Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Arkansas Politics Car wars: Part umpteen
Posted by Max Brantley on Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 6:49 PM
As the Democrat-Gazette continues to report personal use of state vehicles, lawyers in the lawsuit over illegal use of state property continue to add heft to their lawsuit.
Here's there latest news release.
They've added more defendants is what they've done.
Speaking of State Cars, illegal Exaction
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Settlement agreement filed on legislative expense lawsuit
March 9, 2012A settlement agreement was filed today in the lawsuit over legislative expenses. The agreement will be presented for court approval at a hearing before Judge Chris Piazza April 3. /more/
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Comments (6)
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“. . lawyers in the lawsuit over illegal use of state property continue to add heft to their lawsuit.”
I wish plaintiffs Gould, Campbell, and Cobb would file a lawsuit against some of our state legislators who aren’t held accountable for their wasteful spending habits. The Hon. Jimmy Jeffress comes immediately to mind, but he’s far from being the only one.
As was revealed earlier this year, Jeffress has earned the dubious honor of being the first lawmaker in the state's history to collect more than $60,000 in per diem, mileage and expense reimbursement in one year.
Little wonder that his travel expenses were higher than those of other legislators last year. Jeffress, you see, prefers to drive to distant, out-of-state conferences rather than fly, even though it costs a lot less to fly.
The good senator's mileage expenses last year included $1,376 for driving to a meeting in Philadelphia. Another time he collected $2,300 in travel reimbursements after driving to Seattle. Within the past three years, I've flown to both of those cities for $350-$400 roundtrip. It's easy to do with a little planning.
But the senator from Crossett told an ArkD-G reporter that, hey, he's "never really checked" whether it would be cheaper for him to fly to out-of-state conferences, although other lawmakers (and commoners like me) have flown for far less than what he was paid in mileage.
There's much more that could be said about our wasteful honorables, but you get the picture. This kind of nonsense has been going on for eons and it’ll continue unabated till a lawsuit stops it. Or until the state’s ethics commission get serious about ethics (snicker, snicker).
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They put the reimbursement rate of 0.15/mile into the statute? Why not the current IRS business deducible rate? The state is paying more than 0.15/mile to employees using their own car for government business.
Can anyone find a link to the actual Arkansas law that requires 15 cents reimbursement? I thought that it was only for those people who commuted more than 10 miles each way?
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I think the IRS rate is closer to 0.51 than 0.15. There is no realistic way that an automobile can be operated for $0.15 a mile. Reimbursing the state $0.15 for miles driven is ripping off the taxpayers for 2/3 of the actual cost.
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