Jackson City audit committee weighs anonymous ethics complaints, recommends ordinance review

The Jackson City Audit Committee on an unspecified date discussed restoring an anonymous reporting option for ethics-related complaints and asked the city attorney to draft ordinance language for committee review.

Committee Chair Robinson opened the discussion by noting that the audit work group had circulated an anonymous complaint form and employee complaint form and that members remained concerned about the lack of support for anonymous submissions and about how people named in complaints are notified. Theresa, the city attorney, told the committee the city’s ethics ordinance “directly mimics the state law” and therefore currently does not include grandchildren or other expanded definitions the committee had asked about. She said she has drafted ordinance language to add the grandchildren provision and is prepared to return a draft to the committee for a vote.

Why it matters: Committee members said the current process — which requires notarized, named complaints under the ordinance — may be suppressing legitimate reports. Committee members discussed two goals: (1) ensure employees and others can report wrongdoing without fear of reprisal where appropriate and (2) preserve enough verification so the ethics review process is not overwhelmed by unsubstantiated or politically motivated allegations.

Theresa and other staff explained how the process has changed. The city previously used a third-party vendor to accept anonymous submissions; that online link remained on the city website after the contract lapsed, creating a gap in the submission pathway. Miss McKinney, the internal auditor, confirmed the online form is now a city-hosted PDF describing the current process and that staff recently updated the website to restore a submission mechanism. Theresa said the ordinance currently requires a notarized name on ethics complaints to prevent misuse, and that any change to allow anonymity would require a change to the ordinance.

Committee members and staff described how reports were handled before and after the ordinance change. Miss McKinney said her prior role included verifying that a complainant was a real person and that a submission was complete; after that verification she would pass the packet to the ethics committee, which then handled investigation. Theresa said the ethics committee’s policies allow it discretion to determine when and if the complainant and subject should be interviewed and when to notify parties of an investigation, offering a way to limit public exposure in sensitive cases even if the originating submission contains a name.

The committee raised several practical points: that HR must verify employee status if an employee submits a complaint; that some types of employee complaints (for example, harassment or discrimination) are routed outside the ethics process; and that there is an existing anonymous state portal for reporting fraud, waste and abuse that preserves anonymity in those categories. Committee members also flagged an election-year moratorium embedded in the ordinance: the internal auditor may not accept complaints concerning a candidate during the period from the last day to qualify as a candidate until 11:59 p.m. the day after the election.

No formal ordinance change was adopted during the meeting. Instead the committee agreed to reactivate the ethics committee membership, work with staff to draft ordinance language to allow an anonymous pathway while retaining verification safeguards, and send the draft to Theresa for legal review before returning it to the committee for further consideration. Chair Robinson and other members agreed to return to the topic at a subsequent meeting after the ethics committee is reconstituted.

"If you guys want the anonymous feature in there, you're going to have to make a recommendation to the city council to change the ordinance," Theresa told the committee.

The committee also asked staff to coordinate with HR on employee-reporting pathways and to consider whether certain non-ethics employee complaints already have an anonymous channel through state reporting that could be referenced publicly.

Looking ahead, committee members proposed presenting the draft language in a Jackson City Council workshop once the committee finalizes recommendations, and they asked staff to ensure the ethics committee has a full roster before the next committee meeting.