Committee debates whether employee ethics should be an ordinance or personnel policy; ethics board structure, deadline discussed

The Richland County Finance and Personnel Committee spent the bulk of its meeting discussing whether ethics rules for county employees should be enforced by ordinance or by personnel policy, and how to replace the county’s existing ethics board.

County staff said they are drafting an ethics ordinance using the Iowa County ordinance as a starting point and asked the committee whether employee coverage should be part of an ordinance with the force of law or handled as an employment policy. “Does do we want that to be an ordinance with the force of law or do we want that to be an employment policy or both?” the staff member asked.

Why it matters: an ordinance could permit legal penalties beyond employment discipline, while an employment policy would limit remedies to internal disciplinary actions. The staff member said: “If it’s an ordinance, then somebody who violates it, employee who violates it could theoretically be subjected to forfeiture or other penalties prescribed by statute. But if it’s simply an employment policy, then they would just be subject to disciplinary action under the employment policy.”

Committee members and staff noted the following as they debated drafting choices:

- Most counties take varied approaches; some ordinances apply only to public officials while employees are covered by handbooks, others explicitly include employees in ordinance language. - The existing employee ethics protections are in the personnel handbook; one committee member reported receiving a physical handbook updated Oct. 25, 2022, during onboarding. - The committee’s earlier action requires dissolving the current ethics board by March 15; staff said the committee should be prepared to take a decision to the full county board no later than the last meeting in February or the first committee meeting in March. - The committee discussed the proposed composition and appointment process for a replacement ethics board: five members and one alternate, appointed by the committee on committees; one member should be an attorney or someone trained in due-process-type proceedings; appointees must not be employees or receive the majority of their income from the county.

Committee members favored aligning the employee policy and the ordinance so language and expectations are consistent, and discussed designating the finance and personnel committee to handle employee ethics matters rather than routing employee complaints directly to an independent board. One participant said it would be helpful to clearly distinguish between code-of-conduct issues and ethics violations when presenting the draft to the full board.

Next steps and decisions: staff will prepare a draft that reconciles the county’s employee handbook provisions with the proposed ordinance language and present a recommendation to the full board in time to meet the March 15 deadline established by prior board action. The committee did not adopt final ordinance language at the meeting.