Kenney amends gifts rules for his staff
Mayor Kenney signed an executive order Wednesday that makes some changes and clarifications to the city's ban on gifts for executive-branch employees.
Mayor Kenney signed an executive order Wednesday that makes some changes and clarifications to the city's ban on gifts for executive-branch employees.
Most mayoral administrations dating back to 1961 have had some set of formal rules on what gifts employees in the executive branch may receive. In 2014, City Council passed an ordinance that created a gifts rule for all of city government, including Council and the row offices.
Chief Integrity Officer Ellen Mattleman Kaplan said she wanted to make sure that administration employees were held to a higher standard than the regular city rules.
The current ordinance allows employees to accept gifts valued at $99 or less in the aggregate per person per year.
Kenney maintained the rule from the Nutter administration that executive-branch employees may not accept gifts of any value. However, the new executive order creates some specific exemptions, including that employees can accept food, beverages, or entertainment at a reception open to the public for which no ticket or invitation is required.
Another change is that a city employee may not receive a gift from a person who sought some action from that employee within the preceding 12 months.
Mayor Michael A. Nutter's executive order, signed in 2011, prohibited gifts from people seeking business from the city, but did not specify a time frame.
"It was a matter of putting reasonable parameters around the acceptance of gifts and really just giving guidance to employees," Kaplan said of the defined time window.
The other major change to previous orders is listing "registered lobbyist" as a prohibited source of gifts. The most recent executive order had a prohibition on gifts from a "person seeking legislative or administrative action by the city."
Kaplan said that given the gift scandals in Harrisburg involving a lobbyist, she wanted to clarify that any registered lobbyist is prohibited from giving to any executive-branch workers.
"The aim of the executive order is really to spell out what the rules are for city employees in a way that is understandable to them," Kaplan said.
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