Ethical Governance for All Executive Branch Officials, Employees and Appointees

1. City of Cleveland Employee and Contractor Obligations

Employees of the City of Cleveland are expected to perform their duties as ethical leaders, placing the broad interests of the People of Cleveland ahead of their own personal interests. This Executive Order seeks to reinforce that expectation and set forth certain limits on the conduct of city employees aimed at maximizing public confidence in the work of the city workforce.

Every person or entity doing business with the City is expected to engage with the City in an ethical manner. Many varied entities serve as contractors with the City, providing, for an appropriate fee, critical goods and services. These goods and services contractors must compete for City business on the merits, with the City’s contracting activity based upon the interests of the People of Cleveland and controlling procurement laws and procedures. Others provide services with City grant funds. These grants must be made based upon the interests of the People of Cleveland. Personal relationships, special favors and personal gain will not be part of contracting or grant-making activity undertaken by the City. Those who abide by these principles will be asked to serve the City time and again in a mutually beneficial manner; those who seek to evade these principles should expect to be denied contracting opportunities with and/or grants from the City.

2. City Ethics Pledge

All senior city leaders are directed to read and sign or acknowledge (or in an otherwise established manner, confirm an intent to comply with) a Pledge of Ethical Conduct within 30 days of the effective date of this order, or, if first employed after the effective date of this order, within 30 days of employment by the City. The City’s Chief Ethics Officer will manage the process of assuring compliance with this Order provision.

3. Limits on Gifts

When those who seek or have contracts or grants from the City provide gifts, meals, tickets, or other goods or services to municipal employees, the public’s confidence in the ethical governance of the City can be undermined. Accordingly:

1. The only gifts I will accept during my tenure with the City will be those given to me by:
   1. Close family members (which includes children, step-children, parents, step-parents, grandparents, grandchildren, siblings, spouses and domestic partners) who are not otherwise prohibited by Ohio law;
   2. Personal friends who are not lobbyists and who are not affiliated with businesses having or seeking contracts with the City or entities receiving or seeking grants from the City;
   3. Individuals or groups who, on occasion, provide a gift of insubstantial value including, but not limited to, a t-shirt, cap, or mug or other promotional item; or
   4. Government officials from another city, state or country as a gesture of friendship, in which case I will accept the gift on behalf of the City and will turn them over for ownership by the City in accordance with the laws of the City.
2. The gifts listed above will only be accepted as permitted by Ohio’s ethics laws and will be reported as required by such laws.
3. To the extent not controlled by other laws or bargaining agreements, all City employees and City appointees are directed to follow these same rules regarding the solicitation and/or acceptance of gifts. Failure to abide by these provisions will result in appropriate discipline and/or termination as permitted by law.

4. Ethics Training and Compliance

Ethical conduct by City employees, contractors and grantees should be driven by their own sense of obligation to the People of Cleveland. All employees, contractors and grantees are expected to be ethical leaders attentive to their own ethical conduct and that of their fellow employees, contractors and grantees. Non-compliance with ethics laws and ethics orders will be treated with the utmost seriousness by supervisory personnel and is likely to result in consequences up to and including termination of employment and/or contracts with the City. Violations may also be the subject of criminal prosecution.

1. Training Program Development

In order to ensure that affected parties understand their ethical obligations, the Chief Ethics Officer is directed to:

1. Develop ethics training materials and lead an ongoing ethics training process for all City employees, contractors and grantees;
2. Within 120 days, develop an Ethics Training and Compliance Education Program which can be modified for effective use in all components of the city government; and
3. Within 120 days, assure that an effective mechanism exists for anonymous reporting of actual or apparent wrongdoing by city employees, contractors and grantees and that training regarding the use of the mechanism is included in all component ethics training.
4. Training Obligation

Within 180 days, the Chief Ethics Officer shall assure that there has been ethics training provided to every City employee. The Chief Ethics Officer may authorize exceptions to the deadline in unusual or extraordinary circumstances.

c. Non-Compliance

1. All City employees, contractors and grantees are directed to report any known non-compliance with ethics laws and/or this order.
2. All training will include discussion of the fact that failure to report known non-compliance with City ethics requirements will be treated as one’s own non-compliance with rules regarding the prohibited conduct.
3. Supervisory failure to act on reports of ethics non-compliance may result in that failure being treated as non-compliance with this Order and provide the basis for disciplinary action.

5. Transparency

The Chief Ethics Officer shall use the City’s website to publicize this Executive Order as well as clarifications of and updates to the Order. In addition, the Chief Ethics Officer shall assure that the City’s website provides practical information about employee, contractor and grantee ethical obligations, including FAQs that present common scenarios and the appropriate ethical conduct in those scenarios.

6. Improving This Order

Compliance with ethical obligations requires vigilance every day. City employees, vendors and contractors are likely to encounter circumstances which raise reasonable questions about appropriate conduct but which are not addressed by this Order. The critical city service providers are strongly encouraged to bring ethics questions and concerns to the attention of the Chief Ethics Officer. Updates to this Order to include additional matters or resolve ambiguities should be expected. Similarly, the People of Cleveland are encouraged to propose improvements to this Order to the Chief Ethics Officer for consideration as subjects for training and/or for inclusion in future updates to the Order.

