The Ohio Ethics Law and Public Universities/Colleges Recorded Webinar Transcript

[00:05] Hi everyone. My name is Susan Willeke, I'm the Training and Communications Manager for the Ohio Ethics Commission. Thank you so much for joining me on this e-course regarding the Ohio Ethics Law, especially as it pertains to public colleges and public universities. If you're not very familiar with the Ethics Commission or the Ethics Law, this is a great introductory class and I will try to throughout this, this course, tie the Ethics Law to how it applies to people who work for all of our wonderful colleges, all of our wonderful public universities in this state. If you are someone that already has a great deal of knowledge about the Ohio Ethics Law, this one might be a nice refresher. If you would like something a little more in-depth, I do invite you to join me on one of my live webinars that I do that kind of go a little deeper, a little more nuances, a little more complicated in the Ohio Ethics Law. And as always, I invite you to check out our website because there is just a plethora of information out there that you will find that can just answer questions, can spur conversation, and will just be a really great resource to you.

[01:10] So just real quickly, before we jump into the law itself, I wanted to spend just a minute or two about the Ethics Commission itself. The Ethics Commission has been around since 1974. The legislation that created the Commission was passed in ‘73. The Commission really began operating as a state board and commission in 1974. And you can see on this slide some of our statutory responsibilities. I understand why people gravitate toward the investigation one first. That one’s kind of interesting, I completely get that. Everybody wants to hear, sort of, the stories. The truth is, though, as wonderful as our investigative staff is - they are wicked smart, they are professional, they do their jobs well, with professionalism - the chances are you probably don't want to spend a whole lot of time with people who investigate potential crimes under a criminal statute. Because make no mistake, the Ethics Law in Ohio is in fact a criminal statute. It’s not a civil law, this is not a policy or a practice or a training requirement. It is, in fact, an actual criminal statute in Ohio.

[02:14] So, while this training is not required by the statute itself, it is a wonderful idea to have it. Sometimes universities, colleges will require it as an internal training thing. So, just so you know, we have available to you, even after after this this webinar is done, after you’ve watched this recording, if you have follow up questions, you can speak to one of our advisory attorneys. I travel all over Ohio doing speeches for colleges, universities, maybe I'm coming to your university in person sometime, so feel free to reach out to me if we can offer you information so that, help you stay on the right path, sort of after the fact is where the investigative group comes in. We can't offer advice to people who've already potentially committed a crime. That's where our investigators come into play, where the advisory attorneys and where my section can be helpful is in this stage of your life where you're thinking, “I want to do the right thing. I want to comply with the law,” because that moment might come up in your time at your public college or your public university, where you may genuinely think to yourself, “I want to do the right thing. I'm just not sure what the right thing is.” That's where we can help you.

[03:20] So this is going to kind of be an overview of the entire statute. And again, keep in mind that anything that we talk about today, you can get so much more information. You can call one of our advisory attorneys to seek that free legal counsel. By all means, you may reach out. If your university has its own legal counsel, if you're with a big university, you've got legal counsel in-house. If you are a smaller public college, public university, maybe you're a community college. I'm sure you have someone at the Attorney General's office that you can ask questions. I certainly don't ever want to dissuade you from reaching out to the legal counsel assigned to your public institution of higher learning. But I also wanted to let you know that these things that you see on this screen right now, the areas that we have jurisdiction over, it's kind of our bailiwick, kind of our area of expertise. We would be happy to have you, so to speak, come right to the horse's mouth so that we can guide you, advise you on what the right thing is to do. So again, you never have to meet up with our wonderful investigators.

[04:19] So I would just say really quickly before we kind of hit all these bullet points, couple of things. One, the “Why?” of the Ethics Law is pretty important. Really, it's not always the things that you think about. I get why big stories like, “oh, this person embezzled money” or “this person took a bribe.” I get why those stories get headlines, and that's understandable. And I'm glad that when someone in public service egregiously violates the public's trust, I'm glad there's an accountability measure place. I'm glad there's a criminal statute like ours. I'm glad there's an agency like ours that can investigate, that can hold those people accountable. The thing is, though, those aren't the things that we see the most often. The truth is the things that you see on this slide are the questions that arise, the advice that we can give, the areas that we can investigate.

[05:11] And the “Why?” isn't just the, “Oh, nobody trusts public employees or public officials.” You know, that's not really true. I grant you our investigators probably sadly see all the sad things that public service has to offer. In my line of work, I see the best of the best. I see all the wonderful people diligently working, often behind the scenes at public colleges and universities, to give opportunities to make education available, to make it affordable, to make it helpful, efficient, to make it just as effective as humanly possible for everyone seeking that higher education beyond their diploma or their GED. Hat's off to all of you for doing that. Having said that, though, I just wanted to let you know that the importance of this statute doesn't just lie there with who you are as an employee or as an official of that university.

[06:02] And mind you, everybody in public service is subject to this Ethics Law, right? So it doesn't matter if I'm on the board of trustees at your university or if I'm the person that answers the phone in the library on campus. We are all subject to at least parts of this law and we'll go through all these areas of the law. But before we do that, let me just say again, quickly, here, the importance here isn't just to your job. It's important to you as a citizen, as a taxpayer. You have the right, as a citizen and a taxpayer, to expect some things from all of your governments, not just the one that you work for. Think about all the governments that serve you based on where you live. Now, I grant you, the federal government is not subject to the Ohio Ethics Law. They have their own federal ethics law and their own ethics agency.

[06:50] But beyond that, think of all the governments that serve you that are subject to this law: your state government, your county that you live in, the city, the township, the village that you call home. Certainly there at your public university or public college. But think about the other governments where you live: your public school district, your police, your fire, your public library, your township trustees, the county employees, the city boards, etc.. You have the right, as a citizen and as a taxpayer, to expect that all of their decision making: the, how they move forward on this project, how they decide what they reviewed on that recommendation, that application, that permit, the investigation they conducted, the, the consultants they retained, the new employees they just hired. You have the right to know that all of those decisions, all of those actions were based on what was right for the public.

[07:43] You should never have to wonder, “Gee, did our three, let's say, township trustees vote that way because it's what was best for my township where I live or because it's what financially benefited them in their private outside lives?” The idea of this law is that you have the right to trust that governments that serve you are doing things with your best interests in mind, not just their own. So as we go through these six primary areas of the Ehics Law, keep that foundation in mind of why this law really is so important both to you as a public official and employee, but also you as someone who calls Ohio home. So with that, let's kind of tackle these one at a time and we will start with Conflicts of Interest.

[08:30] I understand why this phrase has a bit of an ominous overtone. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it sound like this, this phrase should come up, and I feel like I should have organ music in the background, kind of like, you know, Conflicts of Interest - Dun dun DUUUN. You know what I mean? Conflicts of interests. Just so you know, when they're in public service, they are neither uncommon nor are they illegal to have. It has never been illegal in Ohio for someone in public service, just like you and me, to have a conflict of interest. The truth is that happens with some regularity.

[09:10] Like, for example, let's pretend, forget that you're a public university or college employee for a minute. Let's think about where you live. Let's pretend that I am a county employee in the county that you call home. And let's say that I work for the health department, and my job is to inspect restaurants in your home county. And I happen to have a sister who owns a restaurant in the county. Now, in fairness, is that a conflict of interest for me? Sure! But is it any reason for me to panic? No. As long as I'm not the one conducting the inspection of my sister's restaurant, as long as I'm not behind the scenes advocating or lobbying for her, or making recommendations or going to talk to the person who is doing the, sort of, the inspection. As long as I'm able to step completely away from it, use whatever synonym you want: recuse, abstain, withdraw.

[10:03] As long as I am able to stay a million miles away from that matter, that issue, that would have a definite and direct impact on - you see this slide - on myself as the public employee or public official, on a member of my family, or someone that I have a business relationship with in my private outside life. If I have not acted on one of those definite and direct conflicts, no harm, no foul. It's not illegal that I may have had the conflict. It would only be illegal if I were to act on it. Now, the reason that I made such a show of the air quotes of the “definite and direct”, please understand there would be a huge difference between you as a college employee, as a college official, taking some action or making some recommendation, or making a decision on something that would impact everyone on that campus the same. It is a uniform, across the board impact.

[11:02] There's a huge difference between that and me using my public position at that university or college to make some special benefit or something for, again: me, someone that I have in my family, someone that I have a business relationship with in private life. So we would never say to you, “Oh, hey, you work for this large university. And you also happen to have, you know, a little sister who's a student there. So you can't make decisions on how the new school year is going to play out.” That's ridiculous. Nobody would interpret the statute that broadly. That would be hugely different, though, for me saying, “Well, you know, I work at the university. My younger sister is going after a graduate scholarship or fellowship or something. And by the way, I'm going to advocate for her behind the scenes.” Huge difference there. That's when we would say acting on that conflict is actually illegal behavior under this statute.

[11:54] So as I mentioned, I am going to try and relay some of these issues that arise specifically as they relate to people in public universities, public colleges. Now, mind you, as I bring these examples up, I'm not suggesting somebody is doing something wrong at your university. I'm just saying these are questions that we've answered, issues that people have had - “You know what, Ethics Commission, I’d love more information about this.” That's what I'm going to kind of give you a little bit more of. So, I will tell you, the first one, this is a really, really common issue that arises under the Ohio Ethics Law is, “Hey, I work for or serve this public college. I serve, you know, Anywhere State University,” for example. It is a really common occurrence that this person working at that college, they serve in some capacity, that they also have some outside gig.

[12:44] Right. You know, “In addition to working for,” you know, “OU, I also work part time at this company.” Or, “In addition to the adjunct professorship I have at,” you know, “BGSU, I also work full time at this company.” Or, Right? “I work for,” you know, “Columbus Community College, but I also do consulting on the side, maybe even in a similar field that what I do at the community college.” This isn’t unusual and this isn't illegal, but what we do have for you are some Advisory Opinions, you can find these on our website, that are marvelous tutorials to help people know what we can or can't do. So you see, too, here on this, this page, the one I will highlight right now is this one, 96-004. There is nothing esoteric about how we name these opinions. It just means this was the fourth opinion we issued in the year 1994.

[13:39] This is a great tutorial for people, who do have that outside job in addition to your work at the university or college, of: What are the things I need to know? What are the things I need to do? That I cannot use, right, my university or college role to somehow get things in my private business? I can't use college time equipment, resources. I can't use my college credentials to get clients in my private life. I can't use my logo at the college. I can't say, “Hey, you already trust me with,” you know, “Cleveland State's money. So, you know, you can trust me with your own in my financial business!” Right? We can't do anything like that. Now, the reason I included this picture, this was about one week into the pandemic shutdown in 2020, when we were, I just kind of cleared off an empty corner of a messy extra bedroom we had at home. We did see some issues there of people working from home.

[14:34] I don't think anybody was evil, but I think it was more of a people got a little comfortable, right. That they're using their, you know, their public laptop and next thing you know, they're just checking things for their private businesses. This opinion is a marvelous one to look at. If, in addition to your service in public education at the higher level, if you do have that outside job, that outside consulting that outside gig, it's a great Cliff Notes. Ooo, I’m probably not allowed to say that when you talk about education, right? But you know what I mean? A marvelous summation of all the things you need to know to make sure that you're keeping those two worlds separate in a way that protects your university, but also protects you as a public employee or a public official that doesn't want to get into trouble under the Ethics Law.

[15:15] Here's a couple more. Um, this one I heard about at a speech that I was giving. That, again, I get it, folks. I get that an adjunct professor very likely may have another job in their, quote/unquote, “real life” kind of thing. Right. That I understand how someone could even in this case have two public positions. Right? We call that dual public positions. Right? I get it. Here's, though, where that overlap begins to happen. Was it illegal for me to be a city building inspector and I inspect buildings X, Y, Z? And is it illegal for me to be an adjunct professor? No, those two aren't illegal. Is it illegal to happen simultaneously? Not necessarily. What happened in this one is those two worlds overlap because now what I'm doing, look what I'm doing. In the city building inspector role I'm using the authority of my public position to act on a matter that implicates or involves my outside employer, in this case, the college or university that I serve. Those two worlds are not allowed to begin to overlap like that. Not illegal to have the two roles, illegal when they begin to touch, if that makes sense.

[16:22] This goes back to that Advisory Opinion that I mentioned, 96-004 that we had people again, this is something that we've seen over the years. Again, I would just remind all of you, if you do have that outside job, that outside consulting, etc., keep those worlds far, far apart. Okay. Now, this is one, this is a question that I get a lot in speeches around Ohio where someone is saying, you know, “I manage this project,” or “I'm the college representative with this vendor, with this company, this IT corporation, that we’re doing, this construction company, I'm their point of contact.” And, “By the way, hey, you know, this consulting company that the college is using to carry out some big project that I'm helping to oversee? Hey, I noticed, on their website, they have a pretty cool job posting. Can I apply for it?”

[17:10] This is what, here's what I would say. This falls into the category of: maybe. OK? That there are certainly people at your university that could probably say, “Yeah, recusal is no problem.” We talked about recusal a little bit already. “Recusal is no problem in that scenario, because I have nothing to do with that project.” I grant you, if this employee, at your college or university, that their life never touches that of that IT consultant, that construction company, that consultant that you guys are working with, they have nothing to do with that project. They could apply for that job. But if you're in that scenario where you're saying, “Well, yeah, I'm their contact” or “I've been helping to review it, I'm overseeing the project.” Now we're in a category of: I cannot solicit a thing of value, the promise of future employment, and essentially negotiate a salary, with someone whose project I'm helping to oversee on behalf of my public employer or public university.

[18:06] So here you get a little bit of a broader view of what I mean by recusal, not what I mean, but what the Ethics Law means. I could make this list longer, I should add a bullet point that says “or anything else” right? You get the idea. It's not just the, “Oh, well I can't sign off on it. I can't vote on it if I'm a board member.” No, if I truly have a conflict, recusal means: everything. That I don't take any action at all. Okay. Now, this is a recording, so don't worry now that, “Oh, my gosh, I didn't know I had to vote.” This is not live. So you can't vote and get credit and all of that. I have no way of knowing whether you were here. This is just, again, to bring about some of the questions I've heard about at public colleges and universities in my 18 years at the Ohio Ethics Commission.

[18:48] Let's just look at a few together here. This one has been around for a while. So let's say that I work for a state agency, and guess what? That state agency gives grant money to public colleges and universities. So the question becomes: if I work for that agency that sometimes gives grant money to colleges, universities, can I then go, let's say, teach part time adjunct, you know, once a week at that university? This is a great question. It's arisen more than once. And I will tell you, I'm not expecting you to read everything on this slide. I don't like slides with a million words on them. I just wanted to give you a feel for how much wonderful information is in this Advisory Opinion. As you can see, dating way back to 1989, that kind of says, all right, it isn't automatically prohibited.

[19:36] But as I guess you can already imagine, there's going to be all kinds of things that we're going to recuse on. Right? I can't, in my state job, advocate for the college that I work for part time. I can't, in my college role, say, “I'll be your point of contact for the state.” I can't solicit things back and forth. I'm not going to go through all of these. I just wanted to let you know that this is an example of the wonderful advice that the Ethics Commission issues all the time to help real people in public service know what they can or can't do. This is an excellent Advisory Opinion 89-006. You can find these on our website as I promised. Okay, how about this one? This is another one that came up so, “Hey, Ethics Commission, we've got, you know, the board of trustees and maybe there's this requirement that says a student has to serve.” Totally normal, right?

