Arkansas prison board votes to name former state senator interim corrections secretary

KUAR | By Hunter Field / Arkansas Advocate

The Arkansas Board of Corrections voted Wednesday to hire a former Republican state senator as the prison system’s interim head.

The vote — which wasn’t included on the meeting’s agenda and required a suspension of the board’s rules — to make former Sen. Eddie Joe Williams of Cabot the interim secretary of the Department of Corrections came three weeks after the board fired then-Secretary Joe Profiri.

The board also approved additional inmate space at one facility, pending the hiring of more guards. And it ran into a stumbling block regarding payment of an attorney it hired to represent it in a lawsuit against the governor.

Arkansas prison board votes to name former state senator interim corrections secretary

Gov. Sanders vetoes three bills, uses line-item veto on budget bill

by Roby Brock (roby@talkbusiness.net)

Gov. Sarah Sanders vetoed Friday (April 14) three bills and exercised her line-item veto on a budget bill, her first vetoes of the session.

Sanders said she was striking an appropriation of $5 million for “pandemic related expenses” for the Department of Corrections. The governor said she has terminated by executive order COVID-19 pandemic mandates.

“I believe in freedom and personal responsibility – not COVID mandates or shutdowns. The COVID-19 pandemic is over,” she said in her veto letter.

https://talkbusiness.net/2023/04/gov-sanders-vetoes-three-bills-uses-line-item-veto-on-budget-bill/