Joe Reitz, retired Kansas University business professor and co-founder of KU’s International Center for Ethics in Business, will take questions about recent corporate scandals, the need for emphasizing ethics in business, and what the KU center is doing to foster good workplace behavior. He’ll also discuss his latest venture, having started this month as unpaid chief executive officer of The LEO Center, which provides medical care for uninsured area residents, among other services.

rhd99

Mr. Reitz, what, in your view, needs to change so that company executives do not receive pay hikes, but pay cuts, when their companies fail to perform based on expectations? Thanks.

Moderator

Hello. I’m Mark Fagan, business editor for the Journal-World, 6News and World Online. Thanks for joining us for today’s chat with Joe Reitz. He has arrived here at The News Center, and we’ll be beginning the chat shortly.

Moderator

Now we’ll start the chat.
Thanks for joining us today, Professor Reitz.

justthefacts

Aren’t business ethics pretty easy? Follow the laws imposed by government make money seem to be the short cut through all the other nuances.

What do you think about the ethics of corporations that enter into contracts (and later pay under that contract) with CEO’s who will make millions (if not billions) because they get fired prior to termination of the agreement? Aren’t these “Golden calves” just one more way that the price of the product/service being sold to the consumer is inflated beyond what it would otherwise be worth in the free market? I am pretty sure that Aynn Rand did not have that type of capatilist in mind when she wrote “Atlas Shrugged”!

Joe Reitz

Firat, law and ethics are two different systems>
The goal of law is to have social order. The purpose of ethics is to help one lead a good life. Law is, theoretically at least, impersonal. Ethics are by nature personal. So we can’t expect that laws will be ethical; we could hope that ethics help us create and enforce laws that lead to good. In reality, they don’t.

Second, any system that is designed to reward people (like CEO’s) for actions contrary to the good of those who have entrusted their propsects to them (like shareholders, employees, customers) is seriously flawed. The same observations you make could also be applied to sports and other entertainment enterprises, like intercollegiate athletics.

erik584

Professor Reitz –

I’m a former student of yours. I hope you are enjoying retirement. I was curious as to if you belive that after the sentence that Mr. Skilling and others have received that this will curb corporate scandles like those at Enron, Worldcom, etc?

Erik Hansey

Moderator

This next question regards The LEO Center, where Professor Reitz recently started work as chief executive officer, after working 18 years as a business professor at Kansas University.

Joe Reitz

Eric: I have just “unretired” and am now the CEO of the Leo Center in Lawrence. See the Journal World Sunday business section for that story.
The sentences that Skilling and others receive will be deterrents to them and may encourage others to be less reckless in their positions. It may also encourage the public in heneral to have hogher expectations about the way those in power behave. But power, money and sex will always be strong temptations to which some pwoplw will succumb. That’s why my approach to ethics in the classroom has always been for students to understand their own weaknesses and the tempations they will face, and to use a personal ethics code to help protect them from engaging in things that will cost them their jobs, respect, and freedom.
Society can and does play a role in our behaving ethically; ultimately, we are are last and best resort against moral failure.

graciegirl

How is the Leo Center different from Health Care Access?

Joe Reitz

Lawrence is fortunate to have two clinics that cater to the health care needs of those who are uninsured or underinsured. Health Care Acccess if funded, amomg other things, by government money and is largely staffed by local volunteers in health care such as physicians, physician assistans, nurses, etc. They do a great job and enjoy great support from LMH.
The Leo Center is only a few years old. We are funded by six churches and private donations. Our physician is there three days a week all day, and we have a full-tim RN. Being a Chrisitian organization, our mission is different from HCA: to transform lives by providing hope to those in need. We have a food pantry, pregnancy services, benevolence program, and biblical counseling service. Oor goal is to change lives as well as provide healing to help people improve their lives and give them hope for eternal life.
We are working with HCA to complement each other. We serve about 4,000 patients a year; ther are currently 14,000 uninsured people in Lawrence and thousands of others in the county. There is more work than both clinics can handle, so we need to figure out how we can help each other in our respective missions.

Fibromyalga

First, I think it’s wonderful what you are doing at the Leo Center Mr. Reitz. I was wondering if you could expand on the ultrasound training part from your article? What would that do for Lawrence and the clinic?

Joe Reitz

We already have an ultrasound machine and personnel trained to use it with women who are pregnant. But we could also use it to diagnose patients who have or are have indications of abdominal problems. Many of our patients can’t afford such diagnoses. With training, we could provide early diagnoses of problems from ulcers to liver, the refer them to specialists if further treatment is needed.
We have located a training program that would come to Lawrence and provide such training at a considerable savings. The total costs for a two-week program would be around $7100. If we can find the funding, we could start the training in January.

CC

I read in the Journal-World article yesterday that the Leo Center provides some pregnancy services, what type of services do you offer?

Joe Reitz

Advocacy Pregnancy Services is located in out facility and provides free pregnancy tests, assistance for expecting families such as free maternity and baby clothing, adoption counseling, ultrasound views of the unborn child (one mother recently discovered that her child was in fact twins. APC also provides post-abortion counseling and healing, STD education, and medical referrals. Through a system of long0time volunteers, they are open five days each week.

