Category Archives: Legislature

What should elected officials be paid?

Legislature, State government

By Steve Brawner
© 2015 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The toughest job in state government belongs not to the governor-elect or to the 134 legislators preparing to spend three months considering thousands of bills. It doesn’t belong to the Arkansas Supreme Court justices – a majority of them female for the first time, by the way.

It belongs to the seven people who must soon decide what to pay these folks.

That’s the appointed task of the Independent Citizens Commission, which we voters in November created through Issue 3, now known as Amendment 94. That’s the same amendment that, among other provisions, extended term limits and banned lobbyists’ gifts to individual legislators.

The amendment removed from the Legislature the decision-making authority for salaries for constitutional officers, legislators, and judges. The seven commission members can decide to pay those officials whatever they want to pay them, so long as the initial proposal is presented by Feb. 2, and then after a public comment period, their decision is final. In the future, they can adjust salaries up or down as much as 15 percent.

Most other dollars spent by state government are appropriated by the Legislature. The commission’s decisions, in contrast, come off the top of the budget. That’s why veteran journalist Ernie Dumas told the commission on Dec. 30, “This is the most powerful commission in many ways in the history of the state.”

So far, the commission has had a tough time getting a handle on its responsibilities. This past Wednesday, it began receiving the information it needs most – a comparison of Arkansas salaries with other states. For some positions, it’s fairly straightforward. The governor’s salary of $86,890 is the country’s second lowest, above Maine. The attorney general’s salary of $72,408 is dead last. The chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court ranks 27th among his peers with a salary of $160,001.

But with legislators, it’s much harder to make a comparison. Some legislatures are full-time, and some are very part-time. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Arkansas is one of 23 states where being a legislator is about two-thirds of a full-time job, but that’s a rough estimate.

Determining how much legislators earn in a given year is tricky, too. Their salary is $15,869, they’re paid extra for leadership positions, and they’re paid per diem expenses of $150, plus mileage, when they travel to the Capitol if they live 50 miles or more from it. That’s supposed to cover meals and lodging, but most of us could get by on less than that or just commute. Those who live closer are paid $61 a day for meals, which is far more than I would spend. They also receive $1,200 a month for office expenses, they get $410 monthly for their state health insurance, and they eventually can become eligible for retirement benefits, though those will be small unless they also work elsewhere in state government.

In other words, those who work the system right do OK, but it’s really not enough to make a living for a job that takes a lot of time and comes with a lot of expenses.

Legislators in most surrounding states supposedly spend a comparable amount of time on their jobs, and Arkansas is in the middle when it comes to salaries, apparently. The commission was given information Wednesday from the National Conference of State Legislatures that those in Missouri ($35,915) and Oklahoma ($38,500) make more than twice as much in annual salary. Tennessee’s lawmakers make $20,203. Louisiana’s make $16,800 but receive less in office expenses. Mississippi’s make less, $10,000, but supposedly work less. Texas legislators make only $7,200.

I’ve sat through three long meetings, and the commission is acting in good faith. It ultimately will vote to raise salaries, which, frankly, is why it was created. It was just too politically awkward for lawmakers to do it on their own. Ideally, salaries will increase while legislative expense reimbursements are reduced, but the commission can only recommend changes to those. Legislators still control those dollars, though legislative leaders say the commission’s recommendations will carry a lot of weight.

Really, here’s what commission members are wrestling with regarding legislative salaries: Pay too little, and good people can’t run because they can’t afford it. Pay too much, and lawmaking stops being an act of service.

They don’t have much time to decide how to strike that balance. Feb. 2 will be here soon.

K through job education

Business and economics, Education, Legislature, State government

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The elected official in the state Capitol making the biggest impact next year will be Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson. The second most impactful elected official may be a 74-year-old grandmother with an agenda.

That would be Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock.

English spent her career in economic development and will use her chairmanship of the Senate Education Committee to try to change how Arkansas educates and develops its workers. She says the education system is composed of too many disconnected silos – K-12 public schools over here, colleges and universities over there, career education in a third spot, etc. – that don’t always prepare students for the workforce.

“We typically think of education as K through 12, but for me, education is K through job,” she said after selecting the chairmanship.

