Arkansas Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in Arkansas, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Does Arkansas law prohibit a newspaper from publishing the names of potential jurors?
No. The AG concluded that Ark. Code Ann. § 16-32-111 is not a general prohibition on publishing juror information. It only prohibits the specifically enumerated persons (attorneys, parties, audit pers…
Can a police department release a fired officer's personnel and investigative records under FOIA over the officer's objection?
Yes. The Fort Smith Police Department's decision to release the records was consistent with FOIA. The terminated employee's belief that his termination was unfounded was not a legally sufficient groun…
Can an Arkansas city swap real estate worth more than $20,000 with a state agency without competitive bidding?
No. The 2017 amendments to Ark. Code Ann. § 14-54-302 require competitive bidding for any city disposal of real estate valued at $20,000 or more, and an exchange counts as a disposal. Legislative clar…
Why did Arkansas reject the popular name and ballot title for the 2019 cannabis industry constitutional amendment?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The proposed amendment was so long and complex that voters could not have made an intelligent choice in the limited time of the voting booth, which made any ball…
Can a city release a former employee's ID photograph and personnel file under FOIA over the employee's objection?
The custodian's withholding of address, date of birth, telephone number, and Social Security number was consistent with FOIA. The decision to release the employee's photograph was likely consistent wi…
Can a state agency release a list of employee names, titles, salaries, start dates, gender, and race under Arkansas FOIA?
Yes. The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration's decision to release a list of employee names, titles and divisions, salaries, start dates, genders, and races was consistent with FOIA. The…
Can a city release the place of residence of every Little Rock firefighter under FOIA, or is that protected?
Withholding the firefighters' 'place of residence' was consistent with FOIA, but the controlling reason was Ark. Code Ann. 25-19-105(b)(13) (personal contact information including home addresses), not…
Can an Arkansas city release a job applicant's application under FOIA over the applicant's objection?
Yes. Job applications and resumes for public-employee positions are personnel records under the Arkansas FOIA, releasable after redacting exempt personal information. The applicant's stated dislike of…
Can a county library board offer employee benefits that the quorum court has not approved for other county employees?
Library employees were not categorically barred from receiving benefits unavailable to other county employees, but counties had to keep employee policies uniform under Ark. Code Ann. 14-14-805(2). The…
Does an Arkansas county's no-interest line of credit to repair a road grader fall within the Amendment 78 short-term financing rules?
A no-interest line of credit can fit within Amendment 78's short-term financing rules so long as the amendment's purposes, conditions, and limits are met. But the AG concluded that rebuilding a road g…
Could a Pope County judge sign a casino-support letter despite a county ordinance limiting that authority, and could a successor revoke it?
The Attorney General declined to answer because the questions were already pending in Pope Circuit Court in Knight v. Gibson, and longstanding office policy is to avoid opinions on matters before the …
Can an Arkansas quorum court delay action indefinitely on a fire department's request to levy dues on real property tax statements?
There is no statutory deadline requiring the quorum court to take up a fire department's section 14-20-108 dues levy request at its next meeting. But the statute may not be stymied by tabling indefini…
Can someone in Arkansas hold both a public school board seat and the office of county coroner at the same time?
It depends on the order. A sitting school board member can run for and serve as coroner because Article 19, section 26 expressly allows officers of public schools to be elected to executive office. Bu…
Can the Arkansas General Assembly regulate or amend a county sheriff's contract for jail commissary services?
The opinion declined to give a definitive answer in the abstract, but noted that a sheriff cannot unilaterally contract for the county. That authority sits with the county judge under Amendment 55. Th…
Does the Criminal Justice Institute have to provide school active-shooter training when only discretionary funds, not an appropriation, are available?
No. Ark. Code Ann. 6-15-1303(c)(1) makes the Criminal Justice Institute's school safety training obligation 'subject to an appropriation and funding.' Discretionary funds committed by the Commissioner…
Can the Bella Vista Property Owners Association legally shut off a member's water for unpaid POA dues?
