Ethics and Accountability Codes in Organizations

Ethical Fiscal Matters in Public Organizations Pension padding depicts a practice whereby organizations engage in the manipulation of salary and overtime payments to acquire inflated pensions (Walsh & Schoenfeld, 2010). The practice contravenes ethical standards enshrined in our constitution and ethics in the workplace. Pension padding also referred to as pension spiking occurs at the expense of taxpayers who have to pay for the inflated pensions. In this paper, we analyze pension padding in the Yonkers Police Department within the state of New York.

In 2010, for example, more than 100 retired firefighters and police officers collected pension payouts, amounts that exceeded their pay when they were still in service. Before retiring, some of the police officers and firefighters engaged in the pension padding practice enabling them to earn a better pension scheme than their salary. In one case, an employee who retired aged 44 and previously earning $74,000 yearly eventually ended up receiving $101,333 a year in the pension payout (Walsh & Schoenfeld, 2010).

Such cases explained the fiscal woes facing the state of New York as the Yonkers Police Department depicted cases of pension padding. Pension padding violates the code of ethics geared towards advancing the public interest, upholding the law and constitution, strengthening social equity, and striving towards professional excellence (American Society for Public Administration, 2013). The case by Yonkers Police Department is a clear violation of the ethical guidelines enshrined in the nation's Constitution that governs laws of the land.

An investigation into the case by the New York Attorney General sought to conduct an audit on the pension payouts of the police officers in Yonkers Police Department. The audit identified that some police officers engaged in the malpractice, breaking overtime rules, moves geared towards increasing pension payouts (New York State Office of the Attorney General, 2010). Currently, the reforms instituted to address this issue have focused on limiting employee benefits.

To date, the Office of the Attorney General has conducted arrests leading to criminal charges on some managers who plead guilty to charges associated with fraud charges in the pension schemes. The Public Pension Fund Reform Code of Conduct in place endeavors to address the challenge of pension paddling, a factor that strains the budget of the state of New York (New York State Office of the Attorney General, 2010). Despite the challenges in realizing the change, bringing up this issue to the public domain has created awareness of this practice.

Insight from My Colleague's Posting My colleague analyzed U.S. Investment Giant TIAA-CREF case of land grabbing accusation in Brazil. TIAA-CREF manages retirement savings of millions of public school teachers, university administrators, and others in the education fraternity. However, revelations have indicated of the organization's violation of the respect for land rights. As a result, it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars from the organization to purchasing large tracts of land in Brazil on the edge of the Amazon forest.

Despite the ban imposed by the Brazilian government on huge foreign investment in the country, TIAA-CREF has gone ahead and contravened these regulations by canvassing with the relevant stakeholders (Romero, 2015). It is a case of violation of ethical standards by using taxpayers' pensions in budgeting for illegal purchase of lands in a foreign country. TIAA-CREF's case depicts the violation of land rights, planning, and budgeting of hard-earned pensions of taxpayers. Violation of planning and budgeting of funds have occurred as a significant challenge for most organizations.

Taking this case of TIAA-CREF, the management has engaged in canvassing rules to earn significant profits in their farming ventures in Brazil. The war against such cases.