DuPage County Board approves remote participation, reviews FY2026 ethics training and notes new investigator general appointment

The DuPage County Board on Feb. 11 approved a motion permitting members who are absent for illness, disability, employment or family emergencies to participate by video or teleconference, reviewed the county's FY2026 ethics training and heard staff say the newly appointed investigator general, William Warbeck, was unable to attend.

The decision to allow remote participation was moved and seconded on the record and approved by voice vote; the transcript records members answering "Aye," though the mover/second and a roll-call tally were not specified in the meeting record.

Why it matters: ethics training is the county's routine mechanism to inform employees and appointed officials about conflicts, political-activity rules and other conduct standards. Allowing remote participation preserves board function when members cannot attend in person, and the investigator general role is the county's internal oversight position that will work with the ethics commission.

Evan Shields, of the county board office, walked the board through how the FY2026 training will run online: each slide is presented as a screen, employees answer multiple-choice questions and correct responses prompt an explanation that cites the ethics ordinance; incorrect answers require the learner to try again. Shields noted the in-document packet given to commissioners does not show the online answer explanations.

"It's largely what you see, but employees will take it online," Shields said, explaining staff have built explanations into the module so learners understand why an answer is correct.

Members asked about timing and completion rates. Shields said the training likely would be distributed "probably sometime in the next week," and cited a completion rate in the "mid-nineties" for 2025. He also said the county ordinance requires new employees to complete training within six months of hire; otherwise the ordinance references annual completion. Shields added that past distribution emails have sometimes included a 60-day window for completion as an administrative practice, but that timeframe is not a statutory requirement.

Nancy Chen, who introduced herself as a new commission member and said she lives in Naperville, thanked the board and said she looks forward to working on maintaining ethics and legal standards in the county.

Shields also updated the commission on staffing: he said there is one vacancy the board is working to fill and that "the new investigator general has been appointed" as William Warbeck, but Warbeck was unexpectedly out of town and did not attend the meeting.

Stand-in chair Todd Benson suggested staff consider using available AI tools to inspect or summarize long documents before distribution. Benson described briefly using Adobe Acrobat's summarization features to synthesize a 35-page packet into section summaries as a practical step to streamline review; he framed the remark as an operational suggestion rather than a change in county policy.

The meeting concluded after the board approved the minutes and a motion to adjourn. Staff committed to sending commissioners an updated copy of appointment/ordinance materials and to distributing the online training to employees in the coming days.