An Arkansas legislative panel Tuesday authorized the state Department of Environmental Quality to create a new deputy director position with a maximum annual salary of $106,919.
The Joint Budget Committee's Personnel Subcommittee also approved the department's request to pay former state Rep. Rick Green, R-Van Buren, an annual salary of $62,616 as the department's facility support services manager.
Department Director Becky Keogh said the new deputy director position will coordinate the requirements of Act 382 of 2015 for the Clean Air Action Plan and a proposed Environmental Protection Agency federal implementation plan for regional haze. The new position also will focus on the increasing number of federal policy actions that are critical to the future of state environmental protections, energy policy and economic development, Keogh said.
Act 382 bars the department from submitting a state plan to the EPA to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from coal-fired electricity generation plants until either the Legislative Council approves the plan or the governor directs the submission of a state plan.
"What I would like to do is to get basically ahead of the policy and control our own destiny," and a senior-level position would help the department do that, Keogh told lawmakers.
The new deputy director position gives the department two deputy directors with specialized areas to focus on, said state personnel administrator Kay Terry.
In exchange for the creation of the new deputy director position, a vacant engineer position and a vacant administrative specialist position at the department will be monitored "to ensure that they are effectively frozen and will be deleted in the [fiscal year] 2017 budget process," Terry said.
After the meeting, department spokesman Katherine Benenati said Keogh is evaluating candidates for the new deputy director post. The department's other deputy director is Ryan Benefield, whose salary is $95,879 a year, she said.
Before deciding to hire Green as facility support services manager, the department received 12 applicants for the position and interviewed the only two that had supervisory experience, Terry said.
Green was the only candidate with any fleet experience, and his most recent annual salary was $84,000 when he worked as regional sales manager for Conway Multi-Modal from December 2011 until August 2013, Terry said. He also worked for USA Truck and TSL Inc., both of Van Buren.
He served in the state House of Representatives from 2005-11. He has been a legislative liaison for Gov. Asa Hutchinson this session.
Metro on 03/25/2015