LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The co-chairman of a legislative committee that ordered the audit of a $19,000 lectern purchased for Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated Tuesday he expects the report on the acquisition to be launched to the general public throughout the subsequent 10 days.
Republican Rep. Jimmy Gazaway stated he and Republican Sen. David Wallace, who co-chairs the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee, obtained the report from auditors on Friday afternoon and are reviewing it. Gazaway stated he wasn’t certain but whether or not the report can be launched to the committee beforehand, or if the panel would maintain a listening to on it.
“Because the chairs of the committee, we felt prefer it was necessary to assessment it earlier than it is launched,” Gazaway stated. “I feel we now have an obligation to make sure it is in good type and good order, and that is what we’re doing.”
Gazaway declined to touch upon the report’s findings.
The committee final 12 months authorized the request to assessment the acquisition of the lectern, which had drawn nationwide scrutiny over its prices and questions on public data surrounding it.
The three 1/4-foot-tall (1-meter-tall) blue and wood-paneled lectern was purchased in June with a state bank card for $19,029.25 from an occasions firm in Virginia. The Republican Get together of Arkansas reimbursed the state for the acquisition on Sept. 14, and Sanders’ workplace has referred to as using the state bank card an accounting error. Sanders’ workplace stated it obtained the lectern in August.
Sanders, a Republican who served as press secretary for former President Donald Trump, has dismissed questions in regards to the lectern as a “manufactured controversy,” and the merchandise has not been seen at her public occasions.
The audit had been anticipated to be accomplished by the tip of March. However the state’s legislative auditor final month stated Sanders’ workplace had been given an extension to submit its response to the audit’s findings.
