04/06/2002

By AP Staff

To go or not to go? It seems nobody is really sure.

Christopher Dudley, executive director of the Oregon School Boards Association, went. He accepted a trip for him and his girlfriend to the Winter Olympics.

Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon paid for the five-day trip. Regence insures 200 school districts in Oregon through a contract with the school boards association renewed annually since 1973.

The health insurer collected $200 million from school districts last year.

The executive director of the Oregon School Boards Association accepted a trip to the Olympics that now has raised questions. (AP Photo)

School board organizations in some states are public agencies that can accept only modest gifts. In others, the groups are nonprofit corporations that avoid gifts from vendors.

In Oregon, it raises the issue of whether the association is a public agency governed by the state's ethics laws. "That's never been answered," Dudley said.

John Osburn, the association's attorney, can't say either. "I don't want to comment on questions that I haven't been asked by the client," he said.

The association represents 198 school districts, 21 education service districts and 17 community college districts.

Dudley said there was no connection between the trip and his association's contract with Regence. Regence gave the trip out of "client appreciation," he said.

Dudley, who has run the association since 1986, said Osburn advised him beforehand that it was legal.

His girlfriend, Renee Sessler, accompanied him. She serves on the Reynolds School Board and is on the board of the school boards association.

Sessler said she went to the Olympics as Dudley's friend, not as a public official.

"There's no scandal. There's nothing illegal. Chris is a man of high integrity," Sessler said.

Dudley and Sessler said the Regence gift included round-trip airfare to Salt Lake City, lodging, at least one meal a day, and tickets to Olympic events.

Dudley says he doesn't know the value of the trip. "I didn't even ask," he said.

Jet Set Sports, the travel company with the contract to sell Olympic packages, said its four-day package at the same time and in the same area where Dudley stayed cost $9,080 a couple.

The school boards association negotiates the health insurance contract for its members, which Regence said allows districts to get better prices. It is approved separately.

Dudley said an association officer, Jennifer Heiss, asked him to check the legality of the trip before he went.

"I just wondered if it was the right thing to do," Heiss said.

Other state associations tightly control gifts from vendors.

Texas has a "very strict policy" limiting gifts from vendors, said Barbara Williams, an education association spokeswoman.

The Idaho School Boards Association doesn't accept gifts from vendors.

In Washington, school districts work through regional districts to arrange insurance. In California, school districts are on their own.

Dudley said Osburn told him the trip was legal because he isn't a public employee restricted by Oregon's ethics laws.

L. Patrick Hearn, executive director of the state ethics agency, said the school boards association never asked whether it was bound by the ethics laws.

Hearn said Dudley and Sessler could both be subject to the state's limit on gifts if the school boards association is declared a public agency.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)