Greetings, y'all,
what are the thoughts of anyone who understands the connection between
legality, ethics, and general institutional-level fiscal guidelines?
ok, here goes:
I recently observed the most bizarre situation. Aibrary in a publiclyally
supported academic setting has been beleagured with staff shortages for many
years until in recent years it resorted to hiring temporary people. One of
these temporaries turned out to own a bookshop and skillfully orchestrated a
sales transaction for a bulk of books no one had ordered (which she had
single-handedly selected and brought into the library) and a friend in charge
of the accounting end processed the paperwork for her. This occurred without
the consent of the person in charge of the purchasing department who chanced to
find the paperwork in the course of unrelated fiscal research.
The department head then found that the acting director of that library had
signed the authorisation in a fiscal-year-end must-encumber-or-lose frenzy.
The director requested return of the of monies. Last I heard, the library is
now polarised -- one school of thought is that it is inappropriate to purchase
things from the shop owned by one's employees, especially when the head of the
purchasing department is deliberately circumvented in such transactions. More-
over this "camp" also believes that the private seller cannot serve double duty
as the institutional buyer. An added facet in this school of thought is that
such course of action is unethical if not illegal. The other "camp" feels
that the people in the library's "back office" tried to help the temporary
worker who owns the bookshop and that the legalistic purchasing-department head
spoiled the group mood by bringing that transaction to the attention of the
college administration (that library has been without a director for several
years). This second "camp" believes that such actions are perfectly legal and
that the way the transaction was written up messed up the purchase.
Folks, _I_ side with the f i r s t camp. But it seems that such a code of
ethics is unwritten, that no specific laws govern such transaction scenarios.
Now, my advice to the purchasing department head is to say to hexx with it and
go work in a sane environment where standards & guidelines are clear-cut. But
I feel shallow in knowing nothing tangible regarding the actual legality or
illegitimacy of such transactions.
What does the wisdom of law-lib say?
Thanks & have a glorious day,
/ / \ \
/ / Antje \ \
/ / Queen of Architecture \ \
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