A state hearing officer has dismissed a complaint alleging that Denver City Council President Albus Brooks misused public money and other resources to promote his re-election.

The dismissal, issued June 1, is based on a finding that a state law against that practice doesn’t apply to home-rule cities such as Denver that have adopted their own campaign finance rules — even though Denver’s ordinance doesn’t actually bar the use of public resources for political causes.

Instead, similar restrictions are set in city policies. But a Denver elections spokesman confirms that an ordinance change is now in the works, in part because of the decision.

In ruling on the technicality, administrative law judge Robert N. Spencer didn’t address the allegations against Brooks and the city. They center on the use of a council staffer’s time and city social media accounts to promote a March campaign fundraiser, plus a $500 council donation to a Whittier Elementary School PTA fundraiser that resulted in the display of a banner promoting Brooks.

Jason Legg, an attorney for a Denver group called Strengthening Democracy Colorado, said the organization, which filed the complaint, likely would ask the Colorado Court of Appeals to review the ruling.

Through its career service rules for city employees and in the City Council’s rules, Denver prohibits the use of public resources in political campaigns

But Legg says enforcing those provisions would seem to be more difficult than applying the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act (FCPA) in a state complaint.

“There are no sanctions or punishment for these actions” at the local level, Legg said. “The ruling makes clear that apparently there’s no recourse outside of self-policing by the council.”

The Denver Elections Division is now working on a proposed ordinance change, spokesman Alton Dillard confirmed Friday. It likely will mirror state law in prohibiting the use of public resources to influence elections, he said, and could simplify the local campaign finance complaint process.

Brooks has denied wrongdoing, but he says he supports the ordinance change to make the rules clearer.

He has said his staffer clocked out for the time she spent on the fundraiser. However, city emails show the staffer asked belatedly to deduct 30 minutes from her time card only after a reporter asked if she had done so, with an assertion that she forgot to adjust her hours in early February.

And Brooks has said the banner promoted his council office, not his campaign. The donation itself was similar to other community contributions given by council members using their office budgets.

In 2012, the state appeals court upheld the dismissal of another local election campaign complaint that was filed at the state level, that time out of Colorado Springs. That was because the FCPA says it doesn’t apply to home-rule cities and counties when their local laws “address the matters covered by” the state measure.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office generally has interpreted that wording to mean that a local campaign finance law pre-empts that state law entirely if it addresses any of the same issues. But the office is in the process of eliminating a conflicting rule that, while predating the 2012 court ruling, says the state’s public resources restriction does apply to home-rule cities.

Here is the dismissal issued June 1 by the administrative judge: