Public Managers as Private Consultants

3.1 Public Managers as Private Consultants

Controversies: 4.10, 5.2, 6.19 Key Words: consultant, expertise, county, business Case Complexity → Low CD: 4.11 I Didn’t Do Anything Unethical . . . CD: 6.3 Government Finance Officers’ Code of Ethics

Assume you are a county administrator whose annual salary is more than $160,000 and you have come up through the ranks having served the county for 15 years as head of the Data Processing Department. Assume also that as head of data process- ing you acquired considerable computer and information management expertise which other local governments in your region would like to tap.

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Discussion Questions

1. Would you make your expertise available pro bono to other local governments?

2. Would you work with and through professional associations to help local governments in the region?

3. Would you form a consulting firm with your wife to market your expertise? If you did, would this be a conflict of interest? Why or why not?

Case Assessment

Posted on the ETHTALK listserv by ASPA member Tom Babcock:

I am not sure it matters if the public employee is high ranking or in the trenches doing the day-to-day work that is the backbone of all public organizations. The only difference is one of visibility; and level of vis- ibility should not guide ethical considerations. I would pose the ques- tion in a slightly different manner. Is it ethical for a public employee to market the job knowledge and skills he has acquired while on a public payroll? If the answer is yes, then by extension, we must all be chattel of the first public agency for which we work. For certainly, unless I am brain dead when hired, I have learned something at each place I have worked. Like many progressive public employers, my current one even encourages me to go to school, workshops, and seminars, and pays for all or part of these. I don’t know how I would leave that gained knowledge behind if I were to move on to another position or another government (or private) organization. The human brain is not like a computer hard drive that can be selectively purged of information. Unfortunately, it also cannot be zipped for more compact storage and efficient retrieval.

Many of us move from agency to agency, state to local govern- ment, local to national government, and each of us is a value-added knowledge product which should become more valuable over time. Is it unethical to market this skill and knowledge base to another agency? And if that is not unethical, then why does marketing our- selves to the business world via revolving door employment make it somehow unethical?

Mark Monson, Deputy Director for Administration, Department of Health Professions, State of Virginia:

To me, the crux of the matter lies in the difference between what is allowable versus what is moral. Here I’m using as the definition of

38 ◾ Ethics Moments in Government: Cases and Controversies

moral the sense of noble, defined by Webster’s as “moral eminence and freedom from anything petty, mean, or dubious in conduct or charac- ter.” Under the laws of Illinois, providing consulting services to other local governments appears to be allowable, in the sense of something that can be done. There is no indication in the article that there are formal, legal restrictions against doing so.

However, there’s an old adage that just because a person can do

a thing doesn’t mean that he or she should do a thing. In this case, providing consulting services for a fee in an area in which I am already employed does not meet the noble test —in my mind it is clearly “dubi- ous in conduct or character.” My selection would, therefore, be both to pro bono where I can and through professional associations where appropriate.

My choice to place public service first is simply a reflection of my personal priorities. If we want our profession to be considered as noble as we say it is, it is incumbent upon us to act accordingly.

Posted on the ETHTALK listserv by Thad Juszczak, Director, Global Public Sector Grant Thornton LLP:

Th e issue here is appearances. There is an ethical problem for the consultant, his wife, and the agency. The consultant should not have bid on any contract at his wife’s agency. His wife should have noti- fi

ed the agency that a company of which she was an officer was bidding on an agency contract. To preclude any appearance of impropriety, the agency should not award the contract to anyone whose spouse is in the management of the agency or whose spouse is an officer of the corporation winning the contract. Appearances are just as real as facts.

Author’s Note: This scenario is based on a real case in which the county administrator of DuPage County, Illinois, and his wife formed a computer consulting firm in 1994 and did more than $100,000 in government busi-

ness. When asked about whether or not this was a conflict of interest, the county administrator replied “no.” His consulting firm has never done work for DuPage County which would certainly be a conflict of interest. Rather, his consulting work was done with other local governments and done on his own time—vacation days, nights, and weekends. On the legal side, this case was deemed to not be a violation of Illinois ethics laws. The consultant con- ducted the training. Case based on a story reported in the Chicago Tribune, 12/29/99, p. D1

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