A legislative panel on Wednesday endorsed a plan to give the Arkansas Ethics Commission two more positions, which the agency asked for in order to better do its job investigating complaints against candidates and officials.
The Joint Budget Committee's Personnel Subcommittee also recommended increasing the commission's proposed appropriation for fiscal 2020 from the current total of $805,106 to $991,319, including increased appropriations for regular salaries, personal services funds and operating expenses. The commission's budget totals $785,745 for fiscal 2019, which started July 1, 2018.
In a related development, state Rep. Jana Della Rosa, R-Rogers, introduced a bill to grant the commission 120 more days -- beyond the 210 to 240 days it has under existing law -- to take final action on complaints that were filed by citizens in 2018. The bill cites the commission's inadequate staffing and resources as the reason for the agency needing more time.
The commission now has nine positions, which it has had since 1999. The two new positions would be an attorney specialist and a compliance specialist.
The personnel panel endorsed these added staff positions in an amendment to Senate Bill 49, proposed by Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs.
[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]
The action comes after commission Director Graham Sloan warned in a letter dated Dec. 28 to Gov. Asa Hutchinson that the commission's increased workload has pushed the agency to the "breaking point."
The commission received 146 citizen's complaints filed against candidates and others during the 2018 election cycle -- a 45 percent increase since 101 complaints were filed in the 2012 election cycle -- Sloan said.
Hendren told lawmakers that his proposed amendment "exactly correlates to the request in the letter from the Ethics Commission about the resources that they need," including funds to update the agency's website.
"These [positions] will allow us to meet the obligations and the responsibilities we currently have," Sloan said.
"We had requested positions in 2015 and had gotten them, but they didn't get funded and so we kind of find ourselves back in the situation where we are in, which is the existing resources, and those being staffing and operations, just aren't enough to meet the responsibilities," he said. "This will put us back to where we do have adequate staff. If we got new responsibilities, more jurisdiction, then this isn't giving us excess capacity.
"This is going to give us enough to meet the caseload and get back to those proactive activities, which are education and training, to help the regulated community comply [with state law]," he said.
The commission is required under state law to complete investigations of complaints and take final action no more than 210 days after the filing of the complaint and 240 days after the filing if a hearing is held.
"Due to inadequate staffing and resources, the Arkansas Ethics Commission is unable to complete and resolve certain pending investigations of complaints filed in 2018," according to Della Rosa's House Bill 1393.
"Therefore, for the complaints filed with the commission in 2018, the commission is hereby granted 120 days in addition to and immediately successive to the time currently allowed by Arkansas Code Annotated 7-6-218 (b) (5)," according to the legislation.
"The additional time allowed under this act is retroactive to the date immediately following the currently required time under Arkansas Code 7-6-218 (b) (5)."
Sloan said Wednesday in an email that "we requested it because we need more time to investigate the record number of cases which were filed in 2018."
A Section on 02/07/2019