Press Release  South Hadley Teacher Stephanie Viens Pays $7,000 Civil Penalty for Violating Conflict of Interest Law

Boston, MA — South Hadley High School Teacher Stephanie Viens has admitted to violating the conflict of interest law by accepting travel points and thousands of dollars in stipends from a travel company for organizing school trips to Europe. She paid a $7,000 civil penalty in a Disposition Agreement approved by the State Ethics Commission on September 19 and waived her right to contest the Commission’s findings.

Beginning in 2007, Viens, as faculty advisor for the South Hadley High School Diversity/Cultural Exchange Club, organized student trips through educational travel company EF Tours and recruited students, parents and chaperones for the trips. EF Tours enrolled Viens in its rewards program as a group leader, giving her travel points and stipends based, in part, on the number of students, parents, and chaperones she recruited to go on the trips.

In a 2013 email to Viens, the South Hadley public schools business administrator raised conflict of interest concerns regarding payments from EF Tours for organizing school trips. The business administrator asked Viens to confirm that no one received money from EF Tours. Viens did not reply to the email and went on to organize additional trips and accept additional payments from the tour company. From 2013-2017, Viens received $5,530 in stipends and 4,516 in travel points from EF Tours. During that time, she redeemed the travel points for airline tickets and a European vacation.

The conflict of interest law generally prohibits public employees from accepting any valuable gifts given to them because of their public positions or in connection with any actions they perform as part of their public jobs. In addition, under the law, whenever a city or town has a direct and substantial interest in a matter, employees of the city or town generally may not be paid by anyone else in relation to that matter. Furthermore, the law generally bars municipal employees from participating in their official positions in matters involving their own financial interests. Viens violated these sections of the conflict of interest law when she accepted the travel points and stipends as a reward for organizing the trips and recruiting students, parents, and chaperones.

The State Ethics Commission is charged with civilly enforcing the conflict of interest law, G.L. c. 268A.  When three or more of the Commission’s five members vote to find reasonable cause to believe a public employee has violated the law, they can also authorize adjudicatory proceedings to determine whether the violation occurred.  The public employee then has the opportunity to enter into a public disposition agreement rather than exercising his or her right to a hearing. 

The Commission encourages public employees to contact the Commission’s Legal Division at 617-371-9500 for free advice if they have any questions regarding how the conflict of interest law may apply to them.

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