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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Did the Arkansas AG certify the proposed 'Arkansas Industrial Hemp and Medical Cannabis Amendment' for the 2016 ballot?
No. The AG rejected the proposal for ambiguities, including the misleading 'industrial' and 'medical' modifiers, an unclear scope of legislative regulatory authority, and persistent syntax errors in t…
Does Arkansas's Act 137 of 2015 invalidate a pre-Act local ordinance that creates a protected classification not contained in state law?
Yes. The AG read Act 137's prohibition on enforcement of local rules that 'create a protected classification or prohibit discrimination on a basis not contained in state law' as covering pre-existing …
Is a Department of Correction custodian's decision to release certain redacted records about two former ADC employees consistent with the Arkansas FOIA?
The AG could not opine on the part of the request resting on an assumed fact, but reviewing the records found that one was a properly disclosed employee-evaluation record, three were audio recordings …
When an Arkansas school district refinances pre-2005 bonds and saves money on debt service, can it move that savings to an unrestricted fund?
No, not once the refunding bonds have already been issued. Section 6-20-2503(c)(1)(B) requires the district to use any debt service savings only for specified capital or equipment items, and the certi…
Did the Arkansas AG certify the first Arkansas Term Limits Amendment of 2016 proposal in June 2015?
No. The AG rejected the proposal for an enacting clause that belonged in a 'bill' rather than a constitutional amendment, mis-pointing to Article 5, Section 2 instead of Amendment 73, a vague effectiv…
Is it an unconstitutional taking when an Arkansas dam operator releases water during heavy rain and the release floods downstream land beyond the existing easement?
The AG declined to answer. Whether a flood-release event amounts to a Fifth Amendment or Arkansas Constitution takings claim is a fact-intensive question that has to be decided case by case. The AG ca…
Can an Arkansas government agency voluntarily release records that fall within a Freedom of Information Act exemption, even when no one has requested them?
No. FOIA exemptions in Arkansas are mandatory, not permissive. The AG concluded that once a record falls within an exemption, the custodian cannot release it to the public even by choice. That applied…
In Arkansas, can a deputy prosecuting attorney serve on a county election commission when the elected prosecutor (the deputy's supervisor) appears on that county's ballot?
Yes. The AG read 'paid employee of a candidate' in Ark. Code Ann. § 7-4-109(c)(1) as referring to someone paid by the candidate, not merely supervised by the candidate. Deputy prosecutors are paid by …
When Arkansas law requires 'at least three' of four tourism-industry seats on a city advertising and promotion commission to be lodging or restaurant owners, can a city ordinance require all four?
Yes. The AG read the phrase 'at least three' in Ark. Code Ann. § 26-75-605(a)(1)(B) as setting a floor, not a ceiling. Eureka Springs's ordinance requiring all four tourism-industry seats on its Adver…
Under Arkansas's 1,000-foot rule for retail liquor permits, does 'schoolhouse' include private schools and day care centers, and did Act 1172 of 2015 change what counts as a schoolhouse?
The AG read 'schoolhouse' in Ark. Code Ann. § 3-4-206 to mean a building used as a school or for giving instruction, generally including both public and private facilities and most day care centers. A…
Can an incorporated nonprofit volunteer fire department contract with an Arkansas city or county to provide fire protection, and how did Act 106 of 2015 change that?
Counties could contract with a nonprofit fire department under existing law, the AG said, so long as the contract had adequate consideration and served a proper public purpose. Cities were a closer qu…
An Arkansas voter who moved counties and whose transferred registration arrived at the new county after the four-day deadline before an election: can the voter still vote, including by provisional ballot?
No, in the AG's June 2015 reading. Amendment 51, § 10(b)(2)(B) said that if the updated registration arrived later than four days before the election, the voter was 'not eligible to vote in the schedu…
Can Arkansas's Alcoholic Beverage Control Division withhold the identities of minor 'cooperating individuals' it uses in undercover alcohol compliance checks from a Freedom of Information Act request?
Yes, in the AG's reading. Assuming the records were properly classified as personnel records, the custodian's decision to redact information identifying the minors was consistent with the Arkansas FOI…
Did the Arkansas Attorney General certify the popular name and ballot title for the Campaign Finance Act of 2016, a proposed initiated act on disclosure of independent expenditures and donors?
The AG certified the popular name 'The Campaign Finance Act of 2016' as submitted. The AG rejected the proposed ballot title as too technical and substituted a new ballot title written in plain langua…
Does Arkansas's special-education eligibility statute for 'children with disabilities, between three and twenty-one years of age' cover students until they turn 21, or through the year they are 21?
