LITTLE ROCK — The state Board of Apportionment shuffled money around Wednesday after finding that some was misspent and voted to give its new executive director autonomy.
The panel made up of Gov. Mike Beebe, Secretary of State Mark Martin and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel is responsible for drawing Arkansas’ 100 state House of Representative districts and 35 state Senate districts this year in light of new federal census data.
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The board voted to accept the transfer of $60,000 from the secretary of state for money he spent before the board’s first meeting. The board members also agreed to reimburse Martin for about $70,000 paid for software from the secretary of state’s budget by Martin’s predecessor.
At its first meeting March 16, the governor announced that the secretary of state’s office had spent nearly $70,000 meant for the state legislative reapportionment process to purchase a vehicle and hire a former Republican lawmaker to lead the process without first contacting the board for approval.
Secretary of State Mark Martin reimbursed the board $60,342, including $27,629 for the vehicle, $19,000 for a consulting firm and $6,473 for hiring former Republican state Rep. Timothy Hutchinson of Springdale as the executive director.
Hutchinson and Legacy Consulting will continue working for the secretary of state’s office, Martin said.
Legacy Consulting is a De Queen firm run by Chad Gallagher, a former De Queen mayor and aide to Republican Mike Huckabee when Huckabee was governor.
Martin said some of the early confusion about who had authority over the money stemmed from spending done by his predecessor, Charlie Daniels, who is now the state auditor, and from how the money was designated.
Last spring, the governor vetoed the Board of Appropriation budget approved by the Legislature because the money came from the Central Services Fund. Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said the fund was already being overused.
On July 19, Beebe transferred $200,000 from the Governor’s Emergency Fund to the board.
Martin said Wednesday that the secretary of state’s internal procedures have changed since the governor’s proclamation and the board’s money had been classified incorrectly. The money has since been set aside into a restricted fund.
There is $180,000 left for the board to use until July 1. An additional $583,543 was appropriated by lawmakers for when the new fiscal year begins.
The board also voted to reimburse the secretary of state’s office for $69,200 for mapping software spent by Daniels for redistricting.
The reimbursement will not be made until after the new fiscal year begins.
“We’re strapped; we don’t have any money,” Beebe said. “We don’t have the money to give it to [Martin] before July 1.”
After voting to hire former secretary of state’s office attorney Joe Woodson Jr. of Little Rock as the board’s redistricting coordinator, the board voted 2-to-1 to give Woodson autonomy from any of the elected officials involved.
Woodson asked for the separation “given the politically charged atmosphere that we’re in.”
Martin is the only Republican on the board. McDaniel and Beebe are Democrats.
The vote puts Woodson in charge of most spending, along with the board website, scheduling, staff and the apportionment office.
“Although we have the authority to create policy and hire and fire personnel, you couldn’t do your job unless you were autonomous,” Mc-Daniel said to Woodson. “I don’t think you should be beholden to any one of the threeof us any one more than any other.”
Martin voted no to hiring Woodson and giving him autonomy. Woodson worked for the previous secretary of state, a Democrat, and was not retained by Martin when he took office in January.
After the meeting he called the decision a “personnel issue” and would not say why Woodson was not kept on.
“That’s a personnel issue, and I think that’s probably better left as a matter with Mr. Woodson,” Martin told reporters. “I have no personal or performance issues with him; he’s never actually worked for me.”
Martin said that in the past the “authority” of legislative reapportionment “rested more heavily on the secretary of state.”
“I wanted the same level of interaction and direction of the Board of Apportionment as has been had in the past,” Martin said. “I think it has now moved into sort of the Board of Apportionment’s staff and whatnot. Less of the authority rests with the secretary of state now than it did before, so I think the reasonable vote was to say no on that.”
The board members also voted to have preliminary Senate and House maps drawn by May and agreed to hold six to 10 meetings for public comment.
Public comment can be made at www.arkansasredistricting.org.
They set a goal to OK a map by the end of July. The new plan will become effective 30 days after it is filed with the secretary of state.
In the past Legislative redistricting has taken until October to complete, but Beebe said new technology should mean it can be finished sooner.
“While I don’t want to be unrealistic, if we shoot for a shorter period of time we’re more likely to get there,” he said.
Once legislative redistricting is complete, many other entities will have to reapportion voters, including school districts, cities and judicial districts.
“All the downstream folks have to kick into action,” Woodson said. “The sooner we can get ours done, the better it is for them because they’d have more time to do their job before the election cycle begins next year.”
They did not schedule their next meeting.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/07/2011