| Advisory opinion request regarding whether Dr. Monique Attuso may maintain her employment with RKM Primary Care Clinic while she is employed with the Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System. |
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Dr. Monique Attuso is employed with the Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System (ELMHS). She is a physician employed full-time with ELMHS, an agency operating through the Department of Health and Hospitals, Office of Behavioral Health. She is also employed by RKM Primary Care Clinic (RKM), a federally qualified rural health center, where she provides primary care services to clients who reside in the surrounding community. ELMHS would like to enter into a Professional Services Contract with RKM to provide primary care services to clients that reside at its transitional facility. Dr. Attuso is a salaried employee with RKM and she would receive no financial compensation from any contract between RKM and ELMHS. Dr. Attuso holds no ownership interest in RKM or any of its affiliates and she is not an officer, director, trustee or partner of RKM or any of its affiliates.
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La. R.S. 42:1111C(2)(d) prohibits a public servant or her spouse from receiving any thing of economic value from a person that has a contractual or other business or financial relationship with the public servant's agency.
BD 82-02D allows a public servant or her spouse to maintain employment, which is otherwise prohibited by Section 1111C(2)(d), if the following conditions are met: (1) the employee is a salaried or wage-earning employee; (2) the employee's salary is substantially unaffected by the contractual relationship; (3) the employee owns less than a "controlling interest" in the company; and (4) the employee is neither an officer, director, trustee, nor partner in the company.
La. R.S. 42:1112B(3) provides that that no public servant shall participate in a transaction involving the governmental entity in which to his actual knowledge any person of which he is an officer, director, trustee, partner or employee has a substantial economic interest.
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Adopt the proposed advisory opinion.
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| Assigned Attorney: |
Jennifer Land |
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