Posted 4:05 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Policy Review
HR will be providing a review, synopsis, and reminder of important employment policies and procedures to UWL employees. Included is a brief synopsis of UW System’s Code of Ethics policy that emphasizes the responsibility of filing Outside Activities Reporting on an annual basis. This policy provides guidance on the avoidance of activities that cause, or tend to cause, conflicts between employees’ personal interests and their public responsibilities. This policy applies to all faculty, academic staff, and limited appointees’ employees’ appointments that are half-time or more. If you have a joint appointment, you must file a report for each department. It is recommended to review the policy in full which can be found here.
Code of Ethics Policy
A. Background
RPD 20-22, Code of Ethics outlines UW System employee obligations to following 3 separate codes.
- Faculty, academic staff, and limited appointees (other than state public officials) remain subject to Wisconsin Administrative Code, Chapter UWS 8.
- State public officials remain subject to subchapter III of Wis. Stats. Chapter 19. Individuals holding the following positions are state public officials: Member – Board of Regents, President, Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, and all Vice President titles.
- Effective July 1, 2015, university staff are subject to a code that is set forth in Section III of RPD 20-22. The University Staff Code of Ethics was closely modeled after Wisconsin Administrative Code, Chapter ER-MRS 24, the Code of Ethics for classified state employees.
The Regent Policy Code of Ethics also recognizes that:
It is the policy of the University of Wisconsin System that chancellors or their designees provide each newly hired employee with the code of ethics to which the employee is subject. Thereafter, chancellors should annually provide all employees with the appropriate code of ethics.
Employees should review, abide by, and ask for clarifications when necessary regarding their respective code of ethics. If an employee is uncertain whether a future action may violate a code of ethics, the employee should consult with the chancellor or the chancellor’s designee.
The employees subject to Wisconsin Administrative Code Chapter UWS 8 must keep track of and report outside activities pursuant to Wis. Admin. Code UWS 8.025. The Board of Regents require all UW System faculty, academic staff, and limited appointees who are subject to UWS 8 with half-time or greater appointments are required to report annually (by April 30 of each year) on outside activities and interests related to their areas of professional responsibility and for which they receive remuneration.
Outside Activities should be reported as specified in SYS 1290.A, Guidelines for Reporting Outside Activities Under UWS 8.025. All reports should be open to public inspection unless confidentiality is allowable by law.
However, it is the Boards purpose to prohibit the activities which result in a conflict between personal interests and the employee’s public responsibility.
Outside Activity Report (OAR)
B. Employee’s Responsibility
You are required to report officerships, directorships, ownership interests, outside professional activities, and remunerative activities that occur at any time during the year, even if you are not under contract to the University for part of that time. If, during the year, changes in your reportable outside activities occur, you should immediately inform, in writing, your dean, director or other appropriate administrator. If your aggregate time commitment to one or more outside professional activities will exceed an average of 16 hours per calendar month during hours that you would be normally on duty in your UWS position, you must receive prior written permission from your supervisor.
Faculty, Academic Staff, and Limited Appointees with half-time appointments or more are required to report annually outside activities and interests related to their areas of professional responsibility and for which they receive remuneration by April 30 of each year under the Wisconsin Administrative Code, Chapter UWS 8.
University Staff are governed by Regent Policy Document 20-22, Code of Ethics. When it appears that a material conflict may arise between a University Staff member and their public responsibilities, the University Staff member shall notify their supervisor or other appropriate administrators by submitting a written statement describing the nature of the possible conflict.
Managers and Supervisors are responsible for reviewing the information provided by employees that may identify conflicts of interest and providing guidance on how to proceed. Any time a supervisor is made aware of a potential conflict of interest, whether through receipt of an Outside Activities Report (OAR) or through another means, the supervisor should meet with the employee to discuss and determine whether a potential conflict may exist.
Contracting Personnel are also required to file a Statement of Economics Interest (SEI) with the Wisconsin State Ethics Commission, per UWS 8.06. This includes any person who has been delegated signature authority from its institution, which may include faculty, academic staff, university staff, or limited appointees. To determine whether you are defined as “contracting personnel” for purposes of this reporting requirement, please contact your institution’s Office of Human Resources.
All UW Employees should annually review Regent Policy Document 13-4 on Institutional and Employee Relationships with Educational Loan Lenders.
C. Guidelines of Reporting
Those activities which are reportable under UWS 8.025 include:
- Remunerative Relationships: Professionally related outside activities occurring at any time during the year, for which you received remuneration, not including ordinary professional activities (see below).
- The names of organizations or businesses for which remunerative outside activities were performed, the type of activity (consulting, teaching, research, writing, etc.), the aggregate time spent in that activity, and whether you received $5,000 or more compensation per year from a single source.
- Royalties from writing and patents need be reported only in the year that they first appear.
- If you believe you should not publicly identify the name of the organization, you must receive approval from your dean to withhold the name (e.g., if revealing the name would be damaging to the organization’s legitimate competitive interests).
- If you have received compensation from a nongovernmental sponsor of university research, teaching or training for which you are principal investigator, check the box at the bottom of Section A, Remunerative Relationships and list the name of the sponsor.
- Officerships and Directorships: Officerships, directorships, trusteeships that you or members of your immediate family hold in businesses or commercial organizations related to your professional field.
- Ownership Interests: Ownership interests in organizations related to your academic area of specialization, provided that your immediate family collectively owns more than 10% of the equity.
Those activities which are not reported include:
- Activities for which remuneration comes from university administered funds (e.g., teaching and innovation awards, etc.).
- Remunerative ordinary professional activities which extend an unclassified staff member’s normal institutional responsibilities of teaching, research and service to serving other public institutions, organizations, and professional societies.
- Occasional lectures, colloquia, seminars, etc., given at colleges and universities and at meetings of professional societies.
- Preparation of monographs, chapters and editorial services for nonprofit educational organizations.
- Service on advisory committees and evaluation panels for government funding agencies, nonprofit foundations and educational organizations.
- Leadership positions in professional societies.
Employee Resources:
Employee Instructions: Complete an OAR*
OAR Video: What is this report?
OAR Video: How do I fill out the form?*
OAR Video: What if I have a possible Conflict?
UW-La Crosse Office of Human Resources 608.785.8013 (benefits coverage, policies, etc.)
The University of Wisconsin System provides information regarding UW-System policy at: https://www.wisconsin.edu/ohrwd/policies/
