A Jacksonville City Council panel supported funding for an ethics office described in the city charter and endorsed Carla Miller as the office director Monday.
The full council could vote next week on both issues, although a second committee still has to vote on the funding measure.
Passage would settle a running question Mayor Alvin Brown’s staff raised about whether the council intended to pay for operations of the new, more independent Office of Ethics, Compliance and Oversight with money from the 2012 budget, or if that was to be used by a mayoral-appointee ethics officer.
Councilman Clay Yarborough’s funding bill (2012-85) releases $142,500 to the ethics office from an ethics account that hadn’t been fully labeled in the budget. The bill repeals references to ethics officers from earlier legislation.
Brown endorsed the bill Monday.
Although Miller has long experience in the city’s ethics rules, her appointment bill (2012-10) became an occasion for council members to fault the city Ethics Commission for the way she was selected as director of the new office.
“Ethics is for everybody, you know, not just us,” council President Stephen Joost said. In an unusual move, Joost sat with the Rules Committee to vote as president and was the opposition to Miller’s confirmation.
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