Arkansas Governor Beebe and Retired but now Rehired Workforce Services Director Artee Williams confirmed publicly this week that they had failed in one of the fundamental requirements of leadership. (No Shirley they didn’t admit it, but their actions absolutely confirmed it.)
Neither executive had insured that the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services had the depth or competence of management to replace Mr. Artee Williams when he retired. Thus the Governor was forced, forced to rehire Mr. Williams and put him into that growing group of ignominious but legal “double dippers”.
Of course this failure of leadership on the part of both men was covered up with this glowing announcement from the Governor, ”You can always hire somebody cheaper. The question is: Are you hiring somebody cheaper who can do as good a job? That was the critical position that, especially in light of the unemployment issues going forward, Artee’s expertise was really, really needed.” The Governor defended the rehiring of Williams on the basis of ‘Williams overall performance and, in particular, his management of the state’s unemployment trust fund’. This last is curious since the state had to borrow over $300 million from the Feds to cover the cost of unemployment over the past three years. (Yes Shirley, that’s $300 million dollars!)
Since not a single person on the current staff at the Department of Workforce Services is competent to step up in responsibilities and assume the Directorship, one can only expect that Mr. Artee Williams will immediately clean shop by firing or demotion and bring in a new group of potentially more competent and upwardly capable executives. (No Shirley, I’m not holding my breathe on that.)
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