Creating Public Sector Pedestals and Examining Falls from Grace: Examining ICMA Ethical Sanctions

Abstract

The International City and County Management Association, (ICMA), ensures that members who engage in misconduct are identified and sanctioned. Dozens of public sanctions have been issued over the past 20 years, and this paper considers the substance of these penalties. The article identifies the processes used to ensure compliance with its code of ethics. We report the types of ethical violations ICMA has discovered through these processes. A more systematic way of recording what is occurring is necessary if strategies are to be devised to help current and upcoming public administrators avoid similar violations. Finally, we ask public administrators who have been sanctioned by ICMA to explain how and why the ethics violations occurred and the impact of the public censure on their personal lives and careers.

Keywords:

• Ethics
• ICMA Code of Ethics
• Sanctions
• City Managers

Notes

¹In Article II section 5 of the ASPA Bylaws is found the following: “Membership shall terminate automatically without the necessity of any action by the Council whenever any member fails to pay dues when said dues are due and payable or when in its sole and absolute discretion the Council determines that any member appears to have acted in violation of the Society's Code of Ethics as published from time to time.” No memberships have ever been terminated due to ethical violations of the code. Nor does ASPA officially seek to enforce its code of ethics.

²Although any action could potentially be linked to having at least one workplace implication, the cases we removed were not directly work related.

³There were also 106 private censures that are not shown in the table.