By Joe Biesk
The Associated Press

FRANKFORT - The transition team sifting the state government bureaucracy for Gov.-elect Ernie Fletcher is dotted with lobbyists and attorneys who do business with - or are handling legal cases against - the agencies they are examining.

Many are reviewing cabinets that regulate or oversee companies they represent.

"I hate to be critical of Fletcher and know he's busy, but some of these appointments he's making look like they haven't been researched very well," Richard Beliles, state chairman of the advocacy group Common Cause, said Tuesday.

Fletcher released the "transition team" roster late Monday. It includes 21 registered legislative lobbyists and four people who are registered to lobby the executive branch.

Among them is Mark F. Sommer, a tax attorney from Louisville who was assigned to help review the Revenue Cabinet. Sommer is currently representing clients in numerous cases against the cabinet.

Sommer's clients in cases before the Kentucky Board of Tax Appeals include Monumental Life Insurance Co., which is appealing the cabinet's denial of its application for a $6.7 million tax refund. Monumental also is appealing $4.1 million in state tax assessments.

Sommer did not return a call seeking comment.

"There's no conflict since he's not involved in personnel or hiring issues or decisions," Fletcher spokesman Wes Irvin said.

Beliles said Fletcher obviously wants knowledgeable people on his transition team. But a lawyer involved in litigation against the agency he is examining is "sort of like ... being able to make personnel decisions involving the other litigation team," Beliles said.

Irvin said no one on the transition team will have influence on personnel or policy decisions. Nor are they being paid or promised a job, Irvin said.

Instead they will be gathering facts about the agencies they've been assigned to and making reports back to the full transition team and the future cabinet secretaries, he said. "Anybody who thinks they're getting something in return, they're absolutely wrong because we're talking about bringing real change," Irvin said.

Cabinet secretaries are being asked to provide a list of 12 documents to transition team members, including their budget requests for the next biennium, their organization chart and a list of their agencies' personal service contracts. Transition members are also asking for lists of employees who are assigned state vehicles, summaries of pending litigation and lists of executive orders that may affect their cabinets.

They also have a list of 11 questions, Irvin said.

According to the list, transition team members ask secretaries and those who work with them to describe three "significant accomplishments" they may have had as well as to rate the overall efficiency of their cabinet.

Respondents are also asked to judge which cabinet, department agency or commission is the least effective in state government, and for specific areas of their own cabinets that could be more effective and could get by with less money.

Transition team members working at the Cabinet for Health Services, the state's health care regulatory agency, include lobbyists John McCarthy and Leigh Anne Thacker, whose clients include health care companies.

At the Department of Insurance, the transition team includes Matthew Hall, a lobbyist for Humana Inc., a Louisville-based health insurer.

Insurance Commissioner Janie Miller said she told Hall at the outset that "we needed to avoid" anything that could be viewed as a possible conflict of interest. Miller said Hall and others on the team have been careful to do just that.