The Arkansas Ethics Commission will ask for funds to add three employees to its nine-member staff starting in July 2015, the beginning of a new fiscal year, the commission's director said Friday.
Director Graham Sloan said the commission has operated with the same number of employees since 2000 and the number and complexity of ethics complaints filed against elected officials and candidates have significantly increased during the past few years.
"Sometimes you get two boxes" of records about ethics complaints prior to meetings where the commission considers the complaints, Sloan told the five-member commission to illustrate his point.
The agency has been forced to shift staff members from monitoring compliance with the state's ethics laws and rules to investigations of citizen-initiated ethics complaints, he said.
"We have just reached a crossroads," said Sloan, who has been the commission's director since 2000.
The commission's budget is about $706,000 in the fiscal year that started July 1, he said. The Legislature would need to approve the additional funding.
In a letter to departing Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, Sloan made the case for expanding the agency.
The commission enforces a wide variety of ethics and public-disclosure laws applicable to candidates, state and local officials, lobbyists, political parties, political committees, and groups promoting ballot measures, he wrote.
The commission had three employees when it was formed in 1990 and a total of six employees were added in 1995 and 1999, Sloan noted.
Its current employees are a director, two attorney specialists, two compliance specialists, two administrative specialists, a business operations specialist and an information technology manager.
The commission is seeking increased state funding to add a managing attorney at a salary of $73,776 a year, an attorney specialist at a salary of $53,109 a year and a compliance specialist at a salary of $49,067 a year, Sloan said.
Afterward, Sloan said he's projecting that the commission will consider 141 ethics cases during the 2014 election cycle on the basis of the first six months of this year, compared with 101 during the 2012 election cycle.
He said he's projecting that 122 of the 141 ethics cases will have been filed by citizens during the 2014 election cycle and the other 19 by the commission itself. During the 2012 election cycle, 66 of the 101 cases were filed by citizens; the commission filed the rest.
In other business, the commission learned Friday that Pulaski County Quorum Court member Paul Elliott of Maumelle agreed to pay a $100 fine to the commission and receive a public letter of caution in a settlement of an ethics case.
Elliott agreed in the settlement that he violated state law by failing to verify by affidavit the contents of a campaign finance report filed May 13; failing to disclose the use of a golf cart provided by Maumelle Alderman Burch Johnson as a nonmonetary contribution; failing to disclose the date contributions were accepted and the address of each contributor giving more than $50; and failing to disclose certain details about campaign expenses, according to commission records.
In the May 20 Republican primary, Elliott defeated Bilenda Harris-Ritter of Maumelle, who filed the complaint against him. Elliott will face Democrat Richard Carroll in the general election.
The commission also learned that Saline County circuit clerk candidate Myka Deondra Sample of Benton agreed to pay a $50 fine to the commission and receive a public letter of caution in a settlement of an ethics case.
Sample agreed that she violated state law by failing to timely disclose the principal place of business, employer and occupation for each contributor who contributed more than $50 to her campaign, according to commission records.
In the Republican primary, Sample beat Patrick Rhodes of Benton, who filed the complaint against her. Sample is unopposed in the general election.
Metro on 07/19/2014