City of Lawrence tightens its policy on holiday gifts

Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., Thursday, July 7, 2016

It’s the season of tri-section popcorn buckets and gift baskets, but under a new policy, the City of Lawrence will not be accepting many of those gifts.

City departments sometimes get holiday gifts from vendors they do business with, but the city manager’s office has let it be known that the policy applies to those gifts as well, said city spokeswoman Megan Gilliland. For the first holiday season under the policy, the city has been donating holiday gifts it receives to local charities.

The city gets everything from popcorn to fruit baskets to poinsettias, and, when applicable, will be donating the items to food pantries or other local organizations.

“We get a big box of apples every year,” Gilliland said. “… We donated those to Just Food, since they’re perishable.”

In addition to gifts from vendors, employees sometimes get gifts from residents. Gilliland said employees who work in public safety and solid waste tend to get the most gifts from residents, and they are allowed to keep some of those — such as cookies that could be shared throughout the department. But Gilliland said they aren’t allowed to accept cash, gift certificates or alcohol.

The city’s Gifts and Gratuities Policy was updated in December of last year, and it doesn’t reference holiday gifts specifically. But City Manager Tom Markus, who began his position in March, provided specific direction on how the policy would apply.

“We updated it knowing that whoever was named city manager, we’d want to come back and ask them to give us their direction specifically on this,” Gilliland said. “And so, that came this year.”

Those who do send their season’s greetings in the form of a present will get a thank-you note and will have their gift returned if practical, according to Assistant City Manager Casey Toomay. Toomay said the note will also ask that they refrain from sending gifts to the city in the future and instead consider a donation to a charity of their choice.

The policy is part of the city’s employee handbook, and states that employees are prohibited from accepting gifts and gratuities at any time. The policy states that accepting pens, calendars or other “incidental items” used for advertising is OK. Meals or other meeting-related items for the purpose of conducting or discussing official business are also acceptable.

Gilliland, though, said appropriate gifts from residents are still appreciated.

“We’re grateful for the appreciation of our residents for what we do,” Gilliland said. “We’re public servants and we want to provide a great public service. We appreciate them saying thank you or giving the crews or public safety a basket of cookies or something like that. We just really want to be very clear about gifts that are cash, gift cards and specifically alcohol.”