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You've reached the Board of Ethics, how can we help you?
You've reached the Board of Ethics, how can we help you?
Over the course of FY2021, Staff fielded nearly 2,000 requests for guidance. Responding to those requests required a team effort by General Counsel and Compliance Staff. These requests included technical and legal questions, covered the full range of program areas, and came from a variety of stakeholders. The Board and General Counsel provide guidance through formal, written opinions. In addition, Staff regularly meets with requestors on Zoom and Teams and provides informal guidance by email and telephone.
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 as 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.
A total of fifteen formal opinions ⎼ four Board Opinions and eleven General Counsel Opinions ⎼ were issued in FY2021. Electronic copies of each opinion are available by using the links in the menus below.
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
For the first time, Board Staff is examining the distribution of topics covered in formal opinions. As with informal advice, the number and topics of opinion are largely driven by requestor needs. We will be looking for trends or shifts over time in formal opinions as we have done with informal advice.
Note that opinions often cover multiple topics.
FY2021 Board Opinions
FY2021 Board Opinions
Application of Home Rule Charter to Election Day Activity of Appointed Officers and Employees of the Executive Branch
Application of Ethics Rules to Employee Accepting Employment from a Person Who Had a Contract with their City Department
Application of Ethics Rules to City Employee whose Spouse is Seeking City Contracts
Application of Ethics Rules to City Officer's Unpaid Service on Governmental Body
FY2021 General Counsel Opinions
FY2021 General Counsel Opinions
Application of Post-Employment Rules to Work with Future Employer
Application of Ethics Rules to City Employee who will be a Member of Board of Local Chapter of a Non-Profit
Application of Conflicts of Interest Rules to Commission Member when Former Client Appears before Commission
Application of Political Activity Restrictions to Executive Branch Employees Temporarily Assigned to the Office of City Commissioners
Post-Employment Restrictions of City Ethics Code and State Ethics Act
Application of ethics rules to application for PHLpreK programs
Application of ethics rules to former City employee considering contracted legal work for City entities
Application of the City's conflict of interest rule to serving as a community advisor to an investment fund operated by private nonprofit entities
Application of Ethics Rules to City Employee Seeking Post-City Employment
Application of City and State Post-Employment Rules
Application of Ethics Rules to City Employee who Serves on Board of a Park Friends Group
Informal Guidance
Informal Guidance
Informal guidance makes up the majority of Board Staff's advice work. In FY2021, we responded to nearly 2000 requests for informal advice. 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. In FY2020, Board Staff began working to identify and interpret trends in informal advice requests. We continued to refine these data analysis and visualization efforts in FY2021.
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.
Year-at-a-Glance
Year-at-a-Glance
Overview
Overview
Total informal guidance responses give a high-level snapshot. Compared to FY2020, the major decreases were in Financial Disclosure and Campaign Finance. Some of this was likely a result of pandemic-related deadline changes (as noted below). The relatively limited City election in FY2021 likely also decreased Campaign Finance requests. Conversely, the increase in Lobbying and Ethics advice requests may be the result of more government activity as both public and private business pivoted to work through the pandemic.
Note: Data visualizations in the FY2020 Annual Report included July 2020 Financial Disclosure data because of the extended filing deadline. In this publication, that data has been moved to FY2021.
Topics Covered
Topics Covered
In FY2020, Board Staff began tracking guidance responses more closely by both topic and type. In FY2021, we took our tracking of ethics guidance by topic a step further. Beginning in January 2021, we began noting each topic covered by a request for guidance, rather than assigning one topic to each request.
Throughout calendar year 2021, our monthly reporting to the Board included both an overall number of responses, and a breakdown of what topics were covered in those responses. As a result, the total topics covered exceeds the total responses. This better reflects both the complexity of our work and more accurately depicts which topics are "hot" at any given time.
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. Find monthly snapshots here.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Plotting advice requests by general topic on a monthly basis gives an unsurprising result: a huge spike centered on the Financial Disclosure filing deadline. We see similar increases in other filing programs around major deadlines. Continued tracking may reveal other cycles for ethics advice.
Response Times: Overview
Response Times: Overview
Since February 2020, Board Staff has tracked the time to respond to informal guidance requests. The data collected since that time reflect that we respond to approximately 75% of inquiries receive a final response within one business day. More than 85% of guidance requests 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 in the monthly General Counsel Report. You can find monthly informal guidance charts here.
Ethics Informal Guidance
Ethics Informal Guidance
Ethics Overview
Ethics Overview
As noted above, FY2021 saw an expansion of General Counsel Staff's efforts to track and understand advice requests. This makes comparing FY2020 and FY2021 somewhat skewed, as prior tracking only allowed one topic per request. As we began tracking all topics covered in a response, the total topics necessarily exceeded the total responses. Moving forward, we will have a clearer comparison to prior years.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
For the first time in FY2020, General Counsel Staff was able to compare monthly advice requests in each topics area to overall ethics informal guidance. The notable shift in FY2020 was, unsurprisingly, driven by a dip in activity at the start of the pandemic.
This year's monthly data reflects shifts that are, for the most part, proportionate across topics. The topic that exhibits the most fluctuation month-to-month seems to be conflicts of interest. The notable exception is that political activity was the driver in September and October of 2020, coinciding with the run-up to the November 2020 election.
Campaign Finance Informal Guidance
Campaign Finance Informal Guidance
FY2021 vs. FY2020
FY2021 vs. FY2020
FY2021 reflects a further decrease in campaign finance guidance requests. Consistent with comparisons to prior years, it also illustrates a fairly even split between advice and filing assistance.
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
FY2021 vs. FY2020
FY2021 vs. FY2020
As noted above, the FY2020 Annual Report included July 2020 Financial Disclosure data because of the extended filing deadline. This comparison restores the July 2020 data to its proper location in FY2021, resulting in a disproportionate number of Financial Disclosure inquiries for this fiscal year. Even without that shift, overall Financial Disclosure questions trended up in FY2021, likely because of changes to the City Form requirements.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Because of the filing extensions in both FY2020 and FY2021, the month-by-month data gives a clearer picture of the distribution of the Financial Disclosure workload across the course of the fiscal year. The significant bump in substantive guidance requests (in blue) from April through June of 2021 reflects the issuance of Board Regulation No. 3 in April and the deployment of training and educational resources to bring attention to those changes.
Lobbying Informal Guidance
Lobbying Informal Guidance
FY2021 vs. FY2020
FY2021 vs. FY2020
Lobbying disclosures, which were down significantly in FY2020, trended back upward in FY2021. This year showed a distinct tilt toward filing, rather than guidance, requests in comparison to the more even splits in FY2020 and FY2019.
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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