JBC-Personnel
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Bills discussed (5)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
SB29
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “D. SB29 Lieutenant Governor- Letter dated February 20, 2026, from L…”
|
AN ACT FOR THE OFFICE OF THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR APPROPRIATION FOR THE 2026-2027 FISCAL YEAR. | Joint Budget Committee | DELIVERED TO GOVERNOR. |
|
SB51
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “E. SB51 Auditor of State- Revised Letter dated April 10, 2026, from…”
|
AN ACT FOR THE AUDITOR OF STATE - OPERATIONS AND UNCLAIMED PROPERTY PROGRAM APPROPRIATION FOR … | Joint Budget Committee | DELIVERED TO GOVERNOR. |
|
SB55
Act 137
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “B. SB55 Supreme Court- Letter dated February 1, 2026, from Chief Ju…”
|
AN ACT FOR THE ARKANSAS SUPREME COURT APPROPRIATION FOR THE 2026-2027 FISCAL YEAR. | Joint Budget Committee | Notification that SB55 is now Act 137 |
|
HB1014
Act 69
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “C. HB1014 Secretary of State- Letter dated February 12, 2026, from Se…”
|
AN ACT FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES - DIVISION OF PROVIDER SERVICES AND QUALITY … | Joint Budget Committee | Notification that HB1014 is now Act 69 |
|
HB1041
Act 125
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…1, 2026, from Chief Justice Karen Baker Amendment JAR135 C. HB1041 Secretary of State- Letter dated February 12, 2026, from Se…”
|
AN ACT FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE APPROPRIATION FOR THE 2026-2027 FISCAL YEAR. | Joint Budget Committee | Notification that HB1041 is now Act 125 |
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- October 5, 2026
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0:00
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all right members thank you for being here this morning we're going to go ahead and call this
meeting to order and i'm going to turn it over to my
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
8:24
co-chair representative wooten for some opening comments thank you madam chairman i just want to refresh your memory each of the committee members that the new percentage is 40 to 45 percent on the fringe
benefits. That's the number that's involved in the letters that we'll look at today. Constitutional officers can pay the maximum if they choose to do so whenever they have a position if they want to change or increase salary. But should any of that be voted down, it goes back to the current salary, the present salary.
And the bills have already been filed with this amount that's in the amount. Tony, which one
Speaker 8
9:17
did I want to say? Bills have been filed. These
Speaker 10
9:22
letters are letters of request that would amend the current bills.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
9:28
Okay. And if they're approved by the committee, then they will be amended or put in the bill at that amount.
And that's all. And it's good to be back here. Thank you,
Mr. Jim. Thank you, Representative Wooten. All right, we will go ahead and
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
9:49
jump into item B. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Speaker 13
9:51
Item B is a request from the Supreme Court. This is for one new position. There is no request for appropriation changes. The position requested is a Supreme Court police chief at a grade LES05 with a salary range of $67,000 to $100,000. This changes the total number of authorized positions in the bill from 76 to 77.
All right, members, do we have any questions on item B? okay okay seeing none do I have a motion to approve motion and a second okay I've got a motion and a second all those in favor please say aye opposed no motion carries item C I'm chairman item
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
10:45
C is a request from the Secretary of State
Letter states that they are requesting five additional
Speaker 13
10:50
State Capitol Police corporal positions along with changes to the job titles and adjusted salary maximums. You can see on page five and six of the packet that the requested realignment of job titles includes three new classifications at the bottom of page six. In the middle columns you will see the titles that are being eliminated along with the changes in total number of each classification. The maximum salary increases requested are shown on the right side of that middle section as well. You can also see on page 5 that they're requesting an increase of $355,000 in regular salaries and $142,000 in matching, increasing the total appropriation by $498,000.
Senator Bryant, you're recognized for a question? Thank you, Madam Chair. I
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
11:41
just have a few questions for the department. Is somebody with the Secretary of State's office here?
