California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board adopts updated anti-nepotism policy

The California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board voted unanimously Sept. 18 to adopt modifications to its anti-nepotism policy and authorized staff to proceed with conforming regulatory changes.

Board counsel told members the revisions were designed to align the Board's policy with the statewide anti-nepotism language adopted by the state personnel board while preserving an existing provision that covers other relationships that could create a conflict of interest or negatively affect supervision and morale. "There is a category of relationships which the policy addresses, where there's a potential for creating an adverse impact on the supervision, security, or morale of the workforce," counsel said.

Member Ng asked whether the policy's catchall would include personal relationships not specifically enumerated (for example, relationships that are not blood relatives or domestic partners). Counsel answered that the policy maintains an inclusive category intended to capture relationships that could undermine the merit principle. "The overarching idea is that appointments must follow the merit principle," counsel said.

Some members said the revised language might appear to remove specific blood relationships from the list of examples but that the catchall paragraph still captures blood relations. Member Waikovsky said she worried readers could misinterpret the edited list and suggested retaining clearer language for readers; counsel and members agreed the intent was to conform to statewide wording while retaining the broader conflict-of-interest catchall.

Member Ng moved to adopt the policy modifications and to authorize staff to prepare any necessary regulatory changes; the motion passed by unanimous vote. The Board instructed staff to issue conforming regulatory language following the approval.

The Board took no other action on personnel policies at the meeting and moved on to the budget discussion.