BOARD AGENDA MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT:
Title
Reporting Structure of the Office of Ethics and Corporate Governance.
End
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
A. Receive the Ethics Office Evaluation Benchmarking Report (Ethics Report) and the summary of recommendations; and
B. Receive information regarding proposed changes to the Ethics Office structure.
Body
SUMMARY:
At the June 9, 2015 Board meeting, the Board discussed the structure of the Office of Ethics and Corporate Governance (Ethics Office). Specifically, the Board requested a review of other similar agencies in terms of structure and scope of the ethics functions, the goal being to identify a better reporting structure for the Ethics function at the District. This Ethics Report provides a summary of the findings contained in the benchmarking analysis conducted by a third-party consultant, SOAProjects Inc. (Attachment 2) as well as staff responses to the recommendations. This report also describes the new reporting structure and various programmatic aspects of the Ethics Office.
Background
At the time of the direction from the Board on June 9, 2015, the Ethics Officer, also the Director of Ethics and Corporate Governance, reported directly to the CEO. The Director of Ethics and Corporate Governance position was vacated in July 2015.
SOAProjects Inc. began the benchmarking study in November 2015. The scope of their study was limited to studying options for the placement of the Ethics function, the reporting structure, and best practices of ethics programs. The consultant included five (5) comparator agencies: City of San Jose, Metropolitan Water District, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Valley Transportation Authority, and County of Santa Clara. They also included Alameda Health System and City of Oakland because of their more comprehensive ethics programs. The following chart summarizes the differences in the reporting relationships in the five responding comparable agencies.
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