New Countywide Policies

On April 17, 2026, UPE 005 representatives met with Sacramento County over four new proposed County-wide policies: Incompatible Activities, Nepotism, Pre-Employment Checks, and a County Code of Conduct. Incompatible Activities requires members to disclose any outside employment that may conflict with their County employment. The Pre-Employment Checks relate to what criminal history information DPS can and cannot disclose to hiring Departments while considering new candidates. The Nepotism policy requires that employees not serve in a position of authority over anyone they are related to by blood or marriage, and that they do not use their authority to favor personal relations over other employees. Finally, the Code of Conduct outlines a number of rules and expectations related to employee behavior.

The policies were so extensive that UPE and the County did not even discuss the Code of Conduct. UPE asked numerous questions related to the other three policies and requested information to better understand the impact of the policies on our members.

UPE focused on the nepotism policy. First, it would apply to any personal relationship within a chain of command. So if an employee can go up their organizational chart and encounter a personal relationship, there would be a conflict. This would mean a Department Director could never have an employee in their department who is a personal relation. The policy does allow for relationships to exist in a Department if the subordinate employee cannot report to the family member. For example, if an office assistant is related to a program manager, the office assistant could never report to a supervisor who reports to the program manager's relative.

UPE highlighted several problems for the County. First, the nepotism policy does not apply to friendships or cronyism. This remains a major problem in the County, and the policy does nothing to address it. Second, the County does not intend to apply the policy retroactively. In fact, it does not even intend to require existing personal relationships to be reported. The policy would only come into effect in cases of hiring, promotion, or transfer moving forward. This means family members can continue to work on their personal relations.

This policy addresses a real problem in the County, but by only having it apply moving forward, it leaves in place countless problematic relationships that the policy is specifically designed to prevent. The County could not provide an answer as to why the policy is only applying moving forward.

The County and UPE will meet again over these policies.

UPE thanks Elyse Avila, Jim Ostrowski, David Guardado, Debbie Tellez, Jennifer Avalo, and Zack Kollross for their representation at the meeting.