Treasurer's office employee shuffle defeated in Senate

Transferring workers to finance board looks unconstitutional, no-voter says

A bill that would shift three employees in the state treasurer's office to the purview of the state Board of Finance failed to clear the Senate on Wednesday.

The 15-10 vote on Senate Bill 425 by Terry Rice, R-Waldron, fell three short of the 18 required for approval in the 35-member chamber. The Senate subsequently expunged the vote to clear the way for Rice to ask for another on the legislation.

Under Act 1088 of 2013, the Board of Finance selects the state's chief investment officer based on the treasurer's nominations. The chief investment officer is employed by the board and works with and at the direction of the treasurer consistent with the policies and directives of the board.

SB425 would require the chief investment officer to have three employees, classified as a senior investment manager, treasurer manager IV and treasurer manager II. The chief investment officer is Autumn Sanson, whose salary is $93,785 a year. Senior investment manager Ed Garner is paid $108,000 a year, while Treasurer Manager IV Larry Tate makes $68,399 a year and Treasurer Manager II Celeste Gladden is paid $61,799 a year, said Stacy Peterson, a spokesman for Milligan. Garner is a former Republican representative from Maumelle.

Rice told senators that his bill is not directed at Republican Treasurer Dennis Milligan of Benton or anyone in Milligan's office. It's in the state's long-term interest to expand the Board of Finance's oversight, from the current one employee to four employees in the investment wing of the treasurer's office, he said.

The board would make sure that qualified, competent and nonbiased employees manage the treasury's roughly $3 billion in investments, he said. The Board of Finance includes the governor, treasurer, auditor, bank commissioner, director of the Department of Finance and Administration, securities commissioner and two appointees each from the House speaker and Senate president pro tempore.

But Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, who is an attorney, said the bill is unconstitutional.

The treasurer is in charge of managing state investments and the legislation is akin to having the governor to tell the Senate who to hire for the Senate's staff, said Hutchinson. "I think the chief investment officer would have more power than the treasurer under the bill."

Rice said the chief investment officer in the treasurer's office has worked under the state Board of Finance since 2013, and no one has questioned the constitutionality of the 2013 law that required that until now. He introduced his bill Feb. 22.

Afterward, Peterson said a fifth employee in the treasurer office's investment department started work on Feb. 6, and that employee is Ronald Roberson, a former vice president and senior trader at the Bank of Oklahoma. Milligan hired Roberson as a senior investment manager with an annual salary of $69,999 after Milligan received two applicants for the job that wasn't advertised, Peterson said.

A Section on 03/02/2017

Upcoming Events