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Bureaucratic mentality rules IG office

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This just gets goofier and goofier. A bunch of university professors ace the state’s ethics exam, prepared by a gubernatorial campaign contributor, but they finished it too fast and now they’re all in hot water.

The president of the school’s faculty association said 65 teachers and 190 other SIU employees are being scolded by state investigators for their performance on an online ethics training course required for all state workers.

The problem wasn’t their scores on the 10-question, multiple choice test. It was that they spent too little time reviewing the subject matter before taking the quiz, according to the Illinois Executive Inspector General’s Office. The “noncompliant” employees have until January 19 to sign a document that says they could lose their jobs if they fail to complete future ethics training.

On average, it took a little more than 30 minutes for about 160,000 state workers to finish the ethics training program. But some — including the SIU professors — plowed through it in less than 10 minutes.

“It’s not humanly possible” that they read and comprehended the information in such a short amount of time, said Deputy Inspector General Gilbert Jimenez. He added that “we’re wondering” if a cheat sheet helped some of the quick studies.

Oh, for crying out loud. We’ve been through this before, but let’s try again. If, as seems obvious, the questions are so easy that you can answer them all after a brief skim of the material, then make the questions more difficult. Don’t insult everyone’s intelligence by forcing them to carefully parse regurgitated crud from last year before breezing through a bunch of blow-off questions.

And the problem wasn’t just at SIU.

Of the 32,594 University of Illinois employees who completed the training, 2,341 were told that they finished too fast, said U. of I. spokesman Tom Hardy.

The Inspector General’s office has no way of knowing whether a state employee walked away from her desk while the test was running on her computer, so who’s to say that everybody who took 30 minutes to complete the exam actually studied the content?

Enough, already, with this phony pseudo ethics.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 5:45 am

Comments

The “exam” is nothing but a few simple common sense questions. No one would even worry about not passing it, let alone needing to use a cheat sheet. The only way not to finish it in under 10 minutes is to answer a few phone calls or walk away for a while before completing it. Had a fellow employee get called on the carpet for finishing the “exam” less than 2 seconds quicker than the 10 minute minimum. Give me a break!

Comment by Anon Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 6:00 am
Where I’m at, over 30 people got in trouble for completing it too fast, at a workplace with less than 170 staff. Be real, this is not rocket science we’re talking about. You don’t have to read the material to answer the questions. It’s a stupid quiz, and the people who need to have the ethics and follow ethics standards the most are the people least likely to follow them.

I find this a slap in the face to every state employee. Non-state employees would be outraged by what this test was compiled of, truly. A waste of time, and now time, money and paper to come after employees for “taking too little time” to complete it. They need to concentrate on significant issues that affect the state.

Comment by Tessa Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 6:17 am
This “Ethics” test is typical political posturing. The rank and file employees aren’t the problem - lobbyists aren’t catering their lunches in, paying for their trips, giving their kids money…. None of the rank and file change the state’s website to be nothing more than an “I Love Me” website, like Hot Rod has. He violates his own test on a daily basis - wonder how fast he took it, if he even looked at it.

Comment by Sahims2 Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 6:48 am
Sahims2: Amen and amen!!!! I walked away from my desk between several questions to stretch out the time since I knew we would be timed on it. This may not be believable but the majority of state employees are NOT idiots and some of us even got our jobs on our credentials and I don’t mean political ones. We do have working brains.l

Comment by Disgusted Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 7:19 am
The people who need to spend time reading the material are the Blagojevich plants and cronies who are continually manipulating the system in their favor, or are just too dumb to follow existing law.

The “holdovers” as we’re called, are all smart enough to realize what is ethical and what is not.

Comment by Anon (for obvious reasons) Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 7:59 am
We should push the envelope and actually get a few hundred of us (who read entire pages/screens at once) fired for passing it again too quickly. Deputy Inspector General Gilbert Jimenez ought to google “speed reading” before accusing anyone else of wrongdoing.

Comment by North of I-80 Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 8:09 am
Rich. This is such a waste of time and taxpayer money. I signed on and answered the first question, then read an article in the paper while enjoying my coffee, answered the second question and continued the routine. I guess another question is if you can get jammed up for taking about 3 hours to complete it.

