In an attempt to prevent future problems similar to the ones that landed former Mayor Eddie Price in hot water, the Mandeville City Council has adopted an ordinance requiring all city employees to attend two hours of ethics training annually.

The new policy exempts police employees, who are governed under their own police Code of Conduct and Appearance and fall under civil service.

The requirement came at the suggestion of the newly formed Code of Conduct Committee. Gretchen McKinney, personnel director for the city, said the committee has not finalized their work on a code of conduct, but decided, based on discussions with representatives from the state, that ethics training is needed for all employees of the city.

Under the new policy, all other employees of the city from the mayor down to the secretary will have to annually complete a comprehensive training program regarding the state’s Code of Ethics and the Municipal Civil Service Manual.

The training will come in the form of small or large group training sessions explaining what city employees can and cannot do to remain in compliance with the state’s Code of Ethics as well as the code of ethics already included in the city’s Personnel Policies manual.

The training will be design so as to help employees recognize potential conflicts of interest as well as provide them with a way to alert the proper officials if they become aware of any such conflicts.

McKinney said some employees will be able to fulfill the requirement while attending training sessions at Louisiana Municipal Association conferences.

For those that cannot, the city will bring in people from the state for training in-house.

McKinney said employees she has talked to seem eager to attend the training.

“This training is wonderful,” she said. “It is something we haven’t had in a really long time.”

She said this training will give employees and opportunity to better educate them on what they can and cannot ethically or legally do.

“There are some gray areas that they need to be able to ask questions on,” she said, explaining that the acceptance of gifts from people in the community often causes employees to questions ethics laws.

The acceptance of gifts from contractors doing business with the city is part of what got Price in trouble with the federal government.

A week after resigning in October 2009, Price pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and tax evasion charges. He is waiting to be sentenced on those charges.

Both his resignation and his conviction came following a scathing report from the Legislative Auditor’s Office, which in late 2008 accused the then mayor of misusing public funds.

Price admitted to accepting lavish trips and gifts from Rick Meyer of Meyer Engineers, which does much of the engineering work for the city; and Don McMath and major developer in Mandeville.

According to the bill of factual information issued from the U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s Office, Price also admitted using campaign funds for personal uses, including the purchase of clothing and food and the repaying of golfing bet debts.

He did not report these items on his campaign finance reports filed with the state Ethics Board and did not report the additional income he received in the form of gifts from Meyer and McMath on his tax returns.