A new law requiring that county employees seeking to do contract work for the county in addition to their day job get permission from the Board of Ethics won’t go into effect until July 1, but would-be contractors and their families already are starting to line up for advisory opinions.
A new law requiring that county employees seeking to do contract work for the county in addition to their day job get permission from the Board of Ethics won’t go into effect until July 1, but would-be contractors and their families already are starting to line up for advisory opinions.
The county ordinance was passed unanimously by the County Council and signed in November by Mayor Billy Kenoi almost six years after he first proposed it. In the process, it was amended five times, morphing from an outright ban on the moonlighting work to approval as long as the Ethics Board agreed to it.
The Ethics Board currently is considering requests for clearance from a county electrical inspector who also does electrical work for his family and friends, the wife of an independent contractor who does contract work for the county and a county inspector of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Section 8 housing program who wants to make his rental unit available to the program.
Those cases, some of them in closed hearings, are scheduled to be discussed when the Ethics Board meets at 10 a.m. today in County Council chambers in Hilo. The current rules allow the advisory hearings to be closed to the public, even though the names of successful bidders will be public later.
“I think it should be public,” said Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille, who reintroduced Kenoi’s bill early last year after a previous council rejected it.
Wille said she considered pushing for stricter language in the bill, but decided it would be better to get a “big picture” bill passed, and work on it more later if needed.
“There may be some things that we need to clarify or address or maybe just discuss,” in the future, Wille said.
Deputy Corporation Counsel J Yoshimoto, who advises the Ethics Board, said his office has scheduled training sessions for county employees to help them understand and comply with the new ordinance. Training sessions are scheduled for April 5 in Hilo and April 22 in Kona, he said.
“At the Board of Ethics, we’re expecting to see more petitions for advisory opinions coming before us because of the ordinance,” Yoshimoto said.
The ordinance also requires more transparency from county employees who do contract work — or their immediate families do contract work — on the taxpayers’ dime. Immediate family is defined as the employee’s or officer’s spouse, siblings, children, grandchildren or parents.
Bidders who are county employees or whose immediate family members are county employees will be required to disclose that relationship in their bids. Contracts will be void if the two conditions aren’t met.
In addition, the county Finance Department will be required to “post notice of the award” of a contract to a county employee, a family member of a county employee or business where the controlling interest is held by the employee or family member, according to the new law.
The rules governing this process are still in the works, Deputy Finance Director Lisa Miura said.
“Finance Department’s Purchasing Division is working on the process that would take effect on July 1; however, it still needs to be reviewed by Corporation Counsel,” she said.
Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com.