More reforms needed in county government
By Roy Ockert Jr.
Amendment 55, passed by Arkansas voters in 1974, 100 years after adoption of our state’s Constitution, radically reformed county government. That law was implemented through a county government code, which became effective Jan. 1, 1977.
The action made county government a creation of the Constitution, rather than the Legislature.
Having become managing editor of The Batesville Guard in 1975, I had a front-row seat to the transition. One of our continuing stories for several years was the prosecution of county officials who had corrupted the old system, which had been based on small salaries, fees for service and under-the-table, payoffs from vendors.
Unless you were there, you can’t imagine the breath of fresh air Amendment 55 brought to county government in Arkansas. Prior to 1977, the county quorum courts were too large to serve as legislative bodies — one justice for each 200 residents. Most JPs wanted the title merely so they could perform weddings.
Amendment 55 retained the quaint title of quorum court but made it a real legislative body, comprised of nine to 15 members still called justices, each elected from an apportioned district of the county.
The reform also set some new standards for county officials, most importantly giving each a reasonable salary but ending the fees-for-service system that had been the root of much corruption.
Unfortunately, Amendment 55 didn’t reduce the number of elected county officials. Nine offices are still authorized: county judge, treasurer, county clerk, tax assessor, circuit court clerk, sheriff, tax collector, surveyor and coroner — the latter two being part-time. The law allows each county to combine offices or (except for the county judge) make them department heads appointed rather than elected. Neither has happened, largely because such action requires a quorum court to assert some authority over the officials and the people to confirm in an election.
The county judge remained as the chief administrative officer, with a few quasi-judicial responsibilities. However, unlike a city’s mayor or city manager, the county judge has little authority over the departments headed by the other elected officials. The quorum court can exert some financial pressure in the budgeting process.
That structure allows each county official to operate his or her department almost like a sole practitioner, subject only to a vote of the people, which now comes every four years rather than two. Most stay in office as long as they wish, and they tend to be replaced by a trusted deputy. Even now, the salaries are not so high as to draw a large number of candidates, except sometimes for sheriff. Lots of people, it seems, would like to pin a badge on, carry a six-shooter and a cowboy hat.
Thus, we the people are called upon to elect up to nine county officials, plus a JP or two, and only a couple of the positions are high-profile enough to allow us a meaningful choice based on experience, education, plans, etc. For the City of Jonesboro we elect a mayor, county clerk and city attorney. Imagine having also to elect 15 or more department heads. Instead we elect a mayor, who is expected to hire and maintain competent department heads. All are accountable to the mayor on a day-to-day basis.
In the county, though, each elected official is really accountable to no one. As county clerk, Kade Holliday allegedly stole nearly $1.6 million in taxpayer funds before he got caught. Frankly, if the amounts had been smaller and the clerk’s payroll account not drained, the fraud could have gone on until next year, when surely the annual legislative audit would have uncovered it.
County Judge Marvin Day seems determined to establish some checks and balances to prevent such cases in the future, and well he should. While we’ve seen other instances of incompetence in county government over the past few years, this case is most disturbing because it allegedly involves theft and abuse of office.
But no county official should have sole authority over large amounts of taxpayer funds, and the Quorum Court should have made certain of that long ago. The legislative audit for 2012 raised the following red flag:
“To ensure the proper safeguarding of assets, financial account duties relating to the initiating, receipting, depositing, disbursing, and recording transactions should be distributed among appropriate employees. The County officials, as specified in the Other Issues section of this report, did not segregate these duties to sufficiently reduce the risks of fraud or error and properly safeguard the County’s assets, because of limited financial resources. We recommend that the financial accounting duties in each office be segregated among employees to the extent possible.”
The report went on to say that the respective officials had agreed to correct that deficiency. None of the officials listed in that audit still hold office, but the same deficiency was cited in the next three audits, then disappeared.
Yet, the proper safeguarding of county assets obviously wasn’t done.
The evidence is strong that Arkansas is overdue for additional reform of county government, which may require a constitutional amendment. Meanwhile, the Quorum Court should abandon a number of elective offices and charge the county judge with appointing competent department heads in their place.
Roy Ockert is a former editor of The Jonesboro Sun, The Courier at Russellville and The Batesville Guard. He can be reached at royo@suddenlink.net.