PIERRE - Financial interest statements required for candidates for federal and state offices and for many local offices in South Dakota went online Thursday.
South Dakota Secretary of State Shantel Krebs posted them on her office's website. They are on the "2016 Candidates List" page.
The reports appear alphabetically in a single file.
Their appearance came one day after Krebs said she had stopped posting them on her office's Internet site.
Her no-post policy applied only to the 2016 versions.
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Financial interest statements had been posted on the office's site by her predecessors as part of the campaign finance reports by candidates since at least 2006.
Candidates and office holders must file financial interest statements as part of public disclosure.
They are required under a section of state law that is separate state laws requiring campaign finance reports.
Krebs said Wednesday she stopped posting the financial interest statements this year with the campaign finance reports. She said the financial interest statements don't have anything to do with campaign finances.
The financial interest statements remained public records. But Krebs, under the policy that was in effect through Wednesday and ended Thursday, said the 2016 statements needed to be requested from her office as paper documents subject to copy fees.
That policy change Thursday made the 2016 financial interest statements open to public inspection on the Internet.
Financial interest statements for previous years remained available on the office's website under the campaign finance listings.
The new single-file approach Krebs has installed for the 2016 financial interest statements is somewhat handier than making searches, candidate by candidate, in the campaign-finance listings.
