Public school employees who were promoting a Macy’s holiday campaign for a charity have been advised by the state Ethics Commission that state employees can neither raise funds during work hours nor use state resources for such pursuits.
Leeward Oahu teachers and administrators were encouraging students to participate in the Macy’s "A Million Reasons to Believe" promotion in which children write letters to Santa — stamped and addressed to the North Pole — and drop them into boxes at Macy’s department stores.
Macy’s says it will then donate to the Make-a-Wish Foundation $1 for every letter received, up to $1 million, to help grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions, and pass the letters on to the Postal Service for delivery before Christmas.
The Ethics Commission learned of the school activities when a lawmaker asked for advice about promoting the Macy’s fundraiser to constituents.
The commission responded with an advisory to all state employees Thursday, saying the law prohibits employees from using work time and state resources for non-state-related business purposes.
That means, the memo said, teachers and staff cannot use state emails to promote the fundraiser, school equipment to print or copy letter templates, classroom time for letter-writing, or collect letters on campus.
Macy’s promotional website for its campaign includes a classroom activity guide, encouraging teachers to use lesson plans on letter-writing and vocabulary-building to help students write Santa letters. It also includes letter and envelope templates.
"State resources are supposed to be used for state business," Commission Executive Director Les Kondo said in an interview. "Under the state Ethics Code, as the commission has construed it, state employees cannot use state resources — state time, state equipment or facilities — for a private business purpose, which includes fundraising and nonprofit work."
Kondo, who previously served as director for the Hawaii chapter of the Make-a-Wish Foundation, added that the advisory wasn’t intended to be a judgment of the charity’s worth.
"The commission recognizes that there are many terrific, very worthy charities, and the (advisory) had nothing to do with the merits of Make-a-Wish Foundation," he said.
There are exceptions to the rule: State resources can be used to support the Aloha United Way and Hawaii Foodbank, under a decades-old executive order. The Ethics Commission has also allowed state employees to support disaster relief efforts on state time.
Schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi was scheduled to meet with commission officials Friday afternoon to discuss concerns.
Department of Education spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said in a statement that the DOE "encourages students to be good citizens and that includes helping others in need."
Kondo said the Macy’s incident "will help facilitate a healthy discussion as to whether it is appropriate to reconsider whether certain charitable activities should be considered to be ‘state business.’"
