Legislative session adjourns
Game & Fish director pay unresolved
The Arkansas General Assembly ended its fiscal session Thursday amid disagreement about how much to boost the maximum-authorized salary for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission director in the coming fiscal year.
The Arkansas House of Representatives adjourned the state’s eighth fiscal session after an appropriation for the Game and Fish Commission in fiscal 2025, starting July 1, that would have increased the maximum-authorized salary from the commission’s director from $152,638 to $190,000 a year fell short of clearing the House.
Game and Fish Commission Director Austin Booth’s current annual salary is $152,638, according to the Arkansas Transparency website.
The House’s 62-21 vote for Senate Bill 21 on Thursday fell 13 votes short of
the 75 votes needed for appropriation bills to pass the House, with 11 representatives voting present and six representatives not voting on the bill. This version of the bill cleared the state Senate in a 34-0 vote May 1 before the House’s 32-37 vote May 2 for the bill fell 43 votes short of the 75 required for approval, with 13 representatives voting present and 18 representatives not voting on the bill.
After the House adjourned Thursday, the Arkansas Senate voted to expunge its May 1 vote on Senate Bill 21 and then voted to amend the bill to increase the maximum-authorized salary for the commission director from $152,638 to $157,216 a year, or about 3%, in fiscal 2025. The Senate subsequently voted 31-0 to approve the amended version of the bill and to send it to the House, but the House didn’t accept the bill at that time because it had already adjourned.
The state Senate’s actions Thursday on Senate Bill 21 came after Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, withdrew his motion for the Senate to adjourn, and reflected some senators’ frustration with the House not coming up with a version of the bill that it would approve.
State Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, questioned whether the Senate’s vote on the amended bill would be an effort in futility because the House already had adjourned.
In response, state Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, said he didn’t feel good about the position the state Senate was in anyway. He said the legislature’s No. 1 priority is to pass the budget and “we are going to do our part.”
Dismang, a co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, told senators earlier the Legislature’s fundamental job is approving appropriations and setting a budget, and “I think we are derelict in doing that now.”
He said he was disappointed the House couldn’t have created and passed an amended appropriation.
“We have done our part. We passed an appropriation,” Dismang said.
Afterward, state Rep. Lane Jean, R-Magnolia, told reporters “Just for some reason the votes didn’t come together.
“I don’t think if we ran this thing two or three more times today we would have gotten to the 75 [votes]. So now it’s in the governor’s hand on the call [for a special session],” he said.
Jean, a co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee, said he anticipates a special session sometime probably in June to consider the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission appropriation for fiscal 2025.
Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, said “there’s probably three or four different reasons or groups of individuals as far as how they feel about the appropriation and/or Game and Fish, and it ended up being enough to stop the appropriation.
“Maybe it will be helpful to step away for a bit and regroup,” he told reporters. “While this may not be something we’ve seen, not in recent memory, I’m confident we’ll get through it one way or another.”
Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, who didn’t vote on Senate Bill 21 on Thursday, posted on X that “The Arkansas Legislature is a banana republic.
“This is no way to do sound financial business for the taxpayers,” King posted on X. “No wonder Arkansas is so wasteful spending money compared to surrounding states and worst in crime. Complete failure by those in charge.”
The failure to approve an appropriation for the Game and Fish Commission means the agency won’t be able to spend money beginning July 1, unless Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders calls a special session, asks lawmakers to approve an appropriation, and then the House and Senate approve a measure that Sanders either signs or allows to become law.
Senate Bill 21 would authorize the Game and Fish Commission to spend up to about $177 million in fiscal 2025 and to employ up to 644 employees.
Asked whether the governor will call a special session to consider an appropriation for the Game and Fish Commission, Sanders spokeswoman Alexa Henning said Thursday, “I’m not going to get ahead of any announcements but all options are on the table.”
The commission said Thursday it is grateful for the support of state lawmakers in recent years and looks forward to working with the Legislature and the governor in preparation for the special session.
Thursday was the 30th day of the 2024 fiscal session.
Under the Arkansas Constitution, state lawmakers have the option of extending the fiscal session for up to 15 days after 30 days, but that requires a three-fourths vote in the 100-member House and 35-member Senate. The Arkansas Senate on Thursday voted 31-0 to extend the fiscal session after the House adjourned.
