Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe will name a replacement soon for former Treasurer Martha Shoffner, who resigned last week after being arrested on federal extortion charges.
Beebe met with several potential successors to the elected post, and said he plans a short but thorough review of the candidates.
“We’re going to act quickly, within the next several days, but we’re going to be deliberate in the process,” Beebe said at a news conference in Little Rock. “Even though we’re acting expeditiously, it’s not going to be hastily.”
Beebe said he was looking for an experienced but apolitical replacement for the state’s chief investment officer. The new treasurer would be ineligible to run for election to the post in 2014.
The appointed treasurer will be expected to look into the office’s recent investment activities, Beebe said.
“I don’t know the internal hurdles that they will face,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons you want somebody smart and honest, so they can objectively make that analysis,” he said.
Shoffner faxed a terse resignation letter to Beebe on May 21, the day after she appeared in federal district court.
FBI agents arrested Shoffner at her home May 18 on a complaint of taking at least $36,000 in kickbacks from a bond broker who received a large portion of the state’s investment bond activity.
The treasurer’s office oversees the state’s $1.9 billion bond portfolio.
Shoffner, a Democrat, was elected treasurer in 2006 and re-elected in 2010. She was not eligible for a third term.
