Employees complete ethics training as required by new law
By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu
No matter which candidates they rooted for in the recent U.S. elections, state of Illinois employees, including the 33,000 permanent employees at the three UI campuses, were subject to new restrictions on the types of political activities they could engage in at work as part of a recently enacted ethics law.
The State Officials and Employees Act, which took effect in December 2003, restricts employees from engaging in political activities such as campaigning and soliciting contributions during work time and on state premises as well as banning them from accepting or soliciting gifts from prohibited sources. The law also requires all state employees to undergo annual ethics training. Although the UI had its own ethics program in place for about a year and a half prior to the legislation, and had trained about 14,000 of its employees by July 2004, the university’s program was suspended, and the state program made available to university employees. While the university’s program focused on ethics problem-solving in everyday situations, such as confronting co-workers’ pilfering office supplies, the Office of the Executive Inspector General, which oversees ethics training, decided that this year’s training for all state employees would focus on the provisions of the law. All university employees are required to complete the ethics program. Employees at the Chicago and Springfield campuses were the first groups to undergo training, which occurred from mid-September to late October, said Donna McNeely, enterprisewide audit director in the Office of University Audits. “We’re still working with the Chicago and Springfield employees who haven’t completed training, contacting supervisors and trying to encourage people to train,” McNeely said. “The Urbana employees and university administration will have through Nov. 19 to complete their training. Then we’ll pick up those who didn’t have an opportunity to train during the established window.” More than 90 percent of permanent employees at the Springfield and Chicago campuses and in University Administration have completed the required program, according to Richard Traver, university ethics officer and executive director of the Office of University Audits. “We’re very happy with how it’s going so far,” McNeely said. “We still have a number of employees to contact, but it’s going well. Most employees are being very responsive to the request.” The majority of employees have been completing the program through an online program on the executive inspector general’s Web site, which contains three modules and a quiz that employees must pass to complete the course. Employees without computer access in their workplaces, or those uncomfortable with using computers, participate in group training sessions in which Traver provides an overview of the legislation and reviews some of the online material. The university’s workforce also comprises thousands of extra help and temporary undergraduate student workers who also must undergo ethics training. They are being issued copies of the legislation and must sign and return receipts acknowledging their receipt and understanding of the information. “Everybody’s been pretty accepting of the fact that there’s a new law in Illinois and we need to work through this training to ensure compliance with the new law,” McNeely said. Traver and McNeely will be meeting with state officials soon to begin planning the timing and content of the program for next year. They hope that they will be able to tailor next year’s program so it will be more relevant to workplace situations that UI employees might encounter but “we may not win that debate,” Traver said. “We’re dealing with a very diverse population of employees, while other state agencies are more homogenous. The Office of the Executive Inspector General has found our diverse population to be a training challenge.” New employees at the Chicago and Urbana campuses appointed after September and October respectively will undergo training in early 2005, although McNeely said she hopes the state does not require the university to conduct its program until mid-year, so that employees who complete the training this fall are not confused by having to go through it again right away. “Certainly it’s been a bit challenging for some of the departments because of the switchover mid-year. I don’t anticipate the training process being as confusing next year,” McNeely said.
