COUNCIL APPROVES ETHICS ORDINANCE

The Cape Girardeau City Council Monday approved unanimously a local ethics ordinance designed to better prevent conflicts of interest.

In other business, a split council voted 4-2 in favor of changing the city staff's budget format to give the council greater latitude to review and assess individual department programs and services.

The ethics law will require public disclosures of council members' financial interests. The ordinance also expands penalties for violations to include council censure of a violator.

Councilman David Barklage initiated the law, and said Monday that he thought it would go a long way to prevent conflict of interest problems like those that have occurred in the past.

He said following the council meeting that the new ethics law is an expanded version of guidelines in the City Charter.

"If you compare what was passed tonight with the situation we've had in the past several years, this ordinance will go further to discourage conflicts and allows for either censure, forfeiture of office or impeachment," Barklage said.

He said the measure will make council members accountable to the public rather than other members, which will remove the "politicization" of enforcement.

"It gives the public the opportunity to know the information, and the public will know if there's a violation," he said. "It's not up to individual council members to disclose that, which has been difficult in the past because it's always been perceived as a personal attack or politically motivated."

The conflicts of interest ordinance will:

Require public disclosure of all businesses council members have an interest in.

Require public disclosure of council members' property holdings, city licenses, and business ownership.

Prohibit disclosure of confidential information from nonpublic executive council sessions.

Barklage earlier asked that the city staff adopt a law that would prohibit those businesses council members have an interest in from contracting with the city.

But he said Monday that he asked that the tenet be dropped because it was too prohibitive, particularly if a council member owned a small share in a number of businesses.

However, those businesses council members own outright are still prohibited from contracting with the city.

"I think disclosure of the interests covers that sufficiently," he said. "Once an interest is disclosed, that council member will be prohibited from discussion or voting on any matter that involves that conflict."

Council members are required to file the new requirements in conjunction with state-mandated disclosures passed last year by the legislature.

In regard to the budget changes, Barklage and council members David Limbaugh, Mary Wulfers and Hugh White voted for a resolution authorizing the different format, while Mayor Gene Rhodes and Councilman Al Spradling III voted against it.

Barklage said the changes will "overhaul the budget process" and require the staff to justify department spending by breaking the budget out in specific programs, showing costs and revenues.

He said the changes are needed as expanding city government faces diminished revenues and is forced to make cuts.

"Right now the budget is very complex, and there are no real comparisons of programs on an income and expenditure level," he said. "It's almost impossible for the council to enact a cut in the budget."

But Spradling said he didn't support the measure because the city staff had insufficient time to analyze whether they could readily comply with it.

"Where do we stand at this point?" he asked staff members. "Would we have to add manpower or software to comply? How will this affect the budget process?.

"I want to hear the staff report on this before I'll support it. I don't think it's fair to them without at least hearing from them."

But Barklage said the budget process isn't "for the staff, it's for the council." He said the changes are sufficiently broad to allow staff to adapt the changes to the current budget process.

Again, Spradling objected: "If we're putting something on their head some type of program that we haven't defined for them, then we're just adding to their burden," he said. "It's not giving the staff time to respond and ask for definitions or parameters."

Barklage said after the meeting that he understood Spradling's concerns, but he doubted the budget changes would overburden the staff. He said much of the information required in a program-by-program budget already is available and need only be put in the appropriate form.

"It's a basic change in the way we are going to budget, and there should be a lot of discussion," he said. "I just felt like it was important to get the ball rolling, and it will be up to the rest of the council to further determine how they want the information presented."

Barklage, who has researched the issued at length, said a recent study showed that if the state went to a similar "budget-by-program" system, it would save Missouri at least $42 million.

He said the format allows the council to examine which programs and services are most efficient and make appropriate cuts when needed. Other requirements in the measure are aimed at assuring that programs and services are reviewed at least once every five years, to assure efficient and effective administration.

A committee consisting of a staff member, councilman and a citizen will perform the review.