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During FY2023, Board Staff responded to 950 requests for advice across all of our program areas. Our General Counsel and Compliance teams work collaboratively to maintain a high level of both timeliness and substantive quality in responding to advice requests. The Board and General Counsel provide guidance through formal, written opinions. Staff continues to provide informal guidance by email and telephone, and meets regularly with requestors.
Formal Advice
Formal Advice
Formal, written opinions issued by the Board or the General Counsel provide detailed analysis of the application of the Ethics Laws to the specific facts provided by a requestor. Requestors are entitled to act in reasonable reliance on advisory opinions issued to them and not be subject to penalties under the laws within the Board’s jurisdiction so long as they have not omitted or misstated material facts. Requestors can choose to receive a non-public advisory opinion, which in its published form is redacted to conceal facts that are reasonably likely to identify a requestor.Â
A total of seven formal opinions ⎼ two Board Opinions and five General Counsel Opinions ⎼ were issued in FY2023. Electronic copies of each opinion are available by using the links in the menus below.Â
Legal Authority
Legal Authority
Charter Section 4-1100 and Code Chapter 20-600 authorize the Board to render advisory opinions concerning a City officer or employee’s proposed future conduct. Board Regulation No. 4 describes the procedures related to advisory opinions, including for requesting reconsideration or appeal of an advisory opinion issued by the General Counsel.
Home Rule Charter Section 4-1100 also gives the Board “concurrent authority” with the Law Department to advise City officials on the application of State law. Our advice on State law, however, does not provide protection from possible enforcement by the State Ethics Commission. For guidance on the State Ethics Act that would provide such protection, contact either the State Ethics Commission or the Law Department.
Home Rule Charter Section 4-1100 also gives the Board “concurrent authority” with the Law Department to advise City officials on the application of State law. Our advice on State law, however, does not provide protection from possible enforcement by the State Ethics Commission. For guidance on the State Ethics Act that would provide such protection, contact either the State Ethics Commission or the Law Department.
Board Opinions
Board Opinions
Board opinions generally address questions that require the application of the Ethics Laws to situations that have not yet been definitively addressed by legislation, regulation, or prior Board opinions.
General Counsel Opinions
General Counsel Opinions
The Board's General Counsel issues opinions applying and explaining the ethics laws in situations where the result is clear from the law or regulation, or where the Board has already provided a relevant interpretation. The Board does not deliberate on or approve General Counsel opinions, although a requestor may appeal a General Counsel Opinion to the Board.
Formal Opinion Topics
Formal Opinion Topics
As with informal advice, the number and topics of opinions are largely driven by requestor needs. In this third fiscal year examining the topics covered by formal opinions, the overall decrease in formal opinion requests resulted in a lower number of topics covered. That said, the number of opinions covering financial disclosure decreased versus FY2022. Conflicts of interest remained the most popular topic addressed in formal opinions.
Note that opinions often cover multiple topics.
FY2023 General Counsel Opinions
FY2023 General Counsel Opinions
Application of Ethics Rules to City Employee Seeking Post-City Employment with a Government Entity
Whether an employee of the Clean Air Council may serve on the Air Pollution Control Board (Air Pollution Control Board advises the Health Department on air quality issues)
Application of Ethics Rules to a City Employee Seeking Post-City Employment where the Employee (1) Awarded City Contracts to the Prospective Employer and (2) Performed Work Related to the Prospective Employer’s City Contracts
Application of Ethics Rules to a Member of a City Board that Owns a Private Business
Opinion No. 2023-502 Re: Application of Ethics Rules to Participation in Community Development Program
Informal Guidance
Informal Guidance
Informal guidance makes up the majority of Board Staff's advice work. In FY2023, we responded to 950 requests for informal guidance. That total, however, only tells part of the story. Advice requests range from complex legal analyses to straightforward password reset requests, and everything in between. Since FY2020, Board Staff worked to identify and interpret trends in informal advice requests.
