| Advisory opinion regarding whether an engineer with the Board of Commissioners for the Port of New Orleans (PONO), Catherine Dunn, may serve as an evaluator for a non-profit. |
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Catherine Dunn states that she is a registered professional engineer with the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans (PONO). She has been employed by the PONO for 23 plus years. Her current position is Deputy Director for Port Development (Engineer 8). She performs engineering management duties over the design, construction, and maintenance departments. ABET is a nonprofit, non - governmental organization that accredits college and university programs in the disciplines of applied science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology. ABET accredits over 3,100 programs at more than 660 colleges and universities in 24 countries. ABET provides specialized, programmatic accreditation that evaluates an individual program of study, rather than evaluating an institution as a whole. As part of her volunteer service with ABET, Ms. Dunn is responsible for leading teams of volunteers of engineers from government and private industry (normally two per year) on visits to universities to accredit their engineering programs. In addition, she attends an annual meeting of ABET commissioners to review and vote on final accreditation recommendations made during the previous year. This work is all voluntary with no monetary compensation from ABET for the time spent. ABET does reimburse all volunteers for their travel related expenses airfare, rental cars, food, and hotel rooms. Normally the programs are at universities within the United States, but on occasion visits may be to foreign educational institutions.
In the past the PONO has allowed Ms. Dunn to make these visits on work time as an outreach program of the PONO. She earns some educational credits (required for maintaining a professional license) during the summer commissioners meeting.
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Section 1111A of the Code prohibits a public servant from accepting anything other than the benefits and compensation that they are duly entitled to as a public employee.
In BD 97-622, the Board rendered an advisory opinion allowing a private source to make a donation to a public agency which, in turn, was used by the public agency to reimburse the travel expenses of a public servant. However that private company may not be a prohibited source under Section 1115. Captain Wynne states that the DOPSC does not have contracts with Promega since their system is cost prohibitive. However, it is the Staff's opinion that Promega is a prohibited source whether or not the contractual relationship that is being sought is feasible.
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Adopt the proposed advisory opinion.
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| Assigned Attorney: |
Aneatra Boykin |
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