Raffle Winner!

Hunter1

Opinions, please: Public sector - We have an employee who attended, on city time, a free seminar put on by a vendor from which we make purchases. As part of the registration, each participant was entered into a drawing for prizes. Our employee won the grand prize, a $3000 piece of equipment which the city could use, and which the department has proposed for purchase in next year's budget. Does the equipment belong to the employee or the city? (It also has value to the employee).

Had the employee won a two day stay at a resort, there's no question that it would be his - how's the city going to get any value from it anyway? (I know, we could auction it off on e-bay.)

Our ethics code prohibits employees from accepting any gratuity of more than $10 in value (really!), but this doesn't qualify as a gratuity in my mind. It was a random drawing.
What do you think?

SMace

I will give you my random, rambling thoughts. I think it does qualify as a gratuity. It is a gift from someone you do business with. Does it really matter how they got it?

Have you asked the vendor if their intent was to give gifts to each individual or to the organization?

How would you feel if word got out that this person kept the equipment? Would they/you feel comfortable defending it?

I vote for the city keeping it.

Gillian3

Are you making rules after the fact? Do you have any policy in place which you could use to claim the equipment or some sort of reasonable analogy, such as frequent flyer mileage? What is the history - have you always allowed the attendee to keep the prize in the past, so that if you glom on to this one, employees see you grabbing only the stuff that benefits the city? If you develop a policy that says anything of value that the city wants belongs to the city, what value will a raffle have to the attendee, since they will be, in effect, participating on your behalf?

I think that these are the questions I would ponder. Maybe you could buy the equipment from the employee at a discount.

marc

You probably don't have a specific policy about this, and really, how frequently does this happen? It is probably very rare.

However, as Sinclair pointed out, you frequent flier mileage policy is a good place to look for the stance you have taken in the past. Lots of frequent flier miles benefit the travelor and not the entity paying the fare. If your entity allows others that are higher up (usually the ones traveling on airlines) to keep the miles, it would be an issue to suddenely reverse course for another level of EE and require the forfeiture of the equipmnent.

As an aside, the recipient probalby will receive a 1099 and owe some Fed and State taxes on this gift. Perhaps you can cut a deal for some cash to pay the taxes, and perhaps allow the EE the use of the equipment on some sort of basis as payment.

Balloonman1

In my opinon you answered your own question. Had he won a weekend trip you would not care. So if it is equipment or a car now you care?

I must disagree with Smace, it is not a gratuity, he won a raffle, a game of chance. ANYONE could have one, he just got lucky.....

Let it go.

My $0.02 worth,
The Balloonman

LivindonSouth

Since you obviously do not have a policy which clearly establishes what a gratuity is, I think you should treat it the same way you would have treated it had he won the drawing for a fishing rod or a toaster, both worth over $10.

Since everybody in attendance probably works for somebody that somehow addresses gratuities from vendors, I'm wondering what was going through the vendor's head.

Superlative_KC

What if he hadn't told you he won? How would you handle it if you didn't know about it?

I like Gillian's idea - offer to buy it from him at a discount.

LivindonSouth

But, as he said, he likes the prize and he ain't gonna volunteer to sell it. Then what?

Gillian3

Hunter either confiscates it or forgets the whole thing.

crawfod

Our municipal code says, "nor shall any employee accept, directly or indirectly, any gift, gratuity, or favor of any kind which might reasonably be interpreted as an attempt to influence his/her actions with respect to city business." If this were your rule, you should not accept the equipment. I'm also curious as to what this $3000 piece of equipment was and how it relates to the vendor's products. Whatever you decide, you should prepare for the next time and make sure everyone knows the rules ahead of time.

LivindonSouth

Good point Crawfo(r)d. If the ee can't accept it, then neither should the city. Sounds like a welder, a gold-leaf toolbox, a flat screen television or a nice smoker on wheels.

Hunter1

Thanks to all of you for your input. The item is a piece of survey equipment, won by a registered land surveyor from a vendor that sells - survey equipment.
We thought of the purchase at a discount idea, and the thought that he just wouldn't have had to have told anyone about winning, and about tax consequences, and about changing our ethics policy, and about checking with the vendor to see if the prize was actually given with the idea that it goes to the employer, etc. There were many private sector employees at this seminar also. Wonder if one of them had won if he or she would have gone back and told their employer?
We have very few employees who travel, so no policy on frequent flyer miles. Heck, the last time I flew on city business was, well, I've never flown on city business in 24 years. We don't get around a lot.
We're still mulling this over, but will probably just leave it up to the employee. He didn't have to tell us in the first place, and I'm not sure we could force the issue even if we wanted to.

deniseE

"Our municipal code says, "nor shall any employee accept, directly or indirectly, any gift, gratuity, or favor of any kind which might reasonably be interpreted as an attempt to influence his/her actions with respect to city business."