She wants to reform a system that did not serve the state well enough during her career in economic development. There’s also this motivation: “I have a 17-year-old granddaughter, straight A student, takes AP (Advanced Placement) courses,” she said in an interview Dec. 12. “She’s going to play softball with the Lady Razorbacks. Well, she’s fine with this whole pattern. But then I have a grandson, that may not work for him. I had a grandson, and it didn’t work for him at all. He was not an AP person. He was never going to college, but he has a good career now.”

English is not the first or the only one making this point. Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller would say the education system is like a string of water pipes laid end to end but not fastened together. Hutchinson talked a lot about workforce development in the gubernatorial campaign. In September, the State Chamber of Commerce hosted a summit highlighting the need for Arkansas’ education system to be more responsive to the job market.

Changes already are occurring, particularly at the local level, to make the system more connected and responsive. Many high schools offer students opportunities to earn significant college credit. Bearden High School students are bussed to Southern Arkansas University Tech each day for academic and career classes. At Maumelle High, students basically select a major and take classes that are tailored to their interests and that prepare them for a job. Colleges and universities are becoming more responsive to workforce needs. The University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, for example, created a robotics program after surveying local industries and discovering a surprising number needed training in that area.

Despite these individual successes, Arkansas needs a more comprehensive overall strategy, a reallocation of resources, and a different mindset. And that’s where English has become a pivotal figure. In February, she switched her vote on the private option – until then, one vote short of passage in the Senate – from no to yes in exchange for a commitment from Gov. Mike Beebe to focus on the issue. As a result, for much of the year she chaired weekly meetings each Monday with various state education and economic development officials. Shane Broadway, director of the Department of Higher Education, says one of his staff members jokingly referred to the meetings as “English class.”

English said the meetings have produced no concrete proposals, though she has some ideas. She said many of the needed changes don’t require legislation.

Whatever the Legislature passes will be the result of collaboration and compromise. English’s main role will be to continue doing what she has already done: serve as a catalyst. Broadway said state agency heads were already discussing the need for changes, but English’s switched vote was the spark. As she explained it, “Sometimes you have to have something wild that starts things in motion and gets people to start talking. Otherwise, you’re just churning around forever and ever.”

The private option, prisons, and other issues will get the most attention this session. But, quietly, significant workforce development changes could occur. The facts are clear, the need is obvious, and the agreement is broad. Too many students aren’t being prepared for actual jobs, while too many jobs are unfilled because workers with the right skills aren’t available.

Now the Senate Education Committee is headed by someone whose top priority is doing something about it. We’ll see if the other legislators speak English’s language.

Should legislators get a raise?

Legislature, Politics, State government

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Let’s start by emphasizing that I was the one who brought up the subject with Rep.-elect Ron McNair, R-Alpena. He did not approach me to complain in print.

The subject is pay for state legislators.

McNair owns an auto shop in Alpena in north Arkansas. He is his only employee. He’s been an unpaid school board member almost 30 years. He narrowly won the Republican primary in May and didn’t face a Democratic opponent, so he’s been driving back and forth to Little Rock at his own expense to get his feet wet before his term actually starts. He will close his shop’s doors at least three months next year while the Legislature is in session. He says he has loyal customers, and he’s worked out arrangements, but that can’t be good for business. He did not know what his legislative salary would be before the election, and he’s still not sure.

That’s because the pay varies member to member. The base pay for House members is $15,869, but legislators also can take advantage of up to $14,000 per year for office expenses they are required to itemize. Some pay themselves rent or pay family members a salary. They also are reimbursed for per diem expenses (lodging and meals) each day they are in Little Rock – $150 per day if they live 50 miles outside the Capitol and $61 if they are closer. They also are reimbursed 56 cents per mile driven. They can be vested in the state’s retirement system if they serve long enough, and they can purchase health insurance like other state employees.

Sounds like a good deal, right? Well, being a legislator is a pretty demanding part-time job involving regular sessions, fiscal sessions, special sessions, interim committee meetings, constituent phone calls and interrupted grocery trips. Many legislators actually do have legitimate office expenses, such as phones. Mileage reimbursements feel like an extra paycheck until you have to replace your worn out tires. Legislators also must stay somewhere when they are in Little Rock. Some pay about $400 a month for rent at the Capitol Hill apartments beside the Capitol.

Sen. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, isn’t sure how much money he makes, either, and he’s been in the Legislature since 2007. During a phone interview, he figured up that his actual take-home pay after expenses is roughly $1,900 a month, but that was kind of a back-of-the-envelope estimate. Being a legislator is his only job; he decided couldn’t serve an employer effectively while also driving back and forth to Little Rock.

