When you are notified that a filer is leaving or has left their designated position, you must terminate the impacted position frm the filers acount and, if applicable, set up and notify the filer of their leaving office requirement, which must be filed no later than 30 days after the filer of their leaving office requirement, which must be filed no later than 30 days after the filer has left the position. The sections in this chapter provide detailed instructions for the various offboarding scenarios.

To terminate a position from a filer’s account:

1. Select Filer Search on the main menu.

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   Figure 24

2. Enter the filer’s last name and select the filer’s name. The filer’s dashboard will open. You can also use the View & Edit Filers option under the Filers menu to search for individual filers in your department.

3. Click Action next to the position that you want to terminate.

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   Figure 25

4. On the Edit Positions Actions dialog screen, click on the Leave button (see Figure 26 below).

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   Figure 26

5. Enter the Date Left Office and (if the filer no longer has access to their City-issued email address) enter the Filer’s New E-mail and click the Add Leaving Deadline button. This creates a leaving office requirement and a deadline for the statement to be filed.

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Figure 27

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Figure 28

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Figure 29

If you become aware that an existing designated filer in your department is transferring to another designated position in a different City department, do not terminate the filer’s position. Instead, contact the Ethics Commission via our Form 700 Support Portal for assistance. In your request, include:

Upon receipt, Ethics Commission staff will confirm the information with you and the new department and perform a transfer in the system. When a transfer has been performed, the system adds the new position to the Filer Positions table and marks the old position with information about the transfer in the Date Left column including the position transferred to and the date of the transfer. The old position’s background color is also changed to gray.

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Figure 30

If you encounter a filer who occupies active positions in more than one department, you will only have the permissions to access and manage the filer’s position in your department. Likewise, the filing officer of the department for the secondary position can access and manage that position. Accordingly, two or more filing officers will have access to that filer’s account. In most instances, when a filer is occupying multiple designated positions, one of the positions is a position that files with the Ethics Commission (e.g., the filer serves on a board or commission). In this case, the Ethics Commission apprised of any changes that occur with the positions within your department (e.g., the filer leaves the position).

If you mistakenly add a leaving office requirement to a filer that is not required to file a leaving office Form 700, you can remove the requirement from the filer’s account. To remove a filing requirement:

1. From the filer’s dashboard, in the Active Filing Deadlines table, click Exclude next to the requirement you want to exclude. The leaving office requirement is labeled “L” in the Type column.

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   Figure 35

If you mistakenly remove a filing requirement, locate the requirement in the Inactive Filing Deadline table, and click Include next to the requirement you want to include. Ensure you select the correct filing type filing with the correct Deadline and Period Start/End (see Figure 35).

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Figure 36

To edit a leaving office requirement, you will first need to “exclude” the incorrect requirement and then add the correct requirement.

1. Exclude the Incorrect Requirement:

   1. From the Filer’s Dashboard, locate the Active Filing Deadlines table.

   2. Locate the Leaving Office requirement.

   3. Click the Exclude link for the Leaving Office requirement labeled with in “L”.

2. Add the Correct Requirement:

   1. Click the Actions link in the Filer Positions table for the position to which you are adding an assuming office requirement. The Edit Position dialog opens.

   2. Click Leave button.

   3. Enter the Date Left Office.

   4. Optional: If you have an updated email address for the person leaving office, you can enter in the Filer’s New E-Mail field. When leaving office, filers often have their email changed as access to their City email address is disabled. Please note that updating the email address at this point will also change the email address the filer uses to log in to their account. Be sure to inform the filer that their login email address has changed.

   5. Click the Add Leaving Deadline button. The system displays a success message at the top of the Edit Position dialog.

Circumstances may occur that require a filer’s account to be forced-terminated. For example, if a filer has passed away while employed in their designated position. Another situation is if a filer has left the position and did not file the required leaving office statement within 90 days after leaving the position. Please note that state law requires that there be at least two attempts to notify the filer of their leaving office requirement. Additionally, anytime a force termination is performed, filing officers should make a notation in the filer’s NetFile account that sufficiently describes the reason for the force termination. Also note that once a filer’s account is terminated, the filer can no longer access their account to file an outstanding statement.

To force terminate a filer account, complete the following steps:

If you have already set up a leaving office requirement in the filer’s dashboard, skip to step 3.

1. In the filer’s dashboard, click Action next to the impacted position in the Filers position table.

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   Figure 37

2. In the Edit Position dialog, click the Terminate button.

3. You’ll be asked to confirm that you want to terminate, click the Terminate button followed by OK to complete the force termination.

If you create a filer account in error, Ethics Commission staff can delete the filer for you. Note that in order to delete a filer from the NetFile system, the filer must have no filing history in NetFile. To delete an erroneous filer account, submit a ticket through the Form 700 Support Portal. Include the following information for each filer you wish to delete from the system:

• First Name

• Last Name

• Filer ID (shown on the filer’s dashboard under their name; see image below)

• Department

• Position

• Date Left

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Figure 38

When offboarding a filer, a critical responsibility of departmental filing officers is to notify the filer that they have a Form 700 filing obligation. Your filer notices should include:

• Requirement Type and Due Date (e.g., Your Leaving Office Form 700 is due no later than [MM/DD/YYYY]).

• Reporting Period (e.g., You are reporting for the period 1/1/2022 through your last date in the position).

• The Filer’s USER ID (Note: The USER ID is the filer’s email entered when their account was created, which is generally their City-issued email address. This information can be found on the filer’s dashboard).

• How to File - Link the Filers Page which provides a link to E-File statement.

• The Filer’s Disclosure Category

• Link to the Form 700 Home Page (provides important information about the law, disclosure catefories, filign and reporting requirements, and consequences of not filing by deadline.

For your convenience, Sample Filer Notices are available on the Filing Officers Page.