Raffle Winner!
Hunter1
808 Posts
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?
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?
Comments
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.
I think that these are the questions I would ponder. Maybe you could buy the equipment from the employee at a discount.
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.
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
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.
I like Gillian's idea - offer to buy it from him at a discount.
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.
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?
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.
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.
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
Charlie Chaplin
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.
Sure he didn't have to tell you, but wouldn't that violate your ethics policy?
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."
Charlie Chaplin
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!
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.
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.
My $0.02 worth,
The Balloonman
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
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.
PORK