Former Kansas Corrections Secretary Joe Norwood is facing an ethics complaint for taking a job with a state prison contractor hired to build a new prison in Lansing.
Norwood is accused of going to work for CoreCivic of Kansas in violation of a law barring state officials from taking a job at a company they did business with as a state employee.
State ethics law bars state employees from going to work for the contractor within two years of leaving their job or two years from the end of the contract, whichever is sooner.
In this case, the complaint charges that Norwood — doing business as JLN Consulting Services — took a job with CoreCivic sometime between Feb. 13 and Nov. 15 last year.
A year earlier, Norwood had signed a lease agreement with CoreCivic for $362 million over 20 years, state officials said.
The ethics complaint focuses on an amendment to the lease agreement signed June 1, 2018.
The lease amendment related to early occupancy of a building and personal property purchases.
Norwood could not be reached for this story. A hearing for him is set for March 25.
A spokeswoman for CoreCivic sad that Norwood has served as an independent contractor for the company since January 2019.
“Based on Norwood’s 32 years of experience with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, his scope of work is supporting the management and oversight of some of our federal contract facilities,” Amanda Gilchrist said in an email.
“This includes observing and auditing operations, providing recommendations and coaching staff,” she said.
Gilchrist said the company did not retain Norwood as a consultant because of the Lansing contract.
The Lansing prison contract, approved just before Gov. Sam Brownback left office, was viewed skeptically by lawmakers who questioned whether the lease-purchase arrangement was the best deal for the state.
Under the terms of the agreement, the state would make a lease payment of about $15 million in the first year with increases of 1.94% annually.
The total 20-year cost will be $362 million before the state assumes ownership of the 2,400-bed prison.
The Brownback administration had estimated that the new prison would need less staffing, saving the state enough money to make the yearly lease payments.
However, new Gov. Laura Kelly’s interim corrections secretary last year questioned whether the design of the new Lansing prison would yield significant savings for the state.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Roger Werholtz said the new prison would be more efficient than the existing facility, but he was dubious about whether it would save as much as projected.
Kelly — a state senator at the time the prison contract was approved — told The AP she thought the state was “hoodwinked” into hiring CoreCivic into building the new prison on the premise that it would save money by requiring fewer employees.
