This Advisory Opinion concerns the following issue as formulated from facts and/or circumstances furnished by a requestor. The Commission approved this opinion on June 7, 1996, basing its approval solely on the facts and circumstances stated herein.

May a county supervisor at the expiration of his term of office accept employment with a community college that the supervisor's county funded?

    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 entities' internal rules and regulations.

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

Constitutional Section 109 states:

"No public officer or member of the legislature shall be interested, directly or indirectly, in any contract with the state, or any district, county, city, or town thereof, authorized by any law passed or order made by any board of which he may be or may have been a member, during the term for which he shall have been chosen, or within one year after the expiration of such term."

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

"(f) 'Contract' means:

(i) Any agreement to which the government is a party; or

(ii) Any agreement on behalf of the government which involves the payment of public funds.

'Governmental' means the state and all political entities thereof, both collectively and separately, including but not limited to:

(i) Counties; and

(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.

(p) 'Public servant' means:

(i) Any elected or appointed official of the government;

(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."

Code Section 25-4-105(2) states:

"(2) No public servant shall be interested, directly or indirectly, during the term for which he shall have been chosen, or within one (1) year after the expiration of such term, in any contract with the state, or any district, county, city or town thereof, authorized by any law passed or order made by any board of which he may be or may have been a member."

    Pertinent facts and circumstances in the form of the requestor's letter, absent identifying data, are by attachment incorporated into this opinion.

    The Commission formally adopts Advisory Opinion No. 93-096-E in response to this request and Advisory Opinion No. 95-131-E as it is referenced in the requestor's letter and pertains to the same subject matter and by attachment incorporates them into this opinion.

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

    In the attached opinion' the Commission addressed the general taxation statute on community colleges, Section 37-29-141, 1972 Mississippi Code Annotated, as the authority used by the subject county in funding the subject community college.

    The Commission is now aware that the particular community college that is the subject of these requests has a more specific taxation statute The specific taxation statute number cannot be set forth herein as it would identify the community college and by that the subject individual. However, the specific taxation statute does appear to take away all funding discretion from the county board of supervisors regarding the community college. The community college's board of trustees certifies the mills it requires, subject to statutory limits, and the county board of supervisors has the duty to levy the taxes in the number of mills specified by the community college's board of trustees.

    The mileage requirement set in the specific taxation statute and the aggregate revenues requirement set forth in Section 27-39-320, 1972 Mississippi Code Annotated, as presented in the requestor's letter, must be read in pan materia.

    The Attorney General's Office has given the Commission an official opinion that clearly states that the levy limitations, including determining aggregate revenues, as required in Code Section 27- 39-320, do apply to the specific taxation statute concerning this community college. The Attorney General's official opinion is not cited herein as it would identify the community college and by that the subject individual.

    It is the Commission's position after reviewing the above statutes that the county board of supervisors has the duty to produce the total revenues certified to it by the community college board of trustees subject only to its responsibility to escrow any amount over the ten percent (10%) limit on increased revenues set forth in Code Section 27-39-320. The amount of revenues requested, including up to the ten percent (10%), appears to be solely within the discretion of the community college's board of trustees.

    Therefore, the supervisor's employment by the community college upon the expiration of his term of office is not prohibited by the conflict of interest laws if his county provided only the amount requested by the community college's board of trustees as required by the state statute during his term of office.

    Should it later be determined by an Attorney General's official opinion or a court of competent jurisdiction that the state statutes addressed herein do give the county board of supervisors discretion in funding the community college, including whether or not to provide the ten percent (10%) increase, and that the county board of supervisors provided discretionary funding to the community college during the former supervisor's term of office, then this opinion would no longer
be applicable and the former supervisor's employment by the community college within one year of this term would be in violation of the above cited Constitutional Section 109 and Code Section 25-4-105(2).

Ronald E. Crowe Executive Director