Money down the drain

This month, the board of commissioners for Central Arkansas Water (CAW)—our water utility—awarded a 4-percent pay increase to Tad Bohannon, CAW’s chief executive officer. The vote was unanimous.

While the pay bump for Bohannon comports with the 4-percent cost-of-living adjustment that other CAW employees received, it fails to consider these salient factors:

First, Bohannon’s actions don’t warrant such a raise. You will recall my recent coverage of how Bohannon gave away $119,000 of the public utility’s money in one year alone to private organizations, largely divided between crony capitalists and pigment-and-plumbing-prioritizing private-interest groups.

That was far from Bohannon’s only missteps.

■ Bohannon oversaw a diversity, equity, and inclusion partisan-political indoctrination infrastructure—called the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Team—that operated along with “the Special Advisor to [the] CEO on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Engagement[,] … to ensure that JEDI principles are embedded throughout” the organization.

■ Bohannon requested and received $125K of the utility’s money to finance his on-the-jobobtained Master of Business Administration in—wait for it—Great Britain.

■ Bohannon approved $50K for a media specialist to get a master’s degree in public administration in New York, when the school at which I teach—the University of Arkansas, Little Rock—offers that degree (as well as Bohannon’s MBA) at a high quality and low price right here in central Arkansas. And a year and a half after having completed her degree, the media specialist bailed. (She’s only required to repay a portion of the $50,000. I intend to find out whether she does.)

While the unelected CAW board approved Bohannon’s generous raise, rest assured, we’re paying for it. Indeed, they’ve ensured that CAW has our money to do it; Bohannon already put into place a rate-hike plan to double our water bills.

Second, Bohannon’s new annual salary is $255,444—distinguishing him as receiving nearly the highest of all public salaries in the state. The governor makes nearly $100,000 less, and the secretary of education a few thousand less. When is enough enough?

It’s never been clear to me why raises are percentages rather than dollar amounts. If workers on the water lines make, say, $50,000/year, a 4-percent raise is $2,000. A 4-percent raise on an executive salary of $250,000 is $10K. The result is an increase of pay differential of $8,000 in one year alone. And that dollar differential grows every year.

I would think that progressives like Jay Barth—the chair of CAW’s board, as well as director of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library

and Museum and professor emeritus from Hendrix College—would object to this scheme in which the rich get richer. I do.

On top of this enormous public-utility funded salary, the board approved Bohannon’s annual car allowance of $7,280. Other than to his office, where’s he going? He’s a lawyer, after all. Do you get a car allowance to go to work?

The largess-granting board isn’t only unelected; when there’s a board vacancy, the remaining members make their own appointment. This un-democratic process is overseen by the Little Rock Board of Directors and North Little Rock City Council.

This self-propagating board consists of seven members from Little Rock and three from North Little Rock who serve seven-years terms—almost as long as Supreme Court justices. In addition to Barth, CAW’s website lists the following current commissioners: Carmen Smith, Jay Hartman, Kandi Hughes, Anthony Kendall, Jim McKenzie, and Kevin Newton.

If you run into any of them, consider asking them why they approved Bohannon’s roughly $10,000 pay raise. You might want to mention the car allowance, too.

And, collectively, the members of Little Rock board of directors and North Little Rock city council are Virgil Miller Jr., Ken Richardson, Kathy Webb, Capi Peck, Lance Hines, Andrea Hogan Lewis, Brenda Wyrick, Dean Kumpuris, Antwan Phillips, Joan Adcock, Debi Ross, Nathan Hamilton, Linda Robinson, Maurice Taylor, Steve Baxter, Ron Harris, Vince Insalaco III, and Charlie Hight.

If you run into any of these Little Rock and North Little Rock elected officials, maybe ask them when was the last time they opposed a raise for Bohannan or vetoed an appointment to CAW’s board. If the answer is never, vote for the other guy next time. Public servants like that aren’t serving the public.

Taxation without representation helped cause a revolution. Perhaps taxation with feckless representation should at least cause sufficient second thoughts in the electorate to warrant replacing rubber-stamping bureaucrats who have permitted this fleecing of the overtaxed citizens of central Arkansas.

This is your right to know.

Robert Steinbuch, the Arkansas Bar Professor at the Bowen Law School, is a Fulbright Scholar and author of the treatise “The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.” His views do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.