Ethics Commissions & Administration

They have various names, such as councils of governments (COGs), joint powers authorities (JPAs), and regional councils or commissions, but whatever names they have, these local government associations are often left outside of both local and state government ethics programs. And yet, as the term "…

There is a great deal to be learned from the selection process for the new District of Columbia Board of Ethics and Government Accountability, which is effectively complete. Three weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about the nomination of Robert Spagnoletti to be chair of the new ethics board. I questi…

Here is one of the most useful sections of my new book Local Government Ethics Programs. Summer is upon us, and most ethics commissions that do not have a case before them do not meet. In fact, many ethics commissions are nearly inactive all year long. But this doesn't have to happen. There's a lot…

Erosion of an ethics program can occur in many ways (see the section of my book on backsliding). In Louisiana (where the state ethics program has jurisdiction over local officials), there has been a great deal of erosion, regarding the ethics board's role in the ethics process, the standard of proo…

Independent agencies are more likely than regular government agencies to get into trouble, because they are usually more closed and less supervised. And yet officials too often listen to agencies' calls for independence from ethics programs, as if the "independence" meant something positive that sh…

What does it mean to be a "high-caliber" nominee for a position on a local ethics commission? Does it mean someone who has been in law enforcement, a prosecutor or judge whose presence sends the message that the law will be enforced? Or does it mean someone who appears to be independent of the loca…

Update: July 17, 2012 (see end of this post) Here's an interesting conflict situation from Concord, NH. According to a recent article in the Concord Patch, a state representative filed ethics complaints against Concord's mayor and one of the city's council members. Since the mayor and city manager …

I was on a panel this week as part of the annual Citywide Seminar on Ethics in New York City Government, co-sponsored by the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) and the Center for New York City Law at the New York Law School. The panel was called "Challenges & Solutions in Government E…

My most recent blog post involved ethics commission confidentiality. This one involves the other side of the coin:  ethics commission transparency. I often send blog posts to officials I write about, hoping that they will enter into dialogue about the issue, privately or online, or at least learn s…

Although in 2008, Orange County, Florida's Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform Task Force recommended (report attached; see below) that the county have an ethics board selected by a variety of community organizations, following the model of Miami/Dade County, and Section 2-457 of the county ordinanc…