Panel endorses rehiring of lawmakers’ spouses
A legislative panel on Friday endorsed the state Agriculture Department’s and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ proposals to rehire spouses of two state representatives.
Last month, state officials terminated Deputy Agriculture Secretary Cynthia Edwards, who is the wife of Rep. John Edwards, D-Little Rock, and UAMS mentalhealth professional Phyllis Wilkins, the wife of Rep. Hank Wilkins, D-Pine Bluff.
They did so, officials said, after they learned that a state law required the Agriculture Department and UAMS to get the approval of the governor and either the Legislative Council or Joint Budget Committee before hiring them, but had failed to do so.
Cynthia Edwards had worked for the Agriculture Department since January 2011. Phyllis Wilkins had worked for UAMS since December 2011 and previously worked there from 2003 to 2010.
The council’s personnel subcommittee recommended Friday that the council OK the department’s plan to rehire Edwards at an annual salary of $95,000 and UAMS’ plan to rehire Wilkins as a licensed mental-health professional at an annual salary of $60,199.
Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, already has approved these agencies’ plans this time.
Cynthia Edwards told lawmakers that “John had nothing to do with me getting this job whatsoever” in 2011.
“I didn’t even tell John I was talking to [Agriculture] Secretary [Richard] Bell about this job until after it had been offered and I was 90 percent sure I wanted to accept the position,” she said.
“He did not call the governor’s office. He didn’t call Secretary Bell. He did not call anybody with the Legislature,” she said.
“And when I did tell him I was talking to Secretary Bell and the job had been offered, he said, ‘I am OK with that. ... Just make sure that my be-
ing in the Legislature is not a problem,’” she said.
Edwards said she told her husband that she and Bell had checked that out and were told repeatedly that it’s not an issue, and she doublechecked it and was told that “this has been approved by the governor’s office and it’s not a problem.”
She said she filled out the paperwork for the job on Jan. 20, 2011, and she started working for the department on Jan. 23, 2011.
Edwards said she worked as an agricultural aide for U.S. Sens. Dale Bumpers and Blanche Lincoln for 23 years.
Then, she said she read in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on May 19 of this year about UAMS terminating Rep. Wilkins’ wife because certain procedures weren’t followed prior to her hiring.
She said she told her husband, “I know that no one ever mentioned anything to me about Legislative Council or Joint Budget [Committee]” being required to approve her hiring.
Edwards said her husband asked the governor’s office to review her personnel file to make sure that her hiring had been done properly, and she was later told that Agriculture Department officials “had not given me the right paperwork, so it had not gone through the proper procedures and so there was no choice but at that point to terminate me, which I completely concurred with.”
Rep. Terry Rice, R-Waldron, said he respects Cynthia Edwards for her expertise and response to the issue, as well as her husband’s response.
“To me, you can’t expect the employee to maybe know all these things,” he said.
“The person that they have in the agency should know what the law says,” Rice said.
Kay Terry, the state’s personnel administrator, said she didn’t know until the day before Cynthia Edwards was terminated that she was Rep. Edwards’ wife because a form hadn’t been forwarded to the state Department of Finance and Administration.
“I have seen a need to reeducate the agencies on the process that they need to follow in this particular area, and we will be happy to put out instructions one more time,” she said.
Terry said the prior approval of the governor and either the council or budget committee isn’t required under state law for state agencies to hire spouses of state lawmakers if the spouse’s entry-level salary doesn’t exceed about $37,500 a year.
Rice said he read in the Democrat-Gazette that certain UAMS officials didn’t know that Phyllis Wilkins was married to Rep. Wilkins.
“Maybe you need to talk more about your husbands,” he joked. “Both are very good men.”
Rice said he might have more questions when the council considers these agencies’ plans to rehire Edwards’ and Wilkins’ spouses.
State Sen. Joyce Elliott, DLittle Rock, told Cynthia Edwards, “I can certainly feel the pain of what you are going through.”
On April 30, Elliott resigned her $80,000-a-year job as executive director of the Central Little Rock Promise Neighborhood after the Democrat-Gazette questioned whether her employment through the University of Arkansas at Little Rock conformed with state law.
UALR Chancellor Joel Anderson has said UALR was unaware that hiring Elliott last September conflicted with state law. UALR is the fiscal agent for the federal grant for the promise neighborhood project, a consortium of eight entities.
“I know there are these assumptions about who should know the law and who should not, and it turns out it seems a lot of people don’t,” Elliott said.
Beebe’s spokesman Matt DeCample has acknowledged that the governor’s office “overlooked the same law as everyone else.” That law is Act 34 of 1999, which Beebe sponsored as a state senator.