[20:22] The question arose, “Can the student who serves on the board of trustees, can they also serve on the student body board as well?” And the Ethics Commission said, “Yes, that is actually okay.” The opinion there was in 2007, it was the second opinion. Oh, sorry, I went too fast. The second opinion that we issued in that year that said, yes, that is possible under the Ethics Law. If anybody can't find this on our website, please feel free to let me know and I will forward those to you. Okay. How about this one? I think we've talked a little bit about this a little bit already. So let's say that I work in the fiscal office at your college and the question is, “Hey, I have this private outside business. Can I use the logo, my credentials?” And you're already, even though this is recorded and I can't see you, I know in my heart you're already shaking your head “No.” We can not use our public position to advocate our private business in our private lives.

[21:16] Okay, This is a fascinating one. I really like this one. So let's say that I, in fact, I'm a city council member. I was duly elected to serve on the city council by the citizenry there. But by the way, I also work for the university who is the primary or at least one of the primary employers in that city. So the question becomes, could I act in my city council role on matters that impact that university? And don't forget, in this case, my university, that university is my business associate. I work for that university in this scenario. And the answer, I'm going to put this back also in that “Maybe” category, because in all fairness, if, in my city council role, right? Let's say that I serve on the City Council for, you know, the village of Athens, Ohio. If there's any, you know, Bobcats out there with me - nice to see you! Right?

[22:14] Let's say that I serve on the village council in Athens, Ohio, and there's a, something before our council that impacts OU, where I'm pretending, that I work here, right? To be fair, if what we're voting on is something that impacts everybody the same, remember when I talked about the uniform, across the board impact? I'm voting about things like village taxes, water rates, sewer rates, those things that impact everybody the same. Yes, I could act on those matters. If it's something that somehow singles out my employer, the university, right? Permits, land acquisition, inspections? No, that’s sort of singling out my business associate, my employer in my private life, and now I am recusing myself.

[22:58] I totally get, everybody, that what I'm probably doing is prompting more questions in your mind than I'm actually answering. And that's okay. I just wanted to give you a feel of the cornucopia of advice that's already on our website that you can find. If you can't find what you're looking for, I will give you our phone number at the end of this webinar and you can reach out to us, you can speak to an advisory attorney, you can talk to one of our investigators if you need to let them know something that you know of that's going on. If you ever do say, “Hey, I would like our whole campus to know this!” and you want to book me for a live speaker there; we're going to give you all that confidential, excuse me, all that information at the end, right after we do the confidentiality part of the Ethics Law, I should say, and we will give you that.

[23:40] In the meantime, though, if you do have questions that are arising since this is not a live class, feel free to jot those down and you can always email them to us as well. All right. Let's move on to the second part of the Ohio Ethics Law, the Gift part of the Ethics Law. Now, one of the very first things that I'm guessing many of you are thinking right now is, “Hey, Susan, you probably don't need to spend a ton of time on this for us. We are not exact in the wined and dined category of people in the workforce in America today.” If that's where you are in your public service, please understand I'm right there with you, right? I work for the Ethics Commission. People send remarkably few presents to the Ohio Ethics Commission, so I personally lose very little sleep over this part of the Ethics Law for me.

[24:33] But in all fairness, it is a part of the law where we do receive lots and lots of questions. And one of the very common questions is this: “Hey, Ethics Commission, what's the dollar amount? What's the cutoff? Is it $10? Is it 20, 50, 100, a thousand? A million? What is it already? And I promise you, we will obey it!” The honest truth is, in the state of Ohio, we do not see, in 102.03(E) or (F), any specific dollar amount. There is nothing in our statute that says, “Hey, as long as this gift is worth less than, you know, blank amount of dollars, you're okay.” We don't have that. What our statute, in Ohio, actually says, essentially, is this: you and I, public employees, public officials in general, with some exceptions, we are not allowed to solicit or to accept anything when that thing, that thing of value, is substantial and improper.

[25:35] Right? This is the part where you think, “Yes, thank you for that. It's, it's much simpler than giving us a dollar amount, appreciate that so much.” You know, the truth is, if your university or college ever has a very modest dollar amount as some sort of internal gift policy, I think that's perfectly fine. The truth is it might be a little bit tougher to regulate statutorily. So what the legislature has given us are these two words: is this meal, this ticket, this golf outing, this football game, this Broadway show, this computer equipment, this pencil or t-shirt, baseball cap, whatever it is, is it substantial and is it improper? So all we do is break down these two words in a way that makes sense to even somebody like me with a very fallible brain.

[26:24] I'm going to start with this word first, improper. All that word means is: who's the source of the gift? Who, who is it that wants to pick up my tab at lunch? Who is it that sent the tickets to my office? Who is it that brought in this box of, you know, chocolates or this tin of popcorn at the holidays? Who is it that says, “Hey,” you know, “let's, let's go to a Blue Jackets game.” or that kind of thing. Who's the giver? The offeror, if there's any such word, of something of value to people in public service? You can see on this slide there's only a few categories that make someone an improper source to us in public service. So current and wannabe vendors. That's those first two bullet points, right? The companies that are already selling goods and services to your college university or those who are trying to, right?

[27:16] That they're submitting bids, they're advertising to you, they're calling up your public purchasing office saying, “Hey, can we talk about our widgets and our products?” So current or wannabe vendors, anybody directly regulated by a public office, I probably will not worry about that category as much with public colleges and public universities. So I'm going to think about vendors and potential vendors as well as that fourth category. Right? People who have a vested or specific interest in matters before our public office. In your case, it could be students, it could be their parents, it could be major donors. Maybe it's appropriate, maybe it's adjacent property owners, things like that. People that have a vested interest in the outcome of issues, matters, cases, decisions and so on and so forth.

[28:04] Now, mind you, nobody here is suggesting that any of these folks, your students or your vendors, your, your, you know, whatever, whatever kind of board that you may have, nobody’s suggesting they're improper people or that they must all have improper motives. Not at all. But what this part of the law would say is that these folks would be improper sources of gifts that we call substantial. This is a two part equation of the Ethics Law. The only way that the Ethics Commission would conduct an investigation, right, that we would actually look at having someone charged with a crime is if we were able to demonstrate that they, in fact, solicited or accepted something of value that was both from an improper source or those people we just talked about, vendors, et cetera, and, and it was substantial.

[28:57] Now, right off the bat, here's what I'll tell you. There are plenty of things in the world that are not substantial gifts. Right? You get the idea just from this slide. In your years of working, whether it was in the public or the private sector, I am willing to bet that you all have either at some point accepted or given out one of these sort of promotional trinkety little things, right? How many of you have ever received from some vendor a little stress ball that has their company logo, or the coffee mug, or the pens, or the pencils, or maybe even a cheap t-shirt, or a little ball cap, or they send some little food item to your office. Nominal, de minimis, not substantial, not illegal. Frankly, the Ethics Commission is not wasting your tax dollars pursuing cases of things like that.

[31:25] Even if the vendor of whatever, who sent you, this, this party that we're talking about, they were an improper source? Yeah. Even if we meet that definition of “they were an improper source,” if they sent you a coffee mug, we're not going to call that substantial, we’re calling that nominal, not something that we're going to take up as an investigation. In all fairness, when we do talk about these gifts that are substantial in nature, right? That they are more extensive, more elaborate, my guess is your brain goes more to things like this, as it does for me, too. Please understand, this is not an all encompassing, all inclusive list. Please do not look at this slide and think, “Well, I don't see home construction on this slide, so it must be okay.” So just examples, just a smattering.

[32:02] But you get the idea. There is a difference between one of those vendors, for example, from bringing me a coffee mug with Hershey Kisses in it and them taking me to the Memorial golf tournament or them taking me to a Browns game or a Reds game, or paying for travel, expensive meals, doing construction on my home, expensive jewelry, those kind of things. We are simply going to say, under the Ethics Law, that is illegal for someone in public service to solicit or to accept anything of value when that thing of value is both substantial in nature and from an improper source. Now let's look at a few questions that have arisen over the years as they do, in fact pertain to public colleges and universities and gifts.

[32:59] Alright. Here is one that, I will tell you, I hear a lot in speeches and I'll let you read it there, but essentially how it goes is this: “Hey, Ethics Lady. Sure. This vendor is, in fact, offering me a ticket to see the show. You know, Hairspray that's coming through town on the Broadway series. So, yes, I get it's more than one of those little nominal gifts, like a pencil or whatever. But here's the thing, Ethics Lady. The project is already underway, or they already signed the contract, or whatever the case would be, so that gift couldn't have influenced me because they've already begun the project.” It doesn't matter. The statute does not say, “Well, if it influenced you.” I mean, if it's a bribery situation, that's a problem. But it falls under a whole other area of the criminal code.

[32:14] This, all we have to prove in this part of the law is: was that gift substantial and did they accept it? At the end of the day, that's all we need. We dont’ have to show that it did influence someone's behavior. So that absolutely makes no difference. That is a big “No.” Don't accept those kind of expensive gifts from your vendor no matter what they tell you. “Oh, we do this for all of our all of our clients!” or, you know, “It couldn't influence you because the contract’s already signed.” Just don't do it because you're not allowed to accept it regardless of the circumstances. How about this? Right. So let's say there is a company that sells office supplies and they're saying, “Hey, we just want to donate, you know, this copier to Wright State University, because some other client, they ordered it and then they never paid for it or picked it up. So we just want to write it off as a donation. So we're going to give it to you.” Is that okay under the Ethics Law?” And the answer is “Yes.” Just be aware of this: donations to your public entity are fine.

[33:09] The issue isn't whether or not someone makes a donation, whether it's money, or whether it's in the form of, you know, an appliance or laptops or whatever, construction work, mulch, whatever it is. People and vendors, even those doing business with your college, they're allowed to make donations to the college. There is a huge difference statutorily between the college accepting a truck full of free mulch from a local vendor who's doing business with the college and me as the college employee saying, “Sure, let me give you my home address and you can dump a truckload of mulch in my driveway for free.” No, we personally are not allowed to benefit. It has to be a benefit only to the college. Now, so here's the scenario here. I'm an instructor and this company says, “Would you take a look at the textbook? If you don't want to keep it, you don't have to. But if you. if you decide not to use it in the classroom, hang on to it.” Do you remember, at the very beginning, when I said people in public colleges and public universities are subject to parts of the Ethics Law? Here is one of our exceptions that pertains, I really only mention this when I'm talking to school districts or public universities and colleges. So, people who are instructors, who have no administrative authority at all are exempt from the conflict and gift parts of the Ethics Law. So, for example, if I am in fact a classroom instructor, but I'm also an assistant coach, all bets are off. I am subject to law. I'm not exempt.

