tool name

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008

Inquiry asked into ex-Fletcher aide

DUCKER NOW WORKING AS A LOBBYIST

FRANKFORT -- State officials have asked an ethics panel to investigate a high-ranking official in former Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration.

The Transportation Cabinet denied a request by the Herald-Leader for a copy of the cabinet's complaint against former Deputy Secretary Crystal Murray Ducker.

The documents can't be released under state law because the Executive Branch Ethics Commission "is actively involved in an investigation," according to a letter received Tuesday by the newspaper.

The letter did not provide any details about the potential inquiry and the ethics commission does not speak about potential investigations, said Executive Director Jill LeMaster.

Ducker, who left the cabinet just before Gov. Steve Beshear's inauguration in December, is now a lobbyist and public relations director for R.J. Corman Railroad Group in Nicholasville, which has multiple contracts with the Transportation Cabinet.

State ethics laws ban former employees from lobbying for a year on behalf of any company with which they were "directly involved" during their last three years as a state worker. The same laws also ban former state officers, which includes deputy secretaries, from seeking employment for six months from a company that had state business in which the employee was "directly involved."

Ducker said she has thoroughly researched and followed the state's ethics code and has not been notified of any investigation by the ethics commission.

"I'm more than confident that I had no direct or indirect involvement of any type with R.J. Corman," Ducker said in an interview last week.

Ducker also said she didn't directly supervise anyone involved with Corman contracts.

The railroad company was awarded three contracts worth about $743,000 last year, including a $500,000 payout from the cabinet's Highway Construction Contingency Account for improvements to a train tunnel in Frankfort.

Former transportation secretary Bill Nighbert, who is now an adviser to Republican Senate President David Williams, said Tuesday that Ducker had nothing to do with the payment from the contingency account, which was authorized by the 2006 General Assembly.

"She wasn't involved in any of that," Nighbert said. "I never discussed anything related to Corman with her."

Ducker was also the subject of a recently released report by the cabinet's Office of Inspector General, which found that eight state transportation workers suspended last year for allegedly misusing the Internet are the apparent victims of retaliation by Ducker. That report was also forwarded to the Executive Branch Ethics Commission.

The allegations of Internet misuse were based on faulty information, a fact known by cabinet officials months before the suspensions were handed out last summer, according to a Jan. 30 report from the cabinet's Office of Inspector General.

The report also indicates that Ducker may have improperly withheld from the Herald-Leader documents relating to Internet usage reports of employees in former Secretary Bill Nighbert's office.

Ducker denied those allegations in an interview Tuesday, saying she was simply trying to address "productivity issues" and "poor quality of work."

She said Internet usage reports clearly showed that some workers were shopping at stores like Talbot's and on eBay for "extremely inappropriate" items such as "used panty hose."

"I know what occurred," she said. "There was absolutely nothing that occurred that wasn't reviewed by an attorney."

However, the inspector general's report noted that Ducker insisted on suspending the workers even though she was told by multiple officials that the actions were not defensible if appealed to the Kentucky Personnel Board.