Every now and then, something happens that serves as a lasting reminder that while the vast majority of us have good intentions, a small percentage of us are prone to corruption. A good example is Earl E. Devaney’s 2008 memo to the Secretary of the Interior about the so-called “royalties in kind” scandal.
Devaney was the inspector general investigating allegations of corruption within a subagency then called the Minerals Management Service (MMS), and his memos outlined a two-year investigation that interviewed 233 witnesses, reviewed 470,000 pages of documents, and cost taxpayers $5.3 million to complete.
The investigation found that senior civil servants conspired to direct two “lucrative” MMS contracts to a company founded by one of them, and that a number of officials “interacted with and received various gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies for which their offices performed official business.”
These issues are serious, but the problem goes much deeper: “The most serious problem uncovered by our investigation is a pervasive culture of exemptions from the rules that govern all other federal employees,” Devaney wrote.
Some of the people involved will receive prison sentences, but not all, so the purpose of Devaney's memo was to provide the Secretary with facts of the case that would help him decide how to deal with those involved whose activities violated ethics rules but did not amount to criminal offenses.
Institutions that rely on paper-based ethics processes are at risk
The huge amount of money flowing through federal agencies is one avenue for temptation, which is why the government maintains ethics offices, whistleblower protections, and internal audit departments to protect against the human tendency to act on taxpayer money for personal gain.
The question that remains is why, with such checks in place, scandals like this still occur.
As a former attorney with the Office of Personnel Management and since then working with many departments and agencies to automate and improve their financial disclosure programs, I have spent a lot of time thinking about conflicts of interest. My answer to this question is simple.
Expensive IG investigations often mean they are distracted by time-consuming paperwork and manual processes and fail to pay adequate attention to considering substantive conflicts of interest.
In my assessment, the institutions most at risk from this include those that still rely on paper-based financial disclosure processes, as well as those that have only digitized forms into fillable, but still static, online forms (i.e. PDFs).
Three challenges of ethical review using paper and written forms
I have worked on financial disclosures with 39 government agencies. Over the past six years, public officials from these agencies have filed 559,242 financial disclosure documents. From the data and my experience, I believe most issues with filings and ethics reviews relate to three main challenges:
Challenge 1. Getting agency employees to complete disclosures on time and in full
“The public officials who are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest are often busy senior officials with really important jobs. That means they face competing priorities and often have to set aside mission-critical tasks for their agency to complete these forms. At the very least, the Office of Ethics and these filers need a tracking and notification process to ensure that these employees complete this important task in a timely manner.”
More importantly, you need to make it so easy for people to complete the process efficiently – giving them a system that lets them focus on just what they need to do. A tax preparation software-style interview wizard is a proven, modern way to achieve that objective.
Issue 2. The volume of submitted documents reduces the quality of the review
Even if an institution meets all deadlines, it can easily overlook details as it rushes to review and approve a large number of disclosure documents. Smaller institutions with fewer filers may also find their ethics teams overwhelmed.
A good example would be if the ethics office cannot distinguish between new disclosures and those made in the previous year, resulting in wasting time reviewing disclosures that they have already approved.
Modern best practice addresses this volume challenge by using online tools to “triage” submitted forms, allowing ethics teams to focus limited resources where they are most needed.
Challenge 3. Ensuring that ethical reviews are completed on time and accurately
Completing reviews on time is part of the bullet point above and requires careful project management. During financial disclosure periods, ethics offices get extremely busy. Typically, small teams of lawyers, paralegals, and compliance professionals are tasked with reviewing dozens, hundreds, or even thousands (depending on the size of the institution) of documents within a deadline.
Therefore, modern best practices prescribe technology to help track disclosure forms that are at risk of missing the 60-day review deadline regulated by the Office of Government Ethics, allowing reviewers and certifiers to focus on older forms first to avoid missing the review deadline. Additionally, modern systems compile simple management metrics such as the number of forms awaiting review, under review, approved, or returned for correction, allowing program managers to spot bottlenecks and balance the workload.
Government ethics review processes lend themselves to automation
The Office of Management and Budget recently stepped up efforts to improve the digital experience of government resources like forms, websites, and apps. While the focus is on improving the front-office services these agencies provide to the public, the same principles apply to back-office processes that support front-line service delivery. This is especially true for processes like financial disclosures that take time away from top managers engaged in critical service delivery.
Moving ethical financial disclosure to modern, secure, cloud-based, cutting-edge technology isn’t just a theoretical idea: Agencies that are already doing this range from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, with its 11 filing agencies, to the Federal Aviation Administration, with over 16,000 employees who file annual financial disclosure forms.
We must acknowledge that the vast majority of government employees are good citizens whose only concern is to perform their jobs to the best of their ability. Still, a certain number of human beings are corruptible, which means that the integrity of government programs must always be protected. Technological tools are essential to provide the necessary protection.
There is no good reason for ethics departments to be overwhelmed with paperwork these days, and we have the tools at our fingertips to prevent ethical violations like royalties-in-kind from happening again.
John Martin is Intelliworks He provides FedRAMP-authorized workflow management software solutions to over 30 Federal Departments and Agencies. He specializes in government ethics, conflicts of interest and financial disclosure, providing direct support to the Office of Ethics. FDonline.
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