The AG declined to opine. Whether the Bella Vista POA may shut off water for unpaid POA dues is a question of contract between the POA (a private nonprofit) and its members. The AG is statutorily barr…
Do Arkansas police officers have authority to take someone into custody for mental health screening when their county has no crisis stabilization unit?
Without a designated crisis stabilization unit in place, the Behavioral Health Crisis Intervention Protocol Act of 2017 does not authorize officers to take someone into custody. But Ark. Code Ann. 20-…
Can Arkansas license a nurse who was convicted of arson out of state but later pardoned by that state's governor?
No. A nolo contendere plea or conviction for one of the offenses listed in Ark. Code Ann. 17-87-312(l)(2), including first-degree arson, is a permanent bar to Arkansas nursing licensure. A pardon from…
Does Arkansas State University at Newport count as a 'public school' under Amendment 98's medical marijuana siting rules?
A reviewing court would likely defer to the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission's interpretation of 'public school' to exclude colleges and universities, including Arkansas State University at Newpo…
Can a county release a successful job applicant's records to a TV station under Arkansas FOIA, and what redactions are appropriate?
The decision to release the job applications was generally consistent with FOIA. The AG could not opine on every redaction without seeing the unredacted records, but flagged the redaction of reference…
Why did Arkansas reject the popular name and ballot title for the 2018 ranked voting constitutional amendment?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The ballot title was internally inconsistent (claiming both to 'avoid' and 'eliminate' runoffs), tinged with partisan coloring, and the proposed measure itself w…
Why did Arkansas reject the 2020 recreational marijuana ballot title?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The measure was virtually identical to one already rejected in Op. 2018-119, and the same threshold defects in the proposal itself made it impossible to draft a …
Can a custodian release only employment dates, salary, and position in response to an Arkansas FOIA request for personnel records?
The AG could not opine on the specific records because she had not seen them. The opinion laid out the FOIA framework: records can qualify as personnel records or evaluation records depending on how t…
What was the Arkansas Citizens' Redistricting Commission constitutional amendment proposed in 2018?
The AG certified the popular name and ballot title as submitted. The amendment would have replaced the existing Board of Apportionment (Governor, Secretary of State, AG) with a 7-member Citizens' Redi…
Why did Arkansas reject the 2018 'Marijuana As Alcohol' constitutional amendment ballot title?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The amendment proposed regulating marijuana 'as an alcoholic beverage,' but federally licensed alcohol producers cannot also distribute marijuana under federal l…
Why did Arkansas reject the 2018 marijuana initiated act that would have removed marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The proposed amendments to current law were essentially hidden in the measure's drafting (requiring side-by-side comparison with existing statutes), and the ball…
Can an Arkansas school district use its buses to take students to a summer youth program run by an outside organization?
Likely yes. Arkansas school boards have broad discretion under Ark. Code Ann. 6-13-620 to determine what serves the educational mission. The tax exemption under 6-19-112 turns on the buses' primary us…
Why did Arkansas reject the 2018 'Arkansas Rank Voting Initiative' as a proposed initiated act?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The same fundamental ambiguities as the prior submission (Op. 2018-112) remained: the proposed initiated act would dramatically change election law without clear…
Are employee-initiated harassment complaints exempt from Arkansas FOIA as employee-evaluation records?
The AG could not see the records, so it could not confirm the custodian's classification. But the office emphasized that to count as an employee-evaluation record under Arkansas FOIA, a record has to …
Can the City of Little Rock release a Housing & Neighborhood Programs employee's ID photograph under FOIA over his objection?
The release of the photograph is likely consistent with FOIA. Records depicting public employees are generally subject to disclosure under the personnel-records test, and the requester's identity or m…
Can the City of Little Rock release a code enforcement officer's ID photograph under FOIA over his objection?
