| Date: | 11/24/1981 |
|---|---|
| Organization: | State Ethics Commission |
A former state employee may accept compensation for publishing an article based on expertise developed during state service. G.L. c. 268A, § 3 does not prohibit the payment because it is not given for or because of any official act performed while in state employment. Section 5 also does not apply because the subject of the article involves general legislation, which is not a particular matter under the conflict of interest law.
You served as the Assistant Secretary of a state agency (ABC) for two and one-half years until 1981. Your official responsibilities in that position included developing policy positions for the Secretary of ABC on the merits of a certain piece of proposed legislation (Legislation). In that capacity, you conducted research on the background of the Legislation and acquired an expertise in this area. Following your departure from ABC, you prepared and submitted an article to a newspapers in response to other articles which had presented a negative view of the Legislation. Your article was prepared after your departure and was based upon research which you had conducted in your prior position. The newspaper accepted and published your article and has offered to compensate you approximately two hundred dollars for the article.
You wish to know whether the conflict of interest law, G.L. c. 268A, permits you to accept the compensation.
The Commission advises you that it does.
In rendering this opinion, the Commission has relied upon the facts as you have stated them and has not made any independent investigation of those facts. When you left your position as Assistant Secretary of ABC, you became a former state employee under G.L. c. 268A. As a former state employee, you are subject to the restrictions of both G.L. c. 268A, s.s.3 and 5. G.L. c. 268A, s.3(b) provides that it is unlawful for a former state employee otherwise than as provided by law for the proper discharge of official duty, directly or indirectly and ask, demand, exact, solicit, seek, accept, receive or agree to receive anything of substantial value for himself for or because of any official act or act within his official responsibility performed or to be performed him him. You would, therefore, be prohibited from receiving anything of substantial value for or because of any official act or acts within your official responsibility performed by you while at ABC. While approximately two hundred dollars which the newspaper has offered to you would constitute something of substantial value (see, EC-COI-81-136 and cases cited therein), the Commission concludes that the compensation has not been offered to you "for or because of official acts or acts within your official responsibility" which you performed while at ABC. Although your previous responsibilities did include conducting research and preparing statements which formed the basis for your subsequent article, the compensation from the newspaper is not intended to compensate or reward your prior research or policy statements or other acts which you performed with ABC. Rather, the compensation is directed to the article which you wrote only after the completion of your employment with ABC and reflects the expertise which you acquired in your former position. Compare, EC-COI-81-131; 81-136; 81-12. On these facts, the Commission does not find a sufficient nexus between the motivation for the compensation and your public duties to warrant concluding that you would violate s.3(b). Compare, In the Matter of George A. Michael, Commission Adjudicatory Docket No. 137; Decision and Order, September 28,1981, p. 31.
Under G.L. c. 268A, s.5(a), you are prohibited from receiving compensation from someone other than the commonwealth in connection with any particular matter in which you participated while a state employee and in which the commonwealth or a state agency is a party or has a direct and substantial interest. The restrictions of s.5, however, will not apply to your receipt of compensation in connection with the legislation since the enactment involves legislation which is general rather than special in nature and is, therefore, not a "particular matter"[1] within the meaning of G.L. c. 268A, s.1(k). Compare, EC-COI-81-81. See, generally, EC-COI-79-95; Attorney General Conflict Opinion Nos. 724, 692.
Accordingly, the Commission advises you that you may accept the compensation from the newspaper for the article which you submitted regarding the Legislation.
End Of Decision
