GOP’s Dotson at top of the list on ’23 expenses
Legislator collected $41,203
For the fifth time during the past six years, Republican Sen. Jim Dotson of Bentonville collected the largest amount of per diem, mileage and other expenses from the state among state lawmakers in calendar year 2023, with $41,203.
Dotson collected the largest amount of expenses among state lawmakers in 2018,
2019, 2020 and 2021 before collecting the second-largest amount among state lawmakers in 2022, behind state Rep. Johnny Rye, R-Trumann.
“I still live the same distance from the Capitol and am still just as involved,” as he has been in the past in representing his constituents at the state Capitol, Dotson said in an interview.
“Last year, I focused more on legislation than real estate, for sure,” he said.
In 2023, Rye collected the second-largest amount of per diem, mileage and other expenses among state lawmakers at $37,490. In 2022, he collected the largest amount of per diem, mileage and other expenses from the state at $34,566.
“I try my best to make every meeting I can,” he said.
Rye said if he attended only those of the legislative committees on which he serves, “we don’t get the full picture of what is going on.”
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette compiled these figures based on records obtained from the Bureau of Legislative Research, Arkansas Legislative Audit, the state House of Representatives and the state Senate.
Over the past 20 years, the state has made the largest expense payments to state lawmakers who attended the most legislative meetings between legislative sessions, who lived the farthest from Little Rock, and/ or attended the most out-ofstate conferences.
The Legislature meets in regular sessions in odd-numbered years and in shorter fiscal sessions in even-numbered years. Its expens
es are generally smaller in even-numbered years.
Lawmakers’ total expenses for per diem, mileage and other expense reimbursements slipped from $3.12 million in calendar year 2021 — the previous odd-numbered year in which the Legislature met in a regular session — to $3.01 million in calendar year 2023.
The expense payments dropped in part due to the Legislature’s having met fewer days in either regular or special session in calendar year 2023 than in calendar year 2021.
The General Assembly’s 2023 regular session lasted 89 days. In addition, there was a four-day special session in September 2023.
In contrast, the General Assembly’s 2021 regular session lasted 118 days. In 2021, House and Senate officials said state lawmakers were not paid per diem and mileage for the seven days the Legislature took off because of a winter snow and ice storm in February. In addition, there was a three-day special session in August 2021 and a second three-day day special session in December 2021.
The state’s total per diem, mileage and other expense payment to state lawmakers increased in calendar year 2021 by about $350,000 from calendar year 2019 to $3.12 million, state records show. The 12% increase in expense payment to state lawmakers largely resulted from the lengthy 2021 regular session, coupled with two special sessions lasting a total of six days.
The Legislature is scheduled to convene in a fiscal session starting April 10.
Arkansas lawmakers’ total expenses for per diem, mileage and other expense reimbursements increased to $1.9 million in calendar year 2022 from $1.5 million in calendar year 2020.
The increase in total reimbursements in 2022 from 2020 was partly the result of a longer fiscal session in 2022 than in 2020 at the outset of the covid-19 pandemic. The 2022 fiscal session lasted 30 days — the second-longest of the state’s seven fiscal sessions — and the 2020 fiscal session lasted 17 days — the shortest of the fiscal sessions.
State lawmakers also are paid a salary by the state. Representatives and senators are paid a salary of $44,356 a year, with the House speaker and Senate president pro tempore getting $50,661 a year.
In June, the Independent Citizens Commission, which sets the salaries of the state elected officials under Amendment 94 to the Arkansas Constitution, granted 3% pay increases to the state’s seven constitutional officers but not to state lawmakers. In February 2022, the commission voted to delay its consideration of pay raises for state lawmakers and state constitutional officers until May 2022, after receiving letters signed by 49 legislators in opposition to salary increases for members of the General Assembly, due to budgetary needs and the impacts of inflation on Arkansas’ workers and families.
In January 2023, state Sen David Ray, R-Maumelle, filed a proposed constitutional amendment to dissolve the commission and return the authority for setting salaries of state elected officials to the state House and Senate. But the Republican-dominated Legislature in the 2023 regular session didn’t refer the proposed constitutional amendment to voters in the Nov. 5 general election.
Ray said on Wednesday in a written statement, “I’ve always believed that the independent citizens commission was created as a sneaky, underhanded way to raise legislative pay without requiring lawmakers to vote on it.”
“However, my proposal to do away with it last session did not have much support from other lawmakers, so I doubt I will introduce it again,” he said.
Amendment 94, approved by voters in November 2014, also bars lawmakers and other state elected officials from accepting certain gifts from lobbyists, including meals and drinks during one-on-one and small group meetings; allows state lawmakers to serve more time in the Legislature; prohibits corporations and unions from contributing directly to state candidates; and bars ex-lawmakers from registering as lobbyists for two years after they leave office.
EXPENSE DETAILS
Dotson’s per diem, mileage and other expense payments of $41,203 from the state in 2023 exceeded the $40,321 he collected in 2021, the previous calendar in which there was a regular session.
He collected $40,380 in expense payments in 2018, $38,987 in 2019 and $31,261 in 2020 before collecting $40,321 in 2021 and $33,564 in 2022.
Dotson has served in the Senate since 2023. Among other things, he serves on the Senate Education Committee and is co-chairman of the Legislative Council Claims Review and Litigation Reports Oversight Subcommittee. He served in the House of Representatives from 20132023.
The House and Senate education and public health, welfare and labor committees meet the most frequently among the legislative committees.
Dotson said he’s always collected among the largest amounts of legislative expenses among state lawmakers since 2013 when he started serving in the Legislature.
