A Question Of Ethics

The question of the Code of Ethics that must be subscribed to by County elected officials and employees has been on the forefront for several months. According to the State of Tennessee Ethics Commission, Jefferson County does have a Code of Ethics on file with the State. On December 4, 2006, the Jefferson County Commission voted to adopt Resolution 2006-43, which was a code of ethics for elected officials and employees of Jefferson County. The County’s official Code of Ethics was received by the State of Tennessee and filed with the Tennessee Ethics Commission on January 14, 2007. Though Tennessee counties were mandated to file a code of ethics, each county had the opportunity to form their own code or use a model code that was developed by CTAS. Jefferson County Commissioners favored using the CTAS model and no amendments to that model have been filed with the Tennessee Ethics Commission.

Adoption of a county code of ethics was in response to the Tennessee Legislature passing the Comprehensive Governmental Ethics Reform Act of 2006, which required, at a minimum, that counties have in place a policy that covers disclosure and/or limits on gifts and disclosure of conflicts of interest. According to CTAS, the Ethics Reform Act requires counties to provide for disclosure of “personal interests that impact or appear to impact” the discretion of officials and employees. In the model policy that was adopted by Jefferson County, a “personal interest” that must be disclosed publicly is defined as a financial interest of the official or employee, or a financial interest of a spouse or child who lives in the same household with the official or employee.

Additionally, for persons that vote on county matters, public disclosure is required for any matter that would lead a reasonable person to believe that it would affect a person’s vote.

When defining the boundaries of relationships, in regard to hiring policies, the Tennessee General Assembly formed its own policy regarding nepotism in the employment of relatives with the Uniform Nepotism Policy Act of 2006. The policy reads that the definition of a relative in regard to employment is confined to parent, foster-parent, parent in law, child, spouse, sibling (including foster siblings) grandparents, grandchild, son or daughter in law, brother or sister in law or any relative that resides in the same household.

As suggested by the State of Tennessee, Jefferson County does have an Ethic Committee however it has not convened since the new Commission has been seated. However, no policies regarding ethics in any regard, beyond the 2006 filing of the model CTAS code, are on file, as is mandated, with the Tennessee Ethics Commission.