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PRESENTATION
Conflicts of Interest Board presentation on rules for part-time commissioners, part 1
0:36:59
·
5 min
Alex Kipp from the NYC Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) begins his presentation on ethics rules applicable to the commissioners, whom he characterizes as "part-timers but high rollers."
He explains that unlike full-time city employees, commissioners generally only need a waiver for outside employment if their private employer deals directly with the Charter Revision Commission itself. Kipp cautions against misusing city time or resources for outside interests but notes that using an outside employer's resources to support commission work is generally permissible if the benefit flows to the commission.
- COIB was created by a past charter revision process.
- Commissioners are considered part-time public servants.
- Waivers for outside employment are only needed if the private entity deals directly with the CRC.
- Misuse of city time or resources (tech, name, space, info) for private gain is a common violation.
- Using private employer resources (e.g., research time) to support CRC work is generally allowed if the CRC benefits and confidential information isn't shared.
Alex Kipp
0:36:59
Hi.
0:36:59
Good afternoon, everybody.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:37:00
Good afternoon.
Shams DaBaron
0:37:03
Yes.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:37:06
Okay.
0:37:06
Okay.
Alex Kipp
0:37:09
I think I have some slides.
0:37:10
I'll I'll go ahead and get started here while we, boot those up.
0:37:13
So So first of all, thank you for your service.
0:37:16
Charter vision, the Charter vision process is what created the conflict of interest board back in '86 to '88.
0:37:22
So that gave me a job.
0:37:23
It was Charter revision in 2010, which, mandated training for all public servants, which gave me job security, because it makes us quite busy.
0:37:34
So, thank you for your work.
0:37:35
I'm gonna speak to you today about a couple aspects of char, chapter 68 of the city charter that, are specifically targeted to, members of boards and commissions such as yourself.
0:37:46
It's really about how the law applies to you.
0:37:47
So this is gonna be a short, kinda taste of things you should know about.
0:37:52
The, the takeaway here in general is always ask if you've got any kind of question.
0:37:57
This law was created with the intention that all, public servants are eventually gonna have some kind of question that comes up between their public duties and their private interest where there's a potential for overlap.
0:38:10
And when those things come up, they should get advice from the conflict of interest board or from counsel about how to comply with this law to avoid, questions of the appearance of impropriety or questions of violation.
0:38:20
So it's not a gotcha.
0:38:21
These things happen to anybody in public service, and they might happen.
0:38:25
These questions might come up here for members of this, of of the Charter Revision Commission.
0:38:29
So our theme today a little bit is part timers but high rollers.
0:38:37
So, you're part timers, which means that a couple of the restrictions under the conflict of interest swap, which was really mostly, it was drafted to think about those full timers, those 325,000 people who work full time for New York City government.
0:38:50
There's a way in in in a couple areas where the law treats you a bit differently because you're part timers.
0:38:55
But because of your substantial policy discretion, there's a couple of ways in which you've got some extra things to think about, and we'll talk about those second.
0:39:03
And we this should take us about fifteen or twenty minutes.
0:39:06
Okay.
0:39:06
Sound good?
0:39:07
Okay.
0:39:07
Great.
0:39:07
Here we go.
0:39:09
Does this thing
Grace Bonilla
0:39:10
work?
0:39:10
No?
Alex Kipp
0:39:12
Next slide, please.
0:39:13
Is that ah, okay.
0:39:14
Great.
0:39:14
Alright.
0:39:15
So, the first to stop on our journey today very quickly is outside employment.
0:39:19
Now, you might know already if you know anything about the conflict of interest law that the outside employment restriction for full timers is quite robust.
0:39:26
It's very broad.
0:39:26
It says that anybody's got a full time position in city government.
0:39:30
Basically, if you have any position with any private entity that has any business dealings with any city agency, you've got a violation on your hands, which can only be cured by a written waiver from the conflict of interest board.
0:39:43
That is different for people on the Charter Revision Commission because you're part timers.
0:39:47
Here's that theme coming up.
0:39:49
So you don't need a waiver from the conflict of interest board unless you have a position with a private entity that deals directly with the Charter Revision Commission e commission.
0:40:00
Sells goods and services to the commission as a contract with the commission as a grant.
0:40:04
And that's not likely to come up, but if it ever did, you'd go through the waiver process.
0:40:08
The waiver process would take you first through the council to the mayor's office.
0:40:12
You talk to Ed about that, Ed Kiernan over there, and then that would come to us as a waiver request.
0:40:16
I think, Ed, you'd be the right more or less right.
0:40:19
Okay.
0:40:19
So, probably not gonna come up, but that's our first stop.
0:40:22
It's outside employment.
0:40:23
You only need to think about waivers where your outside employer, which is your primary employer, has business dealings directly with this Charter Revision Commission.
0:40:32
Part two of our stuff today.
0:40:34
Part one, let's just stop here for a second.
0:40:36
This is an obvious point.
0:40:37
I'm not gonna belabor this, but you would probably not be surprised to know that 60% of the enforcement cases every year have to do with misuse of city time or city resources for some kind of outside financial interest.
0:40:52
Now a lot of these cases are what we would call the PKU variety where someone uses a city truck or a city database or something else to further their outside interest like their teaching position or their repair position or whatever.
0:41:05
But we have had incident incidences of very high level people also misusing city time and city resources for their outside practice.
0:41:14
There was a a member of the civil service commission.
0:41:17
This is going back in the Bloomberg years who, used a a a significant amount of of city time and resources in the in the furtherance of his private law practice, and he was fined $15,000.
0:41:27
So I've seen these cases come up.
0:41:29
We get about a hundred cases.
0:41:30
You get about 60% of them probably have misuse of city time and city resources in them.
0:41:34
And these are the modalities whether you're talking about the office technology, the name of the city, or office space personnel confidential information.
0:41:41
Okay.
0:41:42
One asterisk on that which we'll talk touch on at the end is what if my outside firm, if I was a charter revision commission member, I've just given myself a substantial promotion, but let's say I was.
0:41:54
What if my outside my primary employer wanted to devote resources in furtherance of my work here on the Charter Revision Commission?
0:42:03
That is probably fine.
0:42:05
So let's say I, I'll use doctor Nieves as an example because we met just recently in November.
0:42:12
If the fund for the city of New York, if I wanted if say I worked there, if I wanted to devote a certain amount of the fund for the city of New York's resources that say research, copying time, etcetera, and furtherance of this work, that's fine as long as the benefit redounds to this, the Charter Revision Commission, and I don't disclose any confidential CRC information to my outside employer.
0:42:34
Okay.
0:42:34
So we didn't need to do the asterisk.
0:42:35
We just did it.
0:42:36
Let's move on to the third thing.
0:42:37
Okay.