[Angela Russell]

Rule V. Committees and Boards; Section S. Commissioners not serving on committees with family members

This item is being considered at the next Rules Committee meeting. I would like to present the following information for consideration.

Below is the current suggested Rule V, Section S wording.
Effective September 1, 2025, Rule V, Section S, is amended to read as follows:
A Commissioner shall not serve on any committee or board that has a family member as defined by spouse, parent, grandparent, siblings, in-laws, or children. No Commissioner shall serve on any Committee or subcommittee, including but not limited to the Audit Committee and the Personnel Committee, if that Commissioner has a family member working in any Knox County government department or agency which might be regulated, investigated or overseen by such committee.

My understanding is the purpose of the change is to remove possible conflicts of interest. However, the above wording change only addresses one finite possible conflict and not all possible conflicts of interest. For instance, a Commissioner would also have a conflict of interest (probably greater conflict) if they worked for Knox County themselves. The Knox County Internal Audit Department has the contractual right to audit non-profit agencies receiving funds from Knox County. The above current suggested wording appears to address having a family member of such agency but not the Commissioner themselves. As such, any Commissioner working for or serving on the board of one of these non-profit agencies could have a potential conflict of interest.

I believe a potential conflict of interest could be addressed much easier as I will explain later. But should the Rules Committee decide to pursuit this path, then I respectfully request that the Rule’s Committee consider the following alternative wording option to the rule currently being proposed so that all conflicts of interest are addressed fairly and equally.

OPTION 1 Alternative Wording Change
A Commissioner shall not serve on any committee, subcommittee, or board that has a family member as defined by spouse, parent, grandparent, siblings, children, grandchildren, or equivalent in-laws. No Commissioner shall serve on any committee, subcommittee or board, if that Commissioner or a family member works in any Knox County government department or agency which might be regulated, investigated, or overseen by such committee. An agency is defined as including but not limited to non-profit organizations receiving funding from Knox County and therefore by contract might be regulated, investigated, or overseen by the Audit Committee.

In addition, if option 1 is selected, I would like to suggest that the rule become effective after passage by the Commission but be implemented upon completion of current existing committee members terms’ at an annual reorganization meeting.

Commissioners who have never served on the Audit Committee may not understand how it works so I would like to give a summary. First, Knox County Internal Audit Department (KCIAD) selects and performs audits of their choosing, and the Audit Committee does not dictate their selection of audit targets. Second, if KCIAD finds any possible abuse or crime, those are reported immediately & directly to the Tennessee Comptroller’s office without Audit Committee involvement. Third, if the Audit Committee goes into Executive Session for non-public information, the KCIAD Director informs Audit Committee members if a possible conflict of interest might exist before disclosing the information. Currently, the Audit Committee member is ASKED to recuse themselves from the executive session.

As such, I would respectfully submit that the removal of a conflict of interest could be addressed by the following alternative wording option.

OPTION 2 Alternative Wording Change
A Commissioner shall not serve on any committee, subcommittee, or board that has a family member as defined by spouse, parent, grandparent, siblings, children, grandchildren, or equivalent in-laws. In addition, if a Commissioner or Commissioner’s family member becomes the subject of an Audit Committee investigation and the Commissioner serves on the Audit Committee, that Commissioner MUST recuse themselves from any votes or confidential non-public, executive sessions related to their own or a family member’s investigation.

Thank you for taking the time to consider this issue. Thank you, Angela Russell, District 5 Commissioner

[Kim Frazier]

Thank you, Commissioner Russell.

I will make sure that your comments are distributed to the members of the Rules Committee for review and possible discussion.

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