State Treasurer Charles Robinson said Thursday that he’ll write a check back to the state at the end of the year for what’s left over from his $54,305 salary after deductions for what he owes in state and federal taxes.
He had wanted to decline the salary, but said it turns out that he can’t, in light of an advisory opinion from Attorney General Dustin McDaniel’s office in 2009.
“It is amazing to me, but you got to go around the world to pay it back. But that’s OK,” Robinson said in an interview a day after Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe appointed the self-described political independent to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Newport Democrat Martha Shoffner last week. He’ll serve in the post until January 2015.
Shoffner resigned May 21, a day after she was charged with accepting cash payments of at least $36,000 as well as $6,700 in cash campaign contributions from an unnamed bond broker in return for a large share of the state treasurer’s bond business. Shoffner plans to plead innocent, according to her attorney.
Robinson, 66, said he didn’t want to be paid a salary as state treasurer because “I don’t want anyone to ever think that I am trying to double dip” - a practice under which some state employees receive retirement benefits in addition to a salary under state law.
“I just don’t want a diversion like that, so the best way to do it is to just avoid it,” he said.
“I want people to think I am here to help work with people in this office and that’s it. And it’s a short period of time. The state was good to me for 37 years. I can at least be good to the state for 18 months. That’s the way I look at it,” said Robinson, who headed the Legislative Audit Division for 28 years until he retired on July 31, 2007.
Robinson said he receives about $64,800 a year - about $5,400 a month - in state retirement benefits after deductions for health insurance, taxes and other things, and about $18,000 a year - about $1,500 a month - in Social Security payments.
He doesn’t plan to have a state-paid cell phone or use a state vehicle as state treasurer except when he has to drive a long trip, such as to Fayetteville, he said. He’ll use his personal phone or his pickup instead.
The attorney general’s opinion Robinson cited was written in March 2009. McDaniel said then that Beebe and five legislators, who turned down a 3.3 percent raise approved by the Legislature earlier that year because state employees weren’t getting raises, aren’t allowed to do so under state law.
Deputy Attorney General Elisabeth Walker wrote in an opinion approved by McDaniel that an elected constitutional officer or legislator may not decline all or part of his salary approved for payment under state law, on the basis of Arkansas’ “apparent adherence to the majority rule that when the salary of a public officer is fixed by law, the officer cannot waive such compensation because such a waiver is contrary to public policy.”
But Walker added, “If, for instance, an officer, wishes to return all or a portion of his or her salary to the state treasury, I see nothing to prevent such a donation.”
In March 2009, Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said Beebe would repay the state treasury - minus taxes - in checks either monthly or each quarter. since he couldn’t refuse the pay raise.
The 3.3 percent raise, approved by the 2009 Legislature, increased the governor’s salary from $84,114 a year to $86,890 a year. The 2009 Legislature also approved 3.3 percent raises for the state’s other six constitutional officers and lawmakers. The pay raise boosted lawmakers’ salaries from $15,362 to $15,869 a year.
Those are the last pay raises that the Legislature has approved for the state’s constitutional officers and lawmakers.
DeCample said Thursday that the governor has been writing checks to the state for the pay raise authorized by the 2009 Legislature minus taxes ever since then.
But Beebe intends to discontinue writing those checks to the state in the next fiscal year, since the 2013 Legislature authorized and provided funding for 2 percent cost-of-living raises for most state employees, DeCample said.
According to the Office of Personnel Management, state agencies on the Arkansas Administrative Statewide Information System report that 417 state employees have retired and been rehired at a later date as of Thursday.
That’s down from 521 state employees who had retired and returned to work at a later date as of August 2011, the Office of Personnel Management reported at that time. A law enacted in 2009 requires a 180-day separation period for most state employees before they can return to work.
Asked why the number of state employees who retired and later returned to work for state agencies on the Arkansas Administrative Statewide Information System had dropped, state personnel administrator Kay Terry replied, “A lot of times these rehires are for projects and temporary reasons and are not always for permanent appointments. That would be my thought at first glance.”
The governor’s office has been getting fewer requests from state agencies to rehire state employees who retired six months earlier for positions that require the governor’s approval, DeCample said.
In August 2011, Beebe drew criticism from some Republican lawmakers for reappointing Department of Workforce Services Director Artee Williams after a 30-day retirement allowed under state law. He defended Williams’ rehiring on the basis of Williams’ overall performance and his management of the state’s unemployment trust fund in particular.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/31/2013