Thank you. Please state your name
Speaker 26
12:07
and who you're with for the record. Kenneth Eddington. Matt
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
12:13
Pitch, Secretary of State. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. just a few questions I was looking at last year's budget appropriation and a few things caught my eye is obviously your maximum annual salary rate for every position is going up anywhere from 1% to 15% and then you are collapsing the
number of the line item of positions as far as what your titles are from 57 down to 39 you're rearranging several positions as you described a little bit in your summary I think my question is is the total appropriation is only going up to the I believe the five extra positions that you're asking for but when you collapse everybody's existing pay grades or titles and you get rid of a whole bunch of positions that are paid 39,000 and you're being absorbed in the
positions of 57,000 and 80,000 but you're not asking for new appropriations I guess the question would be is how are you doing that and then when are you going to do that when you realize that maybe the money is not there? Thank
Speaker 31
13:22
you for the question, Senator. We, as we exist today, are doing no request of funds. We were asked to provide security to yet another building, much like last cycle we were requested to provide security to this building.
in doing so then we went back and changed our request to put those five capital police in there one of the things we we decided to do the governor's directive or statement was get yourselves as constitutional offices on her pay plan but find the money within your budget through open slots etc people who have left and that's what you see in our budget cycle we decided to clean up what was kind of chaotic and messy 57 job classifications for 180 people
and our staff went to great lengths to figure out that person a's job had the same status same duties as person b well one might be in elections one might be in business services etc so that was an effort to clean up having all of those you referenced 59 job classifications we reference that back to the 37 you see in our requested letter basically as a house cleaning thing an organized office runs more efficient and that's what we were trying to do there
so in summary if you if we don't take on the added security of the 501 building across the street we are asking for nothing new other than we cleaned up our rolls and we went to line item maxes but we're not asking for
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
15:09
any funding okay i think that can satisfy me um as far as the building that we're taking over with new security does that mean you're you're losing a contract that was previously provided by
Speaker 30
15:21
a tenant or by the um currently the building authority sas
Speaker 31
15:25
has asked us to take that on much like they asked us to take on this building um they were under contract i don't have the details in front of me of what they were doing but i know us taking it on we said here's how we'll take on a six-story building for security and what we need to make that happen quite frankly we'll put some of the extra duties onto our other staff we think there's an efficiency of scale there if they were providing the same level of security i would bet that there would be a savings economy
of scale because we're doing it with a we're adding five people to a staff of of over 30 now and we'll cover some of those gaps with that 30 when we can hopefully okay so
Speaker 35
16:10
there's already security guards there's already security
Speaker 31
16:12
but it's a rented contract i believe much like this building was so to the taxpayer i guess you could say that goes away and that money now comes to us under hopefully a higher security presence so that security contract is going to
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
16:25
go away they're I would, but that's, again, not in my budget.
Speaker 37
16:30
It was in there. In there. Okay. All right. All
right. Thank you. Thank you. And if
you'll recall, this is something that we've been working on for maybe two years now at least, just expanding security under the Secretary of State to really just secure the Capitol grounds and make sure that we've got a police force able to keep everybody safe as the world gets a little more volatile. So I appreciate the phased-in approach that you guys have taken.
I know we've worked through it and said, you know, sort of one building at a time to make sure we've got that going well
Speaker 31
17:08
before we take on something new. And so I appreciate it. There are others that are, I don't want to say formally requesting, but they are knocking on the door saying, hey, how did they get you to do that? And it's a discussion and then a plan, and
does it make financial sense to do? I think that's great. Thank you. Senator Hill,
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
17:28
you're recognized? Mr. Pitch, with the increase in the salaries
that you're looking at in moving your employees
around, as far as the overall police department that y'all are operating, do you feel like that will allow you to retain the employees? It
Speaker 31
17:42
is a really big problem. Open, you know, people leaving to go to the private sector in our pay scale and our structure is a problem. I'm not prepared to go down that path yet. happy with where we are we love our employees we work with them we try to figure out ways to keep them motivated you know security personnel law enforcement they're there for the for a reason
they want to provide security to their fellow man and not to get too emotional but our folks do a really good job i think i'm bragging a little bit on on our personnel and i think others have seen that with the advent of this building my concern if I have a concern is I almost think it would have been easier to take give us this building that building that building and cover the whole campus with security and to the chair person's comments it's probably better that we do it in a phased-in deal because we get
good at doing this building security and then we're going to 501 and doing get good at that and then we maybe go to what the others who have knocked on the door I think it's a good thing I think our people are trained professionals as opposed to rented security guards not to diminish their efforts but I just feel like you when you walk in here you see a weapons detection system you see our bomb sniffing dog you you hopefully feel safe in your environment thank you as my main concern was just
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
19:11
to make sure that you felt like you would
able to retain these employees we're doing the
Speaker 31
19:15
best we can i mean i think we do a decent job of doing that but it is a real thing i mean you can you can take a look at what our folks make and you can see the private sector and you know we're not here asking for more money but we do struggle with that with people you know i'm i wasn't going to give any examples but i can give you examples offline because it deals with lives of personnel but people people that have left you know same spot people have left a couple times this year so we've we've got issues with
that thank you all right are there any other questions on item C all right see none do I have a motion for approval in a second got a motion in a second any discussion all those in favor please say aye all opposed no motion carries item D thank
Speaker 13
20:14
you thank you madam chair item D is a request from the lieutenant governor's office requesting a change from line item maximum salaries to pay
grades associated with the state pay plan there are no changes to the total number of positions but they do request an increase of roughly three hundred and forty nine thousand dollars in regular salaries and matching appropriations page three of the D packet details the requested changes showing the difference between the current line item maximums and the maximums of the new pay grades along with the requested increase in appropriation.
