WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced new steps to strengthen the Department’s ethics program, providing more financial and personnel resources, increasing the authority of ethics officers, and requiring greater employee involvement in evaluating performance, accountability and compliance.
“President Obama pledged to improve and restore public trust in Government through ethical reform and transparency in governance,” Salazar said in a message to the Department’s 67,000 employees at more than 2500 worksites around the country. “I have made openness and public trust my highest priorities at the Department of the Interior. As public servants, each of us shares responsibility for fulfilling this commitment and to upholding the highest ethical standards at all times.”
Since taking office in January, Salazar has made ethical behavior a top focus at the Department, which suffered a series of ethical lapses and violations under the previous administration. His recently issued Secretarial Order 3288 provides Department-wide leadership and direction to enhance and promote an ethical culture, honesty and accountability throughout the Department. The Order requires Interior bureaus to provide their ethics offices with adequate support staff, financial and technical resources to effectively carry out their programs and to more actively seek employee concerns, suggestions and evaluations.
It also calls for a department-wide working group of career and non-career employees to help Interior’s top ethics officer adopt best practices and develop a system to review training, operations and compliance for all bureau and offices’ ethics programs. The working group will provide specific recommendations to the Secretary no later than January 31, 2010.
Under these directives, bureau directors will develop programs to employ a full-time Deputy Ethics Counselor properly classified at the GS-14 level or higher who shall report to the appropriate senior bureau executive; and ensure that all employees have access to ethics resources, guidelines, training, and appropriately trained ethics officials.
To deter violations, bureau heads also must develop and implement procedures for soliciting employee concerns and other appropriate feedback on personal or program ethics. Bureaus must submit annual assessment of their ethics program. Assistant Secretaries will provide oversight and management to ensure that the bureau directors in their organization fully comply with the Secretarial Order. Bureau plans for carrying out the Secretarial Order are due in 45 days.
Interior’s Departmental Ethics Office is headed by the Designated Agency Ethics Official who coordinates and manages the Department’s ethics program and regularly advises the Secretary on all aspects of Interior’s ethics program, including the annual assessment and overall compliance with this Order. The Department’s top ethics officer also maintain a general supervisory role over the ethics programs of the various bureaus and offices with review and concurrence on hiring decisions for Deputy Ethics Counselors.
All Department employees are required to read the Department of the Interior Ethics Guide and take responsibility for knowing and understanding the ethics laws, regulations, and guidelines, including the fourteen general principles of ethical conduct contained in Executive Order 12674.
To ensure the proper performance of government business and the trust and confidence of citizens in their Government, employees are required to seek appropriate guidance when ethical questions arise. Employees also are required to report both personal and programmatic ethics concerns to their supervisor, Deputy Ethics Counselor, the Departmental Ethics Office, and/or the Office of Inspector General.
Secretarial Order 3288 is available online at http://www.doi.gov/documents/order3288.pdf.