He is paid mileage expenses based on a 428-mile round trip to the state Capitol and back home, according to Senate records.
Dotson said he and other Northwest Arkansas lawmakers have farther to travel to the Capitol, making their mileage expenses larger than lawmakers who live closer to the Capitol.
“Some people go more and some go less” to legislative meetings at the Capitol, he said.
He didn’t report receiving income from other sources beyond his state salary on his personal financial disclosure report for 2023. He said he is a real estate agent, and he hasn’t built a home for a few years because interest rates have been so high.
According to state records, the expense payments made to Dotson included:
▪ $21,914.14 from the Senate, including $16,990.12 for per diem and mileage expenses in the regular session, $908.34 for per diem and mileage expenses in the special session, and $703.38 in other per diem and mileage for certain committee meetings, and $3,312.30 for expenses for hotel, airfare, meal, parking and incidental expenses to attend the Southern Legislative Conference annual meeting from July 8-12 in Charleston, S.C.
▪ $16,272.49 from the Bureau of Legislative Research, including $8,049 for per diem for 50 days outside of regular and special sessions and $8,173.49 in mileage expenses.
▪ $3,016.70 from Arkansas Legislative Audit, including $1,401.70 for per diem and $1,615 for mileage expenses.
Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee Chairwoman Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, collected the second-largest amount of per diem, mileage and other expenses in the Senate with $35,492.
“We meet a lot and then I am here. I do my job. It’s what the people elected me to do,” she said. “I don’t apologize for it because I do the work.”
Irvin is paid mileage expenses based on a 234-mile round-trip to the state Capitol and back home, according to Senate records.
The Senate paid $6,271.99 for Irvin’s travel-related expenses for her to attend the American Legislative Exchange Conference’s annual conference in Orlando, Fla., from July 25-July 29 and for her to attend the Southern Legislative Conference’s annual meeting from July 8-12 in Charleston, S.C.
Irvin said she probably turned down going to at least 10 out-of-state conferences last year.
“There are so many conferences that we want to go to and I just try to be specific and try to limit it,” she said.
Irvin has served in the state Senate since 2011 and is a former chairman of the Senate Education Committee. Among other things, she also serves on the Legislative Council’s Executive Subcommittee.
According to state records, Rye’s $37,490 in per diem, mileage and other expense payments in 2023 included:
▪ $18,721.13 from the House of Representatives, including $13,502 in per diem, $2,282.02 in mileage expenses, and $2,937.11 for attending the Southern Legislative Conference’s annual meeting in Charleston, S.C., from July 8-12.
▪ $16,148 from the Bureau of Legislative Research, including $10,301 in per diem for 64 days outside the regular and special session and $5,783 in mileage expenses.
▪ $2,621.62 from Arkansas Legislative Audit, including $2,095 in per diem and $526.62 in mileage expenses.
He was paid mileage expenses based on a 268-mile round-trip to the state Capitol and back home, according to House records.
“It takes a lot of money to do what we do,” Rye said, referring to the state’s expense payments to him.
Rye has served in the House of Representatives since 2017 and is co-chairman of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee’s Subcommittee on Counties and Municipalities. He is a retired Poinsett County assessor who served in that post from 19912016.
He’s also one of three representatives who have indicated they plan to run for House speaker-designate at the end of this year’s fiscal session. The others are state Reps. Brian Evans, R-Cabot, and Jack Ladyman, R-Jonesboro. The winner of the House speaker-designate election will be in line to be formally elected as House speaker at the start of the 2025 regular session to lead the House from 2025-2027.
“People are kind of hush on what is going on with that,” Rye said, referring to the private votes of other representatives in the House speaker-designate race.
EXPENSES AND SALARIES
Calendar year 2023 was the eighth full calendar year since the Independent Citizens Commission boosted the salaries of lawmakers from $15,869 a year to $39,400 a year and those of the speaker and president pro tempore from $17,771 to $45,000, effective March 29, 2015.
In exchange for the pay raises, the Legislature enacted a bill in March 2015 to eliminate lawmakers’ eligibility to receive up to $14,400 a year in certain office-related expenses.
Total per diem and other expense payments dropped from $3.18 million in 2015 to $2.82 million in 2017 and to $2.77 million in 2019 before increasing to $3.12 million in 2021 and then dropping to $3.01 million in 2023, according to figures compiled by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette based on records from Arkansas Legislative Audit, the Bureau of Legislative Research, the state House of Representatives and the state Senate.
Total salaries paid to state lawmakers increased from $4.64 million in 2015, to $5.37 million in 2017, to $5.53 million in 2019, to $5.85 million in 2021 and then to $5.98 million in 2023, based on figures provided by the state auditor’s office.
In 2023, lawmakers who live farther than 50 miles from the Capitol each received a per diem of $157 per day for attending meetings in Little Rock until Oct. 1, when it was increased to $166 per day based on the U.S. General Services Administration increasing’s the per diem, according to Sherri Stacks, the House’s chief clerk and fiscal officer.
In 2023, lawmakers living within 50 miles of the Capitol received a reduced per diem of $59 per day for each day they met in Little Rock, she said.
In 2023, lawmakers were paid a mileage rate of 65.5 cents a mile based on the U.S. General Services Administration’s rate. (On Jan. 1 this year, the mileage rate was increased to 67 cents a mile, Stacks said.)
The state reimburses state employees for mileage at a rate of 52 cents a mile — a rate that state Department of Finance and Administration Secretary Larry Walther temporarily increased from 42 cents a mile in March 2022. Walther cited rising gas prices as the reason for the increase.