Moonlighting for a Vendor and Donations of Sick Time from Subordinates
There's a lot to learn from the chief of New Orleans' emergency medical
service's past conflicts of interest, which have only recently become
public. Despite the compassion one must feel for the official, the
conflicts were poorly handled by her and by the former mayor and his administration.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/09/post_363.html" target="”_blank”">an
article in the New Orleans <i>Times-Picayune</i></a>, in late 2005 the EMS
chief endorsed a medical product. A year later, the company that makes
this medical product hired away her deputy director, and nine months
after that, the chief took a part-time job with the Dallas-area
company, which paid her $90,000 on top of her $180,000 government salary,
the highest in New Orleans.<br>
<br>
According to her, the mayor and the chief administrative officer
approved this second job, saying there was no conflict of interest. "I
went to my superiors, and I said, 'If you think in any way, shape or
form that here is a conflict, I won't do it. They said they saw no
conflict of interest."<br>
<br>
The principal conflict here involves the ability to do her job. Her
employer, and much of her work for it, was in Dallas. As chief of EMS,
EMS medical director, medical director for the New Orleans Fire
Department, and chief medical officer for the city's Office of
Emergency Preparedness in post-Katrina New Orleans, it's hard to
believe that, as she said, she "probably could do much of my job by my
cell phone and my computer."<br>
<br>
But there is also the conflict involved in working for a company that
sells devices to the departments she headed or worked for. There is
also the appearance of impropriety involved in a city official being
given a job offer by a company whose product she had publicly endorsed,
as well as a company that had recently hired away her deputy director.<br>
<br>
Two months after accepting the second position, the EMS chief was
diagnosed with uterine cancer, and began taking chemotherapy in Dallas
rather than New Orleans. According to <a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/10/new_orleans_ems_director…; target="”_blank”">another
<i>Times-Picayune</i>
article</a>, from last Friday, she said that she
arranged "twice-a-day commuter flights so she could receive cancer
treatments in the morning and be at her desk in New Orleans by
afternoon."<br>
<br>
The EMS chief held the two positions and took chemotherapy for another
year. She even bought a second home in the Dallas area.<br>
<br>
Her most serious unethical conduct, however, was accepting gifts of
sick days (legally) from her subordinates. Fifteen subordinates donated
625 hours to her. Clearly, there was great sympathy for her fight with
cancer, but this sort of sympathy should come from above, not from
below, at least in the form of gifts. The principal problem with accepting gifts from subordinates is
the reality or appearance of coercion. There is a secondary problem of
employees using such gifts to raise the likelihood of promotion, and
the appearance of impropriety that will accompany future promotions. This can seriously undermine the morale in a department.<br>
<br>
The <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/full-text-model-ethics-code#0.1_TOC45…; target="”_blank”">City
Ethics
Model Code</a>, and many ethics codes across the county, have a
provision that deals expressly with transactions with subordinates.<br>
<br>
A decision to give the EMS chief extra leave time should have come from her boss, and it should have been
made in conjunction with limits on her outside work and travel, unless
the travel was absolutely necessary and unrelated to the outside work.<br>
<br>
This matter became public because employees complained to a local
watchdog group, <a href="http://www.metropolitancrimecommission.org/" target="”_blank”">the
Metropolitan
Crime Commission</a>, that the EMS chief was not showing
up at work. The MCC investigated the matter and recently took it to the
current New Orleans administration and the state legislative auditor.
The results include changes in city policies involving outside
employment, and the resignation last week of the EMS chief.<br>
<br>
However, although employees are required to sign a form stating that
their donation of sick time was not coerced, subordinates are still
permitted to donate sick time to their bosses.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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