Laserfiche WebLink
MR. HISASHIMA: Throughout your 28 years in the County, have you ever seen this before? The policy? <br /> <br />MS. VEINCENT: Yes, I have. <br /> <br />MR. HISASHIMA: You have. <br /> <br />MS. VEINCENT: Yes. <br /> <br />MR. HISASHIMA: Throughout your 28 years you stay in the system, when was the first time you saw this? When you started 28 years ago? <br /> <br />MS. VEINCENT: No. It’s been more recently that I reviewed that. <br /> <br />MR. HISASHIMA: Yeah, because it says here implementation date was August 13, 2013. Ms. Crawford, what promulgated this policy to come out? <br /> <br />MS. CRAWFORD: We had a long-standing informal policy that had been followed since, as far as I know, many administrations back. And there was a general understanding of what is formalized here, and those terms of this policy were basically being followed within the division. And when it came to our attention that not everyone understood that, and a specific case, then we felt it was important to formalize that policy, and so we did so. <br /> <br />MR. HISASHIMA: It wasn’t because of certain events or anything? Just that you folks figured that it should be documented? <br /> <br />MS. CRAWFORD: Well, I would say that, in terms of an event, as I said it became clear that what we thought was well understood by all employees was not well understood by at least one. And therefore, again, we took—and I believe if you were to ask the appraisers, the concepts are not new. The document was new, and that was because it had not been formalized previously. <br /> <br />MR. HISASHIMA: Then I have a simple question. For any appraiser—let’s say I become brand new—do you have all the policies in line for me to read what the County agrees with that is going to be my job? Like what I’m—like this is conflict of interest. What about other things that I may have to do? Do you folks have a process or policy for that? <br /> <br />MS. CRAWFORD: Well, we certainly--for all new employees in the Department of Finance, we have a process of going through policies, and that certainly includes the County ethics policy as well as others that are in our department, County-wide policies, plus others. And then at the division level, I think there’s an orientation that takes place. And to the degree that we have written formal policies, in this case this one is part of—now at the Finance Department level. This we’d go over with the employee initially.