Our county EMS director, who is a salaried employee is assisting a hospital district in another county in covering shifts for it's EMS depatment when they are understaffed. So far he has worked without pay, but is asking if he can receive pay from the district without creating a conflict of interest or violating any empltoment law. I am concerned about himn receiving a paycheck from 2 different govermental entities. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Well, since he's an employee, it probably isn't a dual officeholding situation. That presumes his work is subject to supervision and/or he is subject to being hired/fired by another officer or board (e.g., the commissioners court). I can only think of two other potential pitfalls. One would be if he has a contract with your hospital district that contains some sort of exclusive services or non-competition clause. The other would be the "conflicting loyalties" facet of the common-law doctrine of incompatability. However, conflicting loyatlies incompatability only applies if both positions are "officer" level posts. See Op. Tex. Att'y Gen. No. GA-0569 (2007). That's probably not the case here, as you suggest that both positions entail employee status. So, in the end, if there is a problem, it is a practical one. Will the employee's ability to serve your hospital district in accordance with his essential job duties (including any attendance or availability requirements) be compromised by his service with the other hospital district? Unless his contract expressly forbids moonlighting, or the county has some sort of anti-moonlighting policy, I don't think there's a legal impediment to him getting paid for both jobs.

The only conceivable conflict of interest provision I can think of (unless there's a nepotism issue hidden in all this) would be chapter 176 of the Local Government Code. Unless your county has extended the conflicts disclosure requirement to employees with contracting authority, and your EMS director has that authority, it's not going to apply. It probably wouldn't anyway, since I don't believe this is the type of transaction contemplated by chapter 176 as being the subject of a conflicts disclosure requirement. So I don't think there's a problem outside of the perception kind, but I trust that Ray, Lisa, John Grace, Ann D., Russell and the other brainiac lurkers in this little corner of the website will promptly correct my myopic pontification as needed.

[This message was edited by Scott Brumley on 04-29-08 at .]

Thanks Scott....you know the commissioners did a good job defining his job description etc when they created the position!

Seems to me those are the issues, good collection of them, Scott.

There is no inherent reason why a person can't have two jobs in different counties, if the specific obligations of the jobs don't clash and they don't run afoul of the dual officeholding, conflicting loyalties, statutory prohibitions, local rule, or contractual limitations.