A new organization called the Florida Ethics Institute has the goal of ensuring that a public office is a public trust.
The institute intends to protect the cause of ethics in government by providing education, training and information services.
Caroline Klancke, the institute’s executive director, says large numbers of state and local government employees are subject to Florida’s Code of Ethics but truly unaware of its requirements.
“There are genuinely incredulous individuals who are the subjects of complaints, and those complaints were predicated upon their profound lack of understanding of what is prohibited by the Code of Ethics," Klancke said. "And that is a tragic disservice, one that the Florida Ethics Institute will try to remedy.”
The institute is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization based in Tallahassee that was started by a group of ethics law experts.
Klancke is a former general counsel and deputy executive director of the Florida Commission on Ethics.
