Lawmakers endorse assistant to treasurer job
State Treasurer Larry Walther’s request to create a new executive assistant to the treasurer position cleared the Legislative Council on Friday.
On Aug. 3, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed Walther, then-state Department of Finance and Administration Secretary, as state treasurer, succeeding the late Mark Lowery. Walther will serve as state treasurer until January 2025. A state treasurer will be elected in the 2024 elections to serve the final two years of Lowery’s four-year term to which he was elected in November 2022. So far, Republican Secretary of State John Thurston is the only announced candidate for state treasurer in 2024.
Walther’s request to create the new executive assistant to the state treasurer post with a maximum-authorized salary of $73,260 a year zipped through the Legislative Council’s personnel subcommittee Wednesday and the full Legislative Council on Friday without any questions from state lawmakers.
“Our office has an immediate need for an Executive Assistant to the Treasurer and Sr. Management Team,” he wrote in a letter dated Aug. 14 to personnel subcommittee co-chairs Sen. Breanne Davis, R-Russellville, and Rep. Mark Berry, R-Ozark. “This position will also provide administrative support for three members of the executive team as well as relief and backup for Treasurer office tours as needed.”
He said the treasurer’s office does not currently have a position available to meet these needs and approval of the requested position “will ensure no current employee will be displaced during reorganization and Treasury administrative needs are met.”
Heather McKim, a spokeswoman for the treasurer’s office, said Bailey Hall, who previously served as Walther’s executive assistant at the state Department of Finance and Administration, will start work Monday in the treasurer office’s new executive assistant post with a salary of $61,000 a year.
“Bailey will have additional duties at the Treasury, serving as executive assistant to the Treasurer as well as the senior management team,” she noted.
At the state Department of Finance and Administration, Hall’s salary is $55,898.34 a year, according to the Arkansas Transparency website.
Asked about Walther’s reference to “reorganization” in his letter to Davis and Berry, McKim said in her written statement that “Melissa Vance was Treasurer Lowery’s executive assistant.
“It was important to Treasurer Walther to retain Melissa and transition her into the position of treasury operations coordinator to provide her with new opportunities for professional development within the Treasurer’s Office. There are no other changes planned at this time,” McKim said.
The treasurer’s office has 33 total positions with 27 positions currently filled, and that number will increase to 28 on Monday, she said.
“We have one employee retiring at the end of September, but until that becomes official we cannot disclose the name of the employee,” McKim said.
The state treasurer is responsible for the state treasury’s investment portfolio of about $11 billion and serves on the state Board of Finance and the board of trustees for the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System, the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, the Arkansas State Highway Employees Retirement System and the Arkansas Development Finance Authority.