The Arkansas Psychology Board is the latest small state agency that state Department of Finance and Administration officials have found to be in “complete disarray,” department Director Richard Weiss said Thursday.
Weiss said a few Finance Department officials, including the state’s accounting administrator, Paul Louthian, were sent to the board’s office in downtown Little Rock a few weeks ago after they did some fact finding and heard about more issues, including the arrest of the department’s former director, Sheila Pauley.
Files were not filed properly in the board’s office,“nobody could find anything on who all was registered or licensed,” the board couldn’t prepare a budget for the state’s budget office, and “it had been like nothing was going on,” he said.
Finance Department officials consulted with board Chairman Edward Kleitsch of North Little Rock. After they stepped in, the locks to the doors on the board’s office were changed and Internet access limited, Weiss said.
Kleitsch said Pauley was fired on March 24, but he declined Thursday to say why.
He also declined further comment.
Pauley, of Benton, and her daughter, Elizabeth Marie Lyons of Benton, were arrested on March 28 and charged with insurance fraud in Saline County, according to Saline County Circuit Court records.
The court records said an investigator for the state Insurance Department alleged that Pauley filled four prescriptions for Xanax in order to file a claim with her insurance company. But her daughter, who was not covered under the insurance, accepted the prescription drugs, the investigator alleged.
The Arkansas Psychology Board was created by Act 129 of 1955 to regulate the practice of psychology in Arkansas.
The board’s major responsibility is to ensure that Arkansans are protected from “misrepresentation, unethical practice and/or incompetence” in the practice of psychology, the board’s website says. The board must approve the credentials of all applicants, schedule written examinations and administer oral examinations. It also investigates all allegations of ethical violations.
The board’s other members are Kevin Reeder, Christopher “Skip” Hoggard, Joyce Fowler, Lisa McNeir, Gary Souheaver, Dixie Byson and Jawahar Mehta, according to the board’s website.
Weiss said the board has appointed its only remaining employee, Maggie Sponer, as the board’s interim director. Sponer wanted to quit working for the board, but she’s agreed to continue working and the board is recruiting a new director, he said.
Sponer could not be reached for comment at the board’s office Thursday afternoon.
Weiss said a few finance department employees are helping out Sponer when she needs their assistance and “we have committed to the board that we will assist them in the processing of all the [license] renewal for psychologists” this summer.
Weiss said Sponer is capable and “we are just providing guidance and assistance. She is really in charge,” adding the finance department didn’t take over the board’s operations “per se.”
“Clearly, they have a board and we want to make sure that the board was in agreement with what we did. We didn’t have an interest in taking over the agency over a long-term basis,” Weiss said.
Weiss said he became aware of the board’s problems when it was unable to prepare its annual budget plan for the state’s budget administrator, Brandon Sharp, and “they had gone several months without paying their rent.”
“I understand that things are going quite smoothly [now],” he said.
Sponer “is back in the office and [it’s] in good shape and the bills are being paid and the budget is being prepared and things are operating more like they should be,” he said.
Similar problems occur occasionally with small cash-fund agencies and such problems surfaced at the state Board of Cosmetology and Massage Therapy Board several years ago, he said.
The 2009 Legislature merged the Cosmetology Board’s operations into the state Department of Health.
That came after finance department officials said they spent more than $100,000 to clean up financial record-keeping problems at the Cosmetology Board.
The 2009 Legislature also restructured the Massage Therapy Board.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/25/2014