All right. Do we have any questions on item D?
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
20:53
Senator Hill, you're recognized. Madam Chair, can we get someone down here
from the office? Yes. There's someone here from Lieutenant Governor's office. Thank you. all right if you would please state your name and who you're with for the record
Speaker 49
21:28
sandy hall chief of staff to lieutenant governor rutledge
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
21:30
john austin lynch director of communications thank you all right senator hill thank you Ms. Hall, just looking at this overall, I know it's less employees, so your percentage is going to be higher than a larger office, such as the Secretary of State's office was a while ago. When you're looking at salary increase on
Speaker 49
21:56
this, you're looking at a pretty dramatic change. Can you all
Chair
Unverified
21:59
go into a little detail on that? Yes, Senator. And so with that change and why it is so high, you know, our ultimate goal is just to get on the current pay plan, be able to get the lieutenant governor's office consistent with other constitutional office who are already in other state agencies who are on the pay plan and the current market rates.
But because that number is so high, the lieutenant governor's office in 2024, we did receive a 10 percent increase, just other constitutionals did, too. And so we we got that. But even with that 10 percent increase prior to that, the lieutenant governor's office has not received any salary raises in nearly a decade. And so we are just working on getting that up to date to be able to be competitive with everybody else. And so just to have that consistency, but it's been nearly a decade and even with the 10% raise that we are still every single one of these positions compared to other constitutional offices are still below.
And I did forget to mention, we do have handouts, happy to share that with you, or if we need to give it to everybody, let me know. Yes, can we please get
the handouts? Sorry, I thought you were saying you were done with your questions. No, we're just getting started. Perfect.
Chair
Unverified
24:10
All right, Representative Kavanaugh, you're recognized for questions.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
24:40
Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is, y'all are asking for these increases, but
can you explain to me what your hours are at your office? Because, to be honest with you, the lights are out most of the time that I go
Speaker 60
24:55
by, so I'm asking. Well, goodness, the lights
Chair
Unverified
24:58
should definitely not be out. But we are all the time working for a constitutional, because we are a three-person staff in the office. There's times where we might all be traveling with her. out at events or we're all trying to cover different events um but we are on we're i mean
we work all the time uh working for a constitutional officer and so um eight to five or you know maybe some mornings start early some mornings are really long and so um if there's nobody in your
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
25:27
office how did the citizens of arkansas able to come in and talk to you or actually get a hold of
Chair
Unverified
25:33
you yes ma'am and so if we are not in the office if a lot of the times if we don't have visitors we're getting phone calls but those phone calls are rolling to our cell phones and so if um it goes to if someone has to leave a voicemail that voicemail goes to our executive assistant's email
and so she's able to see okay somebody just called they left this voicemail and we return it within 24 hours um same day yes ma'am okay but so you're so
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
25:59
there are times if there are nobody in your office we always
Chair
Unverified
26:03
try to keep it stabbed but there there will be times where if we are all running in different directions just because there's only three of us in the office yes ma'am thank you Senator Bryant
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
26:18
you're recognized thank you for these positions just because it's not
as convenient right in front of me what is the max actual number for an executive zero one or
ls07 what's what's that top top number yeah so for uh
Chair
Unverified
26:35
just put it in the reason we did the we did it that way with the grades is just to be consistent with you know the governor's office and how others did it in their appropriation bill but for example like EXE-01, the max is 191. And so when you get to, when you get to like the law enforcement,
