Montgomery County Approves New Ethics Policy

CONROE, TX -- Montgomery County officials will be governed by a new comprehensive ethics policy that is to comprised of five community members.

The new policy, approved by the Montgomery County Commissioners Court on Tuesday, will be tasked with reviewing ethics complaints and to ascertain whether there is a violation.

Although the concept of creating an ethics policy has been on the table since 2013, the issue took on a new life earlier this month when earlier this month when Montgomery COunty District Attorney Brett Ligon spoke to commissioners regarding the Texas Department of Transportation's new guidelines for grant funds that requires counties to have an ethics policy.

County Judge Craig Doyal spoke with County Grant Administrator Rebecca Ansley about the ethics policy as it relates to TxDOT, and directed staff, in consultation with County Attorney J.D. Lambright, to go further than those revisions and develop a comprehensive code of ethics.

The policy includes all county employees, except court-at-law judges and justices of the peace,
the District Attorney's Office and district judges are considered state employees and would not fall under the policy, except when handling county business.

The new policy requires disclosure of business relationships to ensure the appearance of impropriety doesn’t surface.
However, county commissioners it will not require an abstention from discussions or action.

Nepotism is also addressed in the new policy and states that county elected officials and department heads will not advocate the employment, appointment, promotion, transfer or advancement to a paid county position of a family member... unless the employee was employed prior to the election or appointment of the county elected official or department head.

Violations of the new ethics policy could result in an official reprimand.

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