**NRCS Ethics Office**

**2006 x 3**

**Letter Concerning Hotel Gifts For Inconveniences**

\[June16, 2006\]

SUBJECT: Hotel Gifts to Boot Camp Participants

Key Words: Hotel, Meals, Gift Certificates, Boot Camp

This provides the ethics opinion on the situation involving vouchers
from \[Hotel Chain\] to employees attending Boot Camp who were
inconvenienced because they did not have a room for 2 nights.

**FINDING: Neither NRCS nor the three Boot Camp Instructors may keep the
\$90 vouchers. Those three \$90 vouchers must be returned to \[Hotel
Chain\]. However, each of the 9 inconvenienced employees (including the
3 Instructors) may keep the \$50 voucher if offered by \[Hotel
Chain\].**

BACKGROUND

This involves the employees at the current Boot Camp in \[Class
Location\]. Of the 30 employees at the \[Class Location\] Boot Camp,
upon returning to the hotel from a break, 6 did not have rooms and that
situation lasted two nights.  These employees returned at approximately
11 pm. This situation involves unusual circumstances and should not be
used as a precedent. In this case, there were no available hotel rooms
for 50 miles due to house fires in the area.

This situation started when 3 employees and 3 Instructors did not have
rooms.  The hotel normally sends guests to another hotel and provides
transportation.  But, under the unusual circumstances with the closest
rooms 50 miles away and the late hour (11 pm), the hotel asked the
employees to share rooms. In the end, the 3 Instructors shared a room
together, and each of the 3 employees each bunked with another boot camp
participant who already had a room.  Hence, now we have 9 NRCS employees
inconvenienced.

 

Xxxx xxxx (xxx) xxx-xxxx, advised that when it comes to airline benefits
when someone is bumped, the travel regulations provide that:

-   If they are bumped then the benefit belongs to the Government.  In
    these cases the employees are forced and the airline re-routes or
    re-schedules them to get them home.

-   If they volunteer to give up an airline seat, then the voucher
    belongs to the employee not the Government.  \[Additional travel
    costs due to a delayed return are not paid by the Government.\]

Ethics regulations provide that an employee may not accept a gift from a
prohibited source such as this hotel, unless one of the exceptions to
the gift rules at 5 CFR 2635.204 applies. \[See 5 CFR 2635, Subpart B,
Gifts from Outside Sources.\]

FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

On June 16, 2006, I spoke by telephone with xxxxx xxxxxx, General
Manager of this \[Hotel Chain\] hotel. She advised of circumstances
reflected in the Background section, above, and that the hotel then gave
each of the three Instructors a voucher worth \$90.  This is not what
\[Hotel Chain\] normally does in 'such cases'. The hotel also planned to
offer the normal compensation for such situations to the other 6
inconvenienced employees. That normal compensation is a choice between a
\$50 dinner voucher and a \$50 grocery voucher to Wal-Mart. However, in
this case, the hotel has not done so after NEDS (NRCS) called to ask
them to wait pending ethics guidance.

\['Such cases' refers to situations like this where, for one reason or
another, the hotel guest does not go to another hotel but shares a room
with another. They have situations like this with families and other
groups sometimes, and there is a specific compensation normally offered
in such situations to those inconvenienced guests.\]

So, at this point the 3 Instructors have \$90 vouchers which must be
returned. They can not be accepted because the offer was enhanced from
the normal \$50 to a \$90 value because these employees are Instructors.
The 6 other inconvenienced employees have received nothing at this
point, but \[Hotel Chain\] is waiting to hear from NRCS whether it is
okay for the employees to accept this normal compensation for
inconvenienced hotel guests. Ms. Xxxxxx advised that, if is not
prohibited, \[Hotel Chain\] would still give the 6 inconvenienced
employees the \$50 voucher. Also, anticipating that the Instructors will
need to return the \$90 vouchers, she said \[Hotel Chain\] would also
give them the same \$50 voucher as would be given to any other guest
under the same circumstances.

This finding is based on the regulation at 5 CFR 2635.204(c) (2)(i)
which provides that an employee may accept an opportunity or benefit
offered to members of a group or class in which membership is unrelated
to Government employment *[provided]{.underline}* it was not the result
of an expenditure of Government funds. I find that the group or class is
'persons inconvenienced by not having a hotel room' and that it is not
related to Government employment. In this particular case and given the
unusual circumstances that lead to the particular offer, I find that it
is unrelated to Government employment -- rather it is because of the
inconvenience of having to share a room for two nights.

A copy of this opinion is being provided to xxxxx xxxxxx, General
Manager, \[Hotel Chain\], at \[email address\] also being provided to
xxxx xxxxx, Financial and Program Specialist, FMD, and xxxx xxxxx, NRCS,
Ft. Worth Texas, who will effectively communicate it to involved
employees through the Boot Camp Coordinator. Questions should be
directed to me at (301) 504-2207 or caryl.butcher@wdc.usda.gov

-s-

CARYL J. BUTCHER

NRCS Ethics Officer

cc: General Manager, \[Hotel Chain\]

Associate Deputy Chief for Management, NRCS

Financial Management Division, NRCS

NRCS, Ft Worth, TX