By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — The complete list of elected officials in Arkansas who are collecting retirement pay while still on the job could include as many as 200 names by the time state auditors have finished compiling it, state Rep. Allen Kerr, R-Little Rock, said Monday.

Also Monday, Gov. Mike Beebe said he hopes the review will determine whether the elected officials misunderstood the law or were deliberately abusing the retirement system.

Kerr is seeking a list of elected officials who are drawing retirement benefits and a paycheck for the same job. He said he requested the information in response to an attorney general’s opinion last month that said the practice may be illegal.

Kerr met Monday with the director of the Bureau of Legislative Audit and the executive director of the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System to discuss how the list is being collected.

“We had a roundtable discussion about what a sticky wicket we are in,” Kerr said about the complexity of gathering the information. “We tried to put down some ground rules, some parameters, on what information we’re going to need.”

Gail Stone, executive director of APERS, said it’s a tedious process because after her department sends information to state auditors, each case has to be inspected.

“I am promptly providing legislative audit with all retirees for any given time they ask for,” she said, adding that each case is different, so no blanket assumptions can be drawn.

“They’re having to investigate each individual,” she said.

Kerr said the list will go back 10 years to when Act 1460 of 1999 was signed into law. Under the act, members of the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System were allowed to file for retirement, go at least 30 days without a paycheck and then return to their jobs to receive their regular pay plus draw retirement benefits.

Sen. Steve Faris, D-Malvern, who was in the House in 1999, said the law was passed after legislative term limits took effect in an effort to keep some longtime state employees at the Capitol. The Legislature extended the time period to 90 days in 2003 and 180 days this year.

Kerr said he plans to file legislation in 2011 to close the loophole and to make sure county elected officials are prohibited from the practice.

Eddie Jones, executive director of the Association of Arkansas Counties, said Monday the 180-day period approved this year by the Legislature makes it nearly impossible for anyone to take improper advantage of the law.

Changing the time period to 180 days, or six months, would make it difficult for a person to go back into the position he or she retired from, he said.

“If that position could be kept open 180 days the position was probably not needed,” he said. “If additional steps need to be taken I’m sure the state Legislature will do what’s needed — or the APERS board of trustees will implement further regulations.”

Kerr said Monday that once the list is gathered, it will be turned over to the attorney general’s office for an investigation.

Last week it was revealed that several elected county officials, including three from Garland County — Circuit Clerk Vicki Rama, Treasurer Jo West-Taylor and Assessor Brenda Short — took themselves off the county payroll from September to November last year to file for retirement. The three then returned to work in their elected offices. Attempts to reach the three for comment have been unsuccessful.

Stone said her office handles the retirement paperwork, but does not have the authority, or the manpower to check each individual retiree to make sure they haven’t returned to their elected job.

Kerr said his goal is to find out if the elected officials applied for retirement only after being told they could, or if they deliberately did so to take advantage of what they believed was a loophole in the law.

If it is determined that any elected county officials knowingly participated in an effort to take advantage of the system, he suggested requiring them to repay the value of their retirement benefits or face a misdemeanor charge.

“If they took the money erroneously, they should repay it,” he said. “The No. 1 goal, however, is to close the loophole.”

Asked how many would be on the list, Kerr said Monday that “preliminary numbers show 150 to 200.”

Jones said he did not think elected county officials who retired and then went back to their old jobs should be punished for “what I understand through media reports has been a fairly common practice of all types of APERS retirees since 1999.

“There is no doubt, in my mind that any official who retired without resigning their office or any county, municipal or state employee who retired without completely severing ties did so in good faith as a practice purportedly allowed by APERS,” Jones said.

Beebe told also reporters Monday morning he hopes the investigation determines whether the county elected officials misunderstood what they were doing or deliberately took advantage of the loophole.

Beebe also said he raised questions about it in 1999 when it was being debated in the Legislature.

“It was originally set up, as I recall, back when I was in the Senate … because we were losing some valuable, experienced employees,” he said. “It was a way to retain them and still give them the incentive not to just quit and go away altogether. I suppose it has its place and provides in some instances meritorious motive that was initially the basis for it, but
like anything else, if it’s abused it’s not that good.”

Beebe continued, “Obviously some folks didn’t do it right, if the newspaper accounts are correct. Whether that’s confusion and misunderstanding, whether it’s intentional abuse, that’s the basis for what the people that are doing the checking will find out.”

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said last week that his office will investigate the issue when it receives the list from Kerr.