A legislative subcommittee recommended spending an additional 2.5 percent on public schools next fiscal year to ensure that education is adequately funded as required by the state Constitution.
That would mean $69 million in increased funding for schools from kindergarten through grade 12 in the 2011-2012 school year. (more…)
Thanks to what is being called the largest federal grant ever received by an institution in Arkansas, numerous communities, hospitals and colleges will get connected with broadband access in the next few years.
The grant of $102 million was awarded to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. It will pay for high speed, interactive links between the teaching hospital in Little Rock and all 75 counties in Arkansas, as well as links among local agencies. (more…)
The state attorney general’s office has filed a lawsuit against payday lending companies that operate on the Internet because the interest rates charged to Arkansas residents amounts to 782 percent annually. (more…)
The state Insurance Commissioner announced that Arkansas has created a high risk insurance pool for people who have been without health insurance for six months and who have been denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
The new insurance plan, which started on August 1, was required by the national health care reform law signed by the president in March. Arkansas is one of 30 states that chose to administer its own high risk pool. To qualify for coverage in the pool, you must be an Arkansas resident who has been denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, and you must have been without coverage for six months.
Drug abuse is not limited to illegal substances like cocaine and methamphetamine. Law enforcement officials and experts in drug addiction are also concerned about growth in the abuse of prescription drugs.
In Arkansas, the abuse of prescription drugs is particularly alarming because it is getting worse among teenagers. A report by a federal agency found that Arkansas led the nation in prescription drug abuse among teenagers in 2007. Another study, conducted in 2008, indicated that 22 percent of Arkansas teenagers had taken prescription drugs for fun rather than for treatment of an illness. (more…)
For kids it is the middle of summer, and for the state Board of Education it is time to prepare for the coming school year.
At its July meeting the state board approved a Public School Fund of almost $2.6 billion for the 2010-2011 school year. That will provide the bulk of revenue for 244 school districts in Arkansas that educate 465,000 students from kindergarten through grade 12. There are about 34,000 teachers in Arkansas and their average salary is $45,000, according to the state Education Department. (more…)
In spite of a decline in revenue last year, the Arkansas tourism industry has grown at an average rate of 5 percent a year since 1990.
Arkansas tourism revenues were down by 3.6 percent last year. We did not lose our standing in the national tourist market because so many other states had even worse years because of the severe economic downturn. (more…)
The state Board of Health scheduled a special meeting to consider a ban of K-2, a new chemical intoxicant now being sold legally in some retail stores although its effects are similar to those of marijuana. (more…)
State employees will not get pay raises when the new fiscal year begins on July 1.
State employee pay raises traditionally have taken effect at the beginning of the state fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30. After July 1, the state will be in Fiscal Year 2011. (more…)
State education officials were pleased with this year’s results of standardized tests, which showed Arkansas students continuing to improve their scores in math and literacy.
They also are pleased that for the fourth consecutive year the academic achievement gap between white students and minority students continues to narrow. (more…)
In recent years tax revenue from traditional sources for maintaining Arkansas state highways has been flat or in actual decline. At the same time the cost of fixing highways and bridges has gone up.
Raising taxes is always politically difficult, and in an economic slowdown it becomes extremely so. However, when highway maintenance is postponed it quickly becomes more expensive. (more…)
The financial outlook for Medicaid improved last month, according to state officials who administer the program.
This year’s Medicaid budget is about $4.2 billion and is estimated to increase to $4.6 billion next fiscal year. Medicaid officials have been concerned about possible budget shortfalls because more people become eligible for Medicaid in a bad economy. Also, the cost of medical services and prescription drugs continues to increase.
Amendment 33 to the Arkansas Constitution grants a certain amount of independence to state colleges and universities.
A traditional interpretation of Amendment 33 is that it gives the legislature the power to appropriate tax revenue to colleges and universities, while the schools have authority over education policy.
There has been a lawsuit in which the extent of Amendment 33 was tested, but it did not result in a comprehensive ruling that clearly defined how much independence the amendment confers on institutions of higher education. (more…)
The state Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education is developing new standards for pre-school and child care centers, but legislators have been reluctant to sign off on them because of concerns about the cost of putting them in place.
The director of the Child Care Division told legislators that the new standards would be voluntary. However, one senator pointed out that in the future the voluntary standards could become mandatory standards. Many daycare centers operate with a narrow profit margin and a new set of costly regulations would be burdensome, he said. (more…)
Arkansas, like all other states, is taking steps to address a nursing shortage that is expected to get worse before it gets better.
One of the first bills approved in the regular session last year, Act 9 of 2009, aims to increase the number of nursing students in Arkansas. The act dramatically increased the amounts of college loans a nursing student is eligible to receive, from $6,000 to $20,000.
Under Act 9, the state Board of Nursing will cancel the full amount of one year’s loan for each year the nursing graduate practices in Arkansas. (more…)
State law that restricts who can become a foster parent or an adoptive parent is being challenged in a lawsuit filed in Pulaski County.
The law prohibits unmarried couples from adopting children or from becoming foster parents. It became law after Arkansas voters approved Initiated Act 1 in 2008.
The opponents of the law say they filed the suit because it prevents children from being placed in homes with loving parents, and that it limits the number of available foster homes at a time when there is a great need for more foster parents. They say it is an attempt to discriminate against homosexual couples who want to adopt. (more…)
More women now serve in the Arkansas legislature than ever before. There are 31 women legislators – six in the Senate and 25 in the House.
Since the first two women were elected to the legislature in 1922, a total of 98 women have served in the state legislature. (more…)
The federal government has gone to court to try to prevent any more children with disabilities from being admitted to the Human Development Center at Conway.
