Arkansas lawmakers spent six hours Thursday raking state Board of Corrections leaders and the board’s outside attorney over changes to the lawyer’s contract and how the board conducts its business.
According to Arkansas Advocate, members of the Joint Performance Review Committee criticized prison board chairman Benny Magness and secretary Lee Watson over the handling of the lawyer’s hiring. They spent more than hour questioning attorney Abtin Mehdizadegan over changes he made to a service contract form before the board submitted it to state procurement officials.
Alterations to the contract weren’t caught before it went into effect could subject the state to liability, state Procurement Director Ed Armstrong said last month.
The Legislative Joint Auditing Committee is also looking into the board’s contract with Mehdizadegan and the Hall Booth Smith law firm.
The board has been embroiled in a dispute since November with Attorney General Tim Griffin, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former Corrections Secretary Joe Profiri over who has ultimate authority over Arkansas’ prison system.
The prison board hired Mehdizadegan on Dec. 8 after a half-hour closed-door meeting characterized as a meeting to discuss an employment matter. Griffin usually represents state agencies in legal cases, but Arkansas law allows special counsel to be appointed in disputes between the attorney general and constitutional officers.
Watson, Magness and board member William “Dubs” Byers all testified under oath to lawmakers Thursday, along with Mehdizadegan, about how the board decided to hire the attorney and how his contract was drawn up.
Mehdizadegan has been representing the board in two ongoing lawsuits, but there has been confusion about how the board should proceed with paying his fees.
In December, the board challenged two state laws — Act 185 of 2023 and Sections 79 and 89 of Act 659 of 2023 — that removed the corrections secretary, director of correction and director of community corrections from the board’s purview.
These laws appeared to violate Amendment 33 of the Arkansas Constitution and made the board “a toothless tiger,” board member Watson told lawmakers Thursday.
Watson said he contacted Mehdizadegan in November to ask for informal input about the two laws and Profiri’s conduct. The board took issue with Profiri attempting to proceed with parts of a temporary prison expansion plan without board approval. The board later suspended and fired Profiri.
Sanders subsequently hired Profiri as a special adviser at a salary of $201,699.89 a year, about $8,300 less than he made as Corrections Secretary.
The board saw hiring outside counsel in the dispute with the Sanders administration as a “worst-case scenario” but felt compelled to do so, Watson said.
“We were going, I think, (to a place) where we either had to do this or we all just needed to resign and walk away,” he said.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Patricia James blocked the two laws in January, ruling the board was likely to succeed on the merits of its argument that the acts interfered with the panel’s constitutional authority to oversee the prison system granted by Amendment 33.
James also denied a motion from Griffin to disqualify Mehdizadegan and Hall Booth Smith from representing the prison board.
The other lawsuit in which Mehdizadegan represents the board is one Griffin filed in December, claiming violation of the state Freedom of Information Act by hiring Mehdizadegan behind closed doors.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox gave Griffin and his staff a deadline to work with the corrections board on an agreement with an outside attorney, and Fox dismissed the case in January after Griffin’s office did not meet the deadline.
Fox criticized Griffin’s office for wasting taxpayer money with the lawsuit; Griffin appealed Fox’s ruling to the state Supreme Court.
Read more on ArkansasAdvocate.com.
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