April 2000

The Public Manager as Consultant: Value Added or Subtracted?

Should public managers, while holding public office as a manager, engage in private consulting? This was the case described in Feburary’s column. As the reader may recall, the case involved a top ranking county administrator who provided computer consulting services under contract for neighboring communities.

Here are some readers' reactions:

Tom Babcock (tbabcock@ci.phoenix.az.us) in Phoenix writes: I found the question ‘Should high-ranking public managers act as consultants?’ is not easy to answer. I am not sure it matters if the public employee is high ranking or in the trenches doing the day-to-day work that is the backbone of all public organizations. The only difference is one of visibility; and level of visibility should not guide ethical considerations. I would pose your question in a slightly different manner. Is it ethical for a public employee to market the job knowledge and skills he has acquired while on a public payroll?

If the answer is yes, then by extension, we must all be chattel of the first public agency for which we work. For certainly, unless I am brain dead when hired, I have learned something at each place I have worked. Like many progressive public employers, my current one even encourages me to go to school, workshops, and seminars, and pays for all or part of these. I don't know how I would leave that gained knowledge behind if I were to move on to another position or another government (or private) organization. The human brain is not like a computer hard drive that can be selectively purged of information. (Unfortunately, it also cannot be zipped’ for more compact storage and efficient retrieval.)

Many of us move from agency to agency, state to local government, local to national government, and each of us is a value-added knowledge product which should become more valuable over time. Is it unethical to market this skill and knowledge base to another agency? And if that is not unethical, then why does marketing ourselves to the business world via revolving door employment make it somehow unethical?

Another reader, Mark Monson (mdmonson@DCE.state.va.us) writes: To me, the crux of the matter lies in the difference between what is allowable versus what is moral. (Here I’m using as the definition of moral the sense of noble, defined by Webster's as ‘moral eminence and freedom from anything petty, mean, or dubious in conduct or character.’) Under the laws of Illinois, providing consulting services to other local governments appears to be allowable, in the sense of something that can be done. There is no indication in the article that there are formal, legal restrictions against doing so.

However, there’s an old adage that just because a person can do a thing doesn’t mean that he or she should do a thing. In this case, providing consulting services for a fee in an area in which I am already employed does not meet the noble test —in my mind it is clearly ‘dubious in conduct or character.’ My selection would, therefore, be both to pro bono where I can and through professional associations where appropriate.

In fact, my stand on this is reflected in the second paragraph of the Public Service Creed, which appeared on page 3 of the February PA Times: “I have chosen my occupation and role, and made my commitment for many reasons, but among the more important is a desire to serve my fellow citizens.”