August 17, 2015

This Special General Memorandum is notification of my decision to implement a supplemental ethics training requirement for all Indian Health Service (IHS) employees.

All IHS employees are required to complete the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Initial Ethics Orientation 08082012 available in the HHS Learning Portal (LMS), in Calendar Year 2016.  All IHS employees will be required to complete HHS Annual Ethics Training biennially thereafter.

Employees will do the online training during the one-month period allotted for their respective Area, or the Headquarters.  The training must be completed by the last day of the assigned one-month period.  The assigned periods are designed to avoid overloading the LMS.  The Areas and Headquarters employees will complete the training in accordance with the following schedule:

Area Directors and Headquarters Office Directors will report their Area or Office completion status to the Director of the Division of Personnel Security and Ethics (DPSE) five working days after the end of the assigned training period.  Directors will continue to report their completion status weekly thereafter or until 100% of the employees have completed the training.  The Director, DPSE will provide the Director, IHS with the status of training completions for each Area and Headquarters on the first Friday in November of the training year, and biweekly thereafter or until all employees have completed the training.