Horry County Council Chairman Liz Gilland will have to pay a hefty fine for ethics violations, but it won't be nearly as much as it could have been.

The State Ethics Commission today voted to reduce her fine to a fraction of what it was originally.

This all stems from a single campaign finance disclosure form that Gilland didn't file in 2006. She says someone else does that work for her and she didn't know about the missing report for two years.

The Ethics Commission fined her for failing to submit that disclosure report in time and then continued to fine her about $1,100 per day that the report remained missing.

The total fine came to $367,600.

Wednesday, Gilland went to Columbia and appealed the fine. During her appeal, she apologized, told the commission she was not an unethical person and asked that they reduce the fine to less than $10,000.

Instead, the commission voted unanimously to reduce it to $45,000 and gave her 60 days to pay it. Gilland said after the hearing that she doesn't feel real good about having to pay $45,000, but it's better than $360,000.

She says she's already planning a chicken bog fundraiser and other events to come up with money to pay the fine.

Gilland finally filed all of her disclosure forms in November, but by then the Ethics Commission had already filed a judgement against her.

If she pays off the reduced fine, the judgement will be settled.

Candidates are required to file campaign disclosure reports four times a year.

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