Departments and agencies of the city and county of Denver are now required to report all gifts they receive worth $2,500 or more under an executive order issued Thursday by Mayor John Hickenlooper.
The new reporting requirement was unveiled by Denver City Attorney David Fine at a meeting of the Denver Ethics Board.
L. Michael Henry, staff director of the Ethics Board, said that the new reporting requirements pertain to gifts to city agencies and departments, not to individual city employees and city officials, who are already regulated.
Henry called Hickenlooper’s order a compromise between what the board had requested and what the Denver City Attorney’s Office had proposed.
He said the board originally proposed a $500 threshold limit, and the city attorney had proposed $5,000. The compromise was the $2,500 figure.
Henry also said that the board did not want city agencies and departments to be able to accept “anonymous” donations. The compromise was that anonymous contributions are allowed with Ethics Board oversight.
“The city’s code of ethics currently does a good job of regulating gifts given to city employees and city officials,” Henry said. “But we’ve come to learn there is another type of horse, which are gifts to the city. Until now, there has been no way of tabulating or examining those at all.”
Henry said it was not up to him to say whether $2,500 was too high a threshold.
One of the key components of the new requirement is that upon receipt of the reports, the Denver Clerk and Recorder’s Office must post them online for the public to read “within a reasonable amount of time,” Henry said.
Leslie Lawson, vice chairwoman of the Ethics Board, said she is glad a reporting mechanism for departments and agencies is in place.
“We find that a good part of our job is to head off trouble,” Lawson said.
Fine told the board that because the reporting requirement is an executive order, it is possible to “tweak” it if necessary.
Under Hickenlooper’s order, departments and agencies must report all gifts received and accepted from Jan. 1, 2007, through March 31, 2008, to the Denver clerk and recorder no later than Aug. 1, 2008.
Beginning in 2009, departments and agencies must report all gifts received and accepted during the period from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 of the previous year to the clerk and recorder no later than Aug. 1 of each year.
The executive order says that a gift does not include sponsorships, scholarships or grants.
Denver’s $2,500 threshold
• Gifts subject to the executive order are defined as money, property or services worth $2,500 or more given to an agency or department without adequate or lawful compensation.
• A gift to an individual in the department is viewed as a gift to the city if facts and circumstances indicated that the donor wished the gift used on behalf of the city.
• A gift does not include sponsorships, scholarships or grants.
• If the value of the gift is not easily discernible, agencies or departments are required to evaluate the fair- market value of the gift at the time of donation.