The AG read the statutory phrase 'between three (3) and twenty-one (21) years of age' as ambiguous, but concluded the Arkansas Department of Education was entitled to continue applying it as '3 to 21'…
Can a Saline County personnel-records custodian withhold an investigative report on a former Circuit Clerk employee from a FOIA request when the employee was never suspended or terminated based on the report?
Yes. The investigative report was an employee-evaluation record under the Thomas v. Hall definition (created by or at the employer's behest to evaluate an employee, detailing performance). Employee-ev…
How does Arkansas's bail bondsman licensing law apply to congressional-district residency on the board, who sets continuing-education fees, and whether the Arkansas Professional Bail Association's fee collections are subject to FOIA?
The congressional-district residency rule in Ark. Code Ann. § 17-19-106(b)(3)(B)(i) turns on where the bondsman-owner-member lives, not where the bail bond company is located. With multiple owners, th…
Under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, must the Arkansas Home Inspector Registration Board release complaints filed against home inspectors and supporting documents attached to those complaints?
Yes for complaints, no for supporting documents. Complaints are public records developed by the Board, and neither the home-inspector statute nor the FOIA's 'competitive advantage' exception shields t…
Can an Arkansas city like Maumelle regulate the rates of a public water authority operating within its limits, or otherwise control a PWA's actions?
The AG could not answer the rate question without legislative clarity. The threshold issue was whether a public water authority is a 'public utility' under Ark. Code Ann. § 14-200-101 (the municipal r…
How does Arkansas FOIA apply to a request for the personnel file of a recently-terminated state employee, split into seven categories of records, including some that the agency wanted to withhold for lack of compelling public interest?
The AG reviewed seven categories and concluded that the custodian's classifications were largely correct, but flagged additional redactions in Categories 1, 2, 4, and 5 (personnel numbers, banking inf…
Did the Arkansas Attorney General certify the popular name and ballot title for the proposed Campaign Finance Act of 2016 covering independent-expenditure disclosure?
No. The AG rejected the ballot title in May 2015 for two specific misleading aspects. First, the title used the undefined word 'sponsors' for the disclosure-subject group, even though the underlying t…
Is the Arkansas AG's 1979 opinion that the Adjutant General could sell harvested timber from Camp Robinson still valid, and must the Military Department now use the Marketing & Redistribution Section to make those sales?
The 1979 opinion is still valid in part: the Adjutant General remains the custodian of Camp Robinson and has authority to sell timber harvested there. But the procedure has changed. Act 589 of 2001 ma…
Can the board of a consolidated waterworks system like Central Arkansas Water hold a closed executive session to discuss a security vulnerability assessment, and can third parties like police chiefs and Homeland Security consultants attend?
The board and the system's employees may meet in executive session for water-security purposes under the new 2015 exception in § 25-19-106(c)(6) added by Act 186. But outside experts (police chief, co…
Did the Arkansas AG approve the Fifth Restatement of the Pulaski Area GIS interlocal agreement adding Sherwood as a party?
Yes. The AG approved the agreement under the Interlocal Cooperation Act. The Fifth Restatement amended a 1997 interlocal agreement (originally approved by Op. 97-366 and amended in Op. 2005-106) to ad…
Under Arkansas FOIA, can a police department release the names of sworn officers who were 'relieved of duty,' including officers who were later exonerated?
Yes. A list of officers who suffered adverse employment action, with no additional detail about the reason, is a personnel record (not an employee-evaluation record). Under the Young v. Rice balancing…
Does the passage of 13 years dissipate the 'compelling public interest' element of the FOIA employee-evaluation test, so that internal-affairs records of a former Sherwood police officer can be withheld?
Maybe. The passage of time can dissipate a compelling public interest, but it is not alone determinative. The age of the records and the fact that the person is no longer an employee both factor into …
Did the AG certify the popular name and ballot title for an earlier version of the Campaign Finance Act of 2016 covering independent-expenditure disclosure?
No. The AG rejected this version (an earlier submission from Op. 2015-052) for three reasons: (1) the ballot title hid the central change, a redefinition of 'independent expenditure' to absorb the fed…
Did the AG certify the popular name and ballot title for the Arkansas Industrial Hemp and Medical Cannabis Amendment?
No. The AG rejected the proposal because the modifiers 'industrial' (hemp) and 'medical' (cannabis) introduced ambiguity that the underlying text did not resolve. The text proposed to legalize the cul…
Are the City of Russellville's payments to Arkansas Valley Alliance for Economic Development, which outsources work to the Chamber of Commerce, a legal use of dedicated sales-tax revenues?
