Legislative Musings (Jeff Hankins Commentary)

As we enter the second month of the 85th Arkansas General Assembly, let’s assess where key issues seem to stand:

• Highway program. Typical discussions and debates abound over which highways will be improved and which tax might be raised to pay for it. Highway user taxes related to gasoline or auto maintenance are typically the easiest to justify, but with sky-high oil and gasoline prices it’s not as easy as it used to be.

I parallel this with my thinking about higher taxes for school improvements: I’m willing to support more funding if it’s allocated properly. We poured more than $325 million into the status quo for state education, and it’s hard to imagine meaningful results from that investment. Highway investments can provide huge returns for economic development and improve travel conditions if wisely prioritized, but our track record in this regard isn’t the greatest because of inevitable political pressures.

• Water. Efforts by Deltic Timber Corp. of El Dorado to change state law so it can develop residential property on Lake Maumelle came out of left field. The legislation fundamentally would shift condemnation authority from the local level to the state level.

Central Arkansas Water, in its ongoing fights with property owners and developers to protect the watershed, has the support of the powerful Arkansas Municipal League but has already been defeated in the state Senate. Now we’ll see if rural legislators in the House, who are adamant about local control and authority when it comes to schools, extend that philosophy to this issue.

I have split opinions on the issue. Control needs to remain local, but CAW needs to make a stronger case against development. Between environmental engineers who tell me the concerns are exaggerated and the fact that boats with motors are on the lake in abundance, it’s still hard to accept the magnitude of potential hazards.

• Any willing provider. Are we really having to endure this debate again? It’s just as controversial as it was 10 years ago.

The largest health care players, including Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Baptist Health, along with the largest employers are happy with the status quo, which allows managed care firms to contract with certain physicians and hospitals and exclude others. Any willing provider legislation would enable the excluded to be included, thus it has the support of consumer groups, the Arkansas Medical Society and hospitals that have been shut out of the state’s largest insurance network.

Interestingly, both sides of the issue predicted the Patient Protection Act of 1995 would be litigated. Ten years later, we’re still awaiting a ruling from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The new legislation is a hedge bet that the 8th Circuit will uphold the 10-year-old law that was never put into effect.

You have to wonder if we’ll be going through this process again in another 10 years or whether we will have been sucked into a nationalized managed health care system.

• School facilities. Sensitivity abounds over the massive consultant report that outlined up to $4.2 billion in needs to make facilities adequate and equitable. Superintendents have shot holes in it over significant inaccuracies and oversights, and in many districts they are justifiably irritated that the state will bail out those that have allowed facilities to deteriorate or haven’t raised local property taxes to pay for new buildings.

Legislators don’t seem anxious to take on the issue, and who can blame them? Ultimately we’ll face the fact that we can’t afford all the facilities for so many school districts and they sure don’t want to raise taxes again.

(Jeff Hankins is president and publisher of Arkansas Business Publishing Group. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].)