The Arkansas Legislative Council on Friday signed off on state agencies' requests for approval of proposed new jobs and pay raises for the spouses of three state lawmakers, including a $27,000-a-year pay raise for Gov. Asa Hutchinson aide Phyllis Bell -- the wife of Rep. Nate Bell, an independent from Mena.
The new jobs and pay raises for the spouses of House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, and state Rep. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, also cleared the council without any lawmaker asking a question about the requests or discussing them during the council's meeting.
The Legislative Council's approval of these requests is required to comply with Arkansas Code Annotated 21-1-402 (b) that states that "No person whose spouse is elected to a constitutional office and during the term for which the spouse is elected, enter into employment with any state agency without the prior approval of the Joint Budget Committee during a legislative session, the Legislative Council between legislative sessions and the Governor," according to the state Office of Personnel Management.
The council approved Hutchinson's request to promote aide Phyllis Bell to senior adviser on child welfare and boost her annual salary from $53,000 to $80,000. The maximum-authorized salary for position is $81,426 a year, according to the state Office of Personnel Management.
Phyllis Bell will take on additional responsibilities as the governor's senior adviser for child welfare, and her promotion has nothing to do with her husband being a state lawmaker, Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said Friday.
In February 2015, the Legislature's Joint Budget Committee approved a request to sign off on Hutchinson's decision to hire Phyllis Bell to an administrative assistant position with a starting salary of $50,000 a year.
In her new job, Phyllis Bell fills a vacancy in the governor's office created about a month ago when Betty Guhman started work as the interim director of the Youth Services Division. Guhman had been the Republican governor's senior adviser, with a particular focus on the Department of Human Services and child welfare.
Guhman's salary was $95,230 a year when she left the governor's office. Her salary is $100,077 a year as interim director of the Youth Services Division.
Guhman is one of a handful of Hutchinson's top aides who have left the governor's office during the past four months.
Hutchinson's chief of staff, Michael Lamoureux, a former state lawmaker, departed in May to work as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Deputy Chief of Staff Jon Gilmore left in June to start his own political consulting firm. Budget aide Marjorie Greenberg departed this month to become director of the research and policy for the Arkansas Health Care Association, which is the lobby for nursing homes in Arkansas.
This week, Davis confirmed that the governor's senior health care policy adviser, John Martin, will be departing the governor's office soon. "My understanding is that he has received a great opportunity in Sen. [Tom] Cotton's office." Cotton, a Republican, is the state's junior U.S. senator.
Martin -- who started working for Hutchinson in September after serving as deputy legislative director for Cotton -- will return to work for Cotton as policy adviser after Labor Day, said the senator's spokesman, Caroline Rabbitt. Martin is paid $89,999 a year working for the governor. Rabbitt declined to say what Martin would be paid in his new job, saying "his salary will be available on [legistorm.com] as all congressional salaries are."
Hutchinson is serving his second year as the state's governor, after his election in November 2014.
In other action Friday, the Legislative Council approved the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' request to hire ShaRhonda Love -- the wife of Rep. Love -- as a compliance officer at the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement at a salary of $65,000 a year.
The maximum-authorized salary for the position is $170,952 a year, according to the state Office of Personnel Management.
UAMS spokesman Leslie Taylor said ShaRhonda Love is moving to UAMS from her previous job at the Arkansas Department of Health, where her salary was $57,342.
"Her hiring has nothing to do with her husband's position," Taylor said.
In May 2015, the Legislative Council approved the Department of Health's request to hire ShaRhonda Love as the school health director supervising six employees in the School Health Section at a starting salary of $56,774 a year.
Taylor said ShaRhonda Love worked in the College of Public Health at UAMS from August 2004 until June 2015 when she left to take a job at the Arkansas Department of Health. Before leaving UAMS in 2015, ShaRhonda Love was project director for health behavior and health education in the UAMS College of Public Health and her salary was $56,774 a year, Taylor said.
On Friday, the Legislative Council approved Arkansas State University-Beebe's request to hire Carissa Gillam -- the wife of Jeremy Gillam -- as a higher-education institution program coordinator at a salary of $30,713 a year.
ASU System spokesman Jeff Hankins said Carissa Gillam has been earning $20,396 a year as a registrar's assistant on the Searcy campus of ASU-Beebe and been in that position since November 2011.
That position has been eliminated in a major reorganization and streamlining effort by ASU-Beebe Chancellor Karla Fisher that will result in savings of $160,000 annually for ASU-Beebe, Hankins said.
Carissa Gillam's new position is special events coordinator for institutional advancement, marketing and public relations, Hankins said, adding that she has a background in event planning and management.
"Her new position is unrelated to her husband's role as a legislator," Hankins said.
Although state law didn't require it, ASU System President Charles Welch told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2012 that ASU officials filed a form in 2011 with the state Office of Personnel Management about the hiring of Carissa Gillam as a registrar's assistant at the school's Searcy campus at a starting salary of $19,798 a year "just to be safe."
In 2012, UAMS terminated then-state Rep. Henry Wilkins' wife as a mental-health professional, and the Agriculture Department terminated then-state Rep. John Edwards' wife as deputy director. Wilkins of Pine Bluff and Edwards of Little Rock are both Democrats.
The agencies fired the two spouses after learning that they had not obtained prior approval for employment from the governor or either the Joint Budget Committee or Legislative Council under Act 34 of 1999. The prior approval isn't required for a state agency to hire a lawmaker's spouse if the spouse's entry-level salary doesn't exceed about $37,500 a year.
The agencies later rehired Phyllis Wilkins at an annual salary of $60,199 and Cynthia Edwards at a $95,000-a-year salary after obtaining the required approvals.
A Section on 08/20/2016