I'm not sure how winning a game of chance, that is open to everyone attending a seminar is a method of influence. If it were a special direct gift....maybe....

I don't know. Did we used to have to think so hard about these kinds of things?

atrimble

I can see where this vendor could have used the prize as a tool to influence people at the seminar and those who didn't attend. I'd think the huge prize offering was supposed to be incentive to purchase this vendor's products over another vendor's. ("Hey, Bob, did you see what I won at that XYZ Company's seminar last week? XYZ must be a pretty solid company to be able to give away something as sharp as this. Here, try it out. Maybe if we all get together, we can talk the City into buying more for the rest of the crew and we can trash these crappy PQR Corp. models.") Marketing to the lowest common denominator.

Curious, was the prize a totally stand alone, never to be broken piece of equipment? If it should break or need accessories, can those be purchased anywhere or only from that vendor? Since it wasn't technially purchased, is there any enforceable warranty?

My point is that the prize was intended to influence purchasing decisions, either directly or indirectly. With that in mind, our agency would take into consideration whether the drawing winner had any input into the purchasing process, and if so - turn the prize over to the agency (we won't allow you to be "bought"), and if not - take it home and don't bring it back in case it could influence other employees.

KathyHR

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 08-17-05 AT 08:04AM (CST)[/font][br][br]We are a non-profit, public sector entity. We have a policy that reads "Gift-giving is a traditional way to express good will and friendship, particularly at holiday time. In business relationships, however, gifts can be a source of embarrassment. For this reason, we ask our employees to accept gifts of only nominal value at Christmas, or any other time of the year, from patrons or companies with whom we do business and to share those gifts, where appropriate, with the entire Library staff".

We would expect an employee to keep an autographed book, messenger bag, box of candy, pen set, etc. but if it was a set of encyclopedias or something large we would expect that to be given to the library. We also have to abide by the Ohio Ethics Law which is given to all new employees and they have to sign off that they received it. If they won something on their own time or it was a raffle they paid to enter then we would expect them to keep it no matter how large the prize.

I wouldn't change or adopt a new policy to cover this situation and if he wants to sell at a discount or keep it let him, but I'd develop one for the future.

Good Luck.

LivindonSouth

...But, you DO need to tweak the word 'Christmas' out of your policy. Not currently politically correct.




"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
Charlie Chaplin

KathyHR

Yep! I'm in the middle of a re-write of a manual that I think was written in the 90's, so that and a few other un-PC words are being taken out of the manual. Don, you'd have a field day with your red pen & our manual! Lucky for me there's nothing illegal in there.

lorrie

We host a very large vendor show for our customers every year, and we have LOTS of prizes. We try to be responsible to our customer base, which includes private business as well as schools and other public groups. In general: If someone wins one of the door prizes (awarded by drawing names) then we just give it to them, and let them be responsible to their employer for how it is handled. If someone 'earns' prizes through purchasing, then public employees must have a signed authorization from their employer saying they are allowed to have prizes instead of credit on accounts.

As for your situation: your subject heading said 'raffle' but you described a drawing, so I assume the person did not 'buy' a ticket in order to be entered into this drawing. In this case, I agree that if you would have let them keep a trip, then this should not be different, regardless of the value to the employer. But, I also think it is not bad to have a standard policy that says 'all prizes over $10, regardless of how attained (drawing, purchases, etc.) belong to the employer. Then have a standard way to disperse them.) In our company (a private business) we gather these types of things all year, and then do a drawing at Christmas time each year, and the employees win them through the company drawing. It has worked well for us.

Hunter1

Thanks for the correction. It was a drawing, not a raffle. I had used the terms interchangably.

SMace

Lorrie is going down the same line I was thinking. The surveying equipment is a gift from a vendor. To me, it doesn't matter that he got it by chance. What matters is he go it.

Sure he didn't have to tell you, but wouldn't that violate your ethics policy?

Whatever

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 08-17-05 AT 08:30AM (CST)[/font][br][br]I just realized that if I attended the HR symposium, I could win the Door prize or the grand prize (which if of high enough value, I could not accept). I wonder if the sponsors looked into this issue? x}>

LivindonSouth

And if it's a car, you can give it to Ray or donate it to Hillary's campaign fund. x:-)



"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
Charlie Chaplin

NaeNae55

The vendor gave away something they were hoping to sell to your organization. That seems to me to be different than winning something of a personal nature such as a trip or a picnic basket.

Anything anyone receives here (like free cookies or a nice pen with a purchase) belongs to the company. Anything anyone receives while representing our company at a convention or seminar belongs to the company. The only exception would be winning something in a drawing that is definitely intended as a personal item.

Last year an employee won some storage boxes in a drawing. She could have used them at home, but didn't even hesitate. She brought them in to work. Her honesty and loyalty were noted and not unexpected. (She has since been promoted.)

Having said that, it seems a little late to tell the employee that they can't keep the item. The employee will probably use it at work anyway, so you will still get the benefit of it.

This is a good reminder we all need to look at our policies and make sure they are clear about how things should be handled in these types of situations.

Let us know what you end up deciding.

Good Luck!

Hunter1

NaeNae: I agree that if you get something with something else that you purchase for the company it belongs to the company. There were a number of public sector employees in WI who got into deep trouble a number of years ago for accepting pretty expensive 'gifts' that went with the purchase of municipal supplies. That's well understood and covered under our policy.

However, let me pose this scenario and ask how your company would view it under your policy: I recently attended the national conference of a group I am a member of. (It was held in Milwaukee this year) There was a vendor display area. Vendors were giving away almost any kind of token you can imagine: t-shirts, calculators, pens that lit up, key chains, small flashlights, tape measures, etc, etc. More than one vendor gave away shopping bags to carry all the stuff in. As I walked through the vendor area, I was rebuked by a couple of my colleagues because "I obviously wasn't much of a shopper". #-o
All this stuff you could pick up would belong to the company under your policy?

PS I am adamantly opposed to writing policies for something which has happened, to my knowledge, once in 24 years.

NaeNae55

At the convention I went to last year I got lots of pens that light up, etc. They came to work with me. An HR t-shirt is more personal and would go home with me (no one in the company could use it for business purposes). It really is a case by case basis. Besides, most of the stuff you pick up at a convention has a value of less than $10 so it would really go back to its use. I didn't win any drawings so never had to make any decisions there.

In the past when someone has won or received something that is iffy, they let the CEO know about it. Our company does give-aways at some conventions, and also gives prizes, etc. Also, we do little things through out the year for employees as morale boosters. The CEO looks at how the employee received it, what the item is, and then makes a decision. It is not unusual for the employee to be allowed to keep the item, but some are put in the kitty for one of our various uses/needs. Of course, we are a very small organization so we are able to do it this way. If we were larger I don't think it would really work as well, if at all.

Your point about something happening once in 24 years is valid. Still, I think I will take another look at our policy. If it is written clearly enough it should help us define what belongs to the company and what belongs to the employee in the event something unusual happens. You don't need to address every possible scenario in your policies, but they should be clear enough to form a good basis for your future decisions.

Balloonman1

The vendor might have given away what the sell........as they can do so because the manufacturer gives them some for this reason. It is the business they are in, it makes sense to give that type of item away.

My $0.02 worth,
The Balloonman

LivindonSouth

It's a shame it's come to this level of control and scrutiny. But, I'm very much aware of the origin of it all. When I worked in the transportation (trucking) industry, it was common for Freightliner, refrigeration unit manufacturers and trailer companies to give employees at the company annual trips to Taledega and every other NASCAR event, $500 leather racing jackets, television sets, Tires, and even allow them to lease vehicles on the vendor's fleet lease plan. That was a publicly traded company and the corruption capability was significant.

I attended tons of recruiting events and came away with a plastic bag full of eight dollars worth of plastic crap and a cap.



"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
Charlie Chaplin

Open1

I was thinking it should come back to the ethics - the point of not allowing employees to keep large gifts because they become bribes to continue/increase business with the vendor.

While my gut says you should let the employee keep the equipment, you must also assure that he is not the decision-maker regarding future purchases from this vendor.

Whatever

I wish gifts were always as simple the cheap stuff (crap) given out at shows. Right now, I am very unhappy that I had to turn down 6 tickets to the woman's final of the US Open (tennis). Every time the Yankees win a pennant race, the offers for world series ticket deluge us (particularly our chief buyer and his assistant-fortunately, both are Mets fans).

DeidreFR5

Should I have turned in my HR Hero t-shirt?

pork1

HUNTER1: I feel like you must go with the city policy and procedures. There are some real heavy hitting congressional folks getting nailed for this very topic. You city attorney also will want to be involved to protect the liabilities to the city for this "WHAKO GIFT that might blow-up", who is holding the bag on that string. If the item is over your pronounced limits then it must be left on the table in the "WHITE HOUSE" or donated to some charity, but it does not belong to the individual, if the value is over XXX!!! Your accounting king or queen will want to issue a 1099 and uncle sam wants his piece of the pie. The Mayor wants his share of the public recognition for the donation of the extra money to the tax base. You paid the employee to be at the event, the prize belongs to the owner of the seat where the ee was located on behalf of the city.

PORK