Maricopa Community Colleges

Maricopa Steward

Ombuds Quarterly Report

The Office of Public Stewardship prepares quarterly reports on the types of concerns submitted to the Concernline or reported directly to the Ombudsman. The Concernline is a 24-hour/7-day-a-week service that is operated by Global Compliance, a third-party vendor. Also referred to as the 24/7 Hotline, this tool serves as an anonymous reporting mechanism for submitting concerns such as fraud, theft, policy violations, enrollment irregularities, conflict of interest and the misuse of public resources. Concerns may be submitted either by phone at 1.866.447.9819 or web at www.concernline.maricopa.edu.

Once reported, concerns are evaluated and assigned for review or investigation. All concerns receive a reply upon conclusion of the review or investigation.

Trend data reflect reports on discrimination, unfair employment practices, harassment or unfair treatment, environment/health and safety, conflict and ethics/values and stewardship. Also tracked are concerns about employee relations, requests by employee job groups, requests for general assistance and incidents of college-specific issues that do not fall in any other category.

The following concerns were reported in the first quarter (July 1-September 30, 2009):

All concerns are treated as allegations made and are examined in order to establish whether the claim can be substantiated or not.

The information provided here by MCCCD and Global Compliance is provided for the purpose of trend reporting. While the categories between both reporting agencies are similar, they are not exact and may reflect different concerns. The general categories listed here were created by the OPS for the sole purpose of organizing the above information. The reporting reflects the number of individuals that have submitted concerns during the reporting period but does not reflect whether the incidents were substantiated or unsubstantiated.