The trustees for the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System will interview state budget administrator Duncan Baird, system chief investment officer Carlos Borromeo and actuary Jody Carreiro for the system's permanent executive director job on Tuesday.
The trustees' three-member selection committee on Friday decided who the trustees will interview. The committee met for several minutes in a private executive session to review the qualifications of eight candidates and select the finalists.
Thirty-nine candidates applied for the job. The committee on Wednesday cut the field down to eight candidates by striking those the committee decided didn't meet the minimum qualifications.
After Friday's meeting, board Chairman Candace Franks said she and trustees Larry Walther and Darryl Bassett selected Baird, Borromeo and Carreiro instead of the other five candidates for interviews because "that was our consensus pursuant of the discussion of the candidates."
She said the trustees will decide who is the best candidate after they conduct interviews Tuesday. She hopes the new executive director can start work soon after he is chosen.
Franks is the state bank commissioner, while Walther is the director of the state Department of Finance and Administration and Bassett is the director of the state Department of Workforce Services. They were appointed to their state jobs by Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
The five other candidates included B.G. Dickey, Bank OZK portfolio manager and executive vice president; Andrew Richards, former partner of BKD LLP accounting firm of Little Rock; Timothy Viezer, chief investment officer for the Employees Retirement System of the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans; James Wilbanks, executive director of the Mendocino County Employees Retirement System in Ukiah, Calif.; and Brian Lee, technical director of the Defense Information Systems Agency in Maryland.
The Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System is state government's second-largest retirement agency. It has more than $8 billion in investments and more than 75,000 working and retired members. The salary range for the executive director job is between $149,862 and $181,500 per year.
Baird's salary is $123,918 a year, while Borromeo's current salary is $101,847 a year, according to the Arkansas Transparency website.
Carreiro's highest salary at Osborn Carreiro & Associates, where he has worked for three decades, is $140,000 a year, according to his job application.
A month ago, then-Executive Director Gail Stone announced her plan to retire, effective Monday, after the trustees met in a closed executive session on performance matters. Then-board Chairman David Morris said he and Walther, who is the board's vice chairman, gave Stone the option to retire but didn't threaten to fire her. Stone, who had worked for the agency since 1990 and was executive director since July 2001, has said she didn't think she had any option beyond retiring.
Baird has worked for Gov. Asa Hutchinson's administration since January 2015. He started out as the budget director and was promoted to budget administrator at the state Department of Finance and Administration in June 2015.
He served as a Republican state representative from Lowell from 2009-15 and served as co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee for the last two of those years, after working for Arvest Asset Management from 2004-09, according to his application.
Besides listing Hutchinson as a reference, Baird also listed former House Speaker Davy Carter, now of Jonesboro and an executive for Centennial Bank; former Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, who works for Winrock International; lobbyist Rett Hatcher, who is a former aide to Hutchinson and former deputy director for the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System; and Dalton Smith of Magnolia.
Baird had applied for the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System's executive director post before that system's trustees voted Oct. 31 to promote the associate director of operations, Clint Rhoden. Rhoden's predecessor, George Hopkins, announced in October his intention to retire after serving in the job since December 2008. Hopkins, a former Democratic state senator from Malvern, retired Nov. 16.
Borromeo has served as the chief investment officer for the Public Employees Retirement System since 2010. His previous experience includes work at Stephens Inc.; Am South Capital Markets of Nashville, Tenn.; Yamaichia International America of New York; and the Federal Home Loan Bank System in Reston, Va., according to his application. His listed references include John Fujiware of Janus Investors in Denver; Christopher Farley of Tinton Falls, N.J.; and Ben Kaminow of Demarest, N.J.
Carreiro, who has a contract with the state Legislature, has been an actuary at Osborn, Carreiro & Associates since 1988, according to his application. He listed Arkansas Municipal League Executive Director Mark Hayes and Little Rock Human Resources Department Director Stacey Witherell of Little Rock as references.
Besides Franks, Walther and Bassett, the system's other trustees include Sebastian County Judge David Hudson; former Sen. Steve Faris, D-Central; Gary Carnahan; state Auditor Andrea Lea, a Republican from Russellville; and state Treasurer Dennis Milligan, a Republican from Benton. The board has a vacancy.
A Section on 01/05/2019