The 30,000 foot view of county shenanigans and why it matters
This series on Washington County is presented in partnership with the Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition. A big thank you to AJRC for providing us with substantial research and documentation
When government runs properly, it should be boring. But what’s happening in Washington County –home to Fayetteville and Springdale, among other towns — is quite outrageous. I (Gennie) live in the county but only recently learned about its years of mismanagement, abuse of power, sweetheart deals, and disdain for transparency laws.
Here’s the gist: county leaders, particularly Judge Patrick Deakins and his inner circle, have a nasty pattern of funneling money into opaque projects. Nobody really knows how those county funds are being spent.
The latest example of this, unfolding in real time, is county funds going to a nonprofit called Returning Home. Returning Home is a Christian organization that helps men in pretrial status rehabilitate. Sounds great, right? Well, bad news: the county gave them over a million bucks but Returning Home couldn’t properly account for how it was spent. Yikes.
The issue with Return Home is indicative of the ongoing and glaring problems with how county leadership manages finances. We’re talking about setting on fire millions of real taxpayer dollars, which has real consequences for residents and deserves serious oversight from county officials.
The Pattern
Patrick Deakins, County Attorney Brian Lester, and a handful of others like a good mystery because they tend to keep government processes secret. The public can see this attitude when watching or attending quorum court meetings.
Deakins loves to ignore public oversight, approve contracts with no explicit deliverables, help his good pals jump the line, and ignore financial reporting and measurable outcomes. He also has no problem wasting millions on projects like the jail expansion — one voters resoundingly said they did not want in 2022. Additionally, last month Deakins brought another ordinance to the quorum court that needed funding.
His governing style feels like someone put a teenager in charge. He’s confident and slick but doesn’t seem to care about the “details” of government. We, the taxpayers, gave him the county credit card but when we ask how the money gets spent, he gets perturbed and says we should simply trust him and shut up about the receipts. That’s pretty wild for someone whose professional background is in accounting.
A timeline of failures
There is so much to discuss about Deakins’ poor management and strong hints of corruption. It’s going to take several pieces to cover it all, but it’s important to start with a timeline. Be sure to let the scope of the timeline sink in – this stuff has been happening for quite a while, yet no one seems to know or mind except for a handful of concerned citizens. Let’s dive in.
Washington County officials have pushed for a jail expansion since before COVID-19 times. Scores of other counties have also complained about jail crowding, which is a legitimate concern for local law enforcement and public safety.
But instead of working with stakeholders and soliciting public input, Washington County leadership rammed jail expansion through county procedure despite having no public mandate to do it. Washington County residents were so against the idea of a jail expansion that they voted it down in a November 2022 special election. Disgruntled county officials ignored the will of the voters. Here’s the snapshot:
2019
- Sheriff Tim Helder proposes a $38 million jail expansion, doubling facility beds
2020
- County spends $70,000 on a Criminal Justice Assessment Study
2021
- Helder turns a Covid update into a surprise jail expansion pitch for $20 million
- Quorum court immediately votes to spend $250,000 in ARPA (COVID relief) funds on architectural drawings
- County posts request for qualifications from contractors
2022
- Consultant paid by Arkansas Association of Counties warns Wash Co to reconsider ARPA fund use
- County receives additional $23.3 million more in federal ARPA funds
- Nick Robbins of Returning Home, while co-chairing the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, gets access to tons of insider info and relationships
- Returning Home receives $1.6 million to run a certified alternative program (CAP); they do not provide any details on curriculum, location, reporting, or outcomes
- Voters overwhelmingly reject the jail expansion (59% ‘NO Vote) in a November special election
- County continues to pour ARPA money into jail projects anyway
2023
- County attempts to piecemeal jail expansion without public support; bids are posted incorrectly and cancelled; no contractor will build the main structure
- Judge Deakins fires Spirit Architecture after paying them $1.2 million 💸
- Returning Home purchases tract of land for $650,000 in *Madison* where they spent almost $1 million renovating property outside the county
- Deakins and County Attorney Brian Lester obstruct multiple attempts to repeal ordinances, showing ongoing disdain for transparency; they withheld reports or produced incomplete reports
2024
- Returning Home, aided by the County, applies for Recovery Substance Abuse Treatment funds – a federal grant to fund evidence-based programs inside of correctional facilities
- the application promised certain treatments that were never delivered
- reports submitted to the state were full of errors
- Washington County claimed success based on paperwork and not on actual treatment
- Despite the state law/federal requirement, this project was not put out to bid and handed to Returning Home
2025
- Returning Home purchases two more tracts of lands; the 3 tracts total $1.11 million
- Returning Home fails to provide financial reports, itemized expenditures, etc.; staff say they cannot account for how the money was spent
- Returning Home demands additional $575,000+ saying t hey’ve run out of money; County nearly approves Returning Home double dipping into funds but Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition caught the discrepancy, saving a tranche of taxpayer dollars
This timeline of events shows transparency and financial management at the county level in Washington is clearly a disaster. Reporting hiccups, lost receipts, and haphazard contracts are not one-off events; rather, they’re part of a broad, multi-year pattern of gross mismanagement and negligence.
Washington county is trying to govern with no transparency, no oversight, and no accountability.
How does this impact the Washington County taxpayer? Quite frankly, this is very bad for residents. We have a government that is willing to light our taxpayer money on fire for the sake of political relationships, good not outcomes that benefit the people who live there.
Moreover, Deakins and his inner circle are practically laughing in the taxpayer’s face. Not only does he think he can spend what he wants when he wants, Deakins has been blatantly ignoring the will of voters and the results of the 2022 special election. Voters gave a resounding NO to jail expansion. Deakins wanted to spend voters’ money on jail expansion anyway (the two ordinances for $18.8 M were passed in December of 2022 when Deakins was a Justice of the Peace. He supported it along with other JPs). Returning Home is now the canary in the coal mine for residents. When will taxpayers decide enough is enough?
What the public needs to know
Washington County residents deserve to know where their money has gone. Here are some outstanding questions we will explore in this series:
- Where did the $1.6M ARPA allocation to Returning Home actually go? Was it used to purchase real estate for the nonprofit in Madison County?
- Why was no financial reporting ever required?
- Why did county leaders move ordinances forward without proper review?
- Why were programs altered to inflate outcomes?
- Why is there still no oversight on Returning Home’s programs?
We’ll be sure to let you know what we find, FOIA documents we receive, and which questions county leaders refuse to answer. We’ll also share what accountability mechanisms exist for you, the people, to push for transparency and good governance in Washington County.
Remember, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Stay tuned.