you get into LES-07, which the max is 121. And in those charts, if you see, you're able to see where the max number is, where other constitutional officers are at in those positions that we are all compared to and you can tell where we're at versus where they're currently at and then this even if we get to the midpoint on those pay grades ours are still falling below way below
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
27:32
so what what is as chief of staff what is your max line right now and are you at your max
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
27:45
max okay your max is 10 uh 104 104 so i'm just trying to compare when I try to when we're gonna give a list of apples for apples and I look at just the previous testimony of Secretary of State's office they have their general counsel's max salary rate set for 25 26 at 1 16 857 and I I'm not
saying there's not a lot of work at the lieutenant general's office but legal counsel at lieutenant general's office or lieutenant governor's office versus general counsel at secretary of state's office probably has a different workload and so i'm not i'm not knocking them for not asking them i'm i have heartburn trying to compare those as apples to apples when they're not no absolutely
Speaker 60
28:33
and great question and so the way our bill is you know chief
Chair
Unverified
28:38
of staff slash legal counsel and so in the case that um you know for example former the former chief of staff left the office to go work into the private sector and so lieutenant governor promoted me to that position but in a situation where if I wasn't in that position or and she decided okay I'm going to bring a lawyer in we could not afford a lawyer for that office and so putting us getting onto the pay grades for the consistency of these you know allows her to be able to retain okay maybe if I want to be able to find a lawyer then just comparing trying to
fight with the private sector currently right now no one will come trying to fill that second position after the former chief left was probably one of the hardest things just seeing because everyone was just making so much money but yes you know not comparing the everyone does have different workloads but just to be able to give the opportunity to retain someone just good people that will be able to come to these offices
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
29:42
so so this ask versus the ask just to increase
the line item maximums was that off the table
you're just going to run this route and let the constitutional officer be able to keep asking for more money to get to get that up there versus is just saying hey we haven't gotten a raise we're not asking for 191 but we're asking to be able to go beyond the
Speaker 60
30:06
maximum to 120. And with that great question Senator and so with that
Chair
Unverified
30:11
we getting on to these pay grades just gives the lieutenant governor gives future lieutenant governors the room to be able to pay as they wish because when we came in we were capped everyone
there was no room to go so we were going to have to come to you all anyways and ask for more money for these positions and now that the with the governor's office and the consulting company that came in to see how far off we were this was just the best route to be able to come in and say okay this lieutenant governor will be able to pay but future lieutenant governors will just have the room to be able to give to their their future staff and not have to hopefully come back to to you all and ask for more money. All right. All right. Thank you.
All right. Are there any other questions? All right. Senator Hill, you're recognized. Madam Chair,
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
31:01
I'd like to put a hold on this one to just get with them
offline. Alright Senator Hill we will hold it until tomorrow so we can get your questions. Thank you sir. Thank you
All right, we are holding item D and moving on to item
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
31:40
E Thank you madam chair item E is a request from the auditor's office The request
Speaker 13
31:45
includes realignment of position classifications and increases to line out of maximum salaries for all but one classification. The auditor states in his letter that he intends to provide 12.5% increases to all staff with the exception of the deputy auditor and chief of staff who will receive 3.25% and 3.5% increases respectively.
The request also includes the addition of one UCP Claims Examiner 1 position and one UCP Compliance Agent. The total requested increase to regular salaries and match is $579,468 for both the operations and UCP appropriations. You will see a summary of the requested changes on page 11 of the e-packet.
All right, members, do we have any questions on item E?
