Conflicts of interest.

Existing law prohibits members of the Legislature, and state, county, district, judicial district, and city officers or employees, from being financially interested in a contract, as specified, made by them in their official capacity or by any body or board of which they are members, subject to specified exceptions. Existing law prohibits an officer or employee from being deemed to have an interest in a contract if the person's interest is one of certain types. This bill would prohibit an officer or employee from being deemed interested in a contract, as described above, if the interest is that of an engineer, geologist, architect, landscape architect, land surveyor, or planner, performing specified services on a project, including preliminary design and preconstruction services, when proposing to perform services on a subsequent portion or phase of the project, if the work product for prior phases is publicly available. This exception to being deemed interested in a contract would not apply to a design-build contract for a public works project. The bill would provide that these provisions do not limit public agencies from establishing more restrictive conflict of interest requirements applicable to these services.