The AG declined to answer the specific questions because they required fact-finding (interpreting a city resolution, a ballot, a written contract, and possibly oral contracts), and because the AG cann…
When the Arkansas 90th General Assembly adjourned sine die on April 22, 2015, when did legislation that had no emergency clause and no specified effective date become effective?
July 22, 2015. Acts of the Arkansas General Assembly with no emergency clause or specified effective date become effective ninety days after sine die adjournment of the session, under the rule traced …
Has Washington County Ordinance 2013-12 expired at the end of the biennium, and does Act 985 of 2013 apply to it?
The AG referred Senator Woods to the same-day Op. 2015-023 to Senator Lindsey, which addressed the same Washington County dispute. The short answer from Op. 2015-023: Act 985 of 2013 applies to pre-ex…
Does Arkansas's Act 985 of 2013 limit on quorum court committees larger than a quorum apply to a Washington County committee of the whole that existed before the Act?
Yes. Ark. Code Ann. § 14-14-904(d)(2)(B) prohibits regular or special quorum court committees larger than a quorum without the county judge's consent. Washington County Ordinance 2013-12 had establish…
Can a person accept the governor's appointment to fill the Desha County District Court (McGehee Department) judgeship and still be eligible to run for the newly-created Twenty-Seventh District judgeship in 2016?
Yes. Amendment 29, § 2 bars a person from succeeding themselves in the position to which they were appointed. The newly created state district court judgeship in the Twenty-Seventh District (effective…
Is the Arkansas Department of Health required to enforce its public water system rules (including fluoridation), and what can a citizen do if the Department refuses?
Yes, ADH is responsible for ensuring public water suppliers follow the rules. ADH cannot selectively enforce regulations: Ark. Code Ann. § 25-15-214 makes it illegal for an agency to 'unlawfully, unre…
Did the Arkansas AG certify the popular name and ballot title for a referendum to approve or reject Act 137 of 2015 (the Intrastate Commerce Improvement Act)?
Yes, with a substituted ballot title. The AG certified the popular name as submitted. The AG rewrote the ballot title to make the FOR/AGAINST framing explicit and to quote Act 137 verbatim: the Act pr…
Did the Arkansas AG certify the popular name and ballot title for a revised proposal to add age, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act?
No. The AG rejected both the popular name and the ballot title. The popular name was identical to one already certified for a different measure (2015-029), and the ballot title used the ambiguous phra…
Did the Arkansas AG certify Robert Reed's proposed constitutional amendment to legalize cannabis cultivation, sale, and possession statewide?
No. The AG rejected the popular name and ballot title for the proposed Arkansas Industrial Hemp and Medical Cannabis Amendment because the measure's text was internally ambiguous. The labels 'industri…
Can an Arkansas county quorum court require the county judge to get the quorum court's approval before buying specific vehicles, when the funds for those vehicles have already been appropriated?
No. The AG concluded the Cleburne County ordinance was an impermissible legislative encroachment on the county judge's executive authority. Amendment 55, § 3 vests the county judge with the power to a…
Did the Arkansas AG certify the ballot title for a citizen referendum to repeal Act 137 of 2015 (the Intrastate Commerce Improvement Act)?
No. The AG rejected the entire ballot title, popular name, and petition because the proposal was structured backwards. A statewide referendum under Ark. Const. art. 5 puts a legislative act before vot…
How did the Arkansas FOIA require redactions in a city police officer's personnel file released to the public, and what could a custodian properly withhold?
The AG concluded the Lowell Police Department was handling parts of the request correctly but parts wrong. Most attached records were 'personnel records' that had to be released, with mandatory redact…
If a property owner pays property taxes but skips the volunteer fire department dues that are listed on the same tax bill, can the county treat the property as tax-delinquent and put it through forfeiture and sale?
No. The AG concluded the legislature has not authorized counties to treat unpaid volunteer fire department dues as delinquent property taxes for forfeiture purposes. The dues are listed on the propert…
Did the Arkansas AG certify a proposed initiated act to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Arkansas Civil Rights Act's protected classes?
Yes, but with a substituted ballot title. The AG accepted the popular name 'An Act Amending the Arkansas Civil Rights Act of 1993' as submitted, but substituted a cleaner ballot title that fixed spell…
Did the Arkansas AG certify an initiated act to lower the signature threshold for calling a local wet-dry alcohol election from 38% to 20% of qualified electors?
Yes. The AG approved the popular name 'An Act Concerning Local Option (Wet-Dry) Elections' as submitted, but substituted a tighter ballot title. The substitute reframed the change as reducing the sign…
Was the Arkansas Lottery Commission exempt from the statewide mileage reimbursement cap before it was abolished in 2015, and could it claw back over-cap amounts it had already paid employees?