Comment by proudstatecopper Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 8:15 am
Okay staff, we need an ethics policyâ€¦.now that we have hired all the hacks and cronies we possibly canâ€¦through circumventing Rutan, Veterans Preference, instilling fear, and through intimidation. We need one so we can show that we are â€œnowâ€ honest. How about one that has a mandatory study course andâ€¦..yeahâ€¦.lets throw in a test. That should show people we are really serious about ethicsâ€¦..choke! We are in charge of individuals morality and ethics so lets really get to the meat of the matter and ask really hard, in your face questions: â€œIs water wet?â€; Is the sky blue?; Is it okay to lie?; Is it okay to cheat?; Is it okay to steal?; Does Rodâ€™s hair look particularly good today?; Have we hired all the hacks and cronies we can? â€ The only thing missing from Blogoâ€™s ethics test is a picture of a clown and a popup of a circus. The people at the IGâ€™s office must be embarrassed to be dealing with this foolishness. But hey, it distracts them from investigating the real problemâ€¦.$80,000 a year double exempt positionsâ€¦â€¦hundreds of them!! Talk about ethicsâ€¦.this clown stands in the way of Freedom of Information Act requests. And he wants state employees to take an ethics test?!! He needs a brand spanking new pair of Clown shoes for the bozo he is!!

Comment by Justice Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 8:30 am
Maybe some of these people have super high IQ’s and fast cognitive processing speeds, and so they just plain did well at quick speed on what may very well be an easy test? For crying out loud, have you seen the length of some academic papers? You almost have to learn to read fast to get through it all in a reasonable amount of time.

So what? They’re in hot water for being smart? How about hollering at the people who got into legal trouble for ethics violations for not being able to grasp the ethics rules instead?

Justice said it best, though. I can’t stop laughing at that post.

Comment by Angie Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:10 am
I have some 7~8 “required” trainings I must take via web based instruction.

I ALWAYS blow through the material, get to the test, and ace it. It’s so trivial. I bet my daughters could ace it also.

I guess I am SOOO glad my company just looks at the test results, and not how long I spent on the material.

Comment by Pat Collins Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:15 am
Ethics in Illinois , what a joke! These stupid tests are another big joke. Shouldn’t ethics be straight-forward job requirement?
Our governor, now there’s a shining example of fine ethics. What a crock!

Comment by Illinois Tollway Guy Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:24 am
Doesn’t this test eventually have a 100% pass rate? State workers take it over and over until they get it right. The test is a scam and a total waste of taxpayers money from development costs to time wasted taking it. It almost looks like Mr. Jimenez is creating work for himself, enstead of doing whatever he is supposed to be doing.

Comment by Mr, Ethics Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 10:02 am
Sahim summed it up best. The constant buying and selling of the legislature is what truly results in governmental problems. MJM and Emil Jones could solve these ethics issues with their own forms of intimidation and vote influence. Even if the House and Senate passed “unconstitutional” laws regulating state hiring practices, the threat of not passing pet programs or not confirming key appointments would make Blago or whomever our next governor is think twice about continuing the practice of double-exempt employees, hirings and firings based on political party affiliation and questionable job placement.

The ethics exam is silly. We haven’t grown any more ethical as a state and it’s costing the taxpayers too much coin to administer and grade these tests.

Comment by Team Sleep Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 10:03 am
Many state worker’s also received a letter claiming that they didn’t take enough time on the ethics test. I think our gov. Roddy would have trouble completing the ethics test. His stomach would be turning and a splitting headache would occur during his first question. He would feel and look like an ogor the first time he looked in the mirror.

Comment by ironman Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 10:13 am
This will be a a year of minefields & trapdoors for the olde guv and his posse.
The color orange will look good on you.
Stuff your TEST! I’ve always had integrity.

Comment by I.D.O.T. Bleachers Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 10:45 am
Why burden the poor state worker with these tests? Add these tests to the battery facing our school children. I suggest placing the tests in the 6th grade so that all junior high students would be qualified for public office and state jobs when they complete high school.

Comment by Ali Bin Haddin Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 11:19 am
Adapted from “The treasure of the Sierra Madre.”

“Ethics, we don’t need no stinking Ethics.”

Character does not come from a power point presentation

Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 11:31 am
What they should do is release the test questions so the taxpayors can see what their money is being spent on. They have made the questions so easy so the administration can say that every state employee passed the test!

Comment by Anon Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 12:39 pm
Is there a penalty for anyone who can’t pass?

Comment by Mr, Ethics Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 12:47 pm
The only reason I didn’t get dinged for completing this too quickly was becuase I was to busy griping about the waste of time it is…and laughing at the situations presented.

