Friday, March 07, 2008

Ethics in local governments

On the heels of both Governor Rell and the Courant's editorial board calling for ethics reform, I see a survey from Ethics.org (registration apparently required) mentioned in the current issue of American City & County:

Almost one-quarter of the public sector employees responding to the survey said there is a great deal of pressure to compromise standards in their work environments. About 63 percent of local government employees in the survey said they had observed at least one type of misconduct in the previous year. While federal employees reported less inclination toward misconduct on their jobs, 86 percent of state and local government employees reported a lack of a strong ethics program in their workplaces, while only 7 percent of state employees and 9 percent of local government employees said they see a truly ethical culture on the job.

And we live in Corrupticut.

I think it would be prudent for the Council to consider some form of ethics reform... if for no other reason than to simply highlight the very serious nature of the problem... a problem particularly bad in CT.

Tim White

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

so we do ethics reform not because we need it but to "highlight" a problem
Ok how do we "highlight" a problem
stop wasting our time please and get to work on things that matter

Tim White said...

The public's confidence does matter. And it's been drastically undermined by many in CT.

Right here in Cheshire we had William Fritz, son of state Rep Mary Fritz, at the center of the I-84 debacle.

Then there was Rowland, DeLuca, Newton... the list goes on and on.

Anonymous said...

Ecke the CPA?

Anonymous said...

Lets not forget Jim Amman!
Our "wonderful" Speaker of the House who does know when to keep his mouth shut.
Strong arming lobbyists to donate to a charity that pays him to raise money.
How involved will he be in these hearings?

As for Fritz,she should be ashamed of herself for allowing her son to waste so much of our tax money for the 84 debacle.

Anonymous said...

Some one name me a documentable proveable problem in Cheshire that mean we have to "highlight" and spend time with
not a rumor
not a false accusation
something you can prove

Anonymous said...

11:19

HUH??
Amann's deals have been well documented.

Anonymous said...

In cheshire
Jim a does not live in cheshire

Anonymous said...

11:19

It is a discussion to explain to local government the importance of ethical behavior. We have already seen a number of elected politicians in our state who have been caught doing unethical things, from Rowland to Giordano to DeLuca to Amann, In light of Gov. Spitzer's announcment, we need out elected officials to understand that we won't deal with unethical behavior.
With the ND coming, our elected officials may be open to numerous requests for "political favors" to overlook certain things, we need these officials to know that we won't put up with that.
Thats all they are looking for. Why wait for something to happen?