Jake C. Files (born March 27, 1972) is an American politician from Fort Smith, Arkansas who is a Republican member of the Arkansas State Senate for District 8. Since 2013, he has represented a portion of Sebastian County in the western part of his state. From 2011 to 2013, he represented Senate District 13, and from 1999 to 2003, he represented District 12 in the Arkansas House of Representatives.
Video Jake Files
Background
A native of Norman, Oklahoma, Files graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in accounting from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. Previously, he had attended Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia. He is the owner of FFH Construction, a general construction firm. From 1997 to 2004, he was the president and superintendent of the Fort Smith Christian School. Prior to that, he was hired to help start operations of the Baldor Electric Company plant in Ozark, Arkansas, as the accountant and materials manager. He and his wife, the former Michaela K. Mitchell (born 1977), have four children, Kate, Liz, Bella, and Mitchell, and are active members of Grand Avenue Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Fort Smith. The senator coaches Little League baseball and basketball.
Maps Jake Files
Political life
Files was first elected to the state Senate in 2010 in District 13. He serves on these Senate committees: Revenue & Taxation, Transportation, Technology, Legislative Affairs, Joint Budget, and Senate Efficiency. He is also a member of the Joint (House and Senate) Legislative Committee on Auditing. He is the chairman of the Revenue and Taxation Committee.
His district number was switched through redistricting from District 13 to District 8, effective January 2013, and his district boundaries changed to include most of the cities of Greenwood and Hackett. Parts of north Fort Smith were moved into another Senate district in that process as well.
Files has earned several awards during his tenure in the Arkansas State Senate including the Legislative Leadership Award from the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce in 2011 and 2013 and 2015. He was honored with the Advocate of Justice award in 2011 from the Arkansas Prosecuting Attorneys. He has also received national recognition as the 2013 State Legislator of the Year from the Journal of Tax Credits. He was the 2013 and 2014 recipient of the Champion of Small Business award from the National Coalition of Capital.
General Improvement Fund
Files has been accused by several companies of misusing the General Improvement Fund (GIF) to steer public funding that he controls to support payments to his nonprofit. According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Files has paid $150,000 from the GIF toward the building of a $1.6 million sports complex for the city of Forth Smith. Files has been accused of submitting false bids for the project, a charge which he denies.
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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