Comment by highland Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 12:52 pm
What’s wrong with asking state employees to spend a mere ten minutes a year on an ethics exercise? Does ten minutes take too much time away from government employee’s pursuit of Truth, Justice, and the American Way? Relax!

Comment by Relax! Save the outrage for something serious! Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 1:03 pm
Even thinking about ethics, politics and government at the same time causes a small amount of emesis in my mouth.

Comment by independent downstater Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 1:04 pm
What were Tim Martin and Jeff Dailey’s scores?

Comment by I.D.O.T. Bleachers Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 1:08 pm
What were Tim Martin and Jeff Dailey’s scores?

Comment by I.D.O.T. Bleachers Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 1:09 pm
Sorry about that my computer seized up.

Comment by I.D.O.T. Bleachers Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 1:12 pm
Could someone FOIA how long members of the executive branch took to take the exam?

Comment by OneManBlog Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 1:39 pm
I thought the test was pretty stupid. We were warned about taking too little time, so we all would do other things to let the time run up. I wouldn’t doubt that reading this blog was one of the fillers I used.

To the person that said we should use 10 minutes a year of time, I say this. If the test can easily be done in 2 minutes, (which it probably can) then why waste 10 minutes on it?

The test needs to either be harder/longer or the time minimum should be eliminated. Jimenez obviously hasn’t seen the test if he thinks cheat sheets were needed to complete them.

Comment by Robbie Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 1:46 pm
Let everyone see this stupid test.
Can someone create a pdf of it for public view?
Or is this a secret too?

Comment by Jeffrey Lebowski Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 2:00 pm
You are either an ethical person, or you are not. No test or class or anything else is going to change that.

The most absurd part of my college business courses was the ethics unit we did. It was absolute crap.

Seriously, an ethical person will answer correctly and get a 100%. An unethical person will lie, answer “correctly” (knowing he’s full of it) and get a 100%. What is proven?

Comment by jerry Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 2:02 pm
I.D.O.T., Tim Martin’s score was 62.5%. Oh, wait, that was his confirmation vote from the State Senate!

Comment by Team Sleep Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 2:09 pm
- jerry - Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 2:02 pm:

Guess that sums this administration!

Comment by Jeffrey Lebowski Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 2:23 pm
Correction

- jerry - Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 2:02 pm:

Guess that sums up this administration!

Comment by Jeffrey Lebowski Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 2:24 pm
GoverNOT Hairdo has an ethics test because his corruptovistic political plants believe it makes Elvis look like he is cleaning up Illinois state government and making workers accountable. My guess is that the average citizen, when told there is an ethics test, believe this guy is Mr. Wonderful. It’s really unfortunate that the public has no clue that the test is designed by idiots who needed way more than 10 minutes to complete it themselves; therefore, EVERYONE must take more than 10 minutes to complete it, or else be forced to walk the plank.

What will come next is a program attached to all State employee’s computers that tracks and times every keystroke thus giving Elvis and company the ability to know if you are reading, comprehending and answering while still sitting at your desk or are you walking away and refilling that cup of coffee. Don’t be surprised folks. Crazier things have come out of this administration.

Comment by Little Egypt Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 3:21 pm
Question #1. If the ethics training vendor is a governorâ€™s campaign contributor, would that be unethical?
You will not see that scenario or question on the ethics site!

The state spent several hundred thousand $$$’s to have a vendor develop these ethics tests and who knows how many thousands of $$$’s to administer it.

It appears as programmed learning for those with a 6th grade reading and comprehension level. No wonder anyone with average intelligence can complete the “test” questions in fewer than 10 minutes. After the prior years tests many were notified they took too short of a time and learned, as others have stated, to work around the time limit by multitasking while logged onto the ethics site. It works and it saves the state some bureaucratic costs by not sending out ethics test violation notices.

Do the ethics test work? Only for those who are ethical to begin with, this includes the majority of state employees. Then there are those who run their small businesses; conduct hours of social, personal and political visits/phone calls; fudge on time records; or read newspapers, surf the internet most of the day when they do show up.

