Audit committee to hear Ethics Suite demo as it weighs anonymous complaint platforms

Christy told the committee she had reached out to three vendors the committee shortlisted for anonymous complaint intake and had completed an initial demo of Ethics Suite. "I did do an initial demo with Ethics Suite just over a week or so ago. I think it is probably even more robust of a system than what I could even foresee us needing," Christy said.

Christy said Palonius was not accepting demo requests and that she had not yet heard back from Conversant. She said the Ethics Suite vendor is based abroad and suggested bringing founders to the April meeting to walk the committee through how they handle anonymity and messaging between investigators and anonymous filers.

Staff provided a preliminary pricing estimate for Ethics Suite that Christy reported as a one-time implementation fee of $2,500 and an ongoing annual fee of $2,000. Committee members said they wanted to compare costs and feature sets across vendors before recommending procurement.

Members raised open-records concerns about vendor-held complaint data and whether the city or the vendor would be the custodian of records. One committee member warned that if a requester asked for all ethics complaints, state open-records law could require the city to produce records and possibly expose identities; staff said the vendor had other government clients and the committee would ask vendors how they manage retention and disclosure in open-records scenarios.

The committee agreed to invite an ethics-committee representative to the vendor presentation and to prepare a list of questions for the April demo. No procurement decisions were made at the meeting; staff will follow up with vendors and circulate demo schedules and materials to committee members.