Ethics complaint filed against Sarasota School Board member Tom Edwards

A Sarasota woman who frequently attends and comments at Sarasota County School meetings filed an ethics complaint against School Board member Tom Edwards over his financial disclosures from two years ago.

Ashton Beaudry, 32, claims in the complaint that Edwards intentionally lied on his 2020 financial disclosure forms. In his disclosure, Edwards listed his School Board salary of $40,138 as income, while his tax records indicated he earned $3,643 for serving on the board for the last weeks of the year because he had been sworn in after the November election.

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Beaudry characterized the mistake as intentional and said he had not been forthcoming.

"As a concerned mother and taxpayer of Sarasota County, I do not (believe he) has been fully transparent with the voters," she said.

But Edwards said the mistake was inadvertent and characteristic of a first-time elected official. He said he will cooperate with the Florida Commission on Ethics, and work to fix the issue.

"I believe in transparency and I believe that public officials should be accountable to any wrong doing, whether it is the president of the United States or a School Board member,” he said.

Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota School Board member Tom Edwards faces ethics complaint