The AG concluded the Lottery Commission was subject to the State Travel Regulations, including the $0.42-per-mile reimbursement cap, before Act 218 of 2015 dissolved it. The Commission had been reimbu…
Are deleted emails that exist only on a disaster recovery server subject to release under the Arkansas FOIA?
Probably not. The AG concluded that emails stored only on a disaster recovery system (DRS) are likely not 'public records' under the FOIA because they are not 'kept' in the way the statute uses that t…
Can an Arkansas city use city general funds to pay for water and sewer upgrades to a system that serves both residents and nonresidents?
Probably yes, but the answer depends on the facts. The AG concluded that A.C.A. §§ 14-234-214 and 14-235-223 generally contemplate water and sewer systems being funded through user rates set high enou…
Did the Arkansas AG certify a revised initiated act that would lower the wet-dry election petition threshold from 38% of registered voters to 25% of votes cast in the last governor's race?
No. The AG rejected the ballot title because it failed to highlight the change in the basis for computing signature requirements. A voter quickly scanning the title would see '38% to 25%' and assume t…
Does Arkansas's statutory ban on recording deeds without a planning-commission-approved plat apply to every deed, or only to deeds that split an existing lot?
Probably only to deeds that split an existing lot. The AG concluded that while the statute's prohibition on recording a deed without an approved plat could be read broadly, its placement and context s…
Can an Arkansas for-profit corporation employ or contract with physicians, bill third parties as the medical provider, or hire advanced practice nurses, without being registered as a medical corporation with the Arkansas State Medical Board?
No, in every scenario. The AG concluded that a corporation that bills, or seeks to be paid, as the provider of medical services is 'opening, operating, and maintaining an establishment' under the Arka…
Was the Arkansas Treasurer's planned release of a former employee's personnel file consistent with FOIA, and was the redaction of his remaining leave balance proper?
Mostly yes. The AG concluded the Treasurer's Office correctly classified the records as personnel records and correctly decided to release them, because disclosure does not constitute a clearly unwarr…
Did the Arkansas Department of Human Services correctly classify a current employee's records as personnel records, and were its redactions consistent with FOIA?
Mostly yes. The AG concluded the DHS records were properly classified as personnel records and had to be released because disclosure did not constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy. Four …
Did the Arkansas AG certify an initiated act that would lower the wet-dry election signature threshold from 38% of qualified electors to 25% of legal voters?
No. The AG rejected the ballot title because the term 'legal voters' in the proposed measure was undefined and ambiguous. The current Arkansas wet-dry statute uses 'qualified electors,' a defined term…
Did the Arkansas AG certify a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcohol statewide and repeal Arkansas's local-option election framework?
Yes. The AG certified the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Amendment as submitted, popular name and ballot title both. The amendment would have made alcohol manufacture, sale, distribution, and transportat…
Can an Arkansas public employee block release of his personnel file by arguing that the FOIA requester is trying to harass him?
No. The AG concluded the records were properly classified as personnel records and had to be disclosed under FOIA, because none of them contained personal or intimate information that gave rise to a g…
Did the Arkansas AG certify the Campaign Finance Act of 2016 ballot title, requiring disclosure of campaign spending and donors above certain thresholds?
No. The AG rejected the proposed Campaign Finance Act of 2016 because the sponsor did not fix two critical problems flagged in the earlier rejection (Op. Att'y Gen. 2014-135). The term 'electioneering…
Should a Fayetteville police officer's middle initial, diploma, marital status, and views on alcohol be redacted from his personnel file under FOIA?
Partially. Middle initial and diploma are releasable. Marital status, partial SSN, and health insurance records must be redacted. Views on alcohol or drug use by a law enforcement officer must be rele…
Can a city release police officer suspension records when the underlying misconduct was off-duty private conduct with no public impact?
No. The AG said Fayetteville's decision to release the suspension records was inconsistent with the FOIA. Because the off-duty incident involved no taxpayer misuse, no criminal conduct, no public safe…
Are a city employee's emails, expenses, travel records, and personnel file subject to FOIA disclosure?
Travel records, expenses, and dates of employment are clearly public records. Emails, letters, and memos depend on whether they document official functions. The AG could not opine on specific records …
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the ballot title for the Arkansas Privacy Protection Act?
The AG rejected the proposal because the ballot title did not summarize the act's provisions, and the act itself was riddled with ambiguities and grammatical errors. The proposal also lacked the const…
Can a Pulaski County former employee's personnel file be released after redacting certain personal information?
Yes, mostly. The AG flagged that race and gender shouldn't have been redacted from appointment forms, contact info for non-public references shouldn't have been redacted, and a few records still neede…
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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.