Atlanta auditor advises Hartsfield-Jackson to avoid potential conflicts of interest

Hartsfield-Jackson officials said there was no conflict because the two did not make decisions on airport projects on behalf of the city or Delta as part of their mandate on the committees .

The auditor’s report said he referred the matter to the ethics office, which is currently reviewing the matter. The auditor’s report also recommends Nissalke seek advice from the ethics office when potential conflicts arise.

The city of Atlanta has ethics rules that require city employees to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

The ethics office advised in 2019 that Nissalke should disclose his wife Kristi’s position at Delta to his superiors, and that Nissalke should recuse himself from any decisions on any projects involving his wife and contact his superiors and the ethics office if he is not sure he needs to recuse himself.

Nissalke said he has been “totally transparent” and disclosing his relationships with others who work with them as well as airport management and supervisors.

“We go to a lot of meetings together,” he said, but there are other people at the meetings and “we just make recommendations,” representing their respective employers. The airport’s project implementation committee is chaired by the airport’s top executive, Balram Bheodari, and Delta’s managing director of corporate real estate, Melissa White, who is Kristi’s senior Nissalke.

The report does not mention any specific cases in which real conflicts of interest could have arisen.

Auditor comments included in report on several airport contracts and policies and procedures to follow best practices in capital project management.

In another case, Hartsfield-Jackson Ground Transportation Director Tracy Harrison was fined $2,000 by the ethics office this year after recommending her son for a job at MTI Limo and Shuttle Services, which has a contract overseen by Harrison to manage curbside management at the airport.

MTI was officially awarded the contract in 2019, Harrison’s son was hired later that year and MTI was awarded a two-year contract renewal in 2022 in a process managed by Harrison, the report said from the ethics office. During the period under review, Harrison failed to disclose to the city that her son was employed by MTI while she managed MTI’s contract, in violation of the city’s ethics code, according to the ethics office .

“I never thought there would be an ethics issue,” Harrison said during an appeal hearing before the ethics committee. The ethics committee confirmed the decision on the sanction in March.

Harrison said there has been no conflict since his son’s employment with MTI ended last summer. Before that, the ethics office said in its report that regardless of Harrison’s intentions, “the seller felt pressure or influence” to withhold his son.

The airport offered MTI’s sidewalk management contract for another two-year renewal, but the resolution was put on hold Wednesday by the Atlanta City Council’s transportation committee over concerns about an increase in value of the contract.