LITTLE ROCK — A group that reviewed Secretary of State Mark Martin’s office’s policies recommended Tuesday that the office add to its election division staff, trim from other departments and look into outsourcing services like maintenance and the Capitol gift shop.
The committee also raised questions about a contract between the office and the Information Network of Arkansas for new software. The office is paying $52,000 a month for that under a contract that started in 2010, before Martin took office, according to the report.
Martin assembled the 10-member group last year saying that he wanted it to find ways to make the office more efficient and to help the office stay true to Martin’s conservative principles.
The office administers elections, provides services to businesses, performs outreach and education, and oversees the Capitol and its grounds. It is also responsible for the Capitol gift shop and Capitol Police.
The chairman of the group was Curtis Coleman, a former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. Other members included Faulkner County Tea Party president David Crow of Conway and Jim Harris, who was a spokesman for former Gov. Mike Huckabee and who is Huckabee’s brother-in-law. It also includes former University of Arkansas quarterback John Scott Bull of Fayetteville.
The committee’s report does not specify how much money the recommended changes would save the state, but Coleman wrote in an introduction that the committee’s work would help a “significant branch of state government to become a smaller, more efficient, less intrusive, more responsive agency of government than it may have been in the past.”
Alex Reed, a spokesman for Martin, said the secretary of state is evaluating the report.
“It will take some time to address the individual items in the report,” Reed said in an e-mail. “I can say that a lot of work went into this report. Well-respected people from across the state volunteered their time, and received no compensation.”
Martin’s office announced in a news release last year that like all the other constitutional offices, his had saved taxpayers money by not spending its entire appropriation. His office ended fiscal 2011 with $3.2 million remaining from its $18.2 million budget.
Reed said the office has 14 vacant full-time positions.
In some instances, the committee recommended filling those. The report states that the office’s elections division is “severely understaffed,” with too many vacant positions and too many employees performing double duty. The result is that communication does not flow easily to county clerks who rely on the office for guidance.
The committee recommended that the office take immediate steps to fill vacant positions, and that it hire a new division director and a full-time attorney. Both of those roles are currently being filled by Martha Adcock, but the committee found that the two jobs were “of too great a magnitude” to be held by one person.
Partially as a result of being understaffed, the division has not had time to respond to anecdotal evidence of voter fraud and absentee-ballot abuse, the report said.
It also recommended that the office consider creating a fraud investigation division to look into residents’ complaints of election fraud, possibly with the help of the Capitol Police and the Arkansas State Police.
Bill Sadler, spokesman for the Arkansas State Police, said the agency already looks into such claims when presented by prosecuting attorneys. He said the agency would need to know this would be different from what is already being done and whether local prosecutors would have input, before agreeing to the report’s recommendation that the state police agree to a “memorandum of understanding” to allow the office access to personnel and equipment to investigate voter-fraud claims.
In the Business and Commercial Services Division, the committee found a contract with the Information Network of Arkansas to be lacking.
The Information Network of Arkansas was created by the Legislature in 1995. It works only for state, county, and local governments to build websites and online services.
Martin sits on the 12-member board that oversees the information network’s contract with a private organization that performs the work for the state.
Coleman’s report said the contract with Information Network of Arkansas needs to be “revisited and completely revised,” and questioned whether the monthly fee was appropriate.
In its 2010 annual report, Information Network of Arkansas stated that it provided “non-partisan support” to more than 256 government agencies, boards, and commissions and has created more than 1,000 online services “at no cost to the agencies or using state appropriated funds.”
Among the report’s other suggestions are small staff reductions in the office’s communication and education division and reorganizing of the office’s media-relations department.
The committee suggested outsourcing or eliminating the Capitol gift shop. The shop closed in 2003 after the private company that had run it since 1995 did not renew its contract. Secretary of State Charlie Daniels reopened it later that same year under the state’s management.
The committee also advised that that the office look into consolidating and outsourcing some functions, including custodial and housekeeping functions, maintenance, and mechanical and electrical positions. It said grounds work should continue to be performed by inmates.
Describing the Capitol Police as a “top-heavy” organization, the report suggested that the office look into hiring a security firm to take care of some of the Capitol’s simple security needs.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 06/13/2012