This will continue, test or no test, until someone takes them to task. It is apparent that the IG has not gone public with routine investigations or discipline to show that their system is working. What is truly unethical is failure to report these individuals. Secondly, the failure of managers to take action on obvious unethical/employee personnel code violations by their fellow employees is equally egregious. â€œCoffee potâ€ complaining about someoneâ€™s unethical behavior will not stop it â€¦if its brokeâ€¦.fix it and let everyone knowâ€¦this will help deter others from following undisciplined bad behavior.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 3:26 pm
Years ago I was in a Union that would come down on you for working too fast. Do you want to know what happened to those businesses? Some years ago the Mayor wanted to put the third airport on that now vacant land.

Comment by Chicago Lou Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 4:26 pm
Anonymous 3:26 - To piggy-back onto your comment, the “vendor” was a company from California as I recall. We pay a company hundreds of thousands of dollars to come up with a ten question ethics test, and we can’t even hire a company from Illinois. The test is laughable and the Gov’s Office should be ashamed to list this as an accomplishment. We do need to hold employees and public officials to ethical standards, but this is more of the same - it’s all about appearances and no substance. Dare I say “ethical puffery?”

Comment by Holdingontomywallet Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 5:19 pm
Remember state employees, the object of this test is to prove that we are too stupid to know about ethics without the help of the “almighty” guvs programs. If we breeze throught it too quickly, it means we were ethical from the start. Mine took 15 minutes last time and I could have finished faster. You’d think they might at least come up with some different questions.

Comment by Concerned Voter Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 5:29 pm
I started my ethics test before lunch, left and went to lunch and came back and finished the exam. What a waste of time and money especially when you see infractions from the political people.

Comment by state worker #1 Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 5:34 pm
“- Jeffrey Lebowski - Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 2:00 pm:
Let everyone see this stupid test.
Can someone create a pdf of it for public view?
Or is this a secret too?”

Yes, I believe when we take it, at the very beginning, one of the things we read is that we are not supposed discuss the contents of the test, to try to print anything out or reproduce the test, without express written consent of Major League Baseball. Sorry about the MLB reference, but I can’t wait for spring training to start.

Comment by Concerned Voter Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 5:36 pm
Wonder if Cecil Turner, Dinora et.al took longer than 30 minutes to complete their ethics training?
Are White/SOS employees required to test like Blago employees?

Comment by curious george Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 6:06 pm
What has the IG’s office been doing to management who retaliate against whistle blowers? Many ethical and honest employees are being retaliated against for reporting infractions. To all you “possible” whistle blowers - put your blinders on and don’t report anything if you want to keep your job and any sense of peace in your life.

Comment by BeenThereDoneThat Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 6:30 pm
Little Egypt-
The Illinois Tollway and I.D.O.T. have had programs on their mainframe computers tracking all their employee’s keystrokes for quite sometime now.
The future is already here!
Wonder if Tim Martin and Jeff Dailey’s Blackberries are being monitored too.
This administration is beyond paranoid….Is there word for that?

Comment by Illinois Tollway Guy Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 6:36 pm
It was interesting when supervisors would come and take staff off the floor from doing their regular duties to go to an office to complete the test on a computer and then return so that another staff could then go and take the test. They weren’t stressing taking time to do the test. The supervisors were given marching orders to get X number of staff to take the test because everyone had to take the test between certain dates. Each agency, each division, had certain dates in which to take the test. There was no give on that part. So, when the deadline loomed, there was a lot of rushing to make sure people got it done. They even brought people in who were under investigation to make sure they took the test. I’d say that was ironic.

Comment by Tessa Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 6:39 pm
The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, etc. should print this stupid ethics test on their front pages on Sunday. That way we can have big laugh with our Sunday morning coffee.

Comment by Jeffrey Lebowski Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 6:43 pm
BeenThereDoneThat…. While reporting to the IG requires a “named informant/complaintant” everthing is supposed to be confidential. I suppose it would be rather unethical for the IG to release this info and extremely unethical for anyone to take action against a whistleblower…not that that would ever happen!

However, not reporting bad conduct is what allows it to continue unchecked. REPORT IT

Comment by curious george Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 7:12 pm
Enough to turn your stomach…phoney ethics hawks who remind one of the idiots who lay out a web to catch the flies, yet let the elephants trample through.

Comment by matsy Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 7:25 pm
Rich, will you publish this joke of an “ethics test” on the blog if a copy lands on the doorstep of World Headquarters?

