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TO: Mayor Richard C. Irvin
FROM: Alex Voigt, Deputy Chief of Staff
DATE: February 11, 2025
SUBJECT:
An ordinance amending Sec. 2-185 "Disclosure of Economic Interests and Campaign Finances", specific to boards and commissions.
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this amendment is to address an operational issue created by the 2023 amendment to this section of the code.
BACKGROUND:
In 2023, the City Council approved amendments to Sec. 2-185 "Disclosure of Economic Interests and Campaign Finances" (O23-066, attached). The change in 2023 was intended to reduce the burden on the local City Clerk's Office and to avoid duplication by substantially reducing the City's local disclosure requirements. Because the State of Illinois had recently begun requiring more detailed economic interest disclosures of public officials, and because reporting obligations related to campaign finance had evolved significantly in the 40 years since Aurora began requiring local disclosure, the additional transparency afforded by the local disclosures, relative to state requirements was significantly reduced.
Moreover, the manual form required by the City created a substantial amount of work for the City Clerk. The revised process adopted by the City Council created a streamlined quarterly economic disclosure and publishes those results to the website for the public to review. This process is now done entirely online.
The 2023 amendment also provided that the members of a select number of the city's boards and commissions would also be required to complete the Aurora disclosures. This amendment aims to address the issues created by this change specific to the boards and commissions. There are no proposed changes for city employees or elected officials, however adapting the new process to the needs of the volunteer members of the boards and commissions has proven difficult.
DISCUSSION:
To honor the intention of the revised ordinance for staff and elected officials, the City Clerk worked with the city's GIS division to create an entirely online process that is communicated via city email addresses. The chart below illustrates the commissions required by law to complete disclosure forms, the number of members as well as if they had a city email address. The City issues e-mail addresses to the membership of all but two of the commissions, primarily to allow those members to access documents related to their commission duties through a designated SharePoint site. Staff liaisons were able to contact the members when the survey was issued to their email address, but there were consistent issues with members’ abilities to successfully log in and complete the survey.
Staff made numerous attempts to resolve the issues, but the process of resolution caused significant frustration on the part of members, causing some to express their intention to resign due to this point. Evaluation by the Mayor’s Office and Law Department determined that the quarterly surveys are not serving the intent of the ordinance as amended by the City Council. Because members of these commissions are already required to disclose their economic interests annually, eliminating the local disclosure requirement does not substantially reduce transparency. Moreover, the nature of the local disclosures, which are now confined to whether a covered person has outside employment, and the nature of that employment and whether the covered person has a campaign committee, is far more relevant for the City's elected officials and employees than it is for volunteers.
Lastly, it can be a challenge to identify qualified and capable members to serve in these capacities, particularly the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Civil Service Commission, both of which meet twice a month. Requiring this extra work, on a quarterly basis, and with the prospect of financial penalties for a failure to timely comply, may deter the public for applying for these positions or continuing to serve once appointed.
IMPACT STATEMENT:
Approval of this amendment will benefit our valuable commission members while still providing transparency through established processes at the county level. Keeping this additional quarterly requirement could cause the City to lose valuable members who do not have time to navigate the technology challenges that accompany non-employees when logging into their city email.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Staff respectfully request approval and adoption of this ordinance.
cc: Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee
CITY OF AURORA, ILLINOIS
ORDINANCE NO. _________
DATE OF PASSAGE ________________
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An Ordinance amending Sec. 2-185 of the Code of Ordinances with respect to the obligations of members of the City's Boards and Commissions.
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WHEREAS, the City of Aurora has a population of more than 25,000 persons and is, therefore, a home rule unit under subsection (a) of Section 6 of Article VII of the Illinois Constitution of 1970; and
WHEREAS, subject to said Section, a home rule unit may exercise any power and perform any function pertaining to its government and affairs for the protection of the public health, safety, morals, and welfare; and
WHEREAS, in 2023, the City amended its requirements with respect to the obligations of various officers and employees to disclose their financial interests; and
WHEREAS, these amendments have had an adverse effect on the membership of the City's boards and commissions that are covered by the modified disclosure requirements; and
WHEREAS, the City Council finds that the obligations imposed on members of the City's boards and commissions by the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act, as most recently amended, are sufficient with respect to the disclosure of economic interests by the membership of the City's boards and commissions and that the additional transparency afforded through the City's disclosure requirements are negligible and substantially outweighed by the administrative burdens associated with their implementation; and
WHEREAS, the City Council finds that the City's disclosure requirements when applied to members of select boards and commissions has an adverse impact on recruiting and maintaining qualified members; and
WHEREAS, the City Council finds it to be in the best interests of the City to amend Sec. 2-185 to eliminate any obligation of the members of the boards and commissions to disclose their economic interests pursuant to local ordinance; and
WHEREAS, such amendment shall not, in any way, alter the obligations of any member of any board or commission required to disclose their economic interests pursuant to the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act, nor relieve such member from their obligations under the laws of this State and the Ordinances of the City to conduct the business of the public fairly, impartially, lawfully, ethically, and in the best interests of the City.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council of the City of Aurora, Illinois, as follows: that Sec. 2-185 of the Code of Ordinances shall be and hereby is amended as set forth in Exhibit A.