Ex-mayor of Searcy overpaid, audit finds

Former Searcy Mayor Belinda LaForce was overpaid $140,069 in retirement benefits from Jan. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30 of this year by the city’s retirement system for mayors and city clerks, legislative auditors reported Friday.

LaForce was paid $281,949 in retirement benefits during this nearly seven-year period, and legislative auditors calculate she should have been paid $141,880, according to Arkansas Legislative Audit’s audit of Searcy for 2016. LaForce was mayor from 2003-10, said Searcy Mayor David Morris.

Morris said there are only three retirees receiving retirement benefits through Searcy’s local retirement system for mayors

and clerks that is authorized under Arkansas Code Annotated 24-12-123 and 23-12-121. Morris said he and future Searcy mayors and clerks will be in the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System, for which he serves as the board chairman. Morris has been Searcy’s mayor since 2011.

Searcy didn’t adhere to state law in computing retirement benefits for its three retirees, legislative auditors said. Legislative Audit recommended that the Searcy mayor and City Council obtain legal counsel to resolve retirement overpayments and underpayments to the three retirees and to assist with calculating future retirement benefits.

The overpayment to LaForce resulted because her final average salary, which included a car allowance as mayor in 2010, was used to calculate her retirement benefits rather than her salary during the last preceding year of her service as city clerk/treasurer in 2002, according to Arkansas Legislative Audit. A car allowance is not considered to be salary on the basis of an advisory opinion issued by the attorney general’s office in 2005, auditors said.

“It should be noted that LaForce calculated her own benefit amount and forwarded the information to the city attorney for review,” the audit states.

Asked about being overpaid $140,069 in retirement benefits, LaForce said Friday in a telephone interview, “I’m not sure that is correct.

“We are waiting on an opinion from the attorney general’s office. I’m waiting to see what the opinion of the attorney general will be,” she said.

Morris, the Searcy mayor, and Searcy City Clerk/Treasurer Jerry Morris said in a letter to Legislative Audit that “at the recommendation of the city attorney, we have asked Sen. Jonathan Dismang to request an attorney gen- eral’s opinion to clarify the statutory authority in which the city’s ordinance was drafted.”

Dismang, a Republican from Searcy, submitted that advisory opinion request in a letter dated Nov. 6, according to records in the attorney general’s office. Dismang is the Senate’s leader as president pro tempore.

LaForce isn’t the only former Searcy mayor to be overpaid retirement benefits, according to legislative auditors.

Jack Wiseman, Searcy’s mayor from 1979-86, was overpaid $35,344 in retirement benefits during the period from Jan. 1, 2003-Sept. 30 of this year because, to calculate his benefit, the city used his final salary when he last served as mayor in 1986 rather than the salary of the mayor at the time Wiseman become eligible for benefits in 1987, in conflict with Arkansas Code Annotated 2412-123, according to legislative auditors.

Wiseman was paid $242,532 in retirement benefits during the nearly 15-year period and legislative auditors calculate that he should have been paid $207,188.

“I don’t know what the problem is. We’re just trying to find out,” Wiseman said in a telephone interview Friday.

Legislative auditors also found that former Searcy Mayor David Evans was underpaid $18,506 in retirement benefits during the period from April 1, 2013-Sept. 30 of this year because to calculate his benefits, the city used his final salary when he last served as mayor in 2002 rather than the salary of the mayor at the time Evans became eligible for retirement benefits in 2013, in conflict with code 24-12-123.

“It should be noted that, to determine his benefit amount, Evans hired the city’s attorney, who incorrectly used Evans’ 2002 salary, including a car allowance,” which conflicts with an advisory opinion issued by the attorney general’s office in 2005, legislative auditors reported.

Evans was paid $151,794 in retirement benefits during this period of more than four years and legislative auditors calculated that he should have been paid $170,300 in benefits. Evans served as Searcy’s mayor from 19912002, Morris said.

Evans, who is a former Democratic state representative from Searcy, could not be reached for comment by telephone early Friday night.