In case you were wondering, a county coroner in Mississippi should not contract with their child to transport bodies. But a county can purchase gravel from the father of a supervisor, provided the supervisor doesn’t vote on the purchase.
Mississippi public officials struggling with issues such as giving their no-good son-in-law a government job or having a side hustle with a company that contracts with their agency can, anonymously to the public, request an ethics opinion. They don’t have to heed the advice, but following it can give them some legal cover if issues arise.
In years past, Mississippi officials have asked the appointed Ethics Commission for its opinion on myriad issues, including whether a city fireman can sell shoes to the police department (the opinion was no) or whether it was ethical for a school board member shacking up with a teacher to vote on renewing the teacher’s contract (also no, at least on the contract. Ethics didn’t opine on them shacking up).
Here’s a glance at some of the ethical dilemmas gnawing at public officials over the last couple of years and the advice the Ethics Commission gave them:
Son has ‘skills, strength and knowledge’ to haul bodies
An elected coroner in an unnamed county (again, ethics requests are anonymous to the public) wrote the commission that before he was elected, when he was a deputy coroner, his son was hired to transport bodies for the office.
“He has the skills, strength and knowledge of the job,” the coroner said of their son, and noted it’s hard to find anyone to be on call 24/7 to “haul human remains on short notice.”
But the commission cited state law that prohibits a public servant from obtaining monetary benefit for “any relative,” although it should be noted relative is a relative term in Mississippi’s nepotism code, generally only applying to spouses, children, siblings and parents of the public servant or the spouses of those relatives.
A violation is ‘virtually inevitable’
Apparently there is a school district in Mississippi all eaten up with nepotism, but trying to set it right and follow the law.
The ethics request states: “We currently have principals employed that have both spouses and children working at the school in which they are assigned. We are working to get into compliance with state law and Ethics opinions that were brought to our attention.” The request further pitched the idea that principals could recommend the relatives for jobs to the district’s superintendent, who could then recommend “an alternate administrator” to be in charge of the relatives.
But the commission said that, while state law does have a “step-aside” provision allowing a school board’s designee to recommend the principals’ relatives for jobs, “a violation of (state law) is virtually inevitable when one relative directly supervises another relative and creates an appearance of impropriety…”
Legislators trying to make a buck
A frequent theme of ethics requests over many years is from elected lawmakers asking if they can make money off state, local or federal government while serving or after leaving office.
Some recent opinions include:
- A legislator may not provide services to a company that serves as a subcontractor on a project funded by the Legislature. The lawmaker wanted to provide short-term housing for workers on a highway project.
- A former legislator is prohibited from having an interest in a contract funded by the Legislature within one year of leaving office.
- State law does not prohibit a legislator from being employed by the federal government or paid with federal money, the commission opined, but it also said, “However, the federal Hatch Act can prohibit a federal employee from being a candidate in a state partisan election.”
- A legislator, a year or more after leaving office, can work for a separate business owned by a law firm that contracts with state agencies if the former lawmaker is “paid only with segregated funds which were not appropriated by the Legislature.”
Other opinions
Some other opinions released by the Ethics Commission include:
- A city alderman may not participate in the permit application for the property adjacent to his home.
- A county jail administrator may not hire the sheriff’s daughter as a jailer, “even if the sheriff delegated his authority to his jail administrator.”
- A former state employee may not work for a private business in relation to contracts awarded by the agency when he or she was directly involved in those matters.
- A county may not purchase from a real estate company that employs a former supervisor who left office less than a year ago. (There are numerous requests from former supervisors wanting to work for companies with which their counties did business.)
- A business partially owned by a member of a state board may not receive a grant from the state agency when the grant program was authorized by that board.
- A county may do business with a company that employs the financially independent child of a supervisor, provided that supervisor fully recuses himself or herself from actions on the business.
- A county tax assessor’s spouse is allowed to be a contractor to the county board of supervisors.
It’s good to see politicians in Mississippi — a state not really known for ethical government — taking such a keen interest in good, clean government free of self dealing or nepotism. Let’s hope they followed the Ethics Commission’s advice.
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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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