You are currently employed on a full-time basis as a social worker in an area office of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS). Your responsibilities include supervising and overseeing the quality of casework services. You also are employed during evenings as a counselor in a program run by a private corporation (ABC). In that capacity, you provide counselling services. You state that your compensation as a counsellor at ABC is derived totally from private, third-party, non-state sources.
You wish to know if the conflict of interest law, G.L. c. 268A, limits your activities at ABC.
The Commission advises you that you may continue your employment at ABC, subject to the limitations set forth below.
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. In your capacity as a social worker for DSS, you are a state employee within the meaning of G.L. c. 268A, s.1(q). As a state employee, you are prohibited by G.L. c. 268A, s.4(a) from receiving compensation from ABC or any party other than the commonwealth in relation to any particular matter[1] in which the commonwealth or a state agency is a party or has a direct and substantial interest. The Commission has previously concluded that client referrals by a state agency to a private organization constitute particular matters of direct and substantial interest to the commonwealth in view of the responsibility of the commonwealth for the client's treatment and welfare. See, EC-COI-81-43; 80-99; 79-5. Accordingly, you may receive compensation from ABC for your consultant services related to clients who have been referred to ABC from non-state sources such as private hospitals, private businesses, municipal school systems and clients who have been self-referred since the commonwealth has no direct connection with these cases and, therefore, has no direct and substantial interest within the meaning of s.4(a). EC-COI-81-138; 80-62. However, you may not receive compensation for counselling clients whose cases have been referred to ABC by the court system, DSS, Department of Mental Health or any other state agency, since the commonwealth has a direct and substantial interest in these referrals. You should, therefore, carefully review the referral source of clients for whom you provide direct consultation and refrain from receiving compensation in accordance with the principles discussed above.
Section 6 of G.L. c. 268A is also relevant to your situation. As a state employee, you may not participate in any particular matter in which ABC or any other organization which employs you has a financial interest. Further, if such a matter comes before you at DSS which would require your participation, you must immediately "advise the official responsible for appointment to [your] position and the State Ethics Commission of the nature and circumstances of the particular matter and make full disclosure of such financial interest, and the appointing official shall thereupon either (1) assign the particular matter to another employee; or (2) assume responsibility for the particular matter; or (3) make a written determination that the interest is not so substantial as to be deemed likely to affect the integrity of the services which the commonwealth may expect from [you] to participate in the particular matter." G.L. c. 268A, s.6.
On the basis of the foregoing, the Commission advises you that you may continue your consulting arrangement with ABC subject to certain limitations.[2]
End Of Decision
