director Sibret of the Vermont Ethics Commission told the committee the commission prepared a fillable PDF from its model online form and proposed a compromise: both the Ethics Commission and the Secretary of State post the form and a joint FAQ, and the commission triage questions by email while…