EFFICIENCIES: Questions about a $26 million building purchase and new hires and raises are part of the transformation of the Arkansas Department of Commerce.

EFFICIENCIES: Questions about a $26 million building purchase and new hires and raises are part of the transformation of the Arkansas Department of Commerce.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s “transformation” of state government is underway, with daily news of changes in the reduced number of “cabinet-level” agencies his plan produced. Latest is the announcement of six hires/promotions, including a couple of pay raises, announced by the expanded Arkansas Department of Commerce.

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Mike Preston, who makes $234,000 in pay and bonuses as  “secretary” of the expanded department, announced the hires, necessary for a “new era of efficiency, responsiveness and service to the people of Arkansas.”

Betty Anderson, will be chief of staff, with a pay boost from $117,416 to $129,158. She’d been “director of organizational efficiencies at the Arkansas Economic Development Department.”

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Alisha Curtis, will be chief communications and legislative director. She gets a bump from $67,674 to $86,887. She’d been an assistant to Gov. Hutchinson and liaison to AEDC.

Others with new jobs or titles get no pay raises.

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Steve Porch, a former public defender who filled a judicial vacancy by appointment of the governor, will be chief legal counsel at $111,504.

Courtney Traylor, who’d worked for the insurance commissioner, will be chief financial officer at $108,117.

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Nathan Smith, who’d worked in economic policy at the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, will be director of research at $110,256.

Melissa Adams will be executive assistant to Preston at  $53,371. She’d been in a similar job at AEDC.strengthen Arkansas’ already robust economy,” Gov. Hutchinson said.

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Speaking of the Commerce Department:

I’ve been trying without success to get information about the future of the former Verizon building in Riverdale that was purchased in the spring for $26 million.

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Will it be used to house state offices, as some reports have had it? Or is it part of a lure for an economic development project? My FOI requests for information have been denied under the explanation that it is part of a potential economic project and thus exempt from disclosure.

Rumors are rampant that the building was purchased to give on favorable terms to operations of a defense contractor, Raytheon, but that deal reportedly foundered, perhaps because of a proposed merger of Raytheon with United Technologies.

The real estate industry watches with interest. If the state decides to fill the building with state tenants, it will produce holes in other office buildings. Much the same happened when the city of Little Rock decided to get into the real estate business by becoming a tech park landlord downtown (supported in great measure with rent payments from a major state tenant). Reverse outsourcing, you might say.

 

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