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City of Jacksonville

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Training Bulletins

DEO TRAINING BULLETIN #1 -- SECONDARY EMPLOYMENT LAW AND PROCEDURES

Reading this information will train you on your responsibilities as a Departmental Ethics Officer in dealing with secondary employment issues. It is important that we prevent COJ employees from having outside employment that conflicts with their city jobs. Please follow this outline and call Carla Miller, Ethics Director if any questions.

1. Locate the Ethics Office webpage on secondary employment. Ethics Webpage on Secondary Employment Note this is on the external COJ website. This page will always have the accurate links to the law and HR forms.

2. Print out the HR policy on Secondary Employment; the last page of the policy (page 5) is the actual form employees have to fill out. Print out several copies of this form to give to employees. The HR Forms and Policy Put this information in your "DEO notebook".

3. Read the HR policy on Secondary employment (4 pages).

4. Fill out the actual disclosure form (one page) for Secondary employment (make up a situation and a job) and fill out all lines of the form. Note that you have to initially sign off on the job and then, it goes to your Dept. Director to approve and then to HR. (the forms do NOT go to the ethics office.)

5. Procedure. You get the form from an employee. Review it. Is there any potential for a conflict? Any chance this will affect their city job in any way? Any problems you see? Most of these are obviously OK; a COJ employee wants a part time job in December with the Post Office on Saturdays. Or, someone has a gift basket business and they want to sell to Church members. But, you will get ones where people are using skills they use in their City job to create part time work in the same area. That needs to be carefully reviewed. Your Dept. Director gets to make the call on whether, per the law, "the employment could impair the employees judgment or performance of City duties". Sometimes, the part time job can be changed to be acceptable; like "you can do this job on your own time, but in another County, not Duval County." 9 out 10 times, it will be obvious to you on what to do. If you have questions on one of them, call the Ethics Office or OGC to discuss. If all OK, you sign as DEO, your dept. head signs and then it goes to HR for that person's file.

6. APPOINTED EMPLOYEES. Note in section F, below, that this group of employees needs to get PRIOR approval of their potential secondary employment. Also, the secondary employment of APPOINTED employees is posted on the city website for transparency.

THE LAW

Sec. 602.403. - Moonlighting provisions. (Secondary employment)

(a) No employee of the City shall have any other employment if that employment could reasonably be expected to impair independence in judgment or performance of City duties;
(b) No employee of the City shall have any interest, financial or otherwise, direct or indirect, or
engage in any business or activity or incur any obligation of any nature which is in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his or her duties in the public interest.
(c) All full-time compensated (not part time or volunteers) officers or employees of the City shall disclose any private, non-City employment upon obtaining said employment or upon becoming an officer or employee, whichever occurs first.
(d) All full-time compensated City officers or employees shall file the disclosure required in subsection (c) above with the City Ethics Office, copy to the City's Human Resources Chief (OK; this is changed; the form says send directly to the HR dept. that is what you do--do not send a copy to Ethics.) and the officer or employee's department head, on a form approved by the Ethics Office.
(e) All full-time compensated officers or employees of the City shall file an updated disclosure form whenever any of the information required by the form changes.
(f) All appointed employees, except for those employees appointed by City Council, while full-time employees of the City, must obtain prior approval from the Mayor, or an individual designated by the Mayor,(the Dept. head) before accepting non-City employment or engaging in any work for an employer other than the City. All employees appointed by City Council, while full-time employees of the Council, must obtain prior approval from the Council President, or an Individual designated by the Council President, before accepting non-City employment or engaging in any work for an employer other than the City. All employees appointed by a Constitutional Officer, while full-time employees of the Constitutional Officer, must obtain prior approval from the Constitutional Officer, or an individual designated by the Constitutional Officer, before accepting non-City employment or engaging in any work for an employer other than the City. A registry of appointed persons working non-City employment shall be maintained by the Constitutional Officers, the Mayor, and the Council Secretary or their designees; and shall be published on the City website, showing the employee, the outside employment, and the number of hours spent per year on such employment.
(g) It shall be unlawful and a class C offense for any officer or employee of the City to violate any of the provisions of this Section.

Jacksonville Ethics Program: An Overview

“It is declared to be the policy of the City of Jacksonville that all officials, officers and employees of the City of Jacksonville and its independent agencies are public servants of the people and hold their positions for the benefit of the public, and that imposing ethical standards upon officials, officers, and employees of all of these agencies serves an important public purpose and serves the public welfare.”
-- Jacksonville Ethics Code, Sec. 602.101

In 1999, the Jacksonville City Council enacted a comprehensive Ethics Code for the City. It includes many established laws that before had been scattered throughout the municipal code, but also has many new laws that apply to all city employees.

Is the Code just a bunch of laws restricting people and exposing them to criminal sanctions? No, this was not the intent of the Code. It is an ambitious attempt by City leaders to create a more ethical environment and mindset for employees to work in and, therefore, provide the citizens of Jacksonville with a more transparent and trustworthy government.

Several ethics studies in the past decade state that the top-ranked most important issues facing the nation are ethics, morality, and the decline of the family. Less than 20 percent of employees around the nation agree that their organization is highly ethical. When there is a problem in ethics, morale is low and people become apathetic. A high standard of ethics encourages loyalty and a commitment to doing a better job.

The Code sets out aspirational goals for the City in the area of ethics; outlines prohibited conduct; creates an independent Office of Ethics, Compliance and Oversight (ECO) as well as a Department/Independent Agency Ethics Officer program; and establishes an independent Ethics Commission (EC) with duties and powers for education and enforcement.

Carla Miller

Director, Office of Ethics, Compliance & Oversight
117 W. Duval Street, Room 450
Jacksonville, FL 32202
Phone: (904) 630-1476
Hotline: (904) 630-1015
Email: ecoethics@coj.net