DoD lists generally permitted employment during the deferred resignation period as: retail sales, tutoring, substitute teaching, childcare services, food/beverage/hospitality positions, ride share driver, or exercise instructor. Image: Tada Images/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThose on paid administrative leave after having accepted the Trump administration’s “deferred resignation” offer remain subject to federal employment ethics laws and rules, the central DoD ethics office has cautioned.
“During this time, just as with any other leave status, DoD personnel remain subject to the federal ethics rules, criminal conflict of interest statutes, the Hatch Act, and DoD supplemental ethics rules and policies regarding engaging in outside employment and outside activities,” it says.
While parts of the guidance apply only to DoD employees, most applies to employees of other agencies, as well, since it is based on guidance DoD received from the Office of Government Ethics. An estimated at 75,000 government-wide took the offer of resigning with an effective date as late as September 30 on the promise of continued pay and benefits until then. DoD accounts for about a third of the federal workforce outside the Postal Service, which was excluded from the offer.
Included are restrictions on acceptance of gifts from persons or entities that have or seek a business relationship with the agency; requirements for disclosure if seeking a job with such an entity; obligations to make financial disclosures, for those subject to them; restrictions on representing a non-federal entity, employer, or client before any federal agency or court; and more.
The guidance goes into detail in one area of potentially top concern to employees in deferred resignation, outside employment. In a posting on the program whose window is now closed, OPM said this in answer to the question “Am I allowed to get a second job during the deferred resignation period?”:
“Absolutely! We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so. The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.” (Many employees found that demeaning, with an implication that federal work is not as valuable as private sector work.)
The DoD cautions, though, to seek guidance from the designated ethics officer before performing certain types of work. That includes consulting-type work for an entity doing business with the government; teaching, speaking, or writing dealing “in significant part” with agency policies, programs, or operations; or “working on any particular matter involving specific parties in which the individual participated at any time during their federal service or that fell within the individual’s official responsibility in the previous year.”
It says, though, that outside employment that is generally permitted includes work for companies whose interests were not affected by the employee’s decision-making authority in the last year; and those that have no relationship with the government other than a general obligation to comply with laws.
Its list of generally permitted employment during the deferred resignation period is: “retail sales, tutoring, substitute teaching, childcare services (ethics advice recommended for federal childcare centers), food/beverage/hospitality positions, ride share driver, or exercise instructor.”
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