This Executive Order is effective immediately and will remain in effect until my last day in office as Mayor of Cleveland unless modified or rescinded before then.

Justin Bibb, Mayor   
April 12, 2022

Pledge of Ethical Conduct

I accept and pledge myself to the policies that I am affirming today. I understand that this Pledge of Ethical Conduct is a statement of shared values – integrity, impartiality, independence and transparency. It is our pledge to the People of Cleveland that our only allegiance is to them as we conduct City business.

In consideration of my appointment as a public official or employee of the City of Cleveland, Ohio, I hereby pledge to be familiarized and conduct myself in accordance with the current ethics policy, laws, related statutes, and administrative code. Specifically, I pledge that I shall not engage in prohibited conduct which includes, but is not limited to, the following:

1. Gifts: Solicitation or acceptance of anything of value, including, among other things, meals, tickets, entertainment or travel, from an improper source, including, but not limited to, any person, corporation, or other party that is doing, or seeking to do business with, regulated by, or has interests before the City of Cleveland;
2. Conflict of Interest: Use of one's public position to obtain benefits for an official or employee, a family member, household member, or anyone with whom the official or employee has a business, employment or fiduciary relationship. I understand that I may not participate in considering, discussing or approving matters where I have a conflict of interest, and in such cases, I must disclose and recuse myself;
3. Supplemental Compensation: Payment or acceptance of any form of compensation for services rendered as part of your public employment or on a matter before any board, commission, or other body of the City of Cleveland, unless the official or employee qualifies for the exception, and files the statement, as described in section 102.04(D) of the Ohio Revised Code;
4. Public Contracts: Holding an interest in or otherwise benefitting from a contract with, authorized by, or approved by the City of Cleveland, unless otherwise permitted through a statutory exception; the Ethics Laws except certain limited stockholdings and contracts objectively shown as the lowest cost services, if all criteria under Ohio Revised Code 2921.42 are met;
5. Nepotism or Influence Peddling: Voting, authorizing, recommending, or in any way using one's position to secure approval of a City of Cleveland contract, including employment or personal services in which an official or employee, a family member, or anyone with whom an official or employee has a business or employment relationship has an interest. I understand that I may not participate in considering, discussing or approving matters where I have a prohibited interest, and in such cases, I must disclose and recuse myself;
6. Outside Employment: Solicitation or acceptance of employment from an improper source, unless the official or employee completely discloses the matter, withdraws from City of Cleveland activity regarding the party offering employment, and the appointing authority approves the withdrawal;
7. Honoraria: Solicitation or acceptance of honoraria, pursuant to sections 102.01 and 102.03 of the Ohio Revised Code;
8. Revolving Door or Post-Employment: During public service, and for one year after leaving public service, representing any person or entity, in any manner, before any City of Cleveland body, with respect to a matter in which an official or employee personally participated while serving with the City of Cleveland;
9. Confidential Information: Using or disclosing confidential information protected by law, unless appropriately authorized;
10. Use of City of Cleveland Brand: Using, or authorizing the use of, one's title, the City of Cleveland, or the city's acronym or logo in any way that suggests endorsement of a product or business, favoritism, bias, or impropriety by a City of Cleveland official or employee; and,
11. Political Activity: Public officials and employees shall not engage in political activity that is prohibited by law.

Employee Printed Name 
Classification

Employee Signature 
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Mayor’s Letter to City Employees

As Mayor of Cleveland, I want to make clear that our shared values - integrity, impartiality, independence, inclusiveness and transparency - guide everything we do. It is our pledge to the People of Cleveland that our only allegiance is to them when we conduct City business. That is why I made it a priority to sign the attached Executive Order to formally announce a new set of general principles and guidelines that will be the foundation upon which we build and earn trust in our city government. This Order provides minimum standards of conduct for all City employees, elected officials, members of boards and commissions, and volunteers. A critical part of the Executive Order is the appointment of a Chief Ethics Officer. This individual will be responsible, with the support and assistance of my entire leadership team, for fostering a culture of ethical conduct and upholding our collective commitment to ensure integrity and accountability in each and every department of my administration.

As public servants, we hold in our hands the essential but fragile public trust of the people who we were elected to serve. Therefore, in addition to being efficient and effective, we must also be ethical. If we fail to uphold this basic standard, we will never accomplish all that we have committed to do for the citizens of Cleveland. I firmly believe there is nothing that government does that cannot be done ethically and transparently. We must always be a government that serves all the people, not a select few. Our residents deserve a city government that operates with the highest ethical standards through the actions of every one of our employees.

I strongly urge you to read the Executive Order and Pledge. We are committed to ensuring you have the information, guidance and tools you need to understand and uphold the way we intend to do the people’s business. We will also issue a “plain English” guide to our shared values of integrity, impartiality, independence and transparency as well as training and education materials and requirements. We are also in the process of designing a new, dedicated website that will be available to all employees.

It is a new era of trust between the People of Cleveland and the government that serves them. I, along with City Council, look forward to building a city government we can all be proud of that operates honestly, values diversity and inclusion and always puts the public interest above our personal interests. Beyond policies, pledges and codes of conduct, it is my sincere hope that together we create a culture where our only allegiance is to the citizens we serve. And where fulfilling that allegiance becomes the way we live each and every day. That will be the way we do things in Cleveland.