Correction: The headline for this story has been changed to more precisely refer to the “Ethics Hotline.”
An ethics hotline that has been available to Johnson County employees, vendors and contractors since 2012 has recently become open to the general public, and will be subject to future improvements to bring it in line with best practices.
The reporting platform quietly became visible on the county website July 16, via a link on the maroon field at the bottom of the county website homepage. Clicking on “Ethics Hotline” leads to an outside webpage where anonymous complaints of possible ethical wrongdoing can be made. The site is run by Navex, a company that specializes in ethics and compliance management. The site offers a way to report electronically or by phone.
Making the hotline more widely available was one of several recommendations County Auditor Doug Jones recently presented to the Board of County Commissioners. Other recommendations included providing a periodic analysis of hotline data, a whistleblower protection policy and written procedures for managing the hotline.
Below is a copy of the audit report from early September.
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Open in new tab The ethics reporting platform is not new. It originated as a toll-free phone number and website that was intended for use by county employees, vendors and contractors, and may have been the first anonymous reporting mechanism for the county, according to staff in the Johnson County District Attorney’s office. Before 2012, reports could go to the various departments or the county commission.
Since it was created as a confidential way for employees to report issues, the hotline has been run by the county Human Resources department. HR Director Kayla Holloway said that job fell to a deputy HR director who left in 2024. Her departure left the county without knowledge of the procedures that were in place to run the hotline, Holloway wrote in response to the audit report. The staff has been at work since then, recreating them according to best practices, she said.
Jones said spelling out to staff how complaints will be handled would ensure consistency and preserve institutional knowledge during staff turnover.
What’s in the recent audit report?
The county received 90 hotline calls from January 2023 through June 9, 2025, according to Jones’ report. The majority — 56% — of those calls had to do with management or training issues, such as policies or employee relations. Another 21% concerned employee treatment or safety, and 21% were “ethics/fraud red flags.” In the last category, the majority were inquiries about conflicts of interest.
Analyzing that data — while preserving whistleblower anonymity — also can strengthen the hotline, Jones said. Keeping track of the types of complaints, their outcomes and timelines could also alert management to trends and problems that need correcting, the report read.
“Transparent reporting helps build trust in the hotline system, supports a culture of accountability, demonstrates actions taken while keeping specific details confidential and shows the county takes ethical concerns seriously,” the audit read.
Jones recommended the county take advantage of additional eyes and ears by making the hotline more widely available. The hotline should be “prominently” available and easy to find on the county website, he wrote.
The county also needs a board-adopted countywide whistleblower policy specifying who could be considered a whistleblower and outlining how the county complies with state and federal whistleblower protections, the audit read.
“Fear of retaliation is one of the most common deterrents to reporting wrongdoing,” he told commissioners. Having protection could make people less hesitant to come forward, he added.
Many of the audit recommendations are underway or partially completed. Holloway said she agreed with the recommendations but expressed some concerns to the commissioners about the consequences of making the report more publicly available.
“As the hotline becomes more visible to the public, we anticipate an increase in reports that may fall outside the scope of employment matters,” she told commissioners, adding that the additional calls could have an impact on the staff’s workload.
Commission Chair Mike Kelly said he supported the report’s recommendations including the whistleblower policy. Officials will have to make sure that the hotline has the staff resources it needs, he said.
Commissioner Janeé Hanzlick echoed that, acknowledging that there’s opportunity for misuse of the hotline. She noted that the county legal department added a full-time person in 2023 devoted to handling numerous open records requests.
“It’s important that people have access to the hotline,” she said, but also important that the human resources staff is not overtaxed.
The commission heard the audit report but took no further action.
How to make a report:
Anyone can call the hotline at 855-236-2042 to file an anonymous report, or click this link.
