Area legislators explain budget session to leadership groups

The first annual session of the Arkansas Legislature to deal solely with budget matters should be a relatively short and uneventful term, according to Legislators gathered Monday (Dec. 7) for a joint meeting of the Leadership Fort Smith and Leadership Crawford County.

Gathered at the Riverpark Events Building in downtown Fort Smith for the Legislative Reception were State Reps. Frank Glidewell, R-Fort Smith; Rick Green, R-Van Buren; Stephanie Malone, R-Fort Smith; Tracy Pennartz, D-Fort Smith; Beverly Pyle, R-Cedarville; and Terry Rice, R-Waldron. Also in attendance were current class members and past graduates of the two leadership groups.

In 2008, Arkansans approved an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution requiring annual sessions of the Arkansas Legislature. In odd-numbered years, the Legislature continues meeting to consider regular legislation and state budget or appropriations bills. In even-numbered years, the Legislature meets for a budget session to consider appropriations bills only. This first budget session — to deal with appropriations for the fiscal year July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011 — will begin Feb. 8 and is scheduled for three weeks.

Pennartz explained that budget hearings will begin Jan. 12 and are scheduled to end Jan. 29. The “big budgets” presented and reviewed, she said, will be for K-12 education, higher education, Department of Human Services, Department of Health and the departments of Corrections and Community Corrections. Pennartz said the pre-session budget hearings are “going to be pretty intense” and are equally as important as the actual session.

The legislators agreed that it is unlikely the budget session will stray into addressing non-budget items. However, Pennartz and Glidewell mentioned that changes to the Arkansas Lottery scholarship structure will likely be amended. Arkansas House Speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway, has said he is committed to boosting scholarship amounts during the budget session.

Non-appropriations bills may only be considered with the passage of a concurrent resolution by two-thirds vote in both chambers. The filing deadline for concurrent resolutions is Feb. 8 – the first day of the budget session.

Glidewell said one of the two issues he thinks the session must address is the growing debt the state owes the federal government for unemployment insurance— around $275 million is the last estimate. It’s been estimated that Arkansas could owe up to $360 million by the end of 2011. (Link here for a report on the growing debt problem related to paying out unemployment benefits.)

The other issue is what Glidewell described as a $60 million unfunded mandate to the state that could result if the proposed federal health care reform bill is passed.

Providing interesting perspective was Pennartz, who reminded the group that most of Arkansas’ roughly $4.5 billion budget is consumed with K-12 education ($2 billion-plus), higher education ($730 million), corrections ($600 million) and other large budgets affiliated with health and human services.

“A small portion of the budget is left for everything else … and that’s what we have to deal with,” Pennartz said.