The Power of One
Does anyone remember the August and September Personnel Committee meetings?
You know, the ones where JP John Pickett (D, Dist. 11), chair of the Budget & Finance Committee, unilaterally blocked raise requests for the Chief Deputies in County departments?
He did so by stating that the documents submitted were defective without telling anyone what was defective, if anything.
That would be enough, but he blocked those requests for reasons that should have been brought up in the Budget & Finance Committee, not in Personnel. We won’t belabor the point, as we’ve gone into it in detail in other places.
Raise Requests Pass Straight Through
At this month’s meetings of the Personnel and Budget & Finance Committees it was the exact opposite.
In Personnel, member Pickett basically controlled the meeting, successfully moving all of the pay increases quickly through to the Budget & Finance Committee with little review and no discussion — a complete 180-degree turn from his position just last month.
In the following Budget & Finance meeting, Chairman Pickett reversed his position and actions from last month by 180 degrees for the second time that night, moving to pass all the pay Ordinances in one vote, and only acceded to separate votes when reminded of the rules.
These obvious, abrupt changes in direction were strange enough to make us wonder what was going on.
Pickett Called a Meeting
Upon investigation we learned that Chairman Pickett called a meeting of the department heads with pending raise requests (except Circuit Clerk Crystal Taylor, whose request had passed through Personnel on September 14).
At this October 6 meeting it is alleged that Chairman Pickett advised the elected officials what calculations they needed to do and required that they return their modified paperwork to him the next day.
This, after department heads had already prepared their submissions to comply with the “salary survey” Ordinance 21-22 that the Quorum Court passed unanimously by roll call in August.
Multiple elected officials verified this meeting and its content. When we asked other JPs — as many members of the Personnel and Budget & Finance as we could reach by print time — none of them were aware of the meeting or its result.
The Arkansas FOI Act prevents meetings like the October 6 meeting from occurring if more than one member of the Quorum Court attended, but Chairman Pickett was the only JP present.
The only things preventing him from making the meeting and its results known at either the Personnel or Budget & Finance meeting on October 12 are a seeming lack of ethics and a total lack of respect for Faulkner County citizens and the other Justices of the Peace.
Again, his actions are not illegal but, ethically it stinks. Pickett rules Budget & Finance like a tyrant, and is afforded the power of the chairman when he sits on the Personnel Committee. How much power does one JP have in Faulkner County? Didn’t voters elect 12 other JPs to the Quorum Court?
This is not the last time you’ll hear us talk about this.
We believe Chairman Pickett is working for political gain, and not to protect and aid Faulkner County. We believe it’s time for him to go.
