The Sacramento City Council has backed away from a proposed rule stating that city employees could be fired for leaking confidential information. Instead, the City Council approved a new policy Tuesday that would apply only to council members.

City Attorney Eileen Teichert wrote both proposals. The Feb. 2 version of the rule stated that an “employee disclosing or causing to be disclosed confidential information to any unauthorized person may be subject to appropriate disciplinary action up to and including termination.”

But the City Council decided Tuesday to restrict the scope of the policy to council members. Council members who leak confidential information can face punishment, according to the policy. The specific punishment is public censure, which is akin to a reprimand.

“Any council member disclosing or causing to be disclosed confidential information to any unauthorized person may be subject to public censure by the City Council,” the policy states.

Before a council member can be publicly reprimanded for leaking confidential information, several steps must be taken. The policy states that the council member in question must have been “provided with notice of the accusation and facts underlying such accusation, and an opportunity to be heard.”

Teichert said she received feedback from council members that they didn’t want to “squelch” employees’ rights to be whistleblowers. She did not specify how many council members asked for the proposed rule to be softened.

Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy has expressed her views on the original proposed rule publicly. She said at the Feb. 2 City Council meeting that the proposal would have a “chilling effect” on whistleblowers.

Councilman Robbie Waters in January started the council’s discussion on a confidentiality rule. At a Jan. 25 City Council meeting, Waters said he wanted Teichert to define the term “confidentiality” in legal terms. He asked Teichert to include moral and “punitive” information in her legal definition of the term.

The new policy that council members unanimously approved Tuesday will not be in the City Council's Rules of Procedure, Teichert said after the meeting. She described the new language on confidentiality as a policy, not a rule.

Photo by Anthony Bento.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.