For someone who knows so much, Richard Weiss doesn’t say much. At least he didn’t in January when the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee started hearings on the state budget. More often than not, when legislators had a question, Weiss - director of the state Department of Finance and Administration - deferred to his team.
“I brought, as always, my brain trust,” Weiss told a room full of House and Senate members, “to answer any questions.”
That brain trust is Brandon Sharp, the budget administrator; John Shelnutt, administrator for economic analysis and tax research; Tim Leathers, deputy director and commissioner of revenue.
“He’s taught everyone in this agency that if you don’t know something, you don’t just make something up or give an answer you’re not sure about,” Leathers said of Weiss. “You go to the person who knows.”
“He’s never been one to micromanage,” Leathers said. “He delegates and expects people to do their job and holds them accountable.”
“He’s never been one to jump out there into the spotlight. He’s been in the spotlight enough in his life.”
That spotlight stretches to 1970, when Weiss took a job in maintenance at Devil’s Den State Park. He has worked in state government ever since, except for a brief period in 1999-2000 when he was in private business. The top fiscal officer for what has grown to be a $5 billion enterprise, Weiss has served many chief executives.
“He’s given good counsel to governors,” Gov. Mike Beebe says.
Not for much longer. When Beebe goes out of office in January, so goes Weiss.
“I wish him godspeed in his retirement,” Beebe says - “but not until I leave.”
Weiss has worked indirectly or directly for eight governors: Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, Bill Clinton, Frank White, Jim Guy Tucker, Mike Huckabee and Mike Beebe. Make that nine - Clinton was governor twice, both before and after White.
So many governors … would Weiss like to rate them?
“No.” Said firmly, by the way.
“Each one as governor was very pragmatic, good leaders in their own way and worked hard to do their best for the people of Arkansas.”
“I worked my heart out for all of them,” Weiss added. “You work for the chair. Your loyalty goes to whoever occupies that chair.”
That’s his loyalty showing, Beebe says.
“He may know down deep inside that he disagrees with his governor, but you wouldn’t get it out of his lips.”
Weiss was appointed director of DF&A in 1994 by Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, who was lieutenant governor in the early 1990s when Gov. Bill Clinton was spending plenty of time out of state running for president. Weiss was deputy director under Jim Pledger.
“That resulted in my spending a lot of time with Pledger and Weiss,” Tucker said. “By spring of 1992 I was meeting with them on an almost daily basis going over the state budget. Richard was an absolute fount of information. He would explain everything clearly, and didn’t mind going over it 50 times for a dunce like me.”
When Pledger retired, Tucker said, “there was no other choice on who should succeed him. I’m glad subsequent governors have seen the value he and his staff bring.” THE FISCAL SESSION
This year’s fiscal session, which starts Monday, is something of a last roundup for the director. When Mike Beebe exits office in January 2015, so will Richard Weiss. (Asked whether he was looking forward to leaving office, Beebe responded with an emphatic “Yes.”)
Weiss presented the outlines of the 2015 fiscal year budget to the Joint Budget Committee, and for the first time general revenue topped $5 billion.
About that milestone, there appeared to be no hubbub. Keep in mind, Weiss explains, that budget growth is incremental, although two years ago the state’s budget actually declined because of the recession.
The fiscal session, held in even years, is a relatively new thing. This is the third. Until 2010, the Legislature met only in odd years except for special sessions. Voters approved the creation of the fiscal session in 2008, creating Amendment 86 to the state’s constitution. The fiscal session is restricted to legislation on the state’s budget. Although it’s possible to consider other matters, two-thirds of the members of the House and Senate must agree.
Amendment 86 passed 69 percent to 31 percent, a landslide in anybody’s book, in spite of Beebe’s stated opposition. Plenty of people were surprised, including Weiss.
Only one group was actively working for the fiscal session vote, he said - sitting legislators.
“A whole lot of them are retired. They come to Little Rock, and it’s a high point for them. It’s rewarding to them in their elected roles to be here and be part of what’s going on, or what’s perceived to be going on. That’s my speculation.”
Does it help state government to have a fiscal session?
“It seems to me that having fiscal sessions can lead to more opportunity for Washington-style controversy,” Weiss says, adding that for most of its history the state has done just fine with biennial sessions.
Controversy thus far has been in short supply. Is that in contrast to years past?
“It’s varied so much over the years and depended on the players,” Weiss said. “When I first started in 1984 in the budget office there were very powerful legislators,” and he rattled off John Miller of Melbourne, Max Howell of Jacksonville and Knox Nelson of Pine Bluff. Each had accrued power through repeated elections, each a kingpin of the Legislature before voters approved term limits.
“They were quite confrontational, and there was a tremendous amount of conflict with the executive branch.”
Especially, Weiss said, with Mike Huckabee, a Republican lieutenant governor who became the chief executive when Jim Guy Tucker resigned in May 1996.
THE PARKS DEPARTMENT
Mike Huckabee, the accidental governor.
“That was the view of the Legislature. They thought if they pushed hard enough he’d be a one-term governor.”