[34:46] But let's now say that I'm an instructor, but I'm not an assistant coach. I'm not also a guidance counselor. I'm not also in the, uh, I’m not also in this supervisory role, that I don't supervise other people. I'm not the head of the language department. I don't have authority over these staff members. I'm not also working in the fiscal office. I don't have another job on campus. So, if I should say I'm only a classroom instructor, please know, I that in the best sense, I'm not talking in the pejorative, but you know what I mean. I am a person affiliated with the college or university, and my sole responsibility is classroom instruction. I have no administrative or supervisory authority. Those folks, you, in that case, would be exempt from this part of the Ethics Law. So could you keep that textbook as long as you're not in a supervisory role? Yes, I would do a huge “However,” here, though. A couple of things, right? If, for everybody else - for EVERYBODY else in public service, ok? That, all the board members, and the staff, and the administrators, people who work for the library, the custodians, the people who answer the phones, every single person on campus, with the exception of those non-supervisory instructors, everybody else is subject to all of the Ethics Law.

[36:08] So that would mean I am not accepting travel expenses. I am not accepting honoraria from, you know, book publishers, etc. I am not going to say, “Hey, I want royalties for all these materials that I wrote and that the college is using.” There would have to be some very specific exceptions there that would say, “Hey, you're allowed to, you know, accept things from them.” So I would just caution everybody just to stay on the safe side, if you prefer not to take gifts from your vendors, etc., no matter what your role is, cause you just feel safer that way, hats off to you and more power to you. If you are wondering about those exceptions though, again, go in to our website, put in the search engine “non-supervisory instructors” and you're going to get some really helpful information. How about this? I think this is an interesting gift one as well, of, so, I’m a, let's say I work for, you know, BGSU and I have a vendor saying “You want a ticket to the Memorial? It's coming up, end of May.” Guarantees rain in Columbus, that Memorial Tournament does, right? “Hey, it's a private student loan lender.” And you're thinking to yourself, “Well, you know, they're not really doing business with the college per say. Is that okay then?” The answer is “No.” They still get access to students through the college, that, they're still an interested party.

[37:32] Don't take those expensive things from folks that interact with your college. It's just safer. All right. So this was an Advisory Opinion that we had. It was 2011-06, as I recall, uh, that, so I'm the state board member, but I work you know, I work for, you know, a university. I work for Youngstown State, let's say. And I'm wondering so am I allowed to, you know, am I allowed to leave YSU for the day, get paid by YSU, to come to Columbus for my board meeting because I serve on the, you know, the Board of of Dental of the Dental Board or something kind of thing. And the answer there was “No.” We have a whole Advisory Opinion that does talk about the reason that that would be problematic under the Ohio Ethics Law. Okay. I just want to tack on one quick thing on gifts before we move on to another part of the Ohio Ethics Law: Supplemental Compensation. Some people have referred to this in the vernacular as like the “anti-gratuity law,” that no one is allowed to pay us to do our job except our job in public service. The reason I find this one interesting for colleges and universities, another Advisory Opinion, 2011-05, reminded public colleges, public universities, actually private colleges and universities, that if they place student teachers in public school classrooms.

[38:54] Right? “Oh, we've got these six students, they’re ready to do their student teaching. We're going to put them in all these public schools. And when that quarter or semester is done, we're going to send a check to those teachers to thank them for mentoring our students.” Not okay under the Ethics Law. No one is allowed to pay those folks to be in that classroom except their school district. We've got some great information online about this as well. Again, as I said before, I completely understand that I may be, you know, causing more questions to sort of erupt in your brain than I'm answering. But that's okay. That is a great time to get more information and to say, “What else do I need to know?” All right. With that, I am going to move on to the next part of the Ohio Ethics Law, the Public Contract part of the Ethics Law. There is, I'm sure, a much more erudite sounding definition of the phrase public contracts somewhere in the Revised Code of the Administrative Code. But I just say it really simply: a public contract is any time your college, the university that you serve, any time that that public entity spends money.

[40:01] That's really all it is. When you retain the services of a consultant, or you do buy textbooks, or you have a construction company come in, or you buy some IT equipment, you could buy office supplies, right? It could be anything, any amount of money. It doesn't matter who, this is that next part of the Ethics Law. Now, let me be really clear before we jump into the public contract law. Nobody at your university or college is exempt from everything we're talking about when we talk about public contracts. Every single one of you, I don't care what you do for a living, is subject to this part of the Ohio Ethics Law. So let's tackle some of these parts of the public contract law. This is the first part of our law where we're going to be talking about a fourth-degree felony. So this is the part of the law that would say this, “Hey, you know, I work for Hocking College down in Athens County, and I, I am aware of the fact that we need to replace the roof on one of the main buildings down there on that beautiful small little campus.” Lovely, they've actually asked me to do speeches there a lot. What a pretty campus. Right? So I am an employee of that university or that college.

[41:15] And I happen to have a brother who owns a roofing company. Now, in all fairness, if I work for Hocking College and they want to replace the roof on a building and I have a brother who is a roofing contractor, is it illegal for my brother to, let's say, throw his hat in the ring and be considered for that contract? No, that's actually okay. What would be illegal is if I involve myself, as the current public employee or public official. That I would have to stay completely out of it. I cannot recommend, advocate, lobby, sign off on, vote for - even a hallway conversation on his behalf would be illegal in the eyes of the Ethics Law. In the conflict stuff, remember when we talked about the, like, the county health department person. If I inspected my sister's restaurant I have used the authority of my public position to secure a thing of value - passed inspection for my sister. Bad idea, first degree misdemeanor. In this one, we're seeing it bumped up to a fourth-degree felony because in this one I'm using my public position to access public money for, in this case, a member of my family. Illegal Felony 4 under the Ohio Ethics Law. If you have family members, if you have business colleagues in your private life that might want to one day do business with your university or college - it's not automatically illegal - it's all about: can you truly be recused?

