Hiding Conflicts Until the Last Second

It is very common for public servants to say (or others to say for them) that they did not feel they had a true conflict or did not understand the law. And often this is true. But why so often do those same people often try to hide the fact that they did not disclose their conflict (or the extent of it) or do something about it until they had no other choice?

This is what happened recently in the New York City schools. According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/nyregion/09edison.html?ex=1328677200&… New York <i>Times</i> article</a>, the new deputy schools chancellor, who had already for a year been an Education Department consultant, was scheduled to be questioned by the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council about his ties to Edison Schools, the for-profit public school operator he had previously worked for and which has a sizeable contract with the city.

<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/229">Click here to read the rest of this blog entry.</a>

The day before he was to meet with the Council, the deputy chancellor divested himself of Edison shares (or options?) that were potentially worth between one and six million dollars. And yet when asked by the Council's chairman when he had divested himself of the stock, the deputy chancellor did not answer the question, but rather said he would give the chairman a copy of his financial disclosure forms. Told later about the date of the divestment, the chairman said that the deputy chancellor's response was 'extremely disingenuous and extremely disrespectful.'

The Education Department's 'top lawyer' came to the rescue. 'I can't stress to you enough how typical this is of people coming into city service. Nobody was trying to keep a secret.' The deputy chancellor had, the lawyer said, asked for a waiver, and the lawyer felt that it would have been granted. But then why wasn't the Council told this? Was the deputy chancellor too ashamed to say this, so ashamed that he gave up over a million dollars instead? Or did he know it was wrong all along, but thought he could get away with it until opposition arose to the idea of an Edison man in the public school system?

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics