Board learns new rules under ethics reform
Think twice the next time you donate a gift to the board of education.
Woody Sanderson, school board attorney, presented new amendments from the new Alabama Ethics Reform law.
“Some rules have changed significantly, with respect to gifts or offers from lobbyists,” Sanderson said.
He said the bills include “long, sought after reforms.”
Sanderson said the bill that would most impact the board is SB14.
“There is little change of a definition of a ‘thing of value,’ but substantial changes to the exceptions,” he said.
The change adds the definitions of an educational function, economic development function and widely attended event.
The “thing of value” is any gift, benefit, favor, service, gratuity, tickets to events, rewards, promise of future employment or honorariums or other items of monetary value.
He said public employees are prohibited from giving, receiving or soliciting a gift for the purpose of influencing official action.
He said lobbyists and principals are now banned from giving anything of a “thing of value,” but he said exceptions include campaign contributions, gifts by friends and family members, nominal value items, loans generally available to the public and prizes from contests open to the public.
Sanderson also said that anyone who fits the definition of a public official or public employee would be required to take ethics training.
Cindi Sanderson with the Madison Arts Council presented a $3,000 check to four “deserving art teachers” in the city. The recipients were Kristina Newsome, music at West Madison and Heritage Elementary; Noel Newquist art teacher and Heather Leslie, art teacher at Madison Elementary, Rainbow Elementary, Mill Creek Elementary, Columbia Elementary and Heritage Elementary; and Sage Murin art teacher at Rainbow and Columbia.
Dennis James, school safety director, discussed Challenge Day, which the two middle schools and one high school participated.
“It was a lot of fun, a lot of emotion, a lot of tears shed,” James said.
