City Council

(11) 23-1097 CONTINUED CONSIDERATION OF RULES, ELECTIONS AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE REPORT relative to establishing a permanent Office of Compliance that would proactively assist Councilmembers with identifying and avoiding potential conflicts of interest, and related matters. Recommendation for Council action, as initiated by Motion (Yarosolavsky – Raman – Krekorian – Park): REQUEST the City Attorney, in consultation with the Executive Director, City Ethics Commission, City Administrative Officer (CAO), and the Chief Legislative Analyst (CLA), to provide a detailed report to the Council within 90 days with recommendations for establishing a permanent Office of Compliance that would proactively assist Councilmembers with identifying and avoiding potential conflicts of interest by reviewing financial disclosure and other forms of Councilmembers and upcoming City Council and City Council Committee agendas to identify potential conflicts. The report should include, but not be limited to the following: A complete description of the responsibilities of the Office of Compliance and a system for conducting proactive reviews, drawing on the experience of any major cities or other government agencies with successful centralized compliance offices or units. The costs, potential funding sources, personnel, structure, and facilities needs of a permanent Office of Compliance, including whether the Office of Compliance should be established as an independent body or within an existing City department, an analysis of where personnel for the Office of Compliance could be sourced (within and outside current City staff) and benchmark comparisons with staffing and resources at other large municipalities’ and agencies’ central compliance offices or units Any changes to the City's ordinances and/or the City Charter that would be necessary to establish the Office of Compliance as the unit responsible for assisting Councilmembers with identifying and reporting conflicts of interest and abiding by ethics laws. INSTRUCT the CLA to appoint a staff member in the Office of the CLA to be the interim Compliance Officer while the report referenced in Recommendation No. 1 is completed. Fiscal Impact Statement: Neither the CAO nor the CLA has completed a financial analysis of this report.