It was tough going, Weiss said, but by working with legislators one on one, Huckabee smoothed out many of those relationships. “So much of all this is communicating with each other.”
Weiss is known for being funny and friendly and approachable. He’s a long way from his awkward and self-conscious youth, although he had good reason to be that way.
Weiss spent the first 18 years of his life in Africa, the son of missionary parents in the Congo, Norman and Naomi Weiss. He was educated in missionary boarding schools. The family even endured a violent rebellion in which people they knew were killed.
Once every five years, the family came to the United States to visit supporting churches.
“We were like an alien specimen,” Weiss says. “One kid asked me: ‘Were you ever eaten by a lion?’”
Weiss wasn’t the average American kid when he went to Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
“I had never watched TV, never saw movies, didn’t know how to dress.”
But he persevered, made friends and graduated with a liberal arts degree. One of those friends wound up in Fayetteville, and extolled the virtues of Northwest Arkansas, including how cheap land was. Aha, Weiss thought, “I know how to live off the land.”
That fell apart quickly, he says, and he took his “strong back and weak mind” and applied both to a maintenance job at Devil’s Den State Park in Northwest Arkansas. An “amazing parks director,” Buddy Surles, saw potential in him, Weiss says. When the Legislature created Village Creek State Park near Wynne, Surles appointed Weiss to develop it.
“That broke me out of my culture shock,” Weiss said. “I went on the rubber chicken circuit because that was a really big deal for people around there.”
By 1976, he was one of two acting directors of the Parks Department, running the operations side.
What kind of leadership style leads to such rapid success? Weiss rattled off some thoughts.
“I make a conscious effort to hire people who are competent, capable and smarter than me, putting them in the area I hired them for, and letting them run with it.
“I try not to get down in the weeds. We have lots of professional folks, lawyers and accountants, who are experienced. Letting them do their jobs and come up with ideas of their own is the essence of leadership, not imposing ideas from the top.
“Learning from other people.” THE THREE THINGS
Weiss also reads. A lot, he says. About Winston Churchill, and Abraham Lincoln and, lately, Teddy Roosevelt.
“I don’t know how that directly translates to leadership, but I hope I’m thoughtful and open to listening and learning.”
Beebe says it this way: “He’s notoriously good at lifting up the people who work for him.”
Weiss is the kind of leader, Beebe says, “who passes the praise down.”
His vast experience in state government allows him to educate the uneducated about what was tried before and didn’t work, the governor says. And he’s “funny, honest, credible, and loyal.”
DF&A is a big agency, and does many things: Budgeting, accounting, procurement, personnel management, child support, driver services, tax administration, legal services … credibility must be hard to gain when you do so many things for so many people.
“You do it by first of all working hard and gaining the competency you need,” Leathers said, “by setting the example to the people in your agency and holding your people accountable. Around here the golden rule is to treat people like you want to be treated,” whether the citizen being served is a state senator or a mother seeking child support.
Weiss encourages an attitude that is respectful of taxpayers, Leathers says. DF&A has “a great reputation, and in large part that’s due to his management.”
Beebe describes Weiss, and himself, as fiscal conservatives. Weiss leaves behind a state that is fiscally sound, Beebe says, “and a lot of good, trained people.”
DF&A has about 2,800 employees. As such, it has a presence in every county. What does a guy do after he stops leading all those people and goes to the house?
“My wife and I love to travel,” Weiss says. He hopped up to get a photo of his Chevy diesel pickup hooked up to a travel trailer.
He and Jan will follow the weather, “which will coincide with my departure with the governor,” to Florida or Texas or Arizona in the winter, then north in the spring.
As the clock ticks away, 44 years after his first job as a public employee, what three things should the people of Arkansas know about state government?
First, Weiss says, that it is conservative in the raising and spending of the public’s taxes.
Second, that it “works hard to provide good health and wellness benefits, clean water and sewage and vaccinations.”
Third, that it “provides opportunities for citizens to improve their lives.”
“By and large, public servants are dedicated to providing the best services to the public as they can. There are a whole lot of dedicated people out there, the people who deliver those services.”SELF PORTRAIT
Richard Weiss
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Jan. 27, 1944, Aba, Belgian Congo
FAMILY: Wife Jan Weiss. Children Charles, Shelley, Kevin, their spouses and five delightful grandchildren.
ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Fair.
WHAT DO PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK ME AT PARTIES: Depending on the group, “have you retired yet, where have you been camping, how are the grandkids?”
GADGET I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: My iPhone.
FAVORITE CITY OUTSIDE OF ARKANSAS: Apalachicola, Fla.
LAST BOOKS READ: The Wilderness Warrior - Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, by Douglas Brinkley. The Great Bridge, by David McCullough. The River of Doubt - Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, by Candace Millard.
NEXT YEAR I PLAN TO: Spend the next several years traveling in our fifth-wheel camper throughout this great land.
THE TOUGHEST GUY I KNOW: My Dad. He took my Mom and 6-month-old child to the middle of what was then darkest Africa, raised a family of three boys and was a missionary out there for 40 years.
High Profile, Pages 35 on 02/09/2014