LITTLE ROCK — Mike Beebe has received perhaps the harshest criticism of his tenure as governor over the financial troubles at the state Forestry Commission, which has announced layoffs because of a $4 million shortfall.
Political observers say the controversy is barely a blip on Beebe’s legacy, but they say it gives Republicans one more talking point to use as they seek to win majorities at the state Capitol this year.
Forestry Commission Director John Shannon said in December he would lay off 36 employees, some of them firefighters, on Jan. 13 because of the agency’s shortfall. He said at the time that the money woes resulted from declining revenue from the state severance tax on timber and the sale of state-owned timber and seedlings, but state finance officials have since said the agency’s budget reached a crisis because of internal accounting problems.
Beebe has acknowledged that in 2010 his office quashed a meeting at which Shannon had planned to discuss the agency’s dwindling revenue with timber industry leaders. Beebe has said he did not know at the time how serious the agency’s financial troubles were, but some Republican legislators have accused the governor of trying keep a lid on bad news while he was facing a re-election challenge from Republican Jim Keet.
“The governor axed that presentation from actually happening, and unfortunately 36 people are losing their jobs because of it — but the governor did win the election,” Rep. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, said recently.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Katherine Vasilos, spokeswoman for the state Republican Party, said Friday, “It’s clear the governor intentionally swept the Forestry Commission’s shortfall under the rug for political purposes and is now having to clean up the mess with a ‘Beebe Bailout.’”
The ‘bailout” Vasilos mentioned is a supplemental appropriation of about $2.7 million that Beebe has said he will ask the Legislature to approve for the agency during the fiscal session that starts in February. State officials say the money would keep the agency going for the rest of the fiscal year without additional drastic cuts, but it would not save the jobs of the 36 workers being laid off.
State Democratic Party spokeswoman Candace Martin said Friday that Beebe acted appropriately.
“If there are partisan points to be won, sometimes people will take up on that, but at the end of the day, as soon as the governor’s office was made aware of the issue they addressed it,” Martin said.
Beebe is prevented by term limits from seeking a third term as governor and has said he has no plans to run for any other office. Political observers say the controversy over the Forestry Commission appears likely to have little or no impact on his legacy.
“Gov. Beebe remains so incredibly popular that I don’t see any damage to him at all from this,” said Rex Nelson, who served as director of communications for former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee and is now president of Arkansas Independent Colleges and Universities and chairman of the Political Animals club.
Nelson said the issue is unlikely to grab the public’s attention in the same way that, say, constitutional officers’ personal use of state vehicles did earlier in Beebe’s tenure.
“You’re talking about finances of a pretty obscure state commission. People tend to get lost in that when you get down to the board or commission level,” he said.
Jay Barth, a political science professor at Hendrix College in Conway, said the layoffs will have local impact, but the controversy is probably too much “inside baseball” to matter to most Arkansans. Republicans made significant gains in the Legislature in 2010, winning more seats than the party has held since
Reconstruction and reducing Democratic dominance of the House and Senate to slim majorities. The GOP is hoping to build on those gains in November and seize control of both chambers.
The Forestry flap “probably has some impact in terms of ratcheting up the partisan rancor in the state legislative battle that’s going to happen anyway, but I think that was going to be pretty ratcheted up already,” Barth said.
The controversy “is just an agenda item, a talking point to condemn the longtime Democratic administration,” said Hal Bass, a political science professor at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia.
“By itself it’s not much at all. It’s simply another log on the fire.”
Barth and Bass both said it is notable that Beebe’s competence has been openly questioned.
“Beebe’s centerpiece of his governorship has been his competence as governor, and this is the first time questions have been raised about whether he was paying attention to every part of state government,” Barth said.
“This is not a scandal,” Bass said. “It doesn’t rise to that level, but it certainly is a blemish on what was an otherwise sterling record, it seems to me, of administrative oversight.”
But Bass added that “Beebe has run a very clean and effective ship, and I think that gives him some room for error.”
Nelson said he does not expect the issue to change the outcome of any 2012 races, but he said it does give Republicans “another block in trying to build a platform around the idea of a strong two-party system.”
Republicans are clearly more of a force in state government now than they were just two years ago, Nelson said.
“I truly believe that I’m living in a true two-party state for the first time in Arkansas,” he said.