Advisory Opinion No. 1993-15
Effect Of Merger Of State
Agencies On One-Year
Prohibition Against Appearing
Before Former Agency
Under §1-84b(b), no former executive branch or quasi-public agency public official or state employee may, for one year after leaving state service, represent anyone, other than the state, for compensation before the department, agency, board, commission, council or office in which he served at the time of his termination of service, concerning any matter in which the state has a substantial interest. In its 1993 session, the General Assembly passed legislation which will combine DIM and several other agencies to form a new Department of Social Services. The question then arises, if the former employees department or agency no longer exists in its original form, to what entity, if any, does the one-year ban apply?
Although the agency may no longer exist as an independent
entity, if the people who made up the old agency are still employed by the
state, performing the same or similar work, then the purpose of §1-84b(b) must
still be served. That purpose is to
provide a cooling-off period to prevent contact that may result in
preferential treatment by virtue of the individuals former status at the
agency in question. Whether or not the
matter involved is one with which the individual had contact as a public
employee is irrelevant. The undue
influence guarded against is that which results from mere association with the
former agency. Report to the General
Assembly by the Codes of Ethics Study Committee,
Therefore, with regard to the specific question raised, if,
after the reorganization, DIM as a whole is easily discernible as a division of
the new super agency, DSS, then the former DIM employee is prohibited from
appearing before only that division of DSS.
If, however, as appears to be the case, the functions and subdivisions
of DIM are intertwined with those of the
other agencies involved in order to form the new agency, then the one-year ban
of §1-84b(b) will apply to DSS as a whole.
This is so even though the former employees particular subdivision or
unit might be readily identifiable, since the one-year ban applies to all of
DIM and not to the employees former unit alone. See, for example, Advisory Opinion No.
87-11, 49 Conn. L.J. No. 10, p. 1C (
By order of the Commission,
Christopher T. Donohue
Chairperson