Tenn. Lottery Board develops workers code of conduct

Aug 1, 2003, 7:45 am (2 comments)

Tennessee Lottery

The Tennessee Education Lottery Corp. apparently does not intend to interfere with the love lives of its employees, but lottery workers may find their political activities restricted.

Many of the ethics provisions in a code of conduct recommended yesterday by a Lottery Board committee are straight out of the lottery law approved by the legislature in June.

There was one new wrinkle that the committee rejected. It would have prohibited dating between lottery supervisors and subordinates because of ''the potential adverse effect of such activity on the supervisor-subordinate working relationship.''

Nashville attorney Bob Thomason, who is serving as the corporation's temporary legal counsel, said such a provision goes beyond what the state's lottery statute provides.

One new provision would spell out in considerable detail the type of political activity in which a lottery employee can and cannot engage. The proposed code will be presented to the full lottery board Monday.

Here are some of the restrictions placed on the political activity of lottery employees:

The proposed code of conduct was worked out in a teleconference involving Thomason and two board members, Jim Hill of Chattanooga and Morris Fair of Memphis.

The draft copy of the code was prepared by Thomason and deals largely with conflicts of interest and how to avoid them.

''Ordinarily, a conflict exists when an outside interest could actually or potentially influence the judgment or actions of an individual in the conduct of the company's interest or business,'' the code says in part.

''Directors and employees should avoid any outside financial or other interests that might conflict with the corporation's interests.''

The code prohibits directors from individually initiating contacts with applicants for major procurement contacts and requires directors to report to the Lottery Board's general counsel any attempt by a vendor to contact them.

''I think it is important that you (directors) not be individually lobbied,'' Thomason said.

The prohibition would apply to companies seeking major lottery advertising contracts, according to lottery spokesman Will Pinkston. It would not apply to vendors selling materials, supplies, equipment and services ''common to the ordinary operations of a corporation,'' he said.

Major procurement contracts are defined as those contracts for gaming products or services that cost in excess of $75,000.

''A major ad agency that potentially would be a vendor to the lottery or would be seeking the primary advertising contract with the lottery would be prohibited from speaking with any individual board member,'' Pinkston said.

Tennessean

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Littleoldlady's avatarLittleoldlady

Subordinates and supervisors should not have any type of romantic  interest on/off the job..that is how the "influence" starts anyway...they should include it but knowing them...they won't.

vincejr's avatarvincejr

I agree with that sentiment

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