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
32:40
Senator Bryant, you're recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I'd just like some
staff to come up. Thank you both. If you would please state your name and who you're with
Speaker 81
33:08
for the record. Dennis Milligan, Auditor State. stacy peterson director of communications for the auditor's office
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
33:15
thank you so much for for being here i i must say out of most agencies you did a very good job trying to educate us on your ask as we approached fiscal session and i one of my statements back to you that i will not be able to support was the addition of a position strictly for this whole purpose to engage with the legislature to advocate for policy changes for your office um i i don't i don't i find that difficult when it comes from inside of a of
another branch and i know other branches do it um and that's just personal policy position questions but what what are you doing differently than previous auditors of the state that would require you to need a position to make these asks versus you yourself or somebody already working within your staff to come to us once
every other year to ask us for policy changes well first of
Speaker 84
34:16
all senator if you're if you're asking about the government relations position we pull that
we are the only constitutional office that does not have a governmental relations individual we also for your for the record and that you know we have some 300 million dollars in u.s treasury bonds that because we pulled that position that we're not going to be able to try to get back to arkansans their hard working money but that's fine uh to answer your questions with respect to the other uh two positions they are revenue neutral because of the bill y'all passed
We're able to pay for those positions with interest that we receive. With respect to the data match program that you passed, our presses, our check printing machines are actually smoking over there. We're averaging giving back Arkansans their hard-earned money at about a million a week. i've got staff working overtime at nights on weekends and we simply in order to achieve and
i'm sure you would agree with me that getting arkansans their monies back in this day and time is very important oh yeah i
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
35:34
i don't disagree with a lot of the portions of your asks i'm just focused on the government affairs position that is not revenue neutral as far as that's that's coming out of Central Services. Sir, I just told you we pulled that. I don't know what
Speaker 84
35:48
else to say. I pulled the ass for that position. Oh, you pulled
Speaker 9
35:54
it off of here? Yes, sir. Well, I apologize.
Yes, sir. Your apology is accepted. Senator Bryant, we admitted that yesterday, and so this is an updated packet. Okay. All
right. I apologize for that. Yes, that was pulled yesterday. That's
okay. Thank you. Any other questions? all right senator hill you're
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
36:19
recognized mr. auditor i just want to say appreciate you coming today to to discuss all your your issues today in person i appreciate that very much thank you sir thank you
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
36:27
very much very important to us representative wooten you're recognized
On the increases, Mr. Elligan, did you do a market survey of an outside state government? Is that how you came up? Because there's some pretty good increases here, 138 to 171, 126 to 183, 141. I don't have a problem with people making money, but are we in the marketplace, and will this help your office?
I mean, you've asked for it, but has there been a market review? Representative, what we
Speaker 84
37:17
did was we took the request, and I think, Stacey, am I right, mid-range from the governor's pay plan in order to keep and to compare with the private sector with respect to education capabilities, those types of things. So we kind of, again, took a middle of the road, not the very highest level with respect to the salary.
Well, with the exception of the last two fiscal years, regular salaries from my office have been stagnant for the past five to seven years, and I actually have a document here that outlines this if y'all would like to see
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
37:58
it. I didn't look at the scale. Are you paying the maximum in these positions? No, sir. You're below the maximum? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you, sir. Any other questions?
All right. Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve item E? Motion. Do I have a second? We've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. No. Motion carries. All right. Any other business? All right. Seeing no other business, we are adjourned.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. SB55 Supreme Court- Letter dated February 1, 2026, from Chief Justice Karen Baker Amendment JAR135
C. HB1014 Secretary of State- Letter dated February 12, 2026, from Secretary of State Cole Jester Amendment JAR137
D. SB29 Lieutenant Governor- Letter dated February 20, 2026, from Lt. Governor Leslie Rutledge Amendment JAR134
E. SB51 Auditor of State- Revised Letter dated April 10, 2026, from Auditor Dennis Milligan Revised Amendment JAR136
F. Other business
G. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — JBC-PERSONNEL, Apr 14, 2026 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Ex B Supreme Court SB55 | Exhibit | 3 | Official source ↗ |
| Ex C SOS HB1041 · HB1041 Secretary of State- Letter dated February 12, 2026, from Secretary of State Cole Jester | Exhibit | 6 | Official source ↗ |
| Ex D Lt. Governor SB29 | Exhibit | 3 | Official source ↗ |
| Ex E Revised Auditor | Exhibit | 11 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Breanne Davis Chair
Unverified
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
Speaker 8
Speaker 10
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
Speaker 13
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
Speaker 26
Speaker 31
Speaker 30
Speaker 35
Speaker 37
Speaker 49
Chair
Unverified
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
Speaker 60
Speaker 81
Speaker 84
Speaker 9