Mississippi Advisory Opinions October 18, 1979: 19791018 (October 18, 1979)

Advisory Opinion Text

Mr. Charlie L. Blalock

Executive Director

Mississippi Department of Natural Resources

700 Robert E. Lee State Office Building

Jackson, Mississippi 39201

Dear Mr. Blalock:

Attorney General Summer has received your opinion request dated October 16, 1979 and has assigned it to me for research and reply, your letter of request stating:

“Your assistance is requested in resolving a matter under consideration by this Department and the Auditor's Office.

“We have discussed with Mr. Robert Scott the possibility of reimbursing prospective employees for limited travel expenses incurred in coming to Jackson for an orientation / recruitment session. If allowable, we would use this option only for classified positions, such as engineers, that we have difficulty attracting and only after conventional recruitment actions have indicated a mutual interest. We expect, at most, twenty such occurrences each year at an average cost of $65.00 or $1, 300 yearly. We feel this is a reasonable price to pay even if only a few recruits heretofore lost are brought into State service.

“Mr. Scott agreed with the purpose of such expenditures but hesitated to approve our request because, to his knowledge, no agency has ever expended funds for this purpose and he knows of no statutory reference either allowing or disallowing such an expenditure. It was therefore his recommendation that we seek your assistance.

“If approved, we will handle such expenditures on a contractual basis with our correspondence to the candidate serving as the agreement.

“Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require additional information.”

We certainly appreciate the fact that you would be almost parsimonious in your approach, but we just find no authority for state agencies to pay the recruitment expenses you have in mind and, not being authorized, there is no authority for you to do it of which I am aware.

This is something the Legislature would need to address itself to on request in order for you to have this working tool available to you.

We thank you for giving this office this opportunity to be of assistance.

Yours very truly,

A. F. Summer, Attorney General