Borough's Ethics Board may be eliminated

The Mat Su Borough has a number of issues on their plate at their next meeting Tuesday evening. One such issue is the elimination of the Ethics Board and an increase in the limit for personal conflict-of-interest cases.

Mayor DeVilbiss has voiced his opposition to boards and commissions in the past and is looking to reduce those that he says are redundant or ineffective.  He has said motivation to cut the ethics board is financial.

The Ethics Board has produced a revision to the Borough code that is scheduled to be considered at the August meeting.  The elimination of the Ethics Board would occur BEFORE the consideration of the proposed changes in August.

The proposal also increases that limit for conflict of interest from the current fifty dollars, to five thousand dollars, stating that financial benefit or conflicts under five thousand dollars a year are insubstantial.

Instead of an ethics board there would be an Administrative Hearing officer to investigate alleged violations of the code. The mayor would appoint and the Assembly would approve of such an officer.

The ordinance which would eliminate the Ethics Board is 11 dash 060 and can be found on the Assembly’s agenda on the Mat Su Borough website.