SCRANTON — Mayor Wayne Evans expects all city employees to formally acknowledge they received and reviewed Scranton’s new ethics code, but city council wants to know what the consequences will be if some refuse.
Evans in early October announced all city employees are required to sign and date a document, to be stored in their personnel files, noting they read and understand the new ethics policy. Among many other prohibitions, the ethics code bars employees from using city property for personal purposes, taking bribes or kickbacks and accepting gifts or compensation for city services.
Those acknowledgments have been trickling in to the Human Resources Department over the past few weeks, said Evans, who wasn’t immediately sure what percentage of employees have signed them to this point. Evans isn’t the only city official who expects everyone to sign the acknowledgment.
City council last week voted to send a letter to city solicitor Jessica Eskra, in her capacity as interim human resources director, requesting the established deadline employees must meet to submit the document.
Council also planned to ask in the letter what action, if any, the city will “take to enforce the signing of this document and what actions and disciplines, if any, will the city take against employees who may refuse to sign this document,” Councilwoman Mary Walsh Dempsey said.
Evans said the city hopes to secure the acknowledgments before Mayor-elect Paige Cognetti takes office in January. To the best of his knowledge, every city employee has received a copy of the new ethics rules but there is no enforcement process in place to compel employees to sign the document, he said.
And while no formal complaint or grievance has been filed to this point, Evans said it’s possible the city will receive some pushback from labor unions representing city employees. There may be language in the ethics code the unions feel conflicts with language in collective bargaining agreements, he said.
Dempsey noted last week that Section 1 E. of the ethics code already addresses the issue of conflicts.
“To the extent and only to the extent this code conflicts with the existing rights of labor or its members by statute or contract, then such statute or contract shall supersede this code,” the code reads.
“To me, that is a non-issue,” Dempsey said.
Evans said he sees the formal ethics code acknowledgment as one step in an educational process he hopes will continue next year. For example, Evans said he believes the recently established ethics board will hold ethics classes for employees in 2020 based on the code.
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