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B-184705 1 (1975-09-04)

handle is hein.gao/gaobadbht0001 and id is 1 raw text is: DIGEr - NO CIRCULATION 6 COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES WASHINGTON. D.C. 20548 B184705 SEP 4 1975 The Honorable howard W. Cannon Chairman, Committee on Rules and Administration United States Senate Dear Mr. Chairman: By letter dated August 11, 1975, you requested our views concerning a legal issue which has arisen in the Committee's consideration of the nomination of Dr. Daniel J. Boorstin to be Librarian of Congress. You state that several employees of the National Museum of History and Technology of the Smithsonian Institution, who were paid as Federal employees with appropriated funds, spent a substantial amount of their regular work days over a period of several years doing research and manuscript typing for Dr. Booratino the Museum Director, who was paid by privately endowed funds and not as a Federal employee. The purpose of such work was to help complete a book manuscript which had been contracted for by a private publishing company.for which the author, Dr. Boorstin, would be compensated monetarily by royalties. You request our views on the legality of using employees paid by Federal funds for a private purpose, namely, assisting in the research and preparation of a manuscript for an individual who was not within the Federal service insofar as his compensation coming from privately endowed funds, with the results of this work by federally paid em- ployees benefitting this individual financially and with honors. (Dr. Booratin's work earned him the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1974.) It is fundamental that appropriations provided by the Congress may be used only for the objects for which the appropriations are made and for Ao others. Section 3678, Revised Statutes, 31 U.S.C. 5 628 (1970). No provision appears in the appropriations to the Smithsonian Institution which either expressly or by reasonable and direct impli- cation authorizes the use of those funds to assist an employee thereof in a private revenue earning venture. Moreover, the work product of Federal employees becomes the propeyty of the United States. See, for example, 17 U.S.C. I 8 (1970). These principles, however, would not appear to be applicable to the instant situation. lgk

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