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Report on Annual Reports II
Friday, December 19th, 2008
Robert Wechsler
Because local governments' annual ethics reports serve so many purposes
-- publicizing the ethics program's existence, educating officials and
the public about what an ethics program includes, and making an example
of those who do not file disclosure forms or are found to have
participated in unethical conduct -- they should be made as easily,
widely, and inexpensively available as possible.
And that means putting them up on the local government's website.
My first report on annual reports focused on big cities and counties, and one state. So I decided to check out the reports on municipal websites in Connecticut, my state (we have no counties; call us deprived). Since I did a survey of all the municipal ethics codes in the state, I knew which municipalities required annual reports: 23 out of 169, including all but one of the largest cities as well as smaller cities, medium-sized towns, and even a couple of tiny towns.
On those 23 municipal websites, I could not find a single annual ethics report, or ethics report of any kind. Not a single one.
In several instances, I couldn't even find mention of an ethics commission, and in most of the other instances I couldn't find anything more than a list of the members and, in some cases, a link to the ethics code or meeting minutes (which are now required by state law to be posted online).
I don't believe that any of these ethics commissions has a staff, but you'd think that a chair, vice-chair, or secretary of an ethics commission -- or an interested council member or municipal executive -- would take it upon him- or herself to publicize what the commission is doing. An ethics code only says what an ethics commission can do or should do. If there is no information about what is actually being done, citizens have a reason to believe that nothing is being done, that there is effectively no ethics program, no disclosure, no training, no enforcement, no nothing.
Online, local government ethics scarcely exists in Connecticut. It probably scarcely exists in your state, too. Why not check it out and report to me on the state of your state's reports?
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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And that means putting them up on the local government's website.
My first report on annual reports focused on big cities and counties, and one state. So I decided to check out the reports on municipal websites in Connecticut, my state (we have no counties; call us deprived). Since I did a survey of all the municipal ethics codes in the state, I knew which municipalities required annual reports: 23 out of 169, including all but one of the largest cities as well as smaller cities, medium-sized towns, and even a couple of tiny towns.
On those 23 municipal websites, I could not find a single annual ethics report, or ethics report of any kind. Not a single one.
In several instances, I couldn't even find mention of an ethics commission, and in most of the other instances I couldn't find anything more than a list of the members and, in some cases, a link to the ethics code or meeting minutes (which are now required by state law to be posted online).
I don't believe that any of these ethics commissions has a staff, but you'd think that a chair, vice-chair, or secretary of an ethics commission -- or an interested council member or municipal executive -- would take it upon him- or herself to publicize what the commission is doing. An ethics code only says what an ethics commission can do or should do. If there is no information about what is actually being done, citizens have a reason to believe that nothing is being done, that there is effectively no ethics program, no disclosure, no training, no enforcement, no nothing.
Online, local government ethics scarcely exists in Connecticut. It probably scarcely exists in your state, too. Why not check it out and report to me on the state of your state's reports?
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
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