MonticelloLive

The governor’s budget proposal calls for reducing the state sales tax on groceries by a penny, which would lower state taxes by about $30.1 million a year.

Legislators have done an initial review of higher education budgets for the next two fiscal years, but much work remains before the legislature approves the spending requests of two-year colleges and four-year universities.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock, the state’s only medical school, is in the middle of several large expansions that eventually will bring a satellite campus to northwest Arkansas.

Budget hearings begin this week, when legislators get their first look at state agency spending requests for the next two fiscal years.

The Arkansas Economic Development Department reported that businesses invested $1.58 billion in new facilities or plant expansions in the state last year, creating more than 6,600 additional jobs.
Making the news even better is that the jobs pay well.

When the Arkansas legislature enacted the state Freedom of Information Act in 1967 it was immediately labeled as one of the strongest and most comprehensive in the country.

Arkansas legislators got a glimpse of the classroom of the future and it was wired with computers and information technology.
Students will be plugged into keyboards and monitors while teachers patrol the room trouble shooting and directing the flow of bytes and megabytes. Textbooks and blackboards will be much less important than now. Teachers and students [...]

The legislative Joint Energy Committee voted to support a new project to mine for lignite in south Arkansas.

A tug of war quickly developed among branches of state government when the Game and Fish Commission announced last week that it had leased mineral rights to a gas drilling company.

Lawmakers have been working on numerous issues in preparation for the regular session that begins in January of 2009.As always, the major issues are public education, the rising costs of getting a college degree, criminal justice and prisons, transportation, health care and economic development.

Arkansas, Kentucky and South Dakota are the only three states without a statewide emergency trauma system.

The state has begun a long-term care insurance program designed to allow people to protect their assets if failing health requires them to move into a nursing home.