He’s gone.

Gerald Bedrick, the onetime insurance man from East Greenwich who became a poster child for a Senate inquiry into the Carcieri administration’s use of a private employment agency to fill hundreds of state jobs, resigned last week from his dual roles as a high-paid consultant to the Department of Administration and the “public” member of the agency’s three-member contract-review committee.

In a April 2 letter to Governor Carcieri, Bedrick wrote: “While I have done a good job and have always felt that I represented the public interest, I am aware that certain members of the General Assembly have alleged that since I am a consultant that does work for the state, there could be a perception in the mind of some members of the public that I might be influenced by my working relationships as a member of the Architectural, Engineering and Consultant Services Selection Committee.

“While this has never happened, and my record would indicate this, I am mindful that often perception is more important than reality. Therefore, I reluctantly resign.”

He suggested his experience might make others “who want to change the way the state does business” less likely to volunteer to serve on state boards and commissions.

Bedrick’s circumstances were not the usual, however.

On the state’s temporary employment payroll since October 2005, Bedrick had what has been described as a $45.94-an-hour job managing the transition to the state’s new financial-accounting system while serving on the committee that screens applicants for millions of dollars in state contracts.

Appointed and kept in this latter role by Carcieri, even after he went to work for the state as a contract employee at a pay rate equivalent to $83,610 a year, Bedrick has in recent months voted to recommend firms for a $200-an-hour State House lobbying contract with the Board of Governors for Higher Education, a $1.5-million Strategic Highway Safety Plan for the Department of Transportation, a three-year advertising and public relations campaign relating to storm water management and a $278,959 contract for an automated driver license testing system. His term expired in January, but he was allowed to continue to serve.

The contract review committee was one of the stabs at reform that came out of the corruption-plagued DiPrete years when, as eventually came to light, contracts, campaign contributions and, in some cases, illegal payoffs were closely linked. Former Gov. Edward D. DiPrete pleaded guilty to racketeering, extortion and bribery and went to prison.

Bedrick did not respond to repeated inquiries over several days after the Senate Committee on Government Oversight began to focus on the administration’s initial use of DataLogic Consulting and its subsequent no-bid award of a $7-million- to $11-million contract last September to the private employment agency Smart Staffing Service, which took its place in supplying him as well as hundreds of others. (He did not participate in that vote.)

Asked at one point whether the governor or any of his top lieutenants ever shared their views on big state contracts with Bedrick, Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said: “You asked if the governor or other administration officials influence how Mr. Bedrick votes on the committee. The answer is no. Nobody has ever instructed Mr. Bedrick how to vote on any issue. That includes Governor Carcieri, Director [Beverly] Najarian and [Chief of Staff] Brian Stern.”

But Neal provided a memo suggesting Bedrick deserves a share of the credit for some contract-review committee decisions that saved the state money, including one where the committee overrode a DOA technical-review subcommittee’s recommendation that the state hire Saccoccio & Associates for a project at Rhode Island School for the Deaf over the lower-priced Robinson Green Beretta. Overriding the decision “saved” the state around $280,000, the memo said.

Top officials in the Carcieri administration have hailed the use of such contract employees as a way to fill short-term staffing needs or engage workers for time-limited projects without making them full-time employees entitled to the full roster of health, pension, sick time and vacation benefits.

But high-ranking Democrats — including the House and Senate finance chairmen — have questioned whether the administration has been using Smart Staffing and its predecessor, DataLogic Consulting, to evade job posting and affirmative action requirements, hiring caps and wage restraints in the hiring of hundreds of state-paid workers.

They questioned the potential conflict inherent in Bedrick’s dual roles. And they asked repeatedly what exactly he was hired to do and whether anyone had ever written a job description for him. The answer, from assistant state purchasing director Lorraine A. Hynes: “No, not to my knowledge.”

But a memo delivered to Senate staff after the Senate committee hearings got under way said he was initially hired to “address issues” related to the shift to the new Oracle financial system and more recently to provide “project management expertise” to the internal cost-saving effort dubbed Fiscal Fitness.

The memo said: “Mr. Bedrick’s role participating on the Oracle project going forward is unclear.”

As a parting thought, Bedrick wrote Carcieri: “I urge you to find ways to increase participation by the public in our government and assure that the majority of citizens that support a more effective and efficient government have a voice.”