Ethics In Public Administration

The civil service profession was founded on the belief that through the use of public funds, government would deliver efficient and effective services to its constituency in a just, fair, and equitable manner that advances the public interest (Klingner, Nalbandian, & Llorens, 2010). Operating in complex democratic arenas, public administrators have an array of responsibilities, such as: putting public interest over personal, upholding the law, exercising fiduciary responsibility, ensuring procedural fairness, and more (Svara, 2007). Public administrators operate within an authority structure, work with others to advance organizational mission, and have a responsibility to make the organization as strong, effective, and ethical as possible

Because one’s personal ethics are our foundation, they often influence how we administer ethical codes of conduct in carrying out our organizational duties. How close to the line are we willing to go before we cross over into the unethical arena of the mandates, rules, and regulations handed down to us in our professional career? If you are raised with the understanding that stealing is wrong - no matter how big or small – should you do it? For example, do you return the ink pen that you unconsciously put in your shirt pocket and took home which can now be used for personal use? The rules say that to ensure you are maximizing efficiency and work time, agency resources should not be utilized for employee celebrations or gatherings. Nor should public time be used to hold fundraising events to subsidize them. However, to boost morale and keep productivity up, should public organizations look the other way and allow such activities even on a limited basis? Svara states that the valuable aspects of each approach should be incorporated in one’s own ethical reasoning. One should identify those traits that define his or her character

Without vision, mission, and goals for organizations to govern themselves by, it is venerable to the personal values, or the lack there of, imposed by administrators. John Bryson states, an organization that forgets its mission will drift, and opportunism and loss of integrity are likely to spread and perhaps become rampant (Bryson, 2011). This was the case in the City of Bell scandal which focused on city officials engaged in acts of negligent and gross misappropriation of city funds for personal, gain over several years, in the late 2000’s. In addition, the residents had no standards in which to hold their Administrators and Officials