Some Arkansas voters head back to the polls Tuesday to make their final selections in the preferential primaries of 2016. A few runoffs have extended the spring election season, but for most Arkansans, Election 2016 is done until fall rolls around.
With most decisions completed, candidates now have seven months for a fall campaign. Those who face no opposition in November face nine months of anticipation before they can take the public office they've earned.
That's the case with Washington County's tax collector-elect, Angela Wood. She defeated Teresa Soares in the GOP primary.
The contest between Wood and Soares was a down-ballot race that got little attention from many voters. This newspaper's editorial board endorsed Soares, largely because her level of experience in the tax collector's office far exceeded that of the younger Mrs. Wood. And Wood's visit with our editorial board members is probably one for which she probably wanted a do-over after she left. Her answers lacked depth and her reserved demeanor made us question whether she was the right person for a public office. She's not the first person, especially among first-time candidates, to get a bit flummoxed in the interview process.
Wood campaigned on a message along the lines of "putting my conservative values to work" in the tax collector's office. It was like a mantra she or someone else had determined was the key to victory. If it was in her ads once, it was in there a hundred times. She repeated it a couple of times in our editorial board interview, so I asked how those conservative values would be applied in the day-to-day operation of the tax collector's office. Have you ever seen a deer caught in the headlights?
But Angela Wood had the last laugh. She won, handily. All those color signs of the smiling blonde got her 74 percent of the vote. Since there's no Democratic challenger in November, that means she's the next tax collector.
I told colleagues before the election that the Washington County tax collector's race was one to watch to see if inexperience vs. experience could be overcome by marketing. And it sure was.
Based on pre-election campaign expenditure reports, we know Wood spent a whopping $55,547 to promote her candidacy. At the time, the records show that was five times what anyone else spent in a campaign for countywide office. Soares spent $9,426 during the same pre-election period.
It was astonishing to see a data processing clerk spend 11/2 times her annual salary in pursuit of elective office. And Wood, in an interview with a reporter, said all the money came from her personal savings. It was a bold move that would have become a stupid one had she lost.
She didn't. And her $55,000, it turns out, might just be one of the best investments of her life.
Wood will replace David Ruff, who will have served 15 years in the post when he steps down at the end of the year.
If Angela Wood stays in office 15 years like her predecessor, she will have traded a $55,000 investment in 2016 for a total of $1.38 million in salary. And that figure is undoubtedly conservative because it assumes her salary will remain unchanged from what it will be when she takes over from Ruff. Given Ruff's salary history, that's unlikely.
Ruff's salary grew 73.7 percent over the 15 years he served, going from $53,026 in 2001 to $92,145 this year. That averages almost 5 percent per year. So let's be conservative again and figure just a 3 percent average pay increase each year for the future. At the end of 15 years, tax collector Wood will have been paid slightly more than $1.7 million.
Let's apply that same 3 percent to Wood's current salary. She's an hourly employee making $17.80 an hour, or $37,024 annually excluding any overtime. If her pay increased at a 3 percent rate annually over the next 15 years, she will have made $688,606.
Wood's $55,000 campaign spending gamble doesn't sound so crazy now, does it?
Of course, playing around with all the numbers assumes Wood's performance as tax collector will be satisfactory to the voters of Washington County and she won't face any serious challengers. For the vast majority of Ruff's time in office, he transitioned from term to term without a challenge. Even when he faced a challenger in 2012, he retained the office with more than twice his opponent's number of votes.
Once Wood becomes the incumbent, assuming she does the job well enough, it may be smooth sailing to a long career at the courthouse. And, at 34 years old, she very well might parlay that $55,000 investment into an even bigger return.
As it turns out, it looks like she might have been the smartest one sitting in that editorial board interview.
Commentary on 03/21/2016