The Best Continuing Ethics Education No Money Can Buy -- With Deterrence Thrown In

One great advantage of handling local government ethics matters at the state level is that decisions and advisory opinions can be easily and widely disseminated to all local governments in the state.

This sort of publicity is good for several reasons. One, it provides precedents and guidance to local government officials. Two, it provides deterrence by showing the consequences of a wide variety of ethical violations. Three, it makes available to citizens, the media, and all officials and employees, including newcomers, a large database of information about local government ethics.

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One of the biggest problems in local government ethics is a lack of information about what other jurisdictions are doing. Handling local government ethics at the state level solves this and other problems (especially the independence of the ethics commission). Of course, it creates other problems, as well (and local government officials hate it).

Massachusetts does a good job of disseminating its local government decisions through a flow of press releases that are available on its website, and can also be subscribed to, so that they are emailed as they come out. At very little cost, there is a great deal of transparency in the state's local government ethics system. And emailing the releases provides a perfect form of continuing ethics education that requires little time and no teacher, and is intrinsically interesting because it is current and involves people in nearby jurisdictions.