Legislators likely are about to get a raise thanks to Amendment 3, passed by voters in November, which included a number of ethics-related provisions. In the past, legislators were responsible for voting for their own pay raises, so they didn’t do it very often. That duty now falls to a citizens commission appointed by legislators, the governor, and the chief justice of the Supreme Court. It will be easier for the commission to raise salaries than it was for the legislators to do so.

Woods, one of Amendment 3’s sponsors, says the current salary structure creates an unnecessary strain on legislators and encourages bad behavior. One behavior, having individual legislators’ meals bought by lobbyists, has been ended by another provision of Amendment 3. Now that legislators are buying their own meals – and they eat out a lot – they’ve effectively received a pay cut.

If legislators were getting rich, there’d be a lot more candidates for office. If they were going broke, they wouldn’t run for re-election. We have in Arkansas a citizen Legislature composed of people who have to pay the bills. It would be best if the salary commission raised base pay while reducing the perks that make it hard to tell who’s making how much. And yeah, legislators should make more money than they do now.

There is the argument that they should be paid nothing, that serving in the Legislature should be just that – a service.

That argument makes sense if all we want in the Legislature are the independently wealthy, the retired, and the dishonest. Which would mean no more laws would be passed by people who own small businesses and fix cars for a living.

Prisons are full. Now what?

Legislature, Politics, State government

By Steve Brawner
© 2014 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

When critical needs aren’t being met, solutions come as a result of two activities: making hard choices and thinking creatively. With prisons, Arkansas has reached the point where it needs to do both.

The state’s prison system is now so full that about 2,500 state convicts are being housed at county jails that were never built for that purpose. The state reimburses counties $28 a day per inmate, the same rate as in 2001, despite counties’ average cost rising to $49 a day. Adding insult to injury, the state doesn’t reimburse counties until the inmate is discharged from jail or moved to the penitentiary. As a result of all this, counties are owed $7.7 million.

County governments, needless to say, are not happy about this. Testifying before four legislative committees Tuesday, Jackson County Sheriff David Lucas, president of the Arkansas Sheriffs Association, said his jail is so full that he’s had to obtain a court order ensuring only violent offenders are locked up. Because of this, nonviolent offenders are no longer paying their fines, and why should they? They know there’s no room in the jail. County voters have approved a tax increase to enlarge the facility, but construction has not begun.

Aware that this can’t continue, the Department of Correction is requesting a new 1,000-bed prison costing in the neighborhood of $100 million. That’s about the same size as the income tax decrease Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson pledged to enact during the campaign.

Sounds like it’s time for some of those hard choices mentioned in the first paragraph, doesn’t it? Should Arkansas build the prison and forego the tax cut? Should it do both, and cut somewhere else?

Another option – both a hard choice and the result of creative thinking – is to stop sending so many people to prison. Maybe there are better options for offenders who aren’t really threats to society. If the state stopped sending some of these struggling but save-able people to several years of “criminal school” in prison, maybe they wouldn’t become hardened criminals.

Here’s another case of creative thinking. Officials with LaSalle Corrections, a private prison provider based in Louisiana, told legislators Tuesday that they have room right now for 1,000 inmates near the Arkansas border. The cost would be about $28 a day – about what the state is paying as it underfunds counties. They can take them as fast as we can get them there.

It was a compelling case. The state Board of Corrections voted the next day to check into something like that.

Here’s the thing about using the private sector to perform traditional government operations: The private sector really is more efficient in many areas, but it tends to focus on picking low-hanging fruit and leaving the harder cases to the government. LaSalle Corrections does have medical staff at its facilities, but the $28 doesn’t cover big medical costs such as expensive drugs – and some inmates’ needs can be very expensive.

There’s also a philosophical question about the incentives created when imprisoning people becomes a commodity. What happens when corporations backed by lobbyists make more money by imprisoning more people as cheaply as possible? You might get more prisoners than you ought to have, and their needs might not be met – and yes, prisoners have needs. The officials with LaSalle seemed admirably sincere in their desire to help their inmates create better lives, but the state a few years ago tried using a private prison provider – Wackenhut Corrections Corp. – and it did not go well.

Is it worth a second try? It may have to be. Private prisons may be one necessary creative solution. But, as is usually the case when critical needs aren’t being met, hard choices still will have to be made.