An employee in state Treasurer Dennis Milligan's investment department resigned Tuesday after the state Board of Finance blocked Milligan's plans to reclassify the employee as a senior investment manager.
The action came after Milligan, a Benton Republican, touted his office's increased investment earnings to the board.
The board voted to require that the person hired to fill the new senior investment manager II position have a college degree. The treasurer's office interpreted the position requirements to also include at least seven years of experience in investing or banking, said his spokesman Stacy Peterson.
Milligan proposed requiring that the position be filled with a person who had at least 62 college credits and at least 15 years of investing or banking experience, if the candidate had no college degree. Otherwise, he proposed that the position requirements include a bachelor's degree in finance, accounting or a related field and at least seven years of investing or banking experience.
Division Director Ronald A. Roberson started work for the treasurer's office on Feb. 6 at a $70,000-a-year salary. Milligan intended to reclassify him as in the senior investment manager II position, with no pay raise for fiscal 2018, which starts July 1, said Chief Deputy Treasurer Grant Wallace.
Roberson has 38 years of investment experience and completed 135 college credit hours at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock but didn't earn a degree, according to his job application.
In a letter given to Milligan after the board meeting, Roberson wrote that "it has been an honor to serve you. Due to the opinions raised today by a few members of the state Board of Finance, I wish to tender my resignation from employment with your office, effective immediately."
Milligan said, "We're obviously disappointed that he has chosen to resign, but I respect his personal decision."
"We feel that his 30 years of market trading experience has offered our investment department a great deal of real-world knowledge," he said in a written statement. "However, I understand the concerns raised today at the state Board of Finance meeting and respect the wishes of my fellow members."
In March, Sen. Terry Rice, R-Waldron, told senators that Milligan hired Roberson, a former vice president and senior trader at the Bank of Oklahoma, as a senior investment manager when a college degree is required for the job.
At that time, Peterson said Roberson was placed in a division director position for which a college degree is preferred, "so he's qualified for the job."
Milligan's investment team also includes senior investment manager Ed Garner, who is paid a salary of $108,000 a year; chief investment officer Autumn Sanson, whose salary is $93,785 a year; treasurer manager Larry Tate, who makes $68,399 a year; and treasurer manager Celeste Gladden, who is paid $61,799.
The Board of Finance requires college degrees for Garner's and Sanson's positions, and prefers college degrees for Tate's and Gladden's positions. All four employees have college degrees, according to their personnel files.
Garner has worked for the treasurer's office since 2015. He owned a bakery, served in the state House from 2007-13 and was an investment banker for T.J. Raney & Sons from 1980-84, Lasater & Co. from 1984-87 and Stephens Inc. from 1987-95, according to his personnel file.
Sanson has worked for the treasurer's office since 2001, and Gladden has worked there since 2008, according to their personnel files. Tate, a former business manager for Little Rock's First Baptist Church and executive director of the Tate Family Foundation, has worked in the treasurer's office since 2015, according to his personnel file.
As to Milligan's proposal to place Roberson in the new senior investment manager II position, board member Al Harkins said at the meeting that "one of my concerns here is that we have someone making decisions at the investment level that does not have a degree to go along with it.
"And if anything should go wrong, I don't know who takes the heat. But it may be us, if we set these standards," he said.
Wallace replied that Garner, who is in a senior investment manager position, doesn't have a bachelor's degree in accounting or finance. His bachelor's degree is in chemistry and biology from Hendrix College. That prompted Garner to interject, "to correct, I have a bachelor of arts degree."
But Harkins said "years of experience shouldn't replace requiring a degree" for the senior investment manager II position.
Then, the board approved Harkins' motion to require that the person holding the job have a college degree. There were no audible dissenting votes. The board includes the governor or his representative, treasurer, auditor, bank commissioner, director of the state Department of Finance and Administration, and the securities commissioner, and two appointees each by the House speaker and Senate president pro tempore.
Earlier during the board's meeting, Milligan reported that the treasury earned $17.7 million in interest on its investments of roughly $3.5 billion during the quarter that ended March 31 -- up by $1.8 million over the same quarter a year ago. During the first nine months of fiscal 2017, the treasury has earned $39.4 million on its investments, and that's a $7.3 million increase over the same period in fiscal 2016, Milligan said. Fiscal 2017 ends June 30.
In fiscal 2016, the treasury earned $48.9 million, and "it looks like we are right on par to produce very similar, if not better results, this fiscal year," Milligan said.
Board Chairman Larry Walther, who is director of the Department of Finance and Administration, said, "It's really uplifting for me to see what's happened over the last two years in the management of the money by the treasurer's office."
Metro on 05/10/2017