This Advisory Opinion concerns the following issue as formulated from facts and/or circumstances furnished by a requestor. The Commission approved this opinion on October 1, 2004, basing its approval solely on the facts and circumstances stated herein.

 
May the parent of an employee in a community college be a vendor to the community college?

State law restricts the Mississippi Ethics Commission to interpreting and issuing opinions on Sections 25-4-101 through 25-4-119, 1972 Mississippi Code Annotated and Article IV, Section 109, Mississippi Constitution of 1890.  Therefore, this opinion does not address the Mississippi laws outside the Commission’s jurisdiction nor the governmental entity’s internal rules and regulations.

The pertinent conflict of interest laws to be considered here are:

Code Section 25-4-103(g)(v), (h), (l), (p)(ii)(iii) and (q) states:
 

“(g) ‘Governmental’ means the state and all political entities thereof, both collectively and separately, including but not limited to:
 
(v) Any department, agency, board, commission, institution, instrumentality, or legislative or administrative body of the state, counties or municipalities created by statute, ordinance or executive order including all units that expend public funds.

(h) ‘Governmental entity’ means the state, a county, a municipality or any other separate political subdivision authorized by law to exercise a part of the sovereign power of the state.

 (l) ‘Pecuniary benefit’ means benefit in the form of money, property, commercial interests or anything else the primary significance of which is economic gain.  Expenses associated with social occasions afforded public servants shall not be deemed a pecuniary benefit.

(p)  ‘Public servant’ means:

(ii) Any officer, director, commissioner, supervisor, chief, head, agent or employee of the government or any agency thereof, or of any public entity created by or under the laws of the State of Mississippi or created by an agency or governmental entity thereof, any of which is funded by public funds or which expends, authorizes or recommends the use of public funds; or

(iii) Any individual who receives a salary, per diem or expenses paid in whole or in part out of funds authorized to be expended by the government.

 (q) ‘Relative’ means the spouse, child or parent.”

Code Section 25-4-105(1) and (3)(a) states:
 

“(1) No public servant shall use his official position to obtain pecuniary benefit for himself other than that compensation provided for by law, or to obtain pecuniary benefit for any relative or any business with which he is associated.

(3) No public servant shall:

(a) Be a contractor, subcontractor or vendor with the governmental entity of which he is a member, officer, employee or agent, other than in his contract of employment, or have a material financial interest in any business which is a contractor, subcontractor or vendor with the  governmental entity of which he is a member, officer, employee or agent.”

Pertinent facts and circumstances provided by the requestor, absent identifying data, are set forth as follows and considered a part of this opinion.
 

I am an employee of a Community College, thus my reason for contacting you for clarification on the following transaction.

My mother suffers from senile dementia.  She is in a nursing home and has had to “break up” housekeeping.  She owns a refrigerator that she would like to sell to the Community College located in [a different town and on a different campus than the one where I work].  She at no time has ever been connected to the Community College.

The $200 for the refrigerator would be used to offset her personal expenses incurred at the convalescent center [located in the same city as the campus where the refrigerator is to be sold].

We certainly do not want in any way to be in violation of the ethics laws of the State of Mississippi. Therefore, I am requesting an official opinion concerning her selling the refrigerator to the Community College.

Based solely on the facts and circumstances presented by the requestor, the Commission’s opinion is as follows.

Section 25-4-105(1), Miss. Code of 1972, quoted above, prohibits public employees from using their official position to obtain pecuniary benefit  for themselves or a relative such as a parent . Thus, the requestor may not use her position as an employee of the community college to effectuate the proposed sale. Furthermore, the requestor may not realize any pecuniary benefit or economic gain from the transactions.

Section 25-4-105(3)(a), Miss. Code of 1972, quoted above, precludes a public servant like the requestor from being a vendor to the governmental entity for which he or she works, in this case, the state. However, this prohibition does not automatically apply to a relative of a public servant. In this particular situation, the requestor will not violate Code Section 25-4-105(3)(a) if the mother completes the proposed transaction, provided the requestor receives no monetary benefit whatsoever.
 

Scott Rankin
Executive Director