The release of the photograph is likely consistent with FOIA. Records depicting public employees are generally subject to disclosure under the personnel-records test, and the requester's identity or m…
Can a Little Rock employee block release of her city ID photograph under Arkansas FOIA by objecting?
The custodian's decision to release the city ID photograph is likely consistent with the FOIA. Records depicting public employees are generally subject to disclosure under the personnel-records test, …
Can a Little Rock senior code officer block release of her ID photo and personnel file under Arkansas FOIA by objecting to the requester?
The custodian's decision to release the photograph is likely consistent with the FOIA. The objection does not articulate a legally sufficient reason to withhold the records, and the requester's identi…
Can a Little Rock city employee block release of her ID photo and personnel file under Arkansas FOIA by objecting to the requester?
The custodian's decision to release the photograph is likely consistent with the FOIA. The objection does not articulate a legally sufficient reason to withhold the records, and the requester's identi…
Can a city release a public employee's personnel file and city ID photo over the employee's objection under Arkansas FOIA?
The custodian's decision to release the city ID photograph is likely consistent with the FOIA. Records depicting public employees are generally disclosable under the personnel-records test, and a requ…
Does Arkansas FOIA require a city to release a public employee's hourly wage and salary history when the employee objects?
Yes. Salary information is a personnel record, and the AG has consistently said release of public-employee salary information almost never rises to a 'clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.…
Under the Arkansas FOIA, can a city release a workplace harassment complaint and an exit interview as personnel records, and which redactions are required?
The records were properly classified as personnel records that must be released with redactions. Personal contact information, employee numbers, dates of birth, and similar items had to be redacted, b…
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject the 2018 Arkansas Regulation of Marijuana Amendment ballot title?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The proposal was substantially the same recreational-marijuana amendment the AG had already rejected in Opinion 2018-100 for being a convoluted statewide decrimi…
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject a 2018 marijuana initiated act submission that used a blacklined statute draft?
The AG rejected the submission at the threshold. Section 7-9-107 requires the sponsor to submit an 'original draft' of the proposed measure, but the submission was a blacklined working document showin…
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject the Natural Resource Cannabis Amendment ballot title in 2018?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The proposal was substantially the same measure the AG had already rejected in November 2017, with added language on banking and depository institutions that mad…
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject the 2018 ranked-choice voting initiative's ballot title?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The proposal failed to specify whether it was an initiated act or a constitutional amendment, the popular name and ballot title were misleading, and the underlyi…
When the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality releases an employee's personnel file under FOIA, must a photocopy of the employee's driver's license be entirely withheld?
The custodian's redaction work was mostly correct, but a photocopy of the employee's driver's license must be entirely withheld, not just the license number redacted. The AG also told the employee to …
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject the 2018 'Arkansas Cannabis Hemp and Recreational Marijuana Amendment' ballot title?
The AG rejected the entire submission at the threshold. The proposal was the same measure the AG had already rejected in Opinion 2017-006 as ambiguous and misleading. Recycling language previously ide…
Can the Little Rock School District release a former employee's eligibility-for-continued-employment file under Arkansas FOIA over the subject's privacy objection?
Yes, mostly. The records were properly classified as employee-evaluation records, and the four-prong test for release was satisfied. The personnel-records balancing test that the subject's attorney in…
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject the 2018 'Arkansas Marijuana Amendment 2020' ballot title that proposed adult-use legalization with a regulatory licensing scheme?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The ballot title was generic and uninformative, leaning on words like 'regulation' and 'licensing' without describing the actual legal effects. The underlying pr…
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject the 2018 'Right to Grow Cannabis Amendment' ballot title?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The popular name 'Right to Grow' was misleading because the amendment also covered possession. The ballot title was inadequate. And the text's reach (which purpo…
Can a Dumas city clerk-treasurer combine prior city-employee service to qualify for the half-salary retirement under § 24-12-121, and can she also draw a separate city pension for earlier service?
