The city management profession was born during the reform era in the early 1900s. Groups like the League of Women Voters, the National Municipal League, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce saw the council-manager plan as an antidote to the rampant corruption and machine politics that reformers wanted to change. The early city managers approached their new jobs with the energy and idealism of that reform era. Eight of those city managers formed a professional association in 1914.

The first city managers battled with the entrenched corruption, crossed racial and economic barriers to address public health issues, and fought for merit principles in personnel. Just 10 years after the city managers formed what now is called the International City/County Management Association, they adopted their first Code of Ethics in 1924. They brought their vision and values into that Code of Ethics, including the principle that the city manager is the administrator for all the people and serves them without discrimination.

That sense of responsibility to the community has been a hallmark of the local government management profession. City and county managers rely on their ethical framework in dealing with elected officials, citizens, and employees. Prospective members of ICMA must sign a statement that they have read the Code of Ethics and that they agree to abide by its enforcement procedures, which includes a peer review process. In a typical year, 20-25 complaints alleging ethical misconduct are investigated. While some complaints are dismissed, others require an investigation by a fact-finding committee. A Committee of the ICMA Executive Board reviews all of the complaints and fact-finding reports and makes recommendations for sanctions, as appropriate. Sanctions for violating the Code of Ethics range from private censure to public censure and expulsion from membership. The full Executive Board votes on all public censures, expulsions, or membership bars.

While many city and county managers find the ICMA Code of Ethics to be inspirational and they may display it in their offices, it is the enforcement process that distinguishes this profession's code from many others. While most complaints about possible violations of the code come from members of ICMA, occasionally an elected official, employee, or citizen will alert the Association to a potential problem. Education is given considerable attention to help members avoid ethics complaints. Members are encouraged to contact the Association for ethics advice and to attend training sessions. The Association publishes a monthly ethics column and offers workshops and training materials for students, employees, and managers.

The goal of ICMA's ethics programme is to inspire the membership to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. ICMA's approach is 90 percent inspiration and 10 percent regulation. It is a living Code of Ethics that has been amended by the membership seven times since its adoption. One example of a 1952 revision was the insertion of a new tenet that articulated the manager's duty to develop the competence of the manager's staff. As the complexities of service delivery grew in the United States, so, too, grew the need for a wider range of competence in the local government staff. Guidelines for the Code of Ethics were first added in 1972 and are frequently updated.

The fact that the membership has continued to debate and discuss the principles that guide the profession is one reason that members "own" this Code of Ethics. While there are lively debates, in the end, ICMA members embrace the overall purpose of the code: to remind them of their responsibilities to the community, to elected officials, and to their colleagues.

Source: Prepared by Corinne Rothblum for UN-HABITAT, http://www.icma.org