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Advisory opinion regarding the post employment restrictions to Keith Gautreau, an Infrastructure Analyst with the Office of Community Development/Disaster Recovery Unit. |
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Keith Gautreau is an Infrastructure Analyst with the Office of Community Development/Disaster Recovery Unit (OCD/DRU), reporting to the Infrastructure Director on disaster related Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding. Mr. Gautreau's duties include reviewing CDBG grant applications for compliance, reviewing CDBG grant amendments for compliance, maintaining project files for audit and review purposes, reviewing applicant payment requests for appropriate supporting material and generally advising on an array of compliance issues for the department. Mr. Gautreau retired in September 2011.
OCD/DRU has a staff supplement contract with Shaw Corporation. The Infrastructure Division currently employs four Shaw employees to supplement the efforts of OCD/DRU to ensure CDBG grant compliance for Infrastructure funds related to Hurricanes Katrina/Rita and Gustav/Ike. The Board has advised that as a Shaw employee contracted to OCD/DRU, Mr. Gautreau could not maintain a similar, non-managerial scope of work, remaining as point-of-contact for those projects he administered as a state employee.
Now, OCD/DRU management proposes that Mr. Gautreau be assigned to provide different services within a different work group. Instead of serving as a Infrastructure Analyst who review infrastructure project grant applications and pay requests to determine if the applications and pay requests demonstrate that the project and costs were eligible and that all necessary materials were submitted, Mr. Gautreau will be assigned to the agency-wide Monitoring Section. He would have the role of monitoring projects (not limited to infrastructure projects) to confirm the recipients have adhered to applicable federal regulations associated with the use of funds.
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The Board rendered an opinion to Mr. Gautreau at the August 2011 meeting regarding the application of the post employment restrictions. The Board advised that since Mr. Gautreau would be rendering the same services he rendered while employed with the Infrastructure Division through the staff supplement contract with Shaw and also assisting Shaw with the Infrastructure Division on projects Mr. Gautreau managed while employed with the Infrastructure Division, Section 1121B of the Code would prohibit his employment with OCD/DRU, Infrastructure Division, through the staff supplement contract between Shaw and OCD/DRU for a period of two years following his retirement from OCD/DRU, Infrastructure Division.
Mr. Gautreau is requesting an additional opinion on the application of the post employment restrictions if he provides different services.
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Section 1121B of the Code prohibits a public servant, for a period of two years following the termination of his public employment, from rendering any service which such former public employee rendered to the agency during the term of his public employment on a contractual basis, regardless of the parties to the contract, to, for, or on behalf of the agency with which he was formerly employed.
Section 1121B of the Code prohibits a former public servant, for two years, from assisting another person, for compensation, in a transaction in which she participated during her public employment and which involves the governmental entity.
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Adopt proposed advisory opinion.
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| Assigned Attorney: |
Tracy Barker |
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