The Conflicts of Interest Board, the mayorally appointed body that interprets and enforces City Charter ethics laws, is revisiting rules restricting the ability of city officials to raise private money for nonprofit organizations--including nonprofits founded by public agencies or city officials expressly to raise money for their own offices' operations. This winter, the board is aiming to issue what it calls a "major, major advisory opinion" that will likely give government workers expanded license to drum up cash from private benefactors.
"In tough economic times, the city reaches out to the private sector," says Wayne Hawley, general counsel for the board. "Like the mayor says about finances, everything's on the table, within reason."
The conflicts board is already reconsidering a series of its own opinions, issued throughout the 1990s, that bar elected officials from what it calls "active fundraising"--making calls and sending letters. Such solicitations, the board wrote in 1993, "could easily create a perception...that those who seek to do business with the official are expected, or would be well-advised, to make a contribution in order to secure access or favorable treatment." In a 1998 opinion, it clarified that "elected officials and high-level public servants may not write to local merchants or individuals asking them to contribute to a not-for-profit organization."
Yet that's exactly what Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz did recently, following a consultation with the conflicts board. In an October 30 letter to members of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Markowitz asked merchants to make a financial contribution or run a toy drive on behalf of Best of Brooklyn, Inc., a new nonprofit established by the borough president "supporting culture, social services, health education and tourism, and most important, our youth."
According Markowitz' office, an early draft of the letter included a disclaimer that "supporting this event will have no impact whatsoever on any business you may have before my office"--language frequently recommended by the conflicts board and the city's Law Department in these kinds of circumstances.
But no such words appear in the version that was mailed to nearly 1,200 Brooklyn businesses. The beep's office decided to delete the words, says spokesperson Andy Ross, because "we thought it would be insulting to the people who received it."
Ross says the borough president has little choice but to seek private funding. "The bottom line is, during the foreseeable future, we will be dealing with budgets cut to the bone," says Ross, "and public-private partnerships are essential."
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Best of Brooklyn may be no Wedtech, and bringing toys to tots is always a mitzvah. But Markowitz' letter opens a new chapter in private fundraising by public officials. In the face of a soon-to-be-$6-billion budget hole, city leaders are looking to every form of revenue known to finance--and compared with wildly unpopular tax hikes, a few nips and tucks in obscure ethics rules surely look like a political no-brainer.
New Yorkers are already familiar with private financing for public services. Each year hundreds of millions of private dollars go into nonprofit organizations that are closely tied to local public agencies. Some of these nonprofits are serious moneymakers, and certain city agencies have come to depend on their revenues. Combined, the Central Park Conservancy and the City Parks Foundation raise the equivalent of 18 percent of the entire official Parks Department budget. Most recently, the Department of Education hired Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg to increase the volume of corporate and other private contributions to schools--including via the Department of Education's own nonprofit, the Fund for Public Schools.
