Country club meetings costly for water district

Originally published in the Texarkana Gazette and on writeforarkansas.org on Sept. 12, 2011.

When the Southwest Arkansas Water District’s board of directors meets Wednesday evening, it will convene in the dining room of the Texarkana Country Club and sit down to a meal likely to total more than $1,000.

All of which, the setting and the dinner, is standard fare for the water district’s board.

“This goes way back to before our predecessors,” said Bob Ransdell, SWAWD executive director. “We don’t know when it started.”

The district was established by the Arkansas Legislature in 1958 to allocate water from the soon-to-be-formed Millwood Lake. It receives no direct tax revenue, but is funded through water sales based on rights negotiated with the Corps of Engineers to withdraw 265 million gallons of water per day.


About two-thirds of that is sold to or reserved by five customers, including Domtar, Southwestern Electric Power Co. and the city of Texarkana, Ark. for $2.5 million each year.

Its board is composed of three representatives from each of the five counties the district serves: Miller, Little River, Lafayette, Columbia and Hempstead.

Board members are nominated by submitting a petition signed by at least 50 registered voters and elected by countywide vote in a general election to six-year terms.

Arkansas law requires that a water district’s board meet at least quarterly in the district’s office.

Ransdell said SWAWD’s Hickory Street office, which it shares with the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra, is too small to accommodate the 15 to 20 board members and district personnel who attend.

Gary Nutter, the district’s attorney, said the country club is in a convenient location and provides the space free of charge.

But the quarterly payments for meals and alcoholic beverages, along with other expenses, point to a freehandedness unusual for many public entities.

According to records obtained from the district, SWAWD spent $5,328.86 at Texarkana Country Club for its four meetings in 2010. Of that, more than $1,000 was for alcohol and $788.47 for gratuity, with the remainder covering food.

For the December meeting alone, to which directors’ wives were invited for a Christmas party, the bill came just shy of $2,000. An additional $250 was spent on four floral centerpieces from Twisted Vines, and $148.89 was spent at Green Line Equipment for small flashlights, which Ransdell distributed as gifts.

A receipt from the meal showed purchases of five $7 servings of Johnny Walker blacklabel scotch, 10 $5.25 servings of Crown Royal whiskey, one $8.75 martini and 20 glasses of Merlot. The food alone cost $36 per person.

There is no established standard in Arkansas for determining what is acceptable for an elected body to spend on food or alcohol. Opinions from the state’s attorneys point to a broad “public purpose” doctrine that generally requires public funds to be spent to benefit the public.

Exactly what qualifies as public purpose is typically determined on a case-by-case basis.
Tipping, however, is generally frowned upon.

In 1998, then-Attorney General Mark Pryor determined that public funds could not be used for tipping, since it qualified as a personal expense.

Nutter said the board was unaware of any state precedents against tipping.

“It’s not something we’ve previously discussed, but we feel like it’s a reasonable expenditure for good service,” Nutter said.

“We view that as part of the reasonable discretionary spending approved by the board and that it is justified,” he said.

Each director also receives a payment of $200 for each meeting he attends, on top of mileage reimbursement and other expenses.

In the fiscal year that ended in February, the water district paid $21,000 in meeting compensation, including $3,000 to board president Jim Kirchoff, $1,800 each to Danny Gray and Dennis Ramsey; and lesser amounts to other board members.

State law allows the board to set its maximum per-meeting pay at $200 by majority vote. It also limits compensation to $400 in a given calendar month, something to which SWAWD has not always adhered.

Directors Jim Alford and William Coffee attended three meetings—of the personnel committee, operations and maintenance committee and full board—in September 2010 and were each paid $600.

Kirchoff exceeded the limit twice in fiscal year 2010, receiving $800 in September 2010 and $600 in January 2011.

“We are specifically aware of (the $400 limit) and adopted a policy, because sometimes officers have to attend additional functions,” Nutter said.

The board also agreed to give Kirchoff $200 for his meetings, as board president, with the Corps of Engineers and others, even though reimbursement for nonboard or committee meetings is not explicitly authorized by state law.

“We asked Jim to spend a lot of time away from work and everything,” Ransdell said. “The board felt it was equitable to remunerate him for that.”

The SWAWD board meets at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.