Lawmakers explain their GIF grants
At least 24 current and former Arkansas lawmakers sponsored General Improvement Fund grants to Ecclesia College and Decision Point Inc. and related companies at about the same time as now-indicted former Sen. Jon Woods and former Rep. Micah Neal, grant records show. Neal has pleaded guilty, Woods has pleaded innocent. Nineteen of those legislators agreed to be interviewed. None have been charged with any crimes.
All said they were not offered and didn’t take kickbacks in connection with their grants, which occurred between mid2013 and 2016. Excerpts from some of those legislators’ interviews and their grant amounts:
Former Rep. Randy Alexander, R-Springdale, two grants totaling $26,500, Ecclesia College, 2014.
Alexander, who says he worked in higher education, sought out the private Christian school. “I had become pretty disgusted with most public institutions. They had gotten used to students sharing opinions, being considered non-judgmentally. You had to be politically correct,” he said.
When Alexander visited Ecclesia and talked with its president, Oren Paris III, he decided to contribute. Paris was indicted early this year along with Woods, Neal and a college consultant.
“I made the initial donation of $20,000. Then we got to the point where any money that hadn’t been awarded would be lost. I called the executive director of another agency. I needed to know that day and she was away,” Alexander said. “I needed to make a decision and gave Ecclesia what I had left.”
“I’m sure some of the legislators didn’t get a kickback,” he said. “But clearly some did. It’s really a disappointment. That’s the reason people don’t trust government anymore.”
Rep. Bob Ballinger, R-Hindsville, two grants totaling $8,500 to Ecclesia College, 2013, 2014.
Ecclesia’s “academics and workforce traini n g ” persuaded him to contribute, he said. “The college still has potential. I think this whole situation has hurt it and hurt its effort.”
Ballinger is an attorney for Paris, the college president.
About the Arkansas Legislature’s decision to stop the grant program this year: “Good riddance. One good thing out of this is we won’t be dealing with GIF anymore.”
The process led to state money “not going to the best uses,” he said.
Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, and Rep. Eddie Armstrong, D-North Little Rock, one grant for $57,500 to Dayspring Behavioral Health, sister agency of Decision Point with 23 Arkansas locations. This grant went to Dayspring’s Little Rock office in 2013.
Elliott says two lobbyists working for Decision Point contacted her about the grant. The one she remembers was Decision Point executive Rusty Cranford.
The drug treatment center seemed like it “was doing a good job, based on the research I did,” she said. And even though Bentonville-based Decision Point wasn’t in her district, Elliott said she got assurances that the nonprofit’s services were available to anyone in the state.
Armstrong said Central Arkansas Planning and Development District officials asked him to approve the grant to expand services for mental health. He didn’t know until the newspaper contacted him that Dayspring was connected with Decision Point, he said.
Rep. Stephen Meeks, R-Greenbrier, one $25,000 grant, Ecclesia College, early 2015.
He remembers meeting the college president at a conference and being invited to tour.
“I liked their more conservative approach to education,” Meeks said. “They tend to focus more on the values that America was founded and built on — Judeo-Christian values
— than students at more secular universities.”
When Meeks learned about the alleged kickback scheme from news accounts, he said he felt “betrayed and extremely disappointed.”
Former Rep. Mary Lou Slinkard, R-Gravette, one $15,000 grant, Decision Point, 2013.
Slinkard couldn’t remember approving the gift. Reminded that her $15,000 share was part of a larger General Improvement Fund grant involving eight lawmakers, she said: “With all those people on it, it might have been a Northwest Arkansas thing, and I said, ‘Oh sure.’”
She did remember touring Decision Point in Bentonville one year and seeing the “dire need.”
“If I did [give a grant], I guess I did,” Slinkard said. “I know it was in kind of bad shape.”