These are not performance measures ⎼ Staff cannot control how many requests are received ⎼ but are part of our larger planning efforts for training, educational documents, and workload allocation.Â
Year-at-a-Glance
Year-at-a-Glance
Overview
Overview
Total informal guidance responses give a high-level snapshot. Compared to FY2022, there was an increase in the total number of requests resolved. This increase is primarily attributable to an uptick in Campaign Finance advice requests. In contrast, Ethics advice request remained fairly stable, while Financial Disclosure and Lobbying requests decreased.
*Because multiple topics may be associated with each request, the breakdown of requests by topics is approximate and reflects the proportion of total topics addressed adjusted for the total number of requests resolved.
Topics Covered
Topics Covered
Since FY2020, Board Staff has tracked guidance responses by both topic and type. Beginning in January 2021, we began noting each topic covered by a request for guidance, rather than assigning one topic to each request. As a result, the total topics covered in the accompanying visualizations exceeds the total responses. This approach better reflects both the complexity of our work and more accurately depicts which topics are "hot."
A similar visual summary, separated by filing and advice, is included in the monthly General Counsel Report to give the Board a snapshot of advice work for the preceding month as compared to the calendar year.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Plotting advice requests by general topic on a monthly basis gives an unsurprising result: significant spikes centered on the Financial Disclosure filing deadline and Primary Election in May. We tend to see proportionate increases in Lobbying requests around major deadlines. We have not yet identified a consistent pattern in ethics advice requests.
Response Times: Overview
Response Times: Overview
Since February 2020, Board Staff has tracked the time to respond to informal guidance requests. In FY2023, approximately 70% of inquiries received a final response within one business day. More than 80% of guidance requests were resolved within three business days.
Response Times by Topic
Response Times by Topic
When broken down by topic, the response times consistently show that ethics questions (Conflicts, Contracts, Gifts, Political Activity, Post-Employment, & Representation) generally have a longer response time than questions related to Campaign Finance or Financial Disclosure.
Year-to-date reporting on response times by topic is provided to the Board on a quarterly basis in the General Counsel Report.
Ethics Informal Guidance
Ethics Informal Guidance
Ethics Overview
Ethics Overview
Starting in FY2021, General Counsel Staff expanded its efforts to track and understand advice requests. This is the first time we have two full fiscal years of such data for comparison.Â
Note that the total topics necessarily exceed the total responses.Â
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
FY2023 monthly data suggests that other than an overall dip in August, shifts by month continue to be generally proportionate among topics.
Campaign Finance Informal Guidance
Campaign Finance Informal Guidance
FY2022 vs. FY2023
FY2022 vs. FY2023
Campaign finance guidance requests more than doubled in FY2023. This is expected given the significance of the 2023 Primary Election. As Chair Reed notes in his Annual Message, we added a Staff Attorney in anticipation of the need for additional support on campaign finance and other filing programs. While prior years have shown a fairly even split between advice and filing assistance, FY2023 is weighted more heavily toward substantive guidance. This is likely driven not only by the increased overall activity in this area, but also by updates to Board Regulation No. 1 (Campaign Finance) adopted in Fall 2022.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Campaign Finance guidance shows fairly predictable spikes around pre- and post-election filing deadlines.
Financial Disclosure Informal Guidance
Financial Disclosure Informal Guidance
FY2022 vs. FY2023
FY2022 vs. FY2023
Financial Disclosure questions decreased slightly in FY2023, likely because of growing familiarity with the City Form requirements since the implementation of Board Regulation No. 3 (Statement of Financial Interests) in April 2021.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Financial Disclosure guidance shows a predictable spike around the May 1 filing deadline.
Lobbying Informal Guidance
Lobbying Informal Guidance
FY2022 vs. FY2023
FY2022 vs. FY2023
Lobbying advice requests decreased in FY2023. The type of advice continues to be slightly weighted toward filing assistance.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Overall Lobbying guidance requests peaked around the filing deadlines, with the annual reporting deadline creating the largest jump in requests.
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