A fired employee of Treasurer Dennis Milligan’s office has added accusations of illegal use of state funds to his legal complaints against his former boss, according to filings made in Pulaski County Circuit Court at the end of the year.
David Singer, a former outreach manager on Milligan’s staff, filed a complaint alleging illegal exaction on Dec. 30. Singer alleges that Milligan illegally transferred funds within his office to pay a Washington, D.C.-based company for a program offering financial literacy instruction to elementary school students. A spokesman for the treasurer’s office, citing ongoing litigation, declined to comment Thursday.
Singer’s complaint seeks to have Milligan repay the funds and a judgment that Milligan acted illegally and beyond the scope of his authority by funding the program.
“Education is not a duty of the office of Treasurer,” the complaint states. “The office of Treasurer is primarily to hold state money and produce some earnings on it before it’s needed to pay bills.”
Singer’s complaint was added to a lawsuit he filed against Milligan last year alleging that the treasurer violated the state’s whistleblower law when he fired Singer in April 2015. Singer had spent less than four months on the job.
In the original state lawsuit filed against Milligan and his then-chief of staff, Jim Harris, in September 2015, Singer’s attorney said Singer had complained about “using public funds to engage in political activities and harassment,” although the complaint offered no details.
In October 2015, Arkansas Legislative Audit reported that Milligan’s four-year, $450,000 contract with EverFi Inc. to provide the financial literacy program was beyond the scope of his office’s duties. Auditors also found that legislative approval was not given for moving $75,000 from the treasurer’s office’s 2015 appropriation for data processing to pay for the first installment of the contract.
Milligan defended his support of the financial literacy program to the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee in 2015, according to Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports, saying the issue had been a part of his campaign platform.
It’s unclear if Singer’s concerns mentioned in his original complaint had to do with the contract for the educational program. His lawyer, Luther Sutter, did not return a message left with his office Thursday.
After the 2015 audit, Milligan’s office ended its contract with EverFi, and the tab for the financial education program was picked up by the Arkansas 529 Plan Review Committee — which oversees the college savings plan — with “a few tweaks,” Chief Deputy Treasurer Grant Wallace said.
Milligan serves on the 529 Review Committee, along with George Hopkins, the executive director of the Teacher Retirement System, and Higher Education Director Maria Markham. Act 515 of 2003, which established the review committee, gives it power to enter contracts, but does not state where it gets its funding.
State offices were closed Friday due to snow across the state, and it couldn’t be determined how much the review committee has spent on the contract.
According to the treasurer’s office, more than 9,500 Arkansas students in grades four through six have received 19,000 hours in financial literacy courses through the contract with EverFi.
“It only makes sense to encourage people how to save in order to have them save,” Wallace said when asked why the courses were being paid for through a program to oversee college savings.
Singer also has an ongoing federal lawsuit against Milligan and Harris alleging defamation and a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act over an email sent by Harris to co-workers saying Singer had mental problems and harassed female employees.
Singer’s federal lawsuit, in which he seeks punitive damages in his defamation claim against Harris, is set to go to trial again Jan. 30 in Little Rock. Singer cannot seek monetary damages for his disability claim, although a judge can order the state to rehire him or clear his employment record.
A federal judge in August declared a mistrial after four days of testimony, after Harris was taken out of the courtroom in an apparent medical emergency. Harris, citing his health, retires effective next week.