Thirty-five agencies reported taking 921 disciplinary actions based wholly or in part on violations of the Standards of Conduct. Image: The KonG/Shutterstock.com
The most common topics of questions that federal employees pose to agency ethics officers in 2024 again related to outside employment and other activities; acceptance of gifts; and financial disclosure reporting requirements, the Office of Government Ethics has said.
In a survey of ethics officers of 143 agencies, outside employment and activities was one of the three top topics for 88, including 37 where it was the top topic; 36 named gift acceptance as the most frequent among the 86 who put it in the top three; financial disclosure was named the most frequent by 31 of the 88 agencies putting it in the top three.
Other topics most commonly named included conflicting financial interests, post-employment restrictions and impartiality in performing official duties.
Other findings included that:
* Thirty-five agencies reported taking 921 disciplinary actions based wholly or in part on violations of the Standards of Conduct; the largest share, 39%, involved violations of the regulation governing misuse of position.
* Nine agencies reported taking 16 disciplinary actions based wholly or in part on violations of criminal or civil statutes; the largest share, 38 percent of those actions, involved prohibitions against employees taking official action that can affect a personal financial interest.
* More than 8,300 employees performed some ethics-related duties, although only 11 percent of them full-time or close to full-time.
* More than 99 percent of those required to file publicly viewable financial disclosure forms did so, as did the same percentage of those required to file confidential forms.
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