Ethics in public administration / sidewalk replacement polic…

Assume that you are an inspector in the Springfield Engineering Department in your fifth year on the job. A major component of your job involves inspecting the sidewalks of residents whose streets are being resurfaced. Springfield’s population is 120,000 and its policy states that residents whose streets are partially resurfaced must pay up to $1,000 per home to replace their sidewalks. However, residents whose streets are completely resurfaced need not pay for sidewalk replacement. In these situations, your job as inspector is to determine how much each resident must pay for sidewalk improvements when the streets are being partially resurfaced. You know that the technical criteria for distinguishing between a full resurfacing and a partial resurfacing are blurry. And, you have struggled over the years with residents who are upset when you tell them that they must pay for sidewalk replacement. You have come to believe that Springfield’s policy is problematic in that it is difficult to apply precisely; it is applied unevenly; and that it affects many residents. You have been lobbying your director to change the policy for the past two years and feel that you have been ignored. So, you decide to bring the matter to the mayor’s attention. When your supervisor, the engineering director, finds out about your conversation with the mayor, he becomes quite angry with you for questioning his judgment in front of the mayor. He tells you to keep assessing residents for sidewalk improvements and to keep collecting revenues. The mayor, in contrast, told you privately that you should feel free to ignore the policy — yet the policy in place guides half of your overall workload in the Engineering Division. —- 1) Whom should you obey: the director or the mayor? [State your decision here as a single sentence.] 2) How do the criteria of accountability & responsibility inform your decision? 3) How does Svara’s ethics triangle inform your decision? 4) Whichever decision you have made, conclude your reflections by assessing the costs and risks of your chosen decision versus the costs and risks of the option you’ve rejected.