Illegal, Unethical or Immoral?

By Glenn Lazof, RGS Finance Advisor

While on assignment for RGS, I picked up an interesting phrase from one of my peers. Regarding getting direction, he was fond of reminding us that he is happy to do as instructed “as long as it is not illegal, unethical, or immoral”. Sounds good right? Let’s take a look at each of those guideline components in actual practice.

Illegal
As the saying goes the law is the law, so one might think this should be the clearest of the three components. Certainly there are acts that we know are illegal, but our real world experience is that highly regarded City Attorneys or District Counsel can often disagree about the law. The law is obvious in the case of workplace violence or embezzlement, less so in when you witness slowly mounting indicators of behavior that could be illegal. Agency counsel legitimately interpret their role as counsel to the agency, in which comes the application of attorney client privilege, and their ultimate responsibility to reduce the agency’s legal exposure in a manner that differs from RGS interests.

When a question of legality arises, one has to assess whether it is systemic within that agency, or a few bad actors. RGS clients are the agencies it serves, not individual councilmembers, directors, or managers. When illegality is not systemic, a pathway needs to be found to help the agency take corrective actions. If one receives questionable direction within a client agency, or is a direct witness to illegal behavior, the first step is to seek support and advice from RGS leadership. Not only does RGS management need to be appraised of circumstances that could be a liability to its employees and the JPA; the RGS executive team has the experience and knowledge to provide the support and advice an advisor will need. The bottom line has to be that an advisor never jeopardize him/herself or RGS by being knowingly complicit in lawbreaking. If a partner agency is not prepared to move to self-correction it is best to bring that relationship to a prompt end in full co-ordination with RGS’ executive and legal team.

Unethical
Most of the agencies RGS partners with are ultimately responsible to an elected body. This means that the electorate bears accountability for behavior of the elected officials, and by extension top management and the staff they supervise. The ideal is that a knowledgeable electorate with the aid of a vigilant press will lead to corrective action. Advisors know that reality can often fall far short of this ideal, but remember that the system usually finds a way to work in the long run, particularly with the type of local agencies RGS serves.

While we at RGS must adhere to the highest professional ethics, it is not our role to be the conscience of our client partners unless we have been invited to do so. Instead, RGS employees must model integrity with our own actions, carried out honestly, and transparently. This will protect us, protect RGS, and may illuminate issues within the agency. If the partner agency is incapable or unable to self- correct, the most likely outcome is that ethical RGS employees will find that it is time to leave.

Immoral
Morality, in all but the most extreme cases (which usually fall into the illegal category) is subjective. We are public servants in public agencies within a diverse society. For me to impose my subjective morality on a public entity would violate my morals. I think of the recent case where a County Clerk refused to sign, or authorize her subordinates to sign, marriage certificates because those marriages violated her religious beliefs. I would contend that her only viable option was to resign.

The great joy of working with RGS is that our assignments place RGS staff in situations where we work alongside many smart, experienced, hardworking, and scrupulously honest public servants, including our RGS colleagues. While it is very rare that we find ourselves in situations where we question our partner agencies, we should all be prepared for what to do if we find ourselves in such a circumstance.

Admittedly, little of what is written here is absolute and there are many of other equally legitimate points of view. I believe we can and should continue this dialogue.