DOD ethics officers warn of interest conflicts from insourcing

Officials will have to monitor potential conflicts closely as new feds work near their old jobs, ethics officers say.

June 10, 2010

The Code of Federal Regulations bars federal employees from getting deeply involved in situations where they could influence a decision in favor of someone they worked for during the past year. The employees may have to recuse themselves if they have knowledge of the relevant facts that could call into question their impartiality in a situation, the officers wrote.

Defense Department ethics officers are warning officials about conflicts of interest that could soon follow when the officials hire contractors as employees through insourcing.

“The problem is they are often being hired to perform duties related to their former contract employers,” the officers wrote June 7 in a newsletter updated regularly by DOD’s Standards of Conduct Office.

The new DOD employees likely will oversee support contractor employees, evaluate contract’s performance, or issue task orders on their former employer’s contract, the ethics officials wrote.

“This raises conflict-of-interest concerns,” they wrote.