Comment by just wondering #2 Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 7:57 pm
to curious george -

“Named informants/complaintants are supposed to be kept confidential, however, some trusted their managers and advised the infractions rather than going straight to the IG. Some also were exposed by the sign-in/out time sheets required by the Ethics Act. When leaving the building to meet with the Inspector General’s Office, one must note the time they leave and their destination, i.e., who they are meeting with, address, etc. and when they return. You lie on the time sheets, you are falsifying a state document. The same Act that is supposed to protect you and keep your reported infractions confidential also exposes you. And Yes, it is extremely unethical for anyone to take action against a whistle blower - but it is happening.

People have choices. If I could turn the clock back, I would have chose to never breathed a word. If you value your job - DON’T REPORT IT.

Comment by BeenThereDoneThat Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 8:17 pm
The way I got around the time trip line waws to print every single page of the lesson and test, get up, go to the printer and toss the page into the recycle bin.

The outrage shouldn’t be that people have to retake this stupid test. The outrage should be the amount of wasted time and money being spent on this test.

What is the state wide average hourly wage. Multiply that figure by the number of state employees and then divide by 2 (for the 1/2 hour to take the test). It would be interesting to know how much money has been wasted on this test over the last 4 years.

The correct answer to the test has always been doing the oppoiste of Public Official A.

Now that I am in the private sector, I don’t have to waste my time o n this “test”.

Comment by Huh? Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 8:20 pm
The Illinois Department of Corrections had the same thing happen. A lot of people got paperwork stating the did the test to fast. If you fail it they let you take it again and again till you pass it. The test is so stupid I don’t see how anyone could fail it but they do.

Comment by Democrat Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 8:52 pm
[…] Rich already ranted on that–same point, but go read. Jimenez is a moron of the first caliber. […]

Pingback by ArchPundit » Blog Archive » Oh Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:04 pm
Rich -

FOIA the Governor’s office and find out how long it took Rod, Quinn, etc to take the test.

Comment by 4% Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:07 pm
It’s Rich’s to refuse or choose to run the ethics test if it shows up in his hands, but if he’s worried about copyright or something, I’d be happy to post it. But all deference to Rich first.

Comment by ArchPundit Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 9:11 pm
To those who feel intimidated into not reporting ethics violations you are falling into the gov’s trap. If nothing is reported then there are NO ethics violations and the program is working as designed. Out of site = out of mind…

Comment by curious george Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 10:15 pm
They should give a test that weeds out the people who can fake out tests, like the MMPI, or something. Weed out the sociopaths already.

Heck, those silly pre-employment tests they give are so easy to fake out. Any psych student can psych them out if familiar with the type of test. Make it harder. Administer the MMPI, or something.

Comment by Angie Thursday, Jan 4, 07 @ 11:13 pm
If somebody wants to send me the ethics test and I can verify it’s actually the real deal, of course I’d publish it.

Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Jan 5, 07 @ 12:42 am
Unfortunately once you take the test you can’t get back into it or I would have it. The test is easy, you don’t even need to read the material the questions are that obvious. So obvious I’m surprised I didn’t get notified. Probably because I got up to take a leak during the test.

I know at my University I’ve heard (rumor) that employees will ask the secretary to do their test for them.

Comment by John Bambenek Friday, Jan 5, 07 @ 12:49 am
It is pretty funny to read bureaucrats complaining about the bureaucracy. Aren’t needless paperwork and procedures like this test what keep most of you employed. Yes, the test is pretty stupid and a waste of time…just like a lot of other things about state gov’t…Get over it. You probably waste more time complaininmg about the test than it took to actually take it.

Comment by Bill Friday, Jan 5, 07 @ 3:41 am
No, it isn’t what keeps most bureaucrats employed. Most are doing work and do it well and according to how state law tells them to do it.

This notion that state government is only about employing people is crap that really needs to end. And worst of all it is coming from a Democratic Governor who should be for making government efficient, but not demeaning the people doing the work.

When government is inefficient it is most often due to the law and regulations by the Lege and Governor or even the courts. Sometimes inefficiency is a good thing in government such as having to follow due process.

Other times it’s a problem. However, most of the public employees do important things like teach college students, provide assistance to the needy, ensure our water and air are clean, make sure we aren’t being discriminated, etc, etc, etc.

Those are core Democratic values Bill. Why would someone supporting a Democratic Governor demean hard working public servants and the jobs they do as you do?

Comment by ArchPundit Friday, Jan 5, 07 @ 10:55 am
I take it back… apparently I was one of the nefarious lawbreakers who knows ethics too well…

Comment by John Bambenek Friday, Jan 5, 07 @ 10:38 pm