Councilman Derek Green is proposing Philly’s biggest ethics and elections reforms in years. Here’s what’s in it.

City Councilmember Derek S. Green has introduced Philadelphia’s most ambitious ethics and election reform package in years.

Green’s five-part plan, which he unveiled Thursday and dubbed the Civics Legislative Agenda, comes in the wake of the conviction of former Councilmember Bobby Henon, who resigned last week after a jury in November found him guilty on federal corruption charges.

Only one of the planks — a proposal to clarify conflict-of-interest rules and to increase disclosures by Council members who make money from side jobs — directly relates to the issues at play in that scandal, in which a jury found that a $70,000 salary Henon collected from the city’s electricians union while in office constituted a bribe.

The other components of Green’s proposal include a reform long sought by good government advocates — making the Office of the Inspector General a permanent and independent city agency — and a pet project of Green’s, establishing a system for public financing of city elections.

It’s unclear which of the proposals could win majorities in Council. Green is rumored to be mulling a run for mayor in 2023, and championing ethics reform could bolster his candidacy regardless.

The last wave of political reform in Philadelphia took place after news broke in 2003 that the FBI had planted a listening device in the office of Mayor John F. Street. The bug was quickly discovered before it recorded a word, and Street was never charged with anything. But about two dozen others were criminally charged as a result of the probe and most were convicted.

In the aftermath, reforms included campaign-contribution limits, creation of the ethics board, new regulation of lobbyists, a City Charter change to limit contract abuses, and more.

Green said the goal of the reform package is not to respond to a specific crisis, but to increase civic engagement and voter turnout in a city in which only about 1 in 4 voters participate in municipal elections.

“Although the city is growing over time, the participation has not,” Green said in an interview. “It’s encouraging in presidential election years, but in municipal elections, we’ve got to keep finding ways to keep encouraging more people to get engaged.”

Here’s what’s in the Green reform package:

In Philadelphia, it is legal for Council members to get paid for side jobs in addition to their Council duties, and the proposal by Green, who is a lawyer for the Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel firm, wouldn’t change that.

Instead, it would significantly increase disclosure requirements around those side jobs. Right now, lawmakers only need to name their outside employers. But Green’s proposal would require them to describe their roles and list how much money they make from any jobs that pay them $5,000 or more per year.

Henon’s salary with the electricians union became known to the public thanks to federal reporting requirements for labor unions, and not his city disclosure forms. The city form did not indicate how much he made and included almost no information on what he did for the union.

The bill also includes a provision that prevents people from potentially evading the disclosure requirement for outside employment by forgoing their Council salaries. That provision appears designed to ensure that another potential mayoral candidate, Councilmember Allan Domb, a real estate magnate who donates his Council salary, continues to file the disclosure forms.

The outside employment bill also cleans up and strengthens the city’s conflict-of-interest rules, which date to the 1950s and are often difficult to interpret.

Green is not the only member who has proposed amending rules on outside employment following the Henon conviction. Councilmember Maria Quiñones-Sánchez recently introduced legislation banning lawmakers from holding side jobs that pay $25,000 or more.

Green is also hoping to increase transparency around how political campaigns spend their money.

The proposal would prevent campaigns from hiding the details of their work by passing money through vendors that make purchases on the campaigns’ behalf. A campaign, for instance, could simply disclose that it paid a political consultant $50,000 for “campaign services” and then fail to disclose how the vendor spent that money.

Green’s bill would require public disclosure for any pass-through expenditures that cost $12,000 or more. It includes an exception for advertising, in which buyers purchase ad time on behalf of campaigns.

District Attorney Larry Krasner has twice admitted to campaign finance reporting errors with the Board of Ethics for disclosure violations related to how his campaign reported expenditures to the San Francisco-based Real Justice PAC, which handled critical campaign functions for the progressive prosecutor.

In his reelection last year, for instance, Krasner’s campaign manager Brandon Evans was employed by the PAC and not the campaign itself. The executive director of the ethics board said this made it hard for the public to track Evans’ pay.

Philadelphia’s Office of the Inspector General is tasked with rooting out corruption in city government. But its authority is limited because it was established by mayoral executive order and not city law.

Consequently, the office only has jurisdiction over the executive branch and does not investigate Council or the offices of other independently elected officials. And it can be dissolved with the stroke of a pen by a future mayor.

Additionally, advocates say separating the office from a mayoral order would guarantee the inspector general more independence to investigate the executive branch.

Clean government advocates have long called for the office to be enshrined in the Home Rule Charter, which requires voter approval, and Green’s legislation calls for a referendum to do just that.

The Home Rule Charter requires that the mayor and Council members be at least 25 years old.

Green wants to amend the Charter to lower the age to 21 for mayor, and 18 for Council. If adopted, his proposal would have to be approved by voters.

Green has been working since 2006, when he was a staffer for former Councilmember Marian Tasco, on establishing a system in which campaigns can access public funds to offset the impact of political spending by big business and wealthy donors.

Patrick Christmas, policy director of the good government group Committee of Seventy, said the appeal of publicly financed elections has increased in the wake of the 2010 Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which helped to increase outside spending in elections.

“Short of changing the Constitution or having a different Supreme Court ruling, this is one way that some local jurisdictions have tried to level the playing field somewhat with well-heeled special interests,” Christmas said.

Green’s proposal would boost campaigns that attract large amounts of small-dollar donations. Campaigns that qualify will get paid with city money in a 5-to-1 matching ratio for donations of $100 or less that come from Philadelphia residents.

To qualify, mayoral candidates must prove they are contenders by raising at least $50,000 total, with no single donor giving more than $1,000. Council candidates must have raised $15,000.

The legislation includes maximums that can be doled out to campaigns: $1 million for mayoral candidates, $300,000 for those running for city controller or district attorney, and $100,000 for Council, register of wills, and sheriff candidates.