I have been asked to give an opinion on if a County Department head can supplement the salary of an employee in their office with private organization (4-H)funds.

Anyone have any hints on this issue?

SAK

So I'll just state the bleeding obvious.....it is a confict of interests. Employee who is being partially paid by private organization? I don't think so.

Ultimately, it's a question of control over county resources. The commissioners court is authorized to accept property on behalf of the county. They also are the head honchos (and aren't afraid to remind you of it) concerning contracting. And, as an exciting bonus, they set the budget, with which there must be strict compliance. If the commissioners haven't accepted the funds, created a line item in the budget for the salary supplementation at issue and approved the use of the accepted funds for that budgetary purpose, then the scheme would seem to be unauthorized. And, of course, counties have only the authority conferred expressly upon them by the constitution and statutes, or that necessarily implied by the expressed authority.

Besides, Mike is right. It doesn't pass the smell test. And you know why it doesn't pass the smell test? Because MY pay isn't being supplemented by any civic organization. I've always been a big supporter of that "equal protection" thing.

I agree with the post above. The only way I could see doing it would be for the private entity to "donate" the funds to the County. Although the donation must be unconditional (i.e. you can't tie the donation to a promise to supplement the employee), the commissioners could then assign the money to the salary line item of the department.

The biggest problem will be adjusting salaries mid year. In the absence of an emergency, I don't believe the salary can be supplemented until the next fiscal year begins.

[This message was edited by Robert S. DuBoise on 04-22-03 at .]

How about the DA that uses drug fund monies to pay his private secretary. She has been working there for about two years and works from 8:00 a.m. to about 8-10::00 p.m. She gets time and a half after eight hours. She has alot of overtime pay. She is a county employee. The Commissioners Court do not have any idea what her job description is and do not want to ask the DA. The sheriff's department just had their phone service disconnected becuz the county could not afford to pay the phone bill. Who does the DA report the drug monies account to and the monies are spend and can a public citizen obtain that report?