[42:43] If so, then do so and you will be safe under the Ethics Law. If you cannot really recuse yourself, you're too involved in this project, etc. Then your family and business associates are not going to get that contract with your college or university. Real quickly on this one, this is the other Felony 4 that we see under this part of the Ethics Law. This is about people who invest public money somehow with the intent of financially benefitting themselves, their family, business associates. I have any fiscal officers out there who want more feel free to reach out to us, we'll send you anything we want. But in general, people can’t invest public money hoping to benefit themselves or people in their world. Let me give you just a couple examples that we've seen over the years. Read this one of yourself. Right? It's not a problem necessarily that this employee's family member wanted to go after that catering contract. “Oh, we're going to, you know, supply this many dozens of cookies for this ribbon cutting ceremony.” The issue isn’t that the family member won it. The issue is that family that, with the catering business, they had a relative on the inside trying to get that contract for them. Potential fourth-degree felony under the Ethics Law.

[43:55] Read this one next. So, this actually happened, it was not in Ohio. So everybody take a deep sigh of relief. This was not an Ohio case, but this was one that was pretty unfortunate in their state. Of, you know, “We've got this fellowship, very competitive, and by the way, when the whole process is done, I will just go ahead and make sure my husband gets on that list.” $60,000 worth. Illegal. And fortunately, she was caught before it got too far. But again, using our public position, to secure a thing of value. Even fellowships, grants, things of that nature, it doesn't matter the amount or the type of public contract we're talking about. Public money being spent, that is a public contract. This one, this was a case that we had. But in true life, it wasn't actually a college or university person. It was a different kind of job. I just switched it up to make it relevant. But this whole idea of “I'm going to help create a public job and then later benefit from it.” That is what we call “occupying a position of profit.” I know that's quite a mouthful. Suffice it to say that is in fact illegal under the Ohio Ethics Law. Excuse me. Again, word of the day: recuse.

[45:13] “Hey, boss, I can't be involved. I need to stay completely away.” And certainly recusal is such a benefit when it talks about our family, our business associates. By all means, if someone in your family is, for example, going after that construction contract or maybe going after a grant, by all means, recusal is your best friend, especially if it's your family or if it's a business associate. But what if it’s you? What if you are the one who wants that construction contract with the university? What if you are the one who wants that public grant from the college that you work for or that you serve? This is a pretty specific prohibition under the Ohio Ethics Law, which, in a nutshell, reminds us that this is a part of law that recusal doesn't solve the problem. Because you know what the law essentially says? Don't sell things to your own public entity. I don't care if it's once in a while, if it's on an as needed basis. I don't care if you say “Well it's not that much money. It doesn't rise to the level that we're required to put it out for bid.” Again. I don't care if it was $0.50.

[46:21] In general, you cannot sell goods and services to the very public entity that you serve, whether hired, elected or appointed. You cannot sell goods and services. So if in fact, in your private life, you have a carpet cleaning business, it is perfectly okay if the college wants to hire a carpet cleaning company. In general, though, it can't be you. Not only can you not be part of the decision making, you can't say, “Well, I'll just throw my hat in the ring and I'll recuse myself in the discussion and decision making.” Doesn't work like that. Even if we do recuse, the law says we can not be vendors to the very public entity that we serve. Okay, are you ready for one more round of “Yes and No”? And then we'll begin to give you just a few more parts of the Ethics Law, and then we will, in fact, wrap this one up. Okay. So, I just gotta talk about this a little bit briefly, now. So let's say that my sister works for X, Y, Z, Public University, and I'm wondering, “Hey, I'm her relative. Am I allowed even pursue that contract?” The answer is “Yes.” It would not be illegal for me to pursue the contract. What would be illegal is if my sister, who works at the university, helped facilitate things.

[47:37] She made phone calls on my behalf. She somehow helped make it happen. Now we are talking about potential felony of the fourth degree under the Ethics Law. How about this one? OK? Again, “Hey, I know this is my husband's construction company we're talking about, but I promise you, I can stay very, very objective. I will not let my personal bias get in the way.” Yeah, the law doesn't work like that. This person absolutely “Yes” must recuse. It doesn't matter what her own intentions are. I can't remember who it was, maybe it was Dale Carnegie or somebody that said, We judge ourselves by our best intentions, but the world judges us by our most recent bad action.” OK? So, yeah, no, we cannot, CANNOT participate in helping even our relatives get that contract. Doesn't matter if we think we can be objective. This is one I get a lot in speeches, too. “Hey, it's once in a while. It's ‘as needed.’ It's not a written contract.” Doesn't matter. “No.” I can't sell things.

[48:37] Now, in all fairness, if you are very familiar with the public contract part of the Ethics Law, you might be familiar with the four part exception of when people can sell goods and services to their public entity. It is a four part exception. It doesn't happen all that often. So I'm still going to ask all of you who, in addition to your public role at the university or college, if you have a private business, I just want to ask you assume that you will not sell goods and services to your public entity. If that day ever arises where that is a possibility and you want to, go to our website, look under the Fact Sheets, and look for a Fact Sheet called “Selling Goods and Services to my Local Government Agency.” Public universities, you can look at that one just to be safe. The “State” selling goods and services Fact Sheet is even more stringent. If you really want to be safe look at that one as well. All right. I will tell you, people selling things to their own public entity, it's one of our two most commonly violated parts, the Ethics Law. And the other one is this. Okay? This is not the violation of two people who happen to be related to one another by, blood or by marriage, both working for the same university. My goodness, that happens.

