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Honolulu ethics officials say in the past three years, they’ve investigated more than 240 allegations of ethical misconduct by city employees. That’s more than one complaint a week.

To help cut down on those numbers, the ethics commission has asked the Honolulu City Council to make it mandatory for the city’s 10,000 employees to have ethics training.

The city’s seen “many many cases of misuse of taxpayer resources whether its taxpayer funds or vehicles,” said Charles W. Totto, executive director of Honolulu Ethics Commission. “It could be city positions where people try to get special treatment for themselves or family members or friends.”

Currently, ethics training is limited to a select group: elected officials, supervisors, managers, and board and commission members. would expand that requirement to all city employees.

The bill is headed for another public hearing next week and needs only two more votes by the full council to become law.

Totto says the number of ethics complaints has been rising steadily. He said the ratio of violations to the number of employees is higher here than it is in San Francisco, San Diego and Seattle. But he noted the seriousness of the offenses is less in Honolulu than in those cities.

The total number of complaints since 2009 is likely to grow to more than 300 by the end of this year, he said.

“It is far more effective to prevent unethical conduct through education than to punish violations because once misconduct occurs it chips away at the integrity of all agencies and officials,” Totto said in his testimony before council members last week.

If the bill passes, city employees will watch ethics training videos. The videos “are off-the-shelf DVDs on government ethics and what they do is they describe basic ethics laws and then they also give scenarios with actors and so on,” Totto told Civil Beat. The training would take about an hour.

The ethics commission also tried to pass a related bill that would strengthen financial disclosure requirements for city officials.

Approximately 600 city officers and employees are required to file disclosures. But under the current law, the city can’t impose fines for incomplete or inaccurate forms. would shut that loophole, Totto said.

Totto said the commission wants tighter laws in light of what happened with former councilman Rod Tam.

The commission investigated Tam in 2010 and found 39 reported violations, but the city was not able to impose fines under the current law, he said.

“This bill will put the burden on the official to file complete, accurate disclosures by the deadline or face financial penalties,” Totto said in a statement.

Bill 39 would also require city officials to file financial disclosures for people living in the same household such as spouses and children. But council members raised questions about the definition of “household” and asked the ethics commission to clarify. For example, should a household include roommates and landlords living under the same roof?

The bill was deferred last week and sent back to committee for revisions.

“We understand the comments and concerns that were raised and we will go back and research to see if we can come up with language that will allow for the improved financial disclosures,” Totto told Civil Beat. Bill 39 will come back to the city council after some modifications in a month.

Meanwhile, Bill 40 is scheduled for a public hearing at the next council meeting on Wednesday, at the Pali Golf Course in Kaneohe.