A survey of Public Regulation Commission employees found that 85 percent of employees who responded had seen unethical behavior at the agency in the past year.

At the same time, about half of the respondents said they had been asked to do something they thought was unethical by a supervisor or manager.

Of those who responded, 80 percent said they think there is a different ethical standard for commissioners than for employees of the agency.

As the results were released to the media Monday, the agency said it had named a five-person panel "to create the curriculum for an ethics training program, which will be presented to every employee of the PRC."

That group will report back in a week to the commission on options for ethics training, PRC chairman Sandy Jones said Monday night.

The training appears to be needed: 88 percent of respondents said PRC management doesn't provide adequate information or training on ethical issues and 79 percent said they hadn't ever received training on what is considered ethical.

The agency sent the survey to 265 employees, 127 of whom responded. Employees could respond anonymously and make comments about the agency.

Jones said he was glad to get so many honest answers.

"When we decided to do it, I think we expected to get some pretty tough answers. That's the first step but the hardest step," he said.

He said the need for ethics training at the agency became apparent as officials looked at the responses, and officials are taking that seriously.

"I think we did expect to see that, just because we know it was certainly our thought that there's a lot of confusion here at the commission as to ethics and behavior," he said.

"We have policy manuals, but yet we see folks that get beyond those policies once and a while."

As part of the poll, employees also were asked to say how they think the commission is perceived. Most said they thought it was perceived by employees, the public and regulated entities as unethical.

The survey also asked employees to rank issues of most concern to them at the agency.

Topping the list was the hiring and promotional practices at the agency, which 73 ranked as the top concern. Forty-nine people said unequal treatment of employees was their No. 1 worry, while 45 people said political partisanship was the thing that most needs improvement at the agency. Another 22 people said personal use of state time was a problem, while 21 named the influence by regulated industries.

The poll also posed other questions about ethics and appropriate work behavior, including whether it's ethical for a commissioner to ask an employee to do a special favor for an entity that is regulated by the commission. Of those who responded, 85 said that would be unethical while 23 said they didn't know. Five said it would be ethical.

Another question asked whether it's OK for a supervisor to ask an employee to look the other way while he or she allows another employee to take off early every day without marking that on a time sheet. Nearly all respondents said that would be unethical.

In addition, the survey asked whether it would be ethical if an employee of a regulated entity gave a kitten to a PRC employee. Thirty-one people said it would be unethical, 32 said it would be ethical while 52 said they didn't know.

While the agency did release a summary of the 32-question survey, it is refusing to make public critical comments made by employees. A lawyer for the agency said Monday it will release some redacted information Tuesday. Of the responses, about 30 will contain blacked out comments from employees.

The New Mexican earlier this month filed a public records request for "all and any results of the recent PRC ethics survey, included but not limited to the raw result data and any written comments turned in by employees as part of the survey."

In a written response to the request, PRC Administrative Services Division director Juan Rios last week denied the request for the surveys, saying some of the responses "contain comments, allegations, opinions and viewpoints which exceeded the survey's extent and varied from its scope. Some responses contain allegations of wrongdoing, violations of state policies and derogatory comments about other employees, former and current."

New Mexico Foundation for Open Government executive director Sarah Welsh said the survey answers should be released.

"Sure, some of the responses may be embarrassing and they may include wild accusations that are unfounded or deliberately false. But there is no exception in (the state's Inspection of Public Records Act) that allows agencies to withhold information on those grounds," she said. "The remedy for spurious information is true information, not censorship. Let the accusations come out so the public can engage in an informed dialogue about solutions."

Proponents said the idea behind the survey was to work to improve ethics at the agency, which has seen a litany of scandals over the years. Four of the five commissioners on the regulatory panel face or have faced questions about recent actions. Two face legal charges.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog at greenchilechatter.com.