12-1. Code of Ethics
All Village employees are required to maintain the highest ethical standards in the conduct of their position or office. In order to fulfill this requirement, the following shall apply:
A. There shall be no activity which is in conflict with the interest of the employee’s official duties.
B. Village employees shall not misuse their positions or information obtained in connection with their employment with the Village for personal gain.
12-2. Acceptance of Gifts
A. Employees shall not directly or indirectly accept nor solicit any gift, favor or service in whatever form under circumstances from which it could reasonably be inferred that the gift was intended to influence them or reasonably be expected to influence them in the performance of their official duties, or was intended as a reward for any official act on their part.
B. Gifts include anything of value to the recipient from any existing or potential vendor, contractor, utility corporation or customer including a gift, loan, reward, promise of future employment, favor or service based on the understanding that the official action or judgment of the Village employee would be thereby influenced.
C. This restriction also applies to family members and others in whose welfare the Village employee is interested. It is not intended to isolate employees from normal social practices where gifts among friends, associates or relatives are appropriate for certain occasion.
D. If employees receive an unsolicited gift or gratuity worth more than $50, they shall upon receipt report the gift or gratuity to their department head who shall document such acceptance on the approved disclosure form available in the Human Resources Department and forward a copy to the Village Clerk’s Office.
12-3. Nepotism
It is the Village’s intent to comply with state law regarding nepotism, and to eliminate employment practices which result in conflicts of interest, favoritism or appearance of impropriety.
A. No person shall be employed in the same department in which a relative is working if one supervises or evaluates the other.
B. No employee shall be transferred to a department in which a relative is working if one supervises or evaluates the other. This shall not apply to employees assigned before the effective date of this policy.
C. A “relative” is defined for these purposes as a spouse, domestic partner, parent, child, sibling, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, mother-in-law, father-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, step-parent, step-child, step-sibling, or half-sibling. A domestic partner is defined as a person with whom the employee shares a residence within the context of a committed relationship.
D. Employees who change their relationship by marriage, adoption or other means while working within the same department shall not both continue their employment in the same respective department, if one supervises or evaluates the other. One employee shall either request a transfer to another division or department where the other is not the supervisor or evaluator if such a position is available as determined by the Village Manager, or separate from the Village service of employment.
E. A supervisor shall not hire, promote, advocate or recommend the hiring or promotion of any relative into a position that he/she supervises or evaluates.
F. Employment of relatives of Village employees shall be disclosed on the appropriate form. Applications for Employment of relatives of Village employees must receive prior approval from the Village Manager or designee to assure no managerial conflict exists.
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