In the News
ABC7, February 22, 2007
Completing an online training quiz too quickly could cost several thousand state employees their jobs.
About 12,000 people employed by the State of Illinois were notified that they could face disciplinary action including termination for completing an online ethics quiz too quickly. Whether they got the answers right doesn't matter.
John Bambenek administers the computer system at the University of Illinois' Coordinated Science building in Urbana. He is familiar with ethics issues.
"I do information security, and if I'm not trustworthy, I don't work," said Bambenek.
As a state employee, he took the online ethics training, which consists of 80-pages of information on things like conflict-of-interest, gift bans, prohibited political activities. It concludes with a ten-question quiz.
Bambenek later received a letter stating that because he was online for only 8.78 minutes, he violated terms of the training. According to the letter, if he didn't sign a form acknowledging that he was "non-compliant", he'd be subject to discipline -- up to and including termination.
Bambenek has not signed the letter. Instead, he filed a lawsuit against the inspector general claiming that employee rights were by -- among other things -- not directly saying that if you finished the on-line training in less than 10-minutes -- you could be in violation of the ethics act.
"It's a rather impressive array of constitutional violations for something that in the grand scheme of things isn't really that big. We're not talking high crimes and misdemeanors here. We're talking ethics training," said Bambenek.
Bambenek is among the more than 11,000 state employees found to be non-compliant. The inspector general says the training made clear that it would take 30 to 60 minutes to complete, that the time you spend may be monitored, and that failure to carefully read could result in disciplinary action.
Bambenek doesn't quarrel with the need for ethics training, but says if there was a ten-minute rule, the IG's office can't announce it after the fact.
"Only in Illinois would an ethics officer suggest that knowing ethics is not as important as how long your web browser is open," said Bambenek.
State Senator Susan Garrett who helped author the state's ethics reform legislation praises the online training, but says the time it takes to finish should have "no bearing" on anything.
"My guess is that more employees today are aware of what is allowed and what isn't allowed simply because of the test and whether its a ten minute test or an hour shouldn't have any impact on this whatsoever," said State Sen. Susan Garrett.
The president of Illinois State University says in his 28 years as a professor he never failed a student for taking a test too quickly. The executive inspector general would not go on camera, but his office answered ABC7's written questions: "It takes time to read the material, and it's not asking too much for state employees - no matter how intelligent, or how familiar they are with ethics law - to set aside 30-minutes each year and do what the law requires."