Keep The Quality In ‘Qualified’ (Editorial)

Dennis Milligan

Before we take issue with our brand new state treasurer, we’d like to acknowledge two things:

• Elections have consequences, and Arkansas’ 2014 general election gives newly elevated Republicans the same right to fill state jobs with good or bad hires as their Democratic predecessors had. And heaven knows those Democrats did both.

• Job descriptions and requirements need to have some flexibility. Candidates with “dream” qualifications may not step forward, or the perfect candidate may not meet the requirements perfectly. Example: Shane Broadway, former Democratic legislator, didn’t meet the requirements to run the state Department of Higher Education, but even the new Republican governor wanted him to stay.

Understanding all that, we were still disappointed to see the educational requirements for top officials in the State Treasurer’s Office immediately reduced to the point that they could easily become the kind of political patronage jobs for which just about any well-connected politico is “qualified.”

After the disastrous, and criminal, tenure of Martha Shoffner, the least Arkansans should have expected was an effort to make that office more qualified and more professional than ever before. We were not reassured by new State Treasurer Dennis Milligan’s explanation, as reported in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, that requiring a business-related college degree “was not allowing the management style and experience of how I wanted to run the office.”

Revelations of inexplicable bond trades and bribery in Shoffner’s office were followed by demands for expertise in the hands tasked with investing the state’s money. We doubt the first order of business that voters expected was a “management style” that depends on making sure that our expectations weren’t too high.