Yes to all three. With city-council approval, prior city service can be combined to satisfy the 10-year vesting under § 24-12-121. The half-salary benefit is based on clerk-treasurer salary alone. § 1…
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject the 2018 Arkansas Marijuana Legalization Amendment ballot title that would have earmarked tax revenue for K-12 schools?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The popular name added 'for School Funding' to lend partisan coloring; the ballot title was wholly inadequate to summarize the proposal's substantive changes; an…
Can a former Arkansas Department of Human Services employee block release of her personnel file by arguing the requester wants it 'for personal gain'?
No. The custodian's analysis cannot be based on the requester's subjective motive. The FOIA personnel-records test is objective. Without seeing the actual records, the AG could not opine on individual…
Can a Little Rock firefighter use Arkansas FOIA to obtain the internal affairs investigation file resulting from his complaint against another employee, plus the Civil Service Commission appeal transcript?
The complaining employee is entitled to his own statement and submissions because employees can always access their own personnel records. The internal investigation file is an employee-evaluation rec…
In Arkansas, can a qualified retired law enforcement officer carry a concealed handgun in publicly owned buildings without an enhanced carry license?
Yes under Arkansas law. A retired law enforcement officer who satisfies Ark. Code Ann. section 12-15-202(b) is exempt from the licensing requirements of subchapter 5-73-3, including the 'enhanced' lic…
Can an Arkansas public school require students to pay for private lessons or summer camps as a condition of participating in extracurriculars or graded courses?
It depends on whether the activity is integral to a free public education. Fees for elective, non-credit activities are generally permissible. Fees that condition a student's right to a graduation-req…
Should an Arkansas school district release an unverified anonymous email accusing a former employee in response to a FOIA request?
The custodian's classification was correct, but the disclosure decision was questionable. The AG concluded that the anonymous email was a personnel record, but warned that releasing an unsolicited, un…
Can a public employee under internal investigation get the full investigation file under Arkansas FOIA, even when other employees are named in it?
Yes. The Arkansas FOIA gave the requesting employee a right to his own personnel and evaluation records under section 25-19-105(c)(2). Portions also qualifying as other employees' personnel records we…
Why was the proposed Arkansas Recreational Marijuana Amendment of 2020 ballot title rejected by the Attorney General?
The Attorney General rejected the popular name, ballot title, and entire submission. The proposal recycled multiple earlier rejected recreational-marijuana submissions, and its convoluted decriminaliz…
Will the Arkansas Attorney General decide whether a school district employee was misclassified as exempt under the FLSA administrative exemption?
The Attorney General declined to render an opinion. The FLSA administrative-exemption analysis is intensely factual and turns on federal labor law, both of which fall outside the scope of an AG opinio…
Does an Arkansas town selling its water system have to follow both the water-system-specific statutes and the general municipal property sale rules, including competitive bidding?
Yes. The town's sale was governed by both Ark. Code Ann. section 14-199-302 et seq. (water-system-specific preconditions like the council resolution and ratepayer petition) and section 14-54-302 (gene…
Do non-state-agency Arkansas entities like the General Assembly and the courts have to provide a catastrophic leave program for their employees?
No. The entities listed in Ark. Code Ann. section 21-4-214(a)(2)(B), including the General Assembly, BLR, Legislative Audit, AHTD, Game and Fish, the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, AOC, constitution…
Why was the Arkansas Cannabis Amendment ballot title rejected for failing to clearly explain its effect on the existing medical marijuana amendment?
The Attorney General rejected the popular name, ballot title, and proposed Arkansas Cannabis Amendment. The ballot title left voters unable to understand how the proposal would interact with the exist…
Can a city release redacted Residency Incentive Program applications under Arkansas FOIA, and what redactions are required?
Mostly consistent with FOIA. Little Rock's classification of Residency Incentive Program applications as personnel records and its decision to release them with redactions was consistent with the Act,…
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Attorney general opinions in Arkansas are written by the Arkansas Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.