Reading Room Document

Employment Status of "Volunteers" Connected with Federal Advisory Committees

The Department of Commerce may employ volunteers as consultants to the President's Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 3109, as long as the services involved are temporary or intermittent, and purely advisory in nature. It must also be clearly understood that such volunteers expect no governmental compensation. Federal agencies ordinarily may not accept voluntary services or other donations in the absence of express statutory authority, and volunteers should not in any case be used on a broad scale or to accomplish tasks ordinarily performed by paid government employees. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/22961/download.

February 25, 1982