AG McDaniel releases statement on double-dipping issue

From Dustin McDaniel:

On June 1 of this year, I issued an opinion regarding retirement eligibility for members of the Arkansas Public Employee Retirement System (APERS). Specifically, the opinion addresses what an elected official must do to “terminate” his or her employment in order to draw retirement benefits. Since then, numerous questions have been raised about various elected officials who are receiving retirement benefits even though they did not actually vacate their offices. Rather, it is alleged that some elected officials applied for retirement and declared themselves to be “terminated from employment.” Allegedly, these officials simply took themselves off of the payroll for 90 days while continuing to serve in office, and then began drawing both their full salary and full retirement after expiration of the 90 days.

The remainder of the statement is on the jump.