State Treasurer Dennis Milligan agreed Wednesday to pay a $400 fine to the Arkansas Ethics Commission and receive a public letter of warning in a settlement of a complaint filed against him by lawyer Matt Campbell.
Milligan blasted Campbell for filing what Milligan called a "frivolous ethics complaint" that he said has cost him and his wife "tens of thousands of dollars and emotional distress."
Campbell said he wondered how Milligan could sign a settlement of the ethics complaint and then call it frivolous after the Ethics Commission found probable cause that Milligan violated campaign-finance laws four times. The commission has authority to issue fines ranging from $50 to $2,000 per violation of state law and to issue a public letter of caution, warning or reprimand.
"I think the level of the fine is pretty ridiculous," Campbell said, adding that he thought Milligan should have been fined $1,000 for each violation of state law.
Milligan, a Benton Republican, has faced several complaints since taking office Jan. 13, 2015. He is a former Saline County circuit clerk and a former chairman of the state Republican Party. Campbell is a Little Rock lawyer and left-leaning blogger.
In the written settlement signed Wednesday by Milligan, he agreed with a finding by the Ethics Commission that he violated campaign-finance laws four times by failing to provide certain information on his reports.
Milligan released a copy of the settlement. The commission has not publicly released anything on the case.
The treasurer said the Ethics Commission dismissed most of Campbell's allegations.
"The remaining [four] are technical errors that I wish my former campaign volunteers would have reported correctly the first time," he said.
"However, ultimately, I take responsibility for those reports and accounting errors," Milligan said in a written statement. "In hindsight, I should have hired a professional accountant to handle my campaign reports."
The violations, now corrected in campaign paperwork, are that Milligan failed to:
• Report the receipt of in-kind contributions of about $1,200 provided by Gary Underwood through Underwood's Pinnacle Communications for video-auditing services when Underwood worked for Milligan in the Saline County circuit clerk's office, according to Milligan and his attorney, Byron Freeland.
• Properly report information about reimbursing campaign manager Jason Brady about $800 through the Your Ad Team.
• Dispose of several campaign assets, including a $182.47 printer, a $1,043.08 iPad and Bluetooth keyboard, and a $333.50 guitar. The assets have since been taken away.
• Report the receipt of in-kind contributions of $52.08 for graphic design provided by his son-in-law and campaign volunteer Chad Brown when Brown was on duty as vice president of operations at Milligan's Water Treatment Services.
"Once all of these errors were discovered, I quickly made the corrections on my campaign reports, as allowed by law, but still got 'dinged' for them," Milligan said.
Among other things, Campbell also alleged in his 107-page ethics complaint that Milligan illegally hired two spouses of state lawmakers, promised jobs in the treasurer's office to more than seven people, and had several employees in the Saline County circuit clerk's office perform campaign duties during business hours.
But the Ethics Commission didn't find probable cause that Milligan violated state law regarding those allegations, according to Milligan's settlement with the commission.
Milligan said in his written statement that "this frivolous ethics complaint ... is nothing more than an obvious political witch hunt and an attempt to ruin my reputation with voters.
"Mr. Campbell in his effort to boost his ego and image as some type of political headhunter has done nothing more than waste the Arkansas Ethics Commission's time and resources," Milligan said. "All this from an individual who publicly had questions raised about his own use of state time to work on his political blog while employed at the Arkansas Supreme Court."
Campbell said his complaint wasn't a waste of the commission's time and resources because the commission "found probable cause of violations."
"I will put my reputation for truth and transparency up against Dennis Milligan's any day of the week," Campbell said.
Campbell said the state Republican Party raised questions about him when he worked for the Supreme Court and that nobody found any wrongdoing on his part.
Campbell filed an ethics complaint against Lt. Gov. Mark Darr of Springdale, which ultimately led to Darr's resignation in February 2014. Darr agreed to pay $11,000 in fines for various ethics violations.
Campbell filed a complaint against Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge that was dismissed by the commission.
Milligan has fought complaints on several fronts:
• In March, Milligan agreed to pay Rutledge's office a $1,000 penalty for violating the state nepotism law when he hired his cousin for a $63,000-a-year job at the treasurer's office. He also reimbursed the state $6,941.62 for the pay earned by his cousin, Sam Swayze.
• Since late May, Milligan's office has been battling a former treasurer's office employee in court. Milligan terminated his former outreach manager, David Singer, from a $65,000-a-year job on April 27. Singer later filed a defamation lawsuit against Milligan and Jim Harris, Milligan's chief of staff. Campbell is an attorney for Singer.
Campbell said Wednesday that he wasn't representing Singer when he filed his ethics complaint against Milligan in August.
• On May 31, the Jefferson County Republican Committee called for Milligan's resignation after the disputes involving Brady and Singer. The committee's chairman, Peter Smykla Jr., said Milligan's behavior amounted to a "betrayal of our confidence and trust."
In July, a spokesman for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network said that Brady improperly used the resources of the charity and violated its internal policies by working on Milligan's campaign when he should have been doing the charity's business.
Milligan briefly gave Brady a paid leave of absence as deputy chief of staff. After a review, Milligan had Brady return to work, saying there was no evidence that Brady had broken campaign laws.
In his written statement Wednesday, Milligan said he's "asking the Jefferson County Republican Committee for a public apology, and, speaking as a former party chairman, I would think the membership of the committee would seek the resignation of the leadership who orchestrated this misguided effort."
"That's funny. The whole committee felt that way," Smykla said in response, referring to the committee's call for Milligan to resign in May. "So the whole committee is supposed to resign?"
A Section on 02/04/2016