Some state representatives on Thursday took issue with increasing the maximum-authorized salary for the Game and Fish Commission director’s position from $152,638, to $190,000 a year, saying it is hard to justify such a large increase for a state official.
State Rep. Robin Lundstrum, R-Elm Springs, told colleagues, “This could have been moved along a lot faster in an appropriate time before it landed here today.
“This shows a complete either incompetence or arrogance on behalf of this agency. That’s wrong. That is completely wrong,” she said. “We are holding up a whole budget — for all these other people who have to get salaries too come July 1 — for one person and it could have been handled earlier.
“So we are now put in this situation of emotional blackmail, much like we’ve all been at the grocery store with our 2-year-old as they reach for a piece of candy and were told ‘no,’” said Lundstrum, who voted present on the bill.
But state Rep. Jon Eubanks, R-Paris, said the fault for lawmakers’ deadlocking over the increase in the maximum-authorized salary for the commission’s director instead lies with some representatives, as they held up the commission’s budget during the fiscal session that started April 10.
Jean told colleagues he had a letter from Stan Jones, chairman of the Game and Fish Commission, in which Jones promised not to raise the director’s salary beyond $170,437 a year.
On April 25, the Joint Budget Committee voted to add an amendment to Senate Bill 21 to increase the maximum-authorized salary for the commission’s director from $152,638 to $190,000 a year. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Jeff Wardlaw, R-Hermitage. At that time, Wardlaw said the Game and Fish Commission’s director deserves a boost in pay based on what the director is paid compared to the salaries of agencies of equal size.
At that time, the commission said in a written statement the maximum authorized salary for the director has not been raised since the fiscal session in 2018. Since then, the pay structure throughout the agency has been modified, with the most recent adjustment beginning in fiscal 2023, when the pay plan saw an average increase of 15% in salaries for commission employees, according to the commission.
During the 2023 regular session, several state lawmakers zeroed in on part of the commission’s initial pay plan overhaul that included a proposal to raise the maximum-authorized salary of the commission’s director from $152,638 to $277,100 a year.
In March of 2023, state Rep. Jim Wooten, R-Beebe, questioned whether the commission is recommending paying the commission’s director $277,100 a year. At that time, then-Commission Chairman Bobby Martin responded, “We are not setting any salary today. This is only the range cap.”
Under the appropriation enacted into law, the commission director’s maximum-authorized salary remained at $152,638 in fiscal 2024. Booth received a pay increase from $145,706 to $152,637.89 a year at the start of fiscal 2024, according to state records.
Booth has served as the commission’s director since July 2021, succeeding Pat Fitts. He previously served as chief of staff and chief financial officer for the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs.
A lifelong hunter, Booth is a graduate of Little Rock Catholic High School and graduated from The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., in 2008. He earned a juris doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law. He also served as a captain in the United States Marine Corps in multiple capacities from 2011 to 2019, including a 2015 to 2016 deployment to Afghanistan.
This year’s 30-day fiscal session for the Arkansas General Assembly lasted the same number of days as the 2022 fiscal session. The 2022 and 2024 fiscal sessions tied for the state’s second-longest fiscal sessions.
The state’s shortest fiscal session was 17 days in 2020 at the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, with the state House of Representatives meeting at the Jack Stephens Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Most lawmakers wore masks and spread out to maintain the recommended distance between them.
The state’s longest fiscal session was 38 days in 2014, the last year Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe served and the second year since the Republicans had gained majority control of the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.
In this year’s fiscal session, the Legislature and the governor enacted a $6.31 billion general revenue budget for fiscal 2025. The general revenue budget for fiscal 2025 is a $109.3 million increase over fiscal 2024 that ends June 30, with most of the increased general revenue allocated to the state’s Education Freedom Accounts and the state’s public school fund. The Legislature and the governor also enacted a temporary pay plan for state employees and two laws regulating crypto mining in the fiscal session.
“So we are now put in this situation of emotional blackmail, much like we’ve all been at the grocery store with our 2-yearold as they reach for a piece of candy and were told ‘no,’” said Lundstrum, who voted present on the bill.
— State Rep. Robin Lundstrum, R-Elm Springs