The historic Kenton County Courthouse in Independence. Photo provided | Kenton County

What you need to know

The Kenton County Fiscal Court will consider a vote to revamp the county’s code of ethics next week.

The proposed ordinance would completely rewrite the county’s current code of ethics, which sets ethical standards of conduct and financial disclosure requirements for county elected officials and employees. 

The fiscal court performed a first reading of the new ordinance Tuesday of last week, meaning they will do a second reading and cast a final vote on the ordinance on Sept. 8. County Administrator Joe Shriver said the revision came out of a meeting he’d had with the three judges/executive of Boone, Kenton and Campbell Counties. 

“We were talking about our various ordinances of ethics and we wanted to talk about uniformity and cleaning up the ordinances,” Shriver told the Kenton County Commissioners during the meeting. He said he had directed County Attorney Stacy Tapke to draft the new ordinance. 

The General Assembly passed legislation in the mid 90s that mandated local governments in the Commonwealth establish ethics ordinances. Kenton County passed an ordinance establishing the Kenton County Ethics Commission and Code of Ethics for the first time in 1994. The fiscal court has updated it or amended it several times since, most recently in 2010.  The proposed ordinance up for a vote next week is heavily modeled after the ordinance from Boone County, which you can read here. 

“It’s a good clean up,” said Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann. Tapke later echoed those sentiments in a phone call with LINK nky, saying the uniformity would be useful since the three counties work together so much. 

The commission currently consists of five county residents who are not already elected or appointed, locally or otherwise. Appointed administrators and government employees are also barred from serving on the commission. A nine-member appointment committee selects commission members.

The ethics ordinance generally prohibits financial and personal conflicts of interest among officials. The ordinance also restricts nepotism, other forms of favoritism, commercial endorsements, and misuse of public property, among other prohibitions.

Tapke previously told LINK nky that ethics hearings before the ethics commission are, in fact, quite rare. She added that complaints tended to increase around election time.

Still, given that the new ordinance would completely revoke and replace the current one, it’s worth looking at some of the proposed changes. Here are some key differences between the current ordinance and the proposed ordinance:

  • The removal of an explicit fiduciary clause from the code of ethics, which currently “imposes the obligation to act in the public’s best interests through the county government agencies in which the person is employed or serves.” Fiduciary duties generally mandate that the needs of the public supersede those of the individual official.

  • The removal of explicit protections against reprisal. The current ordinance explicitly protects people who bring complaints against county officials and employees from retaliation; the new ordinance removes this clause. 

  • Elected officials, candidates and appointees would no longer have to declare property they own in the county as part of their financial disclosures. Currently, the ordinance requires the disclosure of all commercial and residential property owned by the previously mentioned groups and their spouses in which they have an interest of $5,000 or more, besides their main residence.

  • Family relations under the ordinance’s prohibitions against nepotism would be narrowed. Under the current ordinance, family members include “a spouse, parent, child, brother, sister, grandparent, grandchild, father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, or son-in-law.” Under the proposed ordinance, prohibitions would only extend to immediate family members, defined as “a spouse, a resident of an individual’s household, or claimed by an individual or his/her spouse as a dependent on a federal tax return.”

  • The number of ethics commissioners would be reduced from five to three. Term limits would also be removed; currently they can serve for no more than two consecutive terms.

  • The judge/executive would appoint the ethics commission members, who would be affirmed by the county commissioners, rather than using a nominating committee.

  • The addition of a “rule of necessity” clause, which allows for the circumvention of guardrails against the county entering into contracts that would economically benefit an official or employee, their business or their family members. Under the new ordinance, those strictures could be curtailed if the official or employee publicly discloses the nature of the interest and if “it is in the best interest of the local government because of limited supply, price or documented emergency.”

  • Under the current ordinance, preliminary investigations and proceedings are not public, but adjudicatory proceedings (i.e. where the commission actually levels a decision if a violation has occurred) are public. Under the new ordinance, both preliminary investigations and due process hearings are closed to the public, unless the person against whom a complaint is leveled wants to open the hearing.

  • Record keeping for the ethics commission would move from the clerk of the Kenton County Circuit Court to the Fiscal Court itself.

  • There’s no longer any explicit requirement for evidence of criminal wrongdoing turned up in a complaint process to be referred to a county prosecutor, although the commission could still level fines.

  • Complaints must be submitted within one year of the alleged incident occurring or within a year of it being discovered. The current ordinance lacks this time limit.

LINK nky sent a list of questions to the fiscal court asking for the rationale behind these proposed changes. A county spokesperson sent a written response back.

“By creating consistency with Boone County’s ordinance, we are ensuring Tri-County appointees are subject to the same provisions, regardless of jurisdiction,” the statement reads.

As it related to the removal of the fiduciary clause, the county spokesperson said, “fiduciary responsibilities of Kenton County Fiscal Court members, employees or County agency officials remain in place,” and that the fiduciary principles were included in the new standards of conduct section of the ordinance, even if the explicit language was gone.

For the point about no longer having to declare property, the spokesperson said that officials, employees, agents or immediate family members still had to declare when they had “a direct or indirect private financial interest in any contract or matter pending before the Kenton County Fiscal Court or their County government agency.”

The elimination of term limits, replacing the nominating committee with direct appointments and reducing the number of ethics commissioners was two-fold, the spokesperson said. It allowed for a more efficient process, especially when it was difficult to find people willing to sit on the commission. Plus, “there may be commissioners whose services are never required during their term,” so term limits were unnecessary, the spokesperson said.

Finally, as it related to referring criminal findings to a county prosecutor, the spokesperson said, “The County Attorney remains involved with the Ethics Commission and, as a prosecutor, has an obligation to refer potential crime to law enforcement for investigation.”

The fiscal court will cast a final vote on the new ordinance at their meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 8. The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. at the Historic Kenton County Courthouse in Independence. 

You can read the current Kenton County ethics ordinance and the proposed revision below: