1-2 PAGE POLICY ASS. DUE THURSDAY

Ethics and Public Policy

Ethics and Public Policy Program Transcript

NARRATOR: Ethical standards play an important role in the formation and integrity of public policies. In this video program, John Kobara describes several ethical controversies and their impact on public policy.

JOHN KOBARA: The role of ethics about policy is absolutely essential. It's essential in everything. I mean, we have to have good people doing good things. And in public policy, in the public policy arena with all the different actors and players, having people that do the right thing at the right time, and understand the difference between right and wrong, is critical.

That being said, there are rules. There are rules that need to be established and understood. One of the main things, I think, in public policy arena is conflict of interest. What is your conflict in making a decision? Do you have an ownership stake in something? Do you have a reason to be conflicted in making this decision or being a part of this policy? Will you benefit by the results of this policy?

So I've had to sign conflict of interest statements in many positions I've had in the public arena. And at first, I thought, God this is tedious. This is really a hassle to do it--to list things that you own, or potential conflicts that you have. But really it's not so much about the conflict, because there's some people that will do bad things. And maybe I try to get away with something. That's in anything we do; that's in private sector, public sector, elected officials, non-elected officials.

The issue is the appearance. It should never look like you have a conflict. I'm just involved with a decision right now in my foundation, where one of the best investment vehicles that we could invest in is an investment vehicle that is owned by one of our Board members. And we could make a lot of money. The organization will benefit.

We're nonprofit, so we're not going to make the money to give profits and bonuses to somebody. It's to actually give money to the community, so it's a good purpose. And we can't invest in this vehicle because he's on the Board. And we all bemoan that fact, but it's a good rule because it doesn't look like we're doing self-dealing. Self-dealing is when it appears that the people inside your organization are basically handing out favors and money to themselves.

And the reason why we talk about ethics is it can't even look like that. Because when it looks like that, it diminishes the esteem, the reputation, the ability for people to do their jobs. So ethics is really, really critical. There's so many examples of bad ethics. People have gone astray, and have used their power, their authority to hire their relatives, to pay off a shell company that they own a stake in. But at the end of the day, those are probably a very small percentage of

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Ethics and Public Policy

the work that's done. And not really representative of the people that are trying to do the right thing. But when you're in the public eye, when you're a part of the public trust, when the money you're being paid with is coming from taxes or from public support, then you have a higher standard because you are representing the public.

So that's why we talk about ethics in public policy. It's critical to have good people pursuing this business and that understand the rules and follow those rules. Helps build the reputation of public policy, so that even better people in the future want to pursue it. Because what happens with government, in particular, because we're talking about government, is, government oh I don't make any money, and it's a tireless, thankless job, and really there's a lot of bad things that happen in government. And there's a lot of bad things that happen in a lot of places, but by following ethical rules and enforcing those ethical rules we build a stronger policy arena, and a stronger government, and a stronger democracy at the end of the day.

Ethics and Public Policy Additional Content Attribution

MUSIC: Creative Support Services Los Angeles, CA

Dimension Sound Effects Library Newnan, GA

Narrator Tracks Music Library Stevens Point, WI

Signature Music, Inc Chesterton, IN

Studio Cutz Music Library Carrollton, TX

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