Begich, a Democrat who is running against Sen. Ted Stevens, acknowledged the disclosure violations and said he would pay whatever fine is formally assessed by the bipartisan commission when it hears the case Sept. 26.

The commission staff reached its conclusions on a complaint brought by McHugh Pierre, the spokesman for the Republican Party of Alaska. Pierre based his complaint on the differences between Begich's state law disclosure as mayor for 2007 and his federal law disclosure as candidate for the Senate.

Of Pierre's nine allegations stemming from his comparison of the two forms, the commission staff dismissed six as unfounded. The state disclosure covered 12 months and the federal form 16 months, and some of the discrepancies were explained by that difference, the staff said.

For example, Pierre complained that Begich didn't list the proceeds of savings bonds redeemed by his wife that showed up on his federal disclosure. Begich said his wife cashed in the bonds after December 2007 to set up a college fund for their 6-year-old son. The sale was outside the scope of his 2007 state disclosure but not the federal report, he said.

The commission staff agreed and dismissed that allegation.

While Begich listed his wife's ownership in three publicly traded companies on both his state and federal disclosures, he failed to list those companies as also providing dividend income on his state form. The companies are Xcel Energy, a Minneapolis-based electric and gas utility; the national radio network Citadel Broadcasting, which distributes the Paul Harvey and Sean Hannity shows, among others; and Frontline Ltd., a crude-oil tanker company.

Begich also neglected to report his and his wife's ownership of stock in Quantum Fuel, a company developing clean fuel technology. In his reply to Pierre's complaint, Begich said he received no dividends from Quantum but should have reported the ownership interest.

The third allegation sustained by the commission staff concerned dividends from a mortgage company, Impac Mortgage Holdings. Begich disclosed his own dividends of $3,437 but left off his wife's dividends of $1,111. Begich said the error, like the others, was inadvertent.

The commission also dismissed a supplemental complaint filed by Pierre accusing Begich of inaccurately reporting his ownership in two real estate companies in Anchorage in 2002 and 2003. Begich acknowledged he had been late in reporting that ownership in 2005.

In any event, the staff said, the complaint needs to be dismissed because the matter occurred outside the statute of limitations.

Pierre said he was satisfied with the staff recommendation and hoped the full commission would endorse it.

Pierre filed his complaint July 31, two days after Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was indicted on seven felony charges of failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts, mostly from the chief executive of the defunct oil field services company Veco. Stevens is set to be tried on those charges in Washington on Sept. 24.

At the time, Begich's campaign spokeswoman Julie Hasquet described Pierre's filing as an effort to divert attention from the criminal charges faced by Stevens.

Pierre said Monday that he brought the complaint because Begich had vowed to be open with his personal finances. "Obviously that leads (one) to say, 'Are you?' " Pierre said.

Hasquet said Begich would agree to pay whatever civil penalty the bipartisan commission decides.

The fine is based on a $10-a-day penalty to cover the 142 days between the May 17, 2008, due date for his 2007 disclosure and Aug. 6, the day he corrected it.

"The fed form was complete," Hasquet said. "The irony for us is (Pierre) used (Begich's) own reports against him. Mark Begich's information was disclosed on his federal report and posted on his Web site, but yes indeed, there was a handful of items left off the state report."

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Find Richard Mauer online at adn.com/contact/rmauer or call 257-4345.