Stephens: Abshure expense tally light

Heath Abshure, commissioner of the Arkansas Securities Department, under reported his reimbursed expenses for trips in 2011 through 2013 by more than $15,000, Stephens Inc. claimed in a letter Thursday to the legislative Joint Performance Review Committee.

Stephens also supplied the same information to the Arkansas Ethics Commission, said David Knight, general counsel for Stephens, a Little Rock-based investment firm.

Abshure filed his required statement of financial interest with the secretary of state’s office last week for 2013,along with amended filings for 2008 through 2012. Abshure listed nearly $33,800 in nongovernmental sources of payment for 2011 through 2013.

Almost all of the money for the three-year period was paid by the North American Securities Administrators Association as reimbursement to Abshure for expenses he already had paid. The money reflects reimbursements for airfare, lodging, ground transportation and meals.

Abshure said he has been discussing his filings with the commission since he filed them last week. He is working to amend his statements of financial interest and hopes to have them refiled by next week, Abshure said.

“I assumed, wrongly, that if [payments] were not made for me directly but were for a group of people [such as the board of directors] and I didn’t know the amount, I would just disclose that someone else paid it,” Abshure said. “That’s what the Ethics Commission told me.”

The association is a nonprofit organization whose membership consists of securities administrators in 50 states and several North American countries. Abshure served as president of the association from September 2012 until October 2013 and has also served as a board member of the association.

But the $15,000 that was not reported, according to Stephens, was for what Abshure described as “lodging expenses, if any, [that] were handled directly” by the association or another organization. Stephens based the total on a nightly charge of $300 for hotels in some of the country’s largest cities, such as Washington, D.C.; New York and Boston.

Abshure traveled to those cities as well as others as a representative for the national securities association.

Abshure said the $300 estimate by Stephens for nightly hotel charges appeared to be high. In gathering information for 2013, the lowest nightly hotel bill paid directly by the national association last year was $93 and the highest was $249, Abshure said.

“It is clear under the rules and forms promulgated by the Arkansas Ethics Commission that such third-party payments have to be reported,otherwise individuals could circumvent this reporting obligation entirely by simply arranging for the direct payment of expenses through a third party instead of through reimbursements,” Knight said in the letter to the co-chairmen of the committee.

Abshure also is facing a complaint filed with the Ethics Commission in November by Stephens. The complaint claimed Abshure allowed securities firms to give contributions to the North American Securities Administrators Association in lieu of paying a fine.

The largest contribution of $150,000 was made last year by Little Rock-based Crews & Associates. Two out-of-state firms gave a total of about $22,000 to the association.

Gov. Mike Beebe, who appointed Abshure as securities commissioner in December 2007, has told Abshure that in the future, funds such as those contributed by Crews and the other two firms,should be paid into the state treasury, said Matt DeCample, Beebe’s spokesman.

Including expenses that were paid directly by a third party is required to be reported on a statement of financial interest, said Graham Sloan, director of the Ethics Commission.

The commission has the authority to issue three levels of public letters - a caution, a warning or a reprimand. It also can issue fines ranging from $50 to $2,000, Sloan said.

Business, Pages 25 on 02/07/2014

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