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Home My WebLink About84-522 MullenMr. Joseph K. Mullen P.O. Box 1234 Federal Square Station Harrisburg, PA 17108 a. Public citizens; Madmg Address STATE ETHICS COMMISSION P.O. BOX 1 179 HARRISBURG, PA 17108 TELEPHONE: (717) 783 -1610 February 8, 1984 ADVICE 'OF COUNSEL RE: Juvenile Court Consultant; Outside Employment; Section 3(a) Dear Mr. Mullen: 84 -522 This responds to your letter of October 27, 1983, in which you requested advice from the State Ethics Commission. Issue: You would like to know whether you, a Juvenile Court Judge's Commission employee, may engage in consulting work outside the scope of your public employment. Facts: You are employed by the Juvenile Court Judge's Commission (JCJC). Although your job title is "Juvenile Court Consultant ", you are, in actuality, "Director of Training." As such, you spend the bulk of your time planning and implementing an annual training program for Juvenile Court personnel, and this program consists of approximately 25 seminars per year. In developing these programs, you are responsible for identifying and contracting with various training vendors who provide specific seminars for Juvenile Court personnel. The "target groups" of the JCJC training programs include juvenile probation officers and Juvenile Court judges throughout the Commonwealth. You indicate that such programs are opened to other service providers because their broad ranges of topics, however, you state that the JCJC does not contemplate such outside agencies when designing these training programs for this specific JCJC target groups. You have stated that, in addition to your employment with the JCJC, you would like to utilize your planning skills to implement similar programs for an audience not contemplated by the JCJC in its programs. Some of the audiences you would like to provide training seminars for include: b. private youth service personnel, specifically excluding any Juvenile Court personnel or related personnel; State Ethics Commission • 308 Finance Building • Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Mr. Joseph K. Mullen February R, 1984 Page 2 c. public sector employers in mental health /retardation; d. police departments; e. public and private hospitals; and, f. public and private universities. You would also like to teach at public /private universities, and seek grant monies from public or private sources to develop job training programs for potential youth employers. Also, you are about to publish a passive restraint training manual which you hope to market both within and outside of Pennsylvania, and you are concerned with whether any of your projected activities will create a conflict or an appearance of a conflict with your public employment with the JCJC. You have, therefore, requested advice from the State Ethics Commission. Discussion: You are presumed to be a "public employee" and as a public employee, you are, of course, subject to the requirements of the Ethics Act. Section 1 of the Act states that the "Purpose" of the Ethics Act is to assure the citizens of the Commonwealth of the impartiality and honesty of their public servants. To achieve this goal, the financial interests of holders of or candidates for public office must present neither a conflict nor the appearance of a conflict of interests with the public trust. The Ethics Commission has discussed with you some of your proposed outside activities in the past. See Mullen, 82 -551, incorporated herein by reference, and we realize that some of our discussion here may be redundant. However, for the purposes of clarity, you are reminded that Section 3(a) of the Act provides in part, that no public employee may use his public office or any confidential information received therefrom, to obtain financial gain other than compensation provided by law for himself, a member of his immediate family, or a business with which he is associated. Again, in the past, we have indicated that you may engage in private enterprise as an out -of -state or in state consultant, or non -court related agencies so long as you do not use your public office or confidential information to acquire such contracts. In this respect, our Advice to you remains basically the same, except for the fact that we are no longer restricting your inquiry and proposed activity to serving only non -court personnel. However, so long as the audiences targeted by the training services you propose to provide as a private person do not overlap with the audiences targeted by the training services you provide for the JCJC, there should be no conflict under the Ethics Act between your private endeavors and your JCJC repsonsibilities. Mr. Joseph K. Mullen February 8, 19R4 Page 3 In this regard, it is incumbent upon you to make sure that the people you wish to serve are not already among the groups you served through the JCJC. Thus, where you know or believe that groups you wish to serve in a private capacity overlap with groups to whom the JCJC provides services, you must avoid providing services to or soliciting the business of these groups. Essentially, you should not compete as a private provider with JCJC and seek compensation from groups for services that you, through JCJC, would provide or offer. Where, however, the goups you wish to serve in a private capacity do not overlap with groups served by the JCJC, then you may engage in such activity so long as you do not violate the requirements of Section 3(a) of the Ethics Act as discussed above. There are no problems, under the Ethics Act, with your teaching at puhlic /private universities or with your publication of your work on passive restraint. However, with regard to your desire to seek grant monies from public or private sources to develop job training programs for potential youth employers, you are cautioned that the Section 3(a) requirements as discussed above must be closely followed to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest may arise. In this regard, where you know, or have reason to believe that an application for such funds will come before the JCJC for approval or eventual review, you must not allow your name to appear anywhere on the application /proposal. You may help to prepare such an application or proposal, but because you name may have influence on the JCJC personnel, it must appear nowhere on the application /proposal. As a JCJC staff member you should not participate in reviewing or recommending approval of such applications with which you may have been involved. Beyond these general cautions, the Commission can only invite you to request further, specific advice where situations may arise that you believed could lead to a conflict of or an appearance of a conflict with the public trust. Conclusion: So long as you adhere to the requirements of Section 3(a) and so long as the groups you serve outside of your JCJC employment do not overlap with groups served within your JCJC employment, the Commission believes that you may proceed with your projected activities. As to specific funding applications, you must observe the cautions set forth above. You may request further advice from the Commission regarding future problems, however, if you remain within the guidelines as discussed above, you should be able to avoid engaging in a conflict or an appearance of a conflict with the public trust. Mr. Joseph K. Mullen February R, 19R4 Page 4 Pursuant to Section 7(9)(ii), this Advice is a complete defense in any enforcement proceeding initiated by the Commission, and evidence of good faith conduct in any other civil or criminal proceeding, providing the requestor has disclosed truthfully all the material facts and committed the acts complained of in reliance on the Advice given. Finally, if you disagree with this Advice or if you have any reason to challenge same, you may request that the full Commission review this Advice. A personal appearance before the Commission will be scheduled and a formal Opinion from the Commission will be issued. Any such appeal must be made, in writing, to the Commission within 15 days of service of this Advice pursuant to 51 Pa. Code 2.12. CW /rdp This letter is a public record and will be made available as such. Sincerely, Sandra S. Christianson General Counsel