A New Report on the Ethics Programs of Florida Counties
On November 29, Florida State University’s LeRoy Collins
Institute and the new good government group Integrity Florida
released <a href="http://www.integrityfl.org/county-ethics-report/" target="”_blank”">a report
entitled "Florida Counties Bridge the Ethics Policy Gap"</a>,
which<em> </em>analyzes the results of a survey of government
ethics programs and reforms in 45 of Florida’s 67 counties.<br>
<br>
Besides a lot of statistics of the sort lacking in local
government ethics, this report looks closer into the actions taken
in certain counties that have tackled one or more areas of
government ethics, from conflicts and disclosure to lobbying and
procurement. The report's statistics include ethics training,
ethics commissions, inspector generals, and ethics "point persons"
(I wish it was made more clear how many counties had an
independent office or individual to provide timely ethics advice,
since this is the most important part of any ethics program).<br>
<br>
Despite the optimistic title, few of Florida's counties have made
up for the weakness of the state's ethics program. Although there
is training, mostly through the state league of cities, few
counties have anything resembling an ethics program, and one of
those few (Duval County/Jacksonville's) is the result of years of
hard labor by City Ethics' president, Carla Miller.<br>
<br>
Hopefully, citizen organizations in the other counties will use
this report to argue for their counties to have comprehensive,
independent ethics programs like those in Duval-Jacksonville and
Miami-Dade counties.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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