Wichita City Council members will no longer be left to police themselves on ethics violations after passing a long-awaited and much-debated policy on May 11.

The ethics policy sets gift limits for elected and appointed city officials for the first time in city history.

It applies to all city board appointees and council members.

The new policy creates a seven-member Ethics Advisory Board to investigate and rule on ethics complaints.

City officials could be censured or fined up to $1,000 for serious violations.

Lesser offenses would require an official to undergo ethics training.

It also offers whistleblower protection to city employees who report violations.

The City Council also kept in place a 63-year-old ethics ordinance prohibiting favorable treatment to “friends,” a word council members struggled to define last month before scrubbing it entirely from the new policy.

After the vote May 11, the City Council now has two ethics codes: a city law, which has been in place since 1958, and a new City Council policy.

Keeping the ordinance in place will be a helpful transition until the council appoints an Ethics Advisory Board and an ethics officer to lead the board.

Related to gifts, the new policy caps what city officials can receive at $150 a year from a specific donor, with some exceptions.

Additionally, any gifts more than $50 must be reported annually.

The policy carves out exemptions to what is considered a gift, allowing city officials to accept unlimited gifts in the form of food and event admission from any nonprofit organization, political or policy-based group, educational institution, community development or faith-based organization.

Those gifts could include anything from free tickets to college sporting events to golf tournaments.

City officials covered by the policy are also entitled to unlimited free meals “when their presence is requested to attend a meeting or event.”

Wichita City Council introduced an ethics proposal to establish gift restrictions for elected and appointed city officials.

Proposal 2021-01-26 would cap the value of gifts Wichita’s mayor and City Council members may receive from people doing or planning to do business with the city at $150 a year and require disclosure of gifts worth $50 or more.

The proposal would also establish a whistleblower hotline with protections for those who want to report a violation, and an ethics advisory board to be appointed by the mayor and council to handle complaints against the mayor, council members or any members of city boards or commissions.

Penalties for violations of the proposed code of ethics would result in a fine between $100 and $1,000 for each violation.

Council members will hold a workshop on the ordinance April 27 and vote on the proposal in May.

After eight years, Kansas Rep. Brandon Whipple resigned from his House District 96 seat on January 13 to become mayor of Wichita, Kansas.

Whipple defeated incumbent Jeff Longwell to become Wichita’s mayor on November 5, 2019.

The Sedgwick County Democratic Party has nominated Stephanie Yeager to succeed Whipple.

Gov. Laura Kelly must appoint a successor and has not yet approved Yeager’s nomination.

The Wichita, Kansas City Council approved a measure removing the prohibition on corporations, unions, and political action committees donating to local campaigns. Such groups are still limited to contributions of $500 per election, matching the limit on individual contributions and mirroring the state’s restrictions.

Proponents of the change believe with the limit so low, the risk of corporations or PACs swaying an election is minimal.

The council also voted unanimously to move city elections from the spring to the fall beginning in 2017.