Behavior police, we can't control what somebody posts on Facebook.

We can't control whether people are nice to each other.

Um, what we control is when people use their position to make money on the side.

So a public employee would have to do with procurement or uh contracting, planning, zoning, um, inspecting, licensing.

Um, if anybody has little kids, it's all those action verbs that we deal with.

Okay.

So the reason that comes into play is just because you work for a government entity does not make you a public employee.

So, for example, with a school district, your superintendent, your business manager, they're going to be public employees.

Your teachers are not our biggest violation comes under the conflict of interest rule.

And it's a very, very large term.

And what it really comes down to are these bullet points you see on the screen.

So it's using your office.

So it has to be something that you do by virtue of having the public office or the public employment that you have to make money, and to make money for either yourself, a member of your immediate family, or a business that you or a member of your immediate family is associated with.

For this part of the act, immediate family is spouse, parent, child, or sibling.

And when we talk about private uh pecuniary benefit, it doesn't necessarily have to be profit.

So there was a case that we had where a council person or supervisor also owned a used car dealership.

And the township was looking to buy a car, and instead of using municipund or any of the other um, you know, doing a bid, advertising, any of that, the township supervisor said, Well, I got one on my lot, and he sold it to the township, and it came before us, and they said you're not supposed to do that.

One, you can't contract with your governmental body, and two, you used your position to guide this sale to go to your dealership.

And what happened there was his uh defense, he had a hearing, and his defense was I lost money on this.

That car was sitting on my lot for 14 months.

And when you count what I put into it and what I received, I gave the township a break.

I lost money.

And the commission ruled that you mitigated your loss, and that was a financial gain.

Um, that person appealed that, and it went to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania where they sided with the commission and said, Yes, mitigation of loss under the ethics act is a financial gain.

So there are some exceptions to that rule and uh to this conflict of interest rule.

Um is actions having a de minimis economic impact, and that one is actually the hardest to explain because people really don't like it.

Um, what it is is if you if you get pulled over and you use your authority of the office and you get out of a $50 speeding ticket, that's not something we would investigate under the law, that would be a de minimis financial gain.

Courts have actually ruled that up to $500 of a financial gain is de minimis.

Um, the other one is we call it class subclass.

And an example was that uh in Adams County, there was a uh county commissioner, there was a zoning ordinance that said you can't um use your private land and engage with a solar panel company for those solar panel farms that you see.

Because what they would do is these solar panel companies would engage in leases with private owners, and these leases were like, I don't know, hundred thousand dollars, hundred and twenty thousand dollars, way, way, way past de minimis.

And what this person did was vote to change the zoning ordinance so he could engage in a contract with the zone with the uh solar panel company, and this was brought before the commission, and he was found not to have violated the ethics act because of this exception.

They said everybody else who's similarly situated could also then engage into a contract with the solar panel company.

That what he did didn't just benefit him, it benefited everybody else in that same class for lack of a better word, and that's who is similarly situated, and um the subclass is really just kind of uh more specific than that, and really what that exception entails or what it covers is that people serve where they live, so whatever vote you may decide to to vote to do, it may benefit you financially as long as it does that to the same degree that it benefits everybody else who's who's similarly situated, then that's not a violation of the ethics act, so nepotism, because we heard that you can't use your position to benefit your immediate family member.

So when could my child work at the state ethics commission when I have nothing to do with it, I can't supervise, I can't hire, I can't promote you can have nothing to do with um getting your child that or your immediate family member that job.

Um there was a case that kind of bounced around in the courts, and it went up to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and part of the argument was well, is this just an anti-nepotism statute?

And the commission in its argument said, Yeah, kind of you can't use your position to benefit your child.

Um the other thing that it talked about, and we're gonna get to a video here shortly.

The other thing that that case talked about was what is use of office, so it's not just a vote because our elected officials do much more than that, right?

They have the ability to sway votes.

So in that case, the one that went up to the Supreme Court, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the person worked behind the scenes to change the township handbook to get rid of the anti-nepotism policy, and then when it came time to vote on that change, he said, Well, I abstain because I can't, it's a conflict of interest, and the court said no, you had access, you worked behind the scenes, you went to your fellow supervisors in a way that a citizen could not and lobbied to get this change happen.

So you can't just say I abstain at the finish line if you worked behind the scenes to make something happen.

So I'm gonna show a video.

These videos were created by um another state agency.

They kind of have the same characters floating around, but you just have to pretend you've never seen them before.

Um, because it's all animated.

So that'll kind of explain what I'm talking about.

Also, all of these videos are loosely based on real cases.

Action.

Oh, maybe it won't.

I even checked before we got started.

Let me see.

Uh there we go.

Okay.

Sorry, we checked before we got started on this.

Now we need to turn it.

Oh, because your volume's down on the okay.

Let me see if I can.

Oh, I have to go to the go-to and sure.

Go ahead.