Arkansas congressmen presented Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ office will pay former Corrections Secretary Joe Profiri’s salary as her new adviser for the last half of the fiscal year. When the appropriation was approved by the Arkansas Legislative Council’s Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) subcommittee on Tuesday, there was noticeable opposition; however, when the council as a whole approved PEER’s report on Friday, there was no objections. Jan was made by Sanders. She declared she would name Profiri as a senior aide ten days after he was fired by the Arkansas Board of Corrections for a persistent dispute over who has the last say over the state’s prison system. The board had suspended Profiri in December before this. The board also filed a lawsuit in December in Pulaski County Circuit Court against Profiri and Sanders for Profiri’s decision to proceed with some aspects of a temporary prison expansion plan without the board’s approval. To stop Profiri from proceeding, the board asked for and the judge granted a temporary restraining order. A preliminary injunction later extended this order. Profiri currently makes $201,699 point89 a year in the governor’s office, about $8,300 less than he did as the Secretary of Corrections. In response to a question about his responsibilities from Fayetteville Democrat Senator Greg Leding on Tuesday, Secretary of Finance and Administration Jim Hudson told PEER that he is responsible for “advising the governor on matters involving corrections,” as Sanders’ office has previously stated. According to Hudson, the cabinet secretaries already provide the governor with advice in their respective fields. Leding asked Hudson, who was still in charge of advising the governor, why Profiri should be paid like he had previously been paid when he was no longer in charge of a state agency? Hudson said, “I think the governor is happy with his current compensation package considering his background in corrections.”. Leding was among the legislators who opposed the appropriation.