It’s who you know. Or so they say.
And we wonder about the answer to that question concerning a Huckabee administration employee written up in today’s Democrat-Gazette. I can’t find a link, but the story reports that Kevin Lewis, when he was Arkansas Rehabilitation Services manager, illegally gave himself a $10,400 raise last summer and also illegally authorized 4 percent pay bonuses for himself and six co-workers. A legislative audit turned this up.
Excess payments have been repaid. No harm, no foul is apparently the Huckabee administration’s view of this. Lewis simply moved over to another Huckabee agency, Health and Human Services, at roughly the same pay, about $50,000 a year. This was, you remember, a governor who once promised to send the self-enriching cockroaches scurrying from state government.
So the question: why does Kevin Lewis get off so easy?
I probably should add that Lewis said his pay raise and bonuses were approved by his then-boss John Wyvill, a Huckabee political appointee. Wyvill says this is not true.