The state Human Services Department and the governor responded quickly and vigorously in defense of the quality of treatment at the Conway HDC. A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, which is defending the center, said expert witnesses will testify that conditions at Conway are legal and constitutional. (more…)
State government is tightening its belt in almost every area, and during the current fiscal year has had to reduce its budget by $206 million.
However, during the fiscal session that formally concluded last week the legislature was able to maintain staffing increases in a vital program – the protection of abused and neglected children. (more…)
Senator Jimmy Jeffress (right) presents a Senate citation to Michael Binns, Sr., in recognition of his retirement after 35 years of teaching music.
Binns conducted concert choir recitals, taught hundreds of students to sight read music and was named Arkansas Senior High School Choir Director of the Year five times.
Hundreds of his choir students have been named All Region for Southeast Arkansas.
Although the fiscal session will be much shorter than regular legislative sessions, in some ways it promises to be very similar.
As is customary in regular sessions, most of the action during the first week of the fiscal session took place in committee. The full Senate did little more than pass a few resolutions and amend a few bills in preparation for this week, when the floodgates will open and bills will be approved by the dozen. By the end of this week the legislature will likely have passed a couple of hundred budget bills. (more…)
Legislators spent last week writing next year’s budget for state government, a process that will require serious belt tightening in state agencies, institutions of higher education and school districts.
The week began with grim news. The governor announced a new round of budget cuts of $106 million for the current fiscal year. Those spending reductions come on the heels of $100 million in budget cuts last October. The cuts reduced general revenue spending for the current fiscal year from $4.6 billion to $4.4 billion. (more…)
The state of Arkansas offers 21 different scholarships, and now students can apply for all of them in one single process.
The YOUniversal Arkansas Financial Aid System is designed to help students, parents and guidance counselors. Students can fill out the application process within minutes and the system will let them know the scholarships for which they qualify. Basically they provide their age, their grade point average, their standardized test scores and their family’s income.
As the governor said at the announcement of the system, the previous process of applying for all the available financial aid was as time-consuming and complex as filling out a tax return. It was necessary to fill out an application for each scholarship, whereas now just one application is required for all state sponsored scholarships. (more…)
Budgets and spending are expected to be the dominant issues in state government in 2010.
Some of the most important budget decisions legislators face in 2010 and in the next decade will affect public colleges and universities. (more…)
Senator Bud Canada of Hot Springs was best known as the moral force behind efforts to eliminate the sales tax on groceries.
Canada, who died on December 21, sponsored numerous other bills to lower taxes on middle income and low-income families. Some were enacted into law and some were not, which is typical of the career of any successful legislator. (more…)
Low income charter school—Poultry litter ruling
Arkansas was among the first states to receive federal stimulus grants for expanding access to broadband Internet services.
Connect Arkansas is a private non-profit organization that has been officially designated by the state to receive stimulus funds for expansion of broadband. The organization received about $2.1 million in federal grants in October, which it will spend to map the regions in Arkansas where infrastructure is lacking for broadband access. (more…)
A lingering dispute over the teaching of Arkansas history has spilled over from academia to the halls of the state Capitol. (more…)
Athletic spending by Arkansas colleges and universities went up 4 percent last year, from about $100.6 million to $105 million.
A large majority of athletic expenditures were by the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, which spent $59.8 million. (more…)
Beginning in January, high school guidance counselors in 58 Arkansas school districts will get a helping hand from career coaches.
Technically the career coaches will be employees of local two-year colleges. They will work at high schools in 21 Arkansas counties with high unemployment, or where relatively few high school graduates go on to college. (more…)
The state Board of Correction has imposed $6.3 million in spending cuts, which will postpone the opening of a unit for inmates with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities.
Construction of the special needs unit in Malvern is very close to completion, but the budget cuts will force the delay of its opening until the department has enough funding to pay salaries and continuing costs of operating it.
State prisons house more people with mental illnesses than any other institutions in Arkansas. When it opens the Malvern special needs unit will have beds for 360 inmates, although the Correction Department has plans to expand. (more…)
About 260,000 veterans of the Armed Forces live in Arkansas and 50,136 veterans or their spouses receive disability compensation or pension payments.
Veterans Day, a state holiday will be commemorated next week in numerous locations across the state as Arkansans gather to honor the men and women who have served their country. According to the American Legion, an organization of veterans created by Congress in 1919, fewer than 10 percent of Americans are veterans. (more…)
Arkansas students scored close to the national average in mathematics on a nationwide standardized test.
A randomly chosen group of about 10,000 fourth and eighth graders in Arkansas took the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The national average for fourth graders was a score of 240 out of 500. Arkansas fourth graders scored 238. The national average for eighth graders was 283 and those in Arkansas scored 276. (more…)
Last year the Arkansas Economic Development Commission signed incentive contracts with 95 companies that will create almost 7,000 jobs. (more…)
It is now illegal to text message while driving a motor vehicle on Arkansas roads and highways. The new law that prohibits driving while text messaging is Act 181 of 2009, which took effect on October 1.
Arkansas is now one of the nineteen states that prohibit all drivers from texting. Several other states prohibit teenaged drivers or bus drivers from texting while they’re behind the wheel.
Last year the State Police worked 787 traffic accidents in which drivers were distracted by cell phones or other wireless communications devices. Federal transportation officials say driver distraction is a factor in 16 percent of fatal crashes, and is more prevalent in wrecks involving teenaged drivers.
Another law took effect on October 1 that affects teenaged drivers. It is Act 197 and it prohibits drivers under the age of 18 from using a cell phone while driving. Drivers who are 18, 19 or 20 years old can use a cell phone, but must use a headset or some type of hands-free device. (more…)
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