Moderator

We received a couple questions about The LEO Center’s financing. How much do you rely on private donations, and how do you go about soliciting those? I know that Christian Moody is now working part-time at the center, handling public relations and also serving as development director. How will his presence — and his standing as a former Kansas University basketball player — help those efforts?

Joe Reitz

We are largely funded through donations. The six founding churches each contribute a monthly amount, other individuals in the surrounding area (including Topeka and Kansas City) make generous donations, and churches provide our volunteer corps. We also earn some money from clients who can afford to pay something or who have some form of insurance like Medicare. We are actively working to obtain grants, especailly for health care to those in greatest need, and Christian Foundations.
Christian Moody’s role is to rasie our visibility in the community, to develop and strengthen our relationships, and to help us raise funds. He has many contacts through his athletic career and his Christiand fellwoship. He recently helped bring several current KU BB players to our Leo Center Fun Fair. He has organized a leaf-raking project on weekends to take care of that chore for folks in Lawrence who are unable to do it themselves. He will soon appear in a short public service announcement on Channel Six about what the Leo Center offers as the Christmas season apporaches. He is a very talented, intelligent, and willing servant to the Center and to othe greater community.

Moderator

We’ll switch back to some questions regarding business ethics. For those who may not be familiar with other past work of Professor Reitz, he is a co-founder and board member for the International Center for Ethics in Business at KU, and continues to be active in raising money for the effort.

Rhoen

Professor Reitz, don’t you think that putting the words “business” and “ethics” together where KU business school is concerned might be somewhat of a contradiction in terms? Wasn’t imprisoned former KPL head honcho, David Wittig, not only a KU b-school alum, but actually an honored guest speaker at one of the large annual events? If a course in business ethics is not currently required for KU MBA students, would you agree that it should be? And, finally, do you think that if David Wittig had TAKEN such a course, the rate-payers in Kansas would be much happier than they are now?

Joe Reitz

It is precisely because of the failures of many prominent Kansans, including KU grads, that we intensified our efforts to reach our students and to prepare them for the dangers and temptations they would face. A few years ago I had a KU alum talk about his experiences in federal prison to our MBAs. He had their complete attention. The KLU School of Business requires that all MBAs take our etics course early in their programs. Faculty in other disciplines in the School have been trained to incorporate ethics into their regular courses such as marketing, finance, and international business. All our students and faculty are governed by a code of ethics which is overseen by an Honor Council of faculty and students. Cases of academic dishonesty are heard and sanctioned by an Honor Court.
So the School is currently doing a lot in this area to reduce the likelihood that future graduates will abuse their positions and ruin their lives and those of people who depend on them, including their families.

meadow

How extensive is the problem of people without health insurance, both in Lawrence, and in Douglas County?

meadow

If people cannot afford health insurance, doesn’t Medicaid or Medicare take care of them?

Joe Reitz

The Douglas County Health Care Initiative estimates that we have 14,000 uninsured people inlawrence and another several thousand in the area. When you add in those who are underinsured (have catastrophic insurance but nothing else, for example) the problem is more than the Leo Center and Health Care Access can handle. One result is that local hospitals are burdened with people who need help but cannot pay. Another is that many people, including their children, go untreated and become even sicker and more expensive and difficult to treat. While many people are calling for the government to provide health care access for all, HCA and the Leo Center are providing such help as we can now. We can’t solve the problem, but we can alleviate it. If universal health care comes, it will be a long time coming. The people we and HCA treat can’t wait…and neither can Lawrence.

evansmom

You mention in Sunday’s article about the the LEO Cetner a budget figure of $1 million. What is the current operating budget? Where does the money come from and how will it be spent?

Joe Reitz

Our current operating budget is about $345,00O for the operating year. This goes largely for staff (about $160,000) and operating expenses like rent, supplies, utilities, etc. Our administrative expenses are minimal. I want to provide services that, are curent market value, would be worth in excess of one million dollars by 2008. Thaty would mean adding three FTE counselors, and moremediacal staff so that we could operate the clinic five days a week. But that doesn’t mean we ned that mcuh money — much of that could be donations to time and services of medical volunteers and couseling staff, and grants to help us offer new programs. We do not need to expand our facilities, we jsut need to learn how to do our jobs more effeciently and effectively and to work with others to improve the lives of those who most need our help.

Moderator

Thank you, Professor Reitz, for taking time to answer questions today through our online chat. For people who may be interested in learning more about The LEO Center, what would be the best way to get more information?

Moderator

That’s it for now. Our next online chat will featre Sue Hack, a retired Lawrence educator and current Lawrence city commissioner, as she takes questions about all things municipal — and otherwise. You can submit questions now, and the chat is scheduled to begin at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, right here at www.ljworld.com/chats.

Joe Reitz

You can find more about us at www.leocenter.com or reach us by phone at 841-7297. We are located one the ground floor at the east end of Riverfront Plaza at 6th and New Hampshire.
If anyone has ideas about how we and HCA can reach more of those in need, we’d apprecaite that input. Many of our clients and potential clients don’t read the newspaper, watch the news. or engage in chat lines. They need to know what we can do for them and how to get that help.