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KEVIN BLANCHAD
Dec 20, 2007

Councilman-elect Kenneth Boudreaux cannot hold office and keep his job at the 15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, according to a recent opinion of the state Attorney General’s Office.

Boudreaux, who is the youth services and program director for the District Attorney’s Office, said Wednesday he was still digesting the opinion and would seek legal advice on what his next move should be. “We’re not going to do anything that’s unethical or against the law,” Boudreaux said.

Attorney general’s opinions are merely advice. It would take someone to file a civil complaint — either the Attorney General’s Office, district attorney or a citizen — and for a judge to rule against Boudreaux. Boudreaux, who requested the opinion after he was elected, said he will hold onto the council seat no matter what happens.

His options might be to find a legal way to also stay on at the District Attorney’s Office, or find a new job — anything short of being unemployed, Boudreaux said. “I can’t take my wife and three children on a council salary,” Boudreaux said. Councilmen are paid $22,791 in salary.

In summary, the attorney general’s opinion says that because the City-Parish Council provides some of the District Attorney’s Office funding — and approves part of its budget — that both jobs are “incompatible.” “You, in your capacity as police juror, would essentially vote to fund your employment with the district attorney’s office,” according to the opinion.

This spring, Boudreaux received two opinions from the Louisiana Board of Ethics saying that the Code of Governmental Ethics would not prohibit him from serving in both offices, as long as he disclosed his conflict of interest and could swear under oath his vote was fair and objective.

But the Louisiana Board of Ethics only issues rulings on the Code of Governmental Ethics, not other state laws, like the dual office-holding statutes. Boudreaux said he’d researched prior attorney general opinions and found some that seemed to support him holding both jobs.

State law generally prohibits elected officials from being employed by the same political subdivision they represent.

But district attorney’s offices are a separate political subdivision from a local governing body like the City-Parish Council. In 1995, based on that reasoning, the Attorney General’s Office opined that it would be okay for a district attorney’s office employee to serve as a police juror.

However, another section of the law prohibits holding two “incompatible” offices — where one office has authority over the other’s audit, funding or budgeting. Based on that, the Attorney General’s Office recalled the 1995 opinion.

In 2006, the Attorney General’s Office issued an opinion to a newly elected police juror in Bossier Parish who was the information technologies manager for the Bossier Parish District Attorney’s Office that he could not hold both offices at once, because they were incompatible.

Boudreaux’s opinion mirrors and references the 2006 opinion.

Dual office-holding laws make no provisions for an elected official to merely recuse himself from voting on matters related to his other job, the most recent opinion says. Boudreaux and the other councilmen are scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 7.

Boudreaux said the opinion tells him what he can’t do, but doesn’t give him any possible options. He said he’s considering writing back to get more clarification. Boudreaux’s job at the District Attorney’s Office involves working with children through the judicial system, such as the truancy or pre-trial diversion programs. It’s rewarding work that Boudreaux said he’d be reluctant to leave.

“My heart is certainly there,” Boudreaux said. “I will certainly do everything I can to stay on, certainly within legal means.”

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