Pay rise for execs of Guard advances

The Legislature's Joint Budget Committee on Thursday endorsed a bill that would increase the maximum-authorized salaries for Arkansas' adjutant general from $117,506 to $172,062 and the deputy adjutant general from $81,250 to $148,172.

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The proposed increases are part of House Bill 1032, the state Military Department's appropriation for the fiscal year starting July 1.

The adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Mark Berry, is paid $118,680 in the current fiscal year because salaries for all unclassified positions were increased by 1 percent with the cost-of-living raise awarded in July, said Jake Bleed, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance and Administration.

Berry, who was sworn in in January 2015 and assumed his command the next month, previously served as chief of staff of the Arkansas National Guard and as an assistant to the director of the Air National Guard in Washington, D.C.

The deputy adjutant general post is now vacant, said Bleed.

Col. Gregory Bacon will assume the duties of deputy adjutant general on May 14, said Lt. Col. Keith Moore, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard. Bacon, a former chief of staff for the Arkansas Army National Guard, is paid a $81,250 salary now, he said.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in a letter to the Joint Budget Committee that the measure will allow the Military Department to adjust the salaries of the adjutant general and deputy adjutant general in accordance with Arkansas Code Annotated 12-61-105.

Under that provision of state law, "the pay of the Adjutant General and the assistant adjutant general shall be the same as is allowed to officers of like grade, service, and rank by the pay tables of the United States Army or Air Force at the time such pay accrues."

If the bill becomes law, Berry's salary would increase to $172,062 and Bacon's salary would increase to $148,172 based on the Department of Defense pay chart, Moore said.

The Joint Budget Committee also directed its staff to draft a supplemental appropriation of $145,576 for the Military Department for the rest of this fiscal year, ending June 30, to increase the line-item salary amount for the two positions, as well as a supplemental appropriation of $17,000 for expenses for courts-martial.

In other action Thursday, the committee endorsed an appropriation bill, HB1128, for the state Board of Examiners that was amended to eliminate a state exam for licensing chiropractors and rely on a national board exam.

Rep. Jim Dotson, R-Bentonville, who proposed the amendment, said most states have eliminated state exams for chiropractors.

But the state budget administrator, Duncan Baird, said finance department officials are concerned that Dotson's amendment is "substantive language ... and we believe it should require a two-thirds vote [in the House and Senate] to be introduced during the fiscal session" as non-appropriation legislation.

A day earlier, the budget committee's Special Language Subcommittee added an amendment proposed by Sen. Ronald Caldwell, R-Wynne, to the Department of Education-Arkansas State Library appropriation for fiscal year 2017 despite Baird warning then too of "substantive language" that would require a two-thirds vote to be introduced as a non-appropriation measure.

Under Caldwell's amendment to HB1052, a municipal or county public library would be barred from being placed either in a building or on land in a flood zone or in a building that has been flooded due to rain or water drainage, except under limited circumstances. Existing libraries wouldn't be affected under the amendment.

The amendment would allow the Legislative Council or the Joint Budget Committee to permit a local governing body, such as a county quorum court or city council, to place a public library in such a location if the governing body can show that the library's contents would be safe from damage or destruction from flooding.

A Section on 04/22/2016

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