Counseling board executive director will resign earlier

The executive director of the state Board of Examiners in Counseling has moved up the effective date of his resignation by a month to April 30, board Chairman Mark Coffman of Russellville said Tuesday.

“It was his decision as well as ours to find some compromise to get a reasonable solution to get past all these problems,” Coffman said.

Executive Director Alan Pogue of Sherwood also agreed to pay for a trip to the American Counseling Association’s annual conference in Hawaii later this month that the board authorized earlier this year, Coffman said.

He said the conference provides “important information for the board to have,” and Pogue’s work at the conference will count toward his normal working hours.

In addition, the board will review whether it had the authority to designate Sherwood as Pogue’s working station - a move to determine whether Pogue is allowed to keep the money he collected for his past trips to Magnolia, where the board’s office was located until 2013, when it moved to central Arkansas.

Pogue has already been paid for the times he commuted to the Columbia County seat, about 140 miles to the south. If the board didn’t have the authority to make the working-station designation, Pogue has agreed to pay the money back, Coffman said.

A Democratic lawmaker had threatened to try to block legislation funding the board if Pogue, a Republican candidate for the state House of Representative, didn’t hasten his resignation date.

Coffman said the board met Sunday in an emergency meeting to discuss Pogue’s employment and he conveyed the decisions it made to Sen. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia, in a teleconference Monday.

The board regulates about 2,000 counselors in mental health, marriage and family therapy.

Pogue could not be reached for comment at his office Tuesday afternoon.

Pogue has said he submitted his resignation last month, effective June 1 or earlier if the board filled his position before then.

In April, the board voted 5-3 by secret ballot to hire Pogue, who resigned from the board in January 2013, to take the job on an interim basis.

The board publicly confirmed its vote in July after doubts were raised about the legality of the secret ballot. Later that month, the Legislative Council approved a $70,000 annual salary for Pogue - $10,000 less than the board had requested. Pogue expressed unhappiness with the pay and said then that he’d be leaving the post soon.

The Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee on Thursday endorsed an appropriation measure for the board that wouldn’t eliminate its executive director position or place it under the state Department of Health. Its Special Language Subcommittee had recommended amending House Bill 11110 to cut the executive director’s job and transfer the board’s powers, funds and two staff positions to the Health Department.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon voted 93-0 to approve HB1110 with no discussion. The bill still must clear the Senate before Gov. Mike Beebe considers it.

Maloch had warned the board in a letter dated Friday that at that point, “an earlier resignation by the director may be the only thing that wins enough votes to pass your budget” after he said he met with “members of the House regarding this issue.

“As I am sure you are aware …. appropriations take a 75% percent vote for approval,” he wrote, referring to the requirement for 75 votes in the 100-member House and 27 votes in the 35-member Senate for approval of most appropriations.

The Division of Legislative Audit has raised “issues of illegal expenditures,” and some of them “may have been authorized by the board, but were not allowed by law,” and several legislators want “some response [from the board] of how the board intends to handle this once the audit is complete.”

A deputy legislative auditor has questioned about $5,000 to $6,000 of Pogue’s travel expenses.

Legislators also “want to know what safeguards the board has in place to comply with the law of no political activity during your regular business hours and no political activity from your office,” Maloch wrote. Maloch said Pogue has “stated publicly that these issues are either a political vendetta by Rep. Nickels or from me for moving the office,” but Maloch said he’s consistently told people that he understood the office needed to be moved.

Pogue - who narrowly lost to state Rep. Jim Nickels, D-Sherwood, in 2012 - has filed again to run for the House District 41 seat. Nickels is barred from seeking re-election under the state’s term-limits amendment.

Coffman said Pogue is aware of the state’s policies regarding campaign activities by state employees, and the board “felt no particular need to act on that issue since there have been no reports of any violations.”

Nickels said Tuesday that he was pleased with the board’s weekend negotiations, but said he had not been a part of the meetings.

He said if Pogue had not agreed to resign sooner, he had the votes to hold up the board’s appropriation.

“I feel confident that I had enough votes on the House side to keep their budget from getting out. A number of members told me that I had their support,” Nickels said. “But there were also a number of good people who would have been harmed. I did not want that to happen, but the power has to shift to the legislative branch when people in the executive branch are not operating in the best interest of the state or of their agency.” Information for this article was contributed by Claudia Lauer of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.