Audit on Arkansas governor’s $19,000 lectern to be released within next 10 days, lawmaker says

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The co-chair of a legislative committee that ordered the audit of a $19,000 lectern purchased for Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that he expects the report on the purchase to be submitted within the next 10 days. will be released publicly.

Republican Rep. Jimmy Gazaway said he and Republican Sen. David Wallace, co-chairman of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee, received the report from auditors Friday afternoon and were reviewing it. Gazaway said he was not yet sure whether the report would be released to the committee in advance or whether the panel would hold a hearing on it.

“As chairs of the committee, we felt it was important to review it before it is released,” Gazaway said. “I think we have an obligation to make sure everything is in good working order, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Gazaway declined to comment on the report’s findings.

Last year, the committee approved the request to review the purchase of the lectern, prompting a national investigation into its cost and questions about the public records surrounding it.

The 3-foot-tall, blue-paneled, wood-paneled lectern was purchased for $19,029.25 from a Virginia events company in June with a state credit card. The Republican Party of Arkansas refunded the state for the purchase on September 14, and Sanders’ office has called the use of the state credit card an accounting error. Sanders’ office said it received the lectern in August.

Sanders, a Republican who served as press secretary for former President Donald Trump, has dismissed questions about the lectern as a “manufactured controversy,” and the item has not been seen at her public events.

The audit was expected to be completed by the end of March. But the state’s legislative auditor said last month that Sanders’ office had been granted an extension to file its response to the audit’s findings.