LITTLE ROCK — Four county officials who collected pensions without vacating their elected posts have dropped a lawsuit over the state retirement system’s decision to cut off their benefits.
Former Garland County Assessor Brenda Short, former Garland County Circuit Clerk Vicki Rima, former Garland County Treasurer Jo West Taylor and current Woodruff County Treasurer Marlene Hite contended in the lawsuit, filed Nov. 30, that they were treated differently than other members of the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System and were given bad advice by system officials.
The four officials each took themselves off the payroll for a required three month period to qualify for retirement benefits, then returned to the payroll, receiving pensions in addition to their salaries. The Garland County officials began collecting pensions in 2008. Hite’s began the next year.
The retirement system cut off the officials’ benefits in May 2010 after determining they failed to properly terminate their employment.
The three Garland County officials were voted out of office later that year, and their benefits resumed in 2011. They said in the lawsuit, however, that the retirement system treated them unfairly by not giving them service credit for the time they worked after returning to the payroll.
In a court filing Jan. 18, the officials’ attorney, Denise Hoggard of Little Rock, asked Circuit Judge Tim Fox to dismiss the lawsuit, and he did so Thursday.
Hoggard didn’t return a call Friday seeking comment.
Ruling in 2011, in a separate case, on Taylor’s appeal of the system’s decision to cutoff her benefits, Fox found that Taylor did not properly retire, but he reversed the system’s determination that she was not eligible to continue earning benefits after she returned to the payroll.
Both Hoggard and the system have appealed Fox’s ruling in that case to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Arkansas, Pages 17 on 01/26/2013