Ethics - Chicago, Illinois to conduct ethics training
Chicago City Council to Consider Ethics Training Bill
Measure would provide training for 37,000 full-time employees -- plus provisions to keep them from cheating on the ethics training
Reacting to a series of City Hall corruption scandals, some Chicago aldermen are proposing that all of the city's 37,000 full-time employees receive ethics training. Alderman Margaret Laurino, a co-sponsor of the bill, told WBBM News Radio in Chicago that she believes the training could be completed online.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Laurino says ethics training is "another piece of the puzzle" in understanding ethics rules. WQAD-TV in Chicago noted that the proposal would broaden an ordinance that already requires ethics training for about 4,000 high-level employees.
Dorothy Eng, executive director of the city's Board of Ethics, said she gets "thousands" of calls from employees with ethics questions, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. "The huge majority of them -- they just want to do the right thing. And they're looking to find out what the right thing is," she said, according to the Sun Times report.
She also noted, however, that there will be checks built into the system to keep employees from cheating on the ethics training, including getting someone else to take it for them. One of the more notable scandals in recent Chicago politics was a fraudulent testing scam designed to promote and hire people who had campaigned for certain candidates, according to the Tribune. The measure needs full council approval before being implemented.
Source: Chicago Tribune - December 14, 2005. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0512140282dec14,1,4167766.story?coll=chi-newslocalchicago-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true