Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling will redo its secret ballot vote in April to hire former board member Alan Pogue of Sherwood as its executive director with a show of board members’ hands during its July 13 meeting, Pogue said Friday.
The board regulates about 2,000 counselors in mental health, marriage and family therapy in the state.
The board’s minutes show the board voted 5-3 in a secret ballot during its April 12 meeting to hire Pogue, who has been interim executive director since January after he resigned from the board.
The board’s records show five slips of paper with Pogue’s name on them and three slips of paper with the name of former board member Garry Teeter of Bryant on them, but the names of the board members aren’t on the slips of paper. In 2011, Gov. Mike Beebe appointed Pogue to replace Teeter on the board.
Pogue acknowledged that assistant attorney general Amanda Gibson told him, “Don’t ever do that again!” this week after he copied her on his email exchange with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette after the newspaper questioned whether the secret ballot violated the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.
The board voted by secret ballot in a public meeting April 12, but Gibson was not aware that the board had used a secret ballotuntil this week, Pogue said. The board normally records its votes without specifying which board members voted which way on motions, he said. He said he doesn’t believe “it is my place” to answer whether he believes the board violated the law.
Board Chairman Mark Coffman of Russellville said Friday that he doesn’t believe the board violated the Freedom of Information Act by voting in a secret ballot, adding, “If we did, we would go back and correct it.”
In 1997, then-Attorney General Winston Bryant said that the White River Levee District’s board of directors may vote on a motion or order of business by secret ballot but that the ballots must be signed and made available for public inspection.
In his advisory opinion, Bryant referred to a 1989 state Supreme Court ruling in Depoyster v. Cole in which the court concluded that, under the Freedom of Information Act, the use of unsigned written ballot slips and the failure to retain the voting slips violated the overall intent of that law.
“In accordance, this office has previously opined that in order for the public to see howtheir officials are performing their official duties, ballot slips should be signed,” Bryant said. “We also concluded that the slips, as public records, should be made available for public inspection.”
The Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling’s records show the board on Dec. 8 approved motions to “facilitate” longtime executive director Ann K. Thomas’ resignation, effective Jan. 1, appoint Pogue as interim executive director at an annual salary of $65,000 and approve his travel expenses as needed to Magnolia, appoint a search committee to screen applications for executive director, and approve a study for moving the board’s office from Magnolia to central Arkansas.
In November, Pogue, a Republican, lost a bid to oust state Rep. Jim Nickels, D-Sherwood.
Coffman said the board voted in April to hire Pogue as executive director in a secret ballot after it interviewed the only two applicants for the post, Teeter and Pogue. Teeter said he applied for the job in January. Pogue submitted his application March 20, according to the board’s records.
Coffman said he initially expected several applicants for the job, but some blamed the lack of applications on the executive director’s wide-ranging duties and salary level and others blamed theoffice’s location in Magnolia.
The board in May approved an $80,000 yearly salary for Pogue to be executive director, starting June 1, and for travel expenses to be reimbursed at state rates for travel to the current board office, records show.
The Legislative Council’s personnel subcommittee recommended June 19 that the Legislative Council approve a $75,000 yearly salary for Pogue to be executive director at the behest of Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, after Bureau of Legislative Research staff recommended a $70,000 salary and the state’s Office of Personnel Management staff recommended an $80,000 salary.
Thomas was making $65,000 a year when she retired as the board’s executive director, which has a maximum-authorized salary of $81,250 a year, according to the bureau.
But the Legislative Council decided June 21 at the suggestion of Rep. Lane Jean, R-Magnolia, to send Pogue’s proposed salary back to its personnel subcommittee to consider again. Jean previously proposed a $70,000 yearly salary for Pogue.
Pogue subsequently told his board members in an email that Nickels showed up at the Legislative Council’s June 21 meeting and “apparently his one purpose was to sabotagethe personnel subcommittee’s decision on the board.
“He spent the entire meeting striding about the room and and grabbing the ear of each member of the personnel subcommittee,” Pogue wrote in his email. “This all stems back to Representative Nickels and his hatred of me.”
Pogue said he’s still working for an annual salary of $65,000.
But Nickels said he didn’t sabotage the personnel subcommittee’s recommendation to pay Pogue $75,000 a year, he didn’t lobby each member of the personnel subcommittee to send its recommendation back to the subcommittee, and he doesn’t hate Pogue.
Nonetheless, Nickels said Pogue wants to be paid $80,000 a year to do what’s basically an administrative job that should pay slightly more than half that salary level.
“It looked like the Republicans were trying to reward one of their failed candidates with a nice salary,” he said.
But state Rep. Andrea Lea, R-Russellville, said she didn’t recall that Pogue ran against Nickels last November until after the legislative council’s personnel subcommitteee made its recommendation to pay Pogue a $75,000 salary, and she doesn’t recall who told her about it.
Key could not be reached for comment by telephone this week.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/06/2013