The state Ethics Commission voted Friday to fine several legislators, including Sen. Jason Atkinson, R-Central Point, who failed to report a 2004 trip to Hawaii paid for by a lobbyist.

The negotiated settlements were worked out with the director, Ronald Bersin, who socked Paul Romain, lobbyist for the Oregon Beer and Wine Distributors, with a $4,100 penalty for advising legislators they did not need to file reports.

Atkinson was fined $150. He and his wife attended the association's spring meeting at the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel and Spa in Maui. After learning state law required disclosure of the trip, Atkinson amended his form to report the meeting as an event related to his office.

Bersin, the commission's executive director, met with Atkinson and other legislators to negotiate settlements.

The maximum fine is $1,000 per violation. Bersin said two mitigating circumstances influenced his recommendation on the relatively low penalties. One was Romain's erroneous advice and the second the fact he could not provide financial data on individual expenditures once it was determined an ethics report was required.

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Atkinson was not in his legislative office on Friday, and efforts to contact him were unsuccessful.

In accepting some — but not all — of the recommendations by Bersin, commission member Delna Jones, a former legislator, said she didn't sense there was a deliberate effort to avoid reporting.

"But it was their responsibility," she added.

The commission voted to pull three other proposed fines from the consent calendar because they did not include an assessment for violating the ceiling on gifts — two rounds of golf at an exclusive Maui resort at $150 a round.

John Kopetski said he believed the fines for House Majority Leader Wayne Scott, R-Canby, ($450), former Rep. Derrick Kitts of Hillsboro, and Sen. Dave Nelson, R-Pendleton, ($450) were too low.

The rounds of golf are considered a gift and subject to a $100 limit. The commission then pulled the proposed settlements from the stipulated order to renegotiate the fines.

Also fined for attending a 2002 conference paid for by the beer and wine group and failing to report were Sen. Ryan Deckert, D-Beaverton, and former Lane County Sen. Tony Corcoran, $150 each, and Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, $300 for the 2002 trip and a 2005 visit to Israel paid for by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland.

Don Jepsen is a freelance writer living in Salem.