Study finds city employees distrustful of city’s ethics conduct

City employees who responded to a survey on the city’s behavior with regard to ethics gave the city lower marks for trust and accountability as compared to how city management rated the city. Employees surveyed also showed a greater fear of retaliation for reporting ethics violations than management respondents did.

These are two major conclusions of an ethics assessment done by the Ethics and Compliance Initiative at the request of the Office of the City Auditor. Members of City Council’s Audit and Finance Committee are scheduled to hear about the assessment during Wednesday’s meeting.

ECI, the group that performed the assessment, said the city has many of the components needed for an effective ethics and compliance program. “However, results suggest not all components are in place or working together,” they said.

According to the special report based on ECI’s findings, responses from city staff to questions about the ethical environment were 14 points lower than responses from executive management. As it relates to trust, the average difference was 16 points lower, the report notes.

In particular, ECI noted that responses indicated employees did not report ethical issues for these top three reasons:

• Staff did not believe corrective action would be taken.
• Staff did not think the report would remain anonymous.
• Staff reported they feared retaliation.

The auditor’s office notes that the survey done by ECI was the most comprehensive effort to listen to employee perspectives in many years. In the past, city management performed surveys on a regular basis, but management has cut back on those, the report notes. “These actions could be the source of the deficit of trust identified in ECI’s survey. It is possible that as each year passed, these deficits added up to a large debt of trust that can be hard to repay. Our office has engaged with city management to explore a path to restore Listening to the Workforce as an effective tool to gauge and address where action is needed, especially related to ethics,” the auditor’s office wrote.

ECI talked to senior city leaders and members of the city’s Ethics and Compliance team in late 2022. Of course, with the exit of City Manager Spencer Cronk in February 2023 and the hiring of interim City Manager Jesús Garza shortly after that, perceptions could have changed. However, the outside team interviewed members of the city’s Ethics and Compliance team as well as city leaders in September 2023.

“The city of Austin has experienced several changes since early 2023, notably in the city’s senior leadership team,” auditors wrote. “We feel the results noted in ECI’s report reflect perspectives built up over time and may not fully reflect perspectives shared by the current leadership team. We also see ECI recommendations as an opportunity for city management to take decisive action to improve the city’s ethical culture through its (ethics and compliance) program.”

Garza responded to the report, saying he agreed with recommendations and would implement changes for a citywide ethics and compliance program. He said he would evaluate options and make sure that appropriate resources were assigned to carry out the tasks required of such a program. A city spokesperson told the Austin Monitor that Deven Desai had been appointed as the new interim chief ethics and compliance officer and started work on Feb. 26. He reports to Garza’s chief of staff, Susana Carbajal. In the past, Desai worked for the city as an assistant city attorney, assistant human resources director, police monitor and chief labor relations officer.

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