In 2016, the Florida Board of Governors passed legislation requiring public universities to form centralized compliance offices and ethics training programs for all employees.
On Wednesday, UF will meet the final requirement, said Gary Wimsett, UF’s Director of Compliance & Conflicts of Interest.
The university’s nearly 30,000 employees have until Oct. 15 to complete a new ethics training program called “Compliance: A Collaboration for Success.”
The deadline for universities to meet the requirements is in November, he said. This program, which is overseen by Chief Compliance Officer Elizabeth Ruszczyk, was the last requirement UF had to meet.
“I think one of the fundamental underpinnings of this is that we feel like everybody here has a responsibility to create and maintain a safe learning environment both for faculty and students,” he said.
The training is on an online system and takes about 20 minutes to complete, and it must be retaken every two years.
UF National Media Strategist Steve Orlando said he thinks requiring employees to retake the training is appropriate because laws and regulations change frequently. Without training, employees could accidentally make an illegal or unethical decision.
Wimsett said the content of the program is largely based on sections of the Florida Code of Ethics, a chapter in the statutes that establishes laws for state employees. The sections mostly deal with conflicts of interest and gifts.
Conflicts of interest arise when employees’ financial interests interfere with their ability to fulfill their obligations to UF, he said. Gifts are illegal to accept if they are designed to influence a public employee’s behavior.
“We answer to the taxpayers,” Orlando said. “We’re the stewards of their money, and we’re working in their name, and so we need to be mindful of that. We need to remember that, as public employees, we need to be transparent.”
Wimsett said another goal of the program is to introduce employees to the services and policies of UF Compliance & Ethics, such as the compliance hotline.
The hotline allows employees to report concerns anonymously, he said. Employees should report all suspected wrongdoing by calling (877) 556-5356 or going to the UF Web Reporting System.
“It’s such a big place and so much going on that we really depend upon people letting us know if they see problems out in our university community that we can investigate,” he said.
He said UF’s non-retaliation policy protects employees from being fired or punished as revenge for accusations.
This will be covered in the training program, which consists of PowerPoint slides with assessment questions at the end, Wimsett said. Some of the slides will include scenarios to help explain complicated concepts.
Wimsett said the goal is to improve safety for students and employees.
“Just a lot of ways of looking out for each other through the laws, policies and regulations that if we’re all just a little bit more sensitive to them and a little bit more aware of them, and we also feel like there’s a place we can go to get problems resolved. That helps create this safe learning environment for everybody,” he said.
