Designated agency ethics officials, or DAEOs, continue to say that providing advice and counseling to employees regarding the laws and rules is where they spend the most time, along with working on issues related to financial disclosures and education and training.
Among the educational efforts are initial training of new employees, three-fourths of whom receive such training within the first 90 days as required—most commonly as part of employee onboarding programs in one-on-one briefings and classroom settings. Gift acceptance policies and financial disclosure reporting were the top two topics on which employees sought guidance.
Those were among the findings of an Office of Government Ethics survey of DAEOs, and their assistants, ADEAOs. A large majority of each are career employees, 84 and 94 percent, respectively, although 59 and 64 percent, respectively, have less than four years of experience in the position. The majority of agencies conduct succession planning and professional development for their ethics officials, however.
It said that there are about 6,800 individuals that support the ethics program. Of these, approximately 62 percent performed 2-30 hours of ethics duties per week, and approximately 8 percent performed 31 or more hours of ethics duties per week.
About a third of ethics officials are in the Washington, D.C. area, and nearly that many said they need additional resources, especially personnel, technology and funding in general. More than a fifth of ethics programs have contractor support, although mostly to provide clerical help or support the financial disclosure system.
