SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Politicians in Illinois reportedly owe the state about $348,000 in fines for filing their campaign finance records late.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Tuesday that East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks, for instance, owes $4,600 in fines.
Parks told the newspaper he found out about the fines in January and said he has made payment arrangements. Parks said he should have paid closer attention to campaign paperwork being filed on time.
"Mine was simply not being on top of the situation as I should have been," Parks was quoted as saying.
Former gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka said she did not even know that her campaign had been fined until after the 2006 election was over.
Topinka, who has hired an attorney to resolve her debt with the state elections board, took umbrage with her campaign debt being publicized.
She has accrued $34,865 in fines for not filing her campaign finance disclosure forms when she was running against Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
"I don't like having my name listed with a bunch of scofflaws who have never filed anything and don't intend to because that's just not the way I have operated," she said.
