Chafee’s Higher Ed Commissioner Appointment: Ethics Continue to Slip

Well, ho-de-hum, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee has announced his recommendation for the appointment of Eva-Marie Mancuso as Interim Commissioner of Higher Education. The press release came out Friday (i.e., yesterday), and according to Richard Dujardin of the Providence Journal, Mancuso could start in the new job (with its $200,000 salary) as early as Tuesday (i.e., the day after the day after tomorrow) and hold it until a non-interim commissioner is found… someday.

The Board of Education — which the General Assembly created by joining the two boards that used to cover public schools and public colleges and universities separately — will vote on the appointment Monday.  Mancuso, who is the chairwoman of that board, has promised to recuse herself from the vote and to resign her role as chairwoman if she is appointed.

What, you say? Doesn’t that sound kind of inappropriate — even unethical?  Well, let’s see.  There is this passage in the state Ethics Commission’s peculiarly named “Code of Ethics”:

Regulation 36-14-5006 Employment From own Board.

No elected or appointed official may accept any appointment or election that requires approval by the body of which he or she is or was a member, to any position which carries with it any financial benefit or remuneration, until the expiration of one (1) year after termination of his or her membership in or on such body, unless the Ethics Commission shall give its approval for such appointment or election, and, further provided, that such approval shall not be granted unless the Ethics Commission is satisfied that denial of such employment or position would create a substantial hardship for the body, board, or municipality.

I’ve taken a look through the commission’s advisory opinions for 2013, and it does not appear that the governor or Mancuso has sought a waiver.  A quick search of the commission’s advisory opinions citing this regulation, however, does turn up a 2010 case in which a Coventry Housing Authority Board of Commissioners member was told he couldn’t become the authority’s Maintenance Director.   Also in 2010, a member of the East Providence Historic District Commission was advised not to bid on historically related contracts to the city.

The Ethics Commission did provide a bit of nuance in 2012, but if anything, it would seem to cast a darker cloud on the governor’s intentions with Mancuso.  A member of the state Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board was advised that he could take a job with the board as Senior State Building Code Official, “given that the Board has no hiring, supervisory, policy or fiscal authority over the position.”  In this case, the Board of Education clearly has all four types of authority.

But hey, it’s a hazy summer Saturday, and I’m inclined to be contrarian.  Let’s applaud Governor Chafee for insisting on fairness in state government.  After all, if last minute moves to avoid obvious rules and an assumed irrelevance of the state Ethics Commission are good enough for the General Assembly, why shouldn’t they be good enough for the state executive?

Postscript:

Don’t miss this part of Dujardin’s article:

If the board goes along, [Mancuso] will succeed Raymond M. Di Pasquale, who for the last four years held the post of both commissioner of higher education and president of Community College of Rhode Island for a combined annual salary of $265,000. Under an arrangement previously agreed to, Di Pasquale will go back to becoming the full-time CCRI president while keeping the higher salary.

With regard to the board’s going along, I think the members might want to consider whether they’ll be violating the Code of Ethics simply by taking the vote.  As for letting an appointed employee keep a two-job salary when he returns to just one job, sadly, that sort of behavior is probably limited to the broader code of ethics that voters are supposed to enforce at the ballot box.

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