[49:53] Look at the size of OSU right here in Columbus. Of course, there's somebody there who's married to someone else who's working there, who has a relative, they’re going to get married, or maybe it's a parent, or an adult child, or brother, or sister, etc. That is not illegal for two people who happen to be related to one other, by blood or by marriage, both working at the same public university. The illegal part is when someone who was already in public service has a family member who is pursuing a job with that public college, with that public university, and the current employee who's already employed at that college or university does not recuse him or herself. That's illegal.

[50:34] You can see the definition of family here on this slide. (Spouse/domestic partner, Sibling, Parent/step-parent, Child/step-child, Grandparent, Grandchild) Incidentally, it doesn't matter if your children, grandchildren, etc. live in your home. They are still considered your family and you would have to recuse from any action related to their public job hunt. The exception is extended relatives not listed on this slide. Like aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins and in-laws. Any of those relatives are only considered family under the Ethics Law if that relative actually lives in your home. So, if any of these family members we've discussed is looking for a job at your public college or university, wish them well and stay far away.

[51:20] Alright. Questions on nepotism, public contracts? You shoot us an email or give us a call because this course is almost done. The very last thing I want to mention is what happens on that day when you are thinking of heading out the door. Maybe you're ready to give up public service or go work for the private sector, maybe you’re just going to retire altogether, maybe you want to go work for a different public sector office. Whatever the case may be, for people in colleges and universities, with the exception of those non-supervisory instructors, classroom instructors, everybody else on campus is essentially subject to one final thing for three, excuse me, for one more year. Okay. There's only three groups that have a two year cooling-off period. They will not impact university so much. So the people listening to this webinar, you have a one year cooling-off period.

[52:10] That clock starts ticking the day that you walk out of that public job. And essentially what it's saying is: I, for that first year, would have to refrain from representing (communicating on behalf of my new company, my new boss, my new client, my new job, whatever.) I cannot communicate on their behalf to anybody in public service for one year if what we would be discussing is a matter that I had personally worked on when I worked for the old job. So in all fairness, if I leave the Ethics Commission and I go to work for a consulting group and they say, “Hey, Susan, could you call your old agency about X, Y, Z?” So it is, it's been less than a year, let's pretend. And we would say, “Yeah, that's representation,” because they want me to call up somebody in public service about this issue. And then the big question then becomes, “Is it something I worked on?”

[52:59] Because to be fair, if what they are asking me to call about is something I never in 1 million years was anywhere near and I didn't supervise that staff, etc., then I could make that call. Otherwise, I'm going to say, “You know what? It's only a year and I'm going to let somebody else make that call. I'll be a wonderful behind the scenes consultant on that issue.” The whole idea of this part of the law is to protect the public. It should not be that I leave the Ethics Commission on Friday, and on Monday I'm at my new job advocating for them going “Hey, um, friends at the Ethics Commission where I used to work, could we switch directions on that project? That would really help out my new boss.” Right? That's not a fair influence. Even with my former colleagues.

[53:40] If this is you, if you’re thinking of moving on soon, here is a marvelous Fact Sheet that can help you in that issue of “What do I need to know? What can I do? What can't I do?” You will find more information on our website. I would just say real quickly - if there's anybody that comes into contact with confidential information, I don't think that happens a whole lot at colleges and universities, but if so, just be aware that's the kind of thing we can't reveal just because someday we quit public service. But in general, everything we've talked about today, there's more on our website. And as promised, here is our phone number. Here's our website. I gave you my email address, but you do not have to email me.

[54:26] If you would rather go right to one of our advisory attorneys for the free legal advice, that's great. If you'd rather go right to an investigator to bring in an allegation against somebody that you think is doing something wrong, that's fine, too. If you want to talk to our Executive Director, that's fine. Our goal is simply to be a resource to people in public service so that when that day comes that you think, “I want to do the right thing, I'm just wondering what that is,” that you know who you can come to. So with that, I would just say: thank you again for your years of public service. If this recording is through your university's LMS system, you would need to get any proof of attendance from them. I cannot tell that you were here just by the fact that you watched it because I sent the link out. So, you know, I can't give you proof of attendance for being here today. But I do thank you for being here today.

[55:05] As someone that has been lucky enough to be able to have some higher education, to pursue some dreams as a result, I'm very, very grateful for what you all do. I have many loved ones who have graduated from some of the best universities in Ohio. My own husband got his undergrad from BG. I have several siblings went to OSU, My nephew went to Wright State. I have another nephew that went to UC and so on and so on. It's just a really great state. Higher education is just such an incredible blessing and I thank you for being part of it. If we can partner with you, if we can be a champion, if we can be a resource to you when it comes to the Ethics Law in years of public service, that would be our great honor. So with that, thank you again for all that you do. If you ever need me to come to campus and do a speech like this live, I would be most honored. But in the meantime, carry on. Fight the good fight. Do what you do so well. And thank you on behalf of all of us from the state of Ohio, for all that you do. Be well. Take care, everybody. Bye bye.