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State Starts Session
Area has much at stake with Legislature
Last updated Friday, January 5, 2007 10:07 PM CST in Columns
By Doug Thompson
The Morning News
Northwest Arkansas has more at stake in the Legislative session that starts Monday than any session I've covered.
There's no guarantee at all that this year's big push for a highway spending increase will succeed. Any such increase, however, will have to take into account the number of cars up here. If it doesn't succeed, the traffic around here will get worse.
The legislation that probably will directly impact the course of more individual's lives than any other was filed Friday by Sen.-elect Bill Pritchard, R-Elkins. His proposed expansion of drug courts will now be Senate Bill 18 of 2007. Now he's got to get the money.
Pritchard's bill sets guidelines for reporting on things like recidivism rates -- how often people who go through the court backslide -- and so forth. It sets guidelines on how much staff is need per number of cases, too. I have a hard time believing the bill authorizing the drug courts will have much trouble. The bill to pay for them, however, will be the one to watch.
Public education and higher ed top the list every year. This year's different because there might be money for both. It's no exaggeration to say that governor-elect Mike Beebe is one of the best friends higher education ever had when he was a state senator, at least among lawmakers who didn't live in Fayetteville.
Slowly, achingly, reluctantly, lawmakers are having to face paying some of the cost for public school facilities this time. Northwest Arkansas certainly benefited from the massive general education spending increases of past years. Growth and facilities and the debt service on those facilities, however, are eating up our school budgets and everybody knows it. There are two main reasons lawmakers haven't tackled it yet: It's expensive, and will put some marginal schools out of business.
A possible new campus for the University of Arkansas School of Medical Sciences is in the works. Prospects for that look good.
A big fight over repealing the tax on groceries is obviously looming, and I admire the logic behind House Speaker Benny Petrus' alternative proposal for an earned income tax credit. My big concern about that, however, is that I don't believe it's possible to push through an income tax cut for people who need it without having a clamor to cut that tax for people, to put it charitably, who don't need it so badly.
This is a fight that will probably be determined by telephone calls by voters from home. It's also the biggest tax cut proposed in quite a while. Cutting tax on groceries is something conservatives and liberals can agree on. Finally, to be blunt, this is something voters clearly supported in the elections. It is something they expected to get whoever won the governor's race. Voters, as a rule, don't appreciate being denied something they clearly say they want, whatever the merits of the proposed alternative. People want money in their pockets, so we'll have to see if those who would benefit come out and support Petrus. However, the fact nobody brought this earned income credit idea up in the governor's race is not a good sign for the speaker.
The Fayetteville Veteran's Home is going to get the kind of unsparing budget scrutiny it should have gotten before it was built. It was supposed to be a money saver. I bought into the idea. Now, good administration might be able to make it break even.
Some facility for mental health needs up here will happen. If it doesn't, that will be a scandal.
Frankly, I don't think state scholarships for undocumented residents is going to make it. It was a good try last time, and I don't think anybody among the lawmakers thinks they can do better this time.
On the social issues front, something's going to be passed to prevent gay couples from being foster parents. Everybody who would applaud that legislation needs to do the Christian thing and sign up at the Department of Health and Human Services as a foster parent to give kids a place to go.
And if the sales tax on utilities for manufacturing doesn't get cut, I'll be stunned.
thompson shirttail
About this columnist
Doug Thompson of Fayetteville covers politics in fast-growing Northwest Arkansas. A native Arkansan, Thompson covered the Northwest region for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for three years before he and his wife, Lisa, left to join Stephens Media Group in February 2002. Lisa is now managing editor for The Morning News.
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Aunt Hope wrote on Jan 11, 2007 9:12 AM: