John Burris: All You Really Need To Know You Learned In The Pre-K Debate

Our state hasn’t increased funding for pre-kindergarten programs for almost a decade. It’s an important policy, but I don’t understand the current outrage by some Democrats at this inherited problem. Nor do I understand their surprise that Gov. Hutchinson didn’t solve the long-standing problem before unloading his U-Haul van at the Governor’s Mansion.

Actually, I do understand, so I’ll explain both.

The outrage part is a little more complicated, since some of it is real and some of it is not. There are some noble Democrats – like Senator Joyce Elliot and Rep. Eddie Armstrong – who are sincere in their frustration at the multi-year streak of no funding increases for pre-K.

Last year, a group of Democrats tried in Joint Budget Committee to throw in some additional money. Speaker Davy Carter and I spoke against the motion by Sen. Elliot, and the attempt failed. My objection was rooted more in their method, which was to divert state surplus funds as a one-time funding booster.

Afterwards, Sen. Elliot shared most of her frustration to others and me without a microphone in front of her, which is usually a good indication of the sincerity of the disagreement. So folks like her are fine and important to the process.

But then there’s another group of outragers. I put Vince Insalaco, the leader of the Arkansas Democratic Party, into this camp. It’s a big camp – don’t think poorly of only him. He’s just the easiest to spot as he’s often in error, but never in doubt.

I thought this camp would be outraged out by now. It’s been a long year.

They do mostly two things: they spend their time waiting to see if Gov. Hutchinson so much as ties his shoes wrong or they sit around at all the traditional places talking about how it’s just not the same without ‘ole Mike around. They might occasionally throw in a line about how they still can’t believe Tom Cotton is their United States Senator, but that hurts so bad they just don’t like to talk about it.

To these folks, the issue of pre-K is nothing more than a press release in my opinion. Tomorrow, it will be some other issue they didn’t care about before tuning into the potential politics of the moment. So ignore the outrage. If they weren’t speaking out during the dry-run under the reign of Beebe, they’re not worth listening to now on this subject.

So then what about the seeming surprise that Gov. Hutchinson didn’t include a funding increase in his initial budget proposal? To me, that’s a little bit less than shocking. One of the last things Gov. Beebe did in office was to propose a budget for the next two years. He proposed no increase for pre-K.

Mike Ross campaigned heavily on the issue, but we all know he had no U-Haul to unload in January. Candidate Asa Hutchinson made his own campaign promises, based on the issues he felt were most urgent. He was elected and on those promises he has delivered with impressive efficiency.

Should a newly elected Governor be criticized for delivering on only his own campaign promises, but not the campaign promises of the one defeated? No, of course not. Especially not while he struggles to just play catch-up from all the problems he must fix, but didn’t create (pre-K funding among them).

I’m too young to repeat myself, but I would refer anyone interested back to points made once before. We’ve reached a settle-up moment in state government. The bills are due, but the pots of money are gone.

Despite all of the posturing and feigned outrage by some, there actually are ways in which our state could choose to fund a pre-K increase. No, it won’t be as simple as adding new money to a line item in the budget. But if it’s a true priority, the money can be found and reallocated. Advocates should begin advocating for that.

The days of simply adding more money to the budget to fund a new so-called priority seem to be over. The days have arrived when increases in spending are paid for by savings and reform elsewhere. It’s amazingly possible, with effort.

I’m surprised by this change, but pleasantly. It’s rare in state government.