Northwest Arkansas Has Much At Stake In General Assembly Session

Last updated Saturday, January 10, 2009 10:50 PM CST in News

By The Morning News

The school needs a yearly appropriation of about $3.5 million to open. Getting up to speed would take years, mainly because of certification requirements for medical schools. When full, the site would train 150 doctors a year plus pharmacists and other medical specialists. The school would work closely with the nursing school at the University of Arkansas. NorthWest Arkansas Community College would also teach some classes in the building.

The biggest question hanging over the school is how to pay for it. State revenues are tight. Lawmakers also want to start up a trauma center system in the state, which would be an expense estimated at $35 million a year. Gov. Mike Beebe’s spokesman, Matt DeCample, commented recently on a proposed cigarette tax of 50 cents per pack for trauma centers and other health needs: “It makes sense that the conversation about the trauma system and UAMS satellite campus, which are two health-related programs, would be tied together. The governor is open to any discussions.”

Lawmakers in budget hearings have asked if the satellite campus is needed. University officials say that the existing medical school in Little Rock can’t be expanded because hospitals there are already providing all the slots they can for medical residents, or doctors in training. Students at the satellite campus would complete their training after starting at the main medical school in Little Rock. Northwest Arkansas hospitals and clinics would provide residencies.

Another consideration is that Washington County, which owns the former Washington Regional building, is willing to lease the space to the state for $1 a year. There is no comparable facility in the state available at practically no cost, university spokesmen have said.

Animal Cruelty

Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, is a long-time leader in proposing a law to make deliberate torture or extreme negligence of animals a felony. Opponents of the legislation express fears that such a law would be misused to interfere with ranching and farm animal activities.

This session, Beebe and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel have declared their support for an anti-cruelty law. McDaniel is working with both proponents and opponents of past laws on a bill he plans to support this session.

Northwest Arkansas is the headquarters of animal industries in the state, with poultry processing companies located here and with many poultry producers having cattle, which make use of pastures fertilized with poultry litter. The Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation, the largest voluntary association of rural residents in the state, has opposed previous versions of cruelty bills but is working with McDaniel this year.

Roads

While highways are of interest in all of Arkansas, Benton and Washington counties have formed the first — and so far only — regional mobility authority in the state. The Northwest Arkansas Regional Mobility Authority is still in the process of organizing but hopes to be ready to make the most of whatever opportunities the legislative session and the incoming session of the U.S. Congress offer.

Prospects for a road program appeared bleak until President-elect Barack Obama announced that the country needed an infrastructure program in light of the major economic downturn that began with the lending crisis in September. He said he wants projects that could be funded immediately to provide the quickest impact on the economy. The state stands to reap $350 million or more if Congress approves the federal stimulus proposal, which officials said would be used solely for highway projects and bridge improvements, according to Highway department officials.

A regional mobility authority would make it easier for an area to receive federal funds, supporters of the authority say. Also, the long-planned bypass around Bella Vista in Benton County has its rights of way acquired and is ready to begin construction. It is on the state Highway and Transportation Department’s list of “shovel-ready” projects.

The governor’s proposed $4.5 billion balanced budget for the next fiscal year proposes just enough additional money for the state Highway Department to hire three new bridge inspectors and three assistant bridge inspectors.

Still, highway officials don’t expect to be empty handed in their quest for additional highway dollars this year. The bulk of revenue from a higher state severance tax on natural gas is earmarked for highway improvements. The higher severance tax went into effect Jan. 1, and estimates are it will generate $9 million to $15 million in gas tax revenue during the first six months of the year.

Rep. Donna Hutchinson, R-Bella Vista, is insisting upon getting more facts and figures from the Highway Department on which roads have the most traffic congestion.

Although having “road money follow the cars” has been something supported in principal by elected officials, the state Highway Commission has great autonomy in deciding which projects are built. Hutchinson has questioned whether the state is getting the most relief of congestion per road dollar. Now the lawmaker, who is in her second term, is on the powerful Joint Budget Committee. While the Highway Commission has its own funds from a fuel tax, that is a flat-rate tax that has not kept pace with either highway needs or inflation. The department wants state support, but that would likely come with strings attached.

Rep.-elect Jonathan Barnett, R-Siloam Springs, is the immediate past chairman of the Highway Commission. His replacement on the commission is Dick Trammel of Rogers. Rep.-elect Uvalde Lindsey, D-Fayetteville, is a former staff member for the Northwest Arkansas Regional Council, a group of business and community leaders long interested in roads. The Northwest region is expected to be well-represented in any legislative discussion about highways.

School Facilities

Arkansas is undertaking a long-term improvement program in school facilities as a result of a state Supreme Court decision. The program distributes state money as a supplement to local property taxes. The lower the property values a community has, the more state subsidy it gets. In theory, state money ensures the poorest school district will get almost as much money per mill of tax as the wealthiest if the mill is passed to pay for school facilities.

This “wealth index” gives districts with relatively wealthy local tax bases such as Fayetteville and Bentonville very little state subsidy for school facilities. Local lawmakers such as Rep. Uvalde Lindsey, D-Fayetteville, argue that this is unfair because new state building standards require renovation. The cost of refurbishing or replacing Fayetteville High School, for example, has estimates ranging as high as $100 million. They also argue that Fayetteville has paid high costs to maintain its buildings and that it is unfair to expect district patrons to tax themselves further while getting no state support.

These lawmakers hope to make common cause with the poorest districts in the state, which face large millage increases to pay for new facilities that will be expensive to patrons even with a large state subsidy. Lindsey and others want a minimum level of state support for any facility construction, although the amount of that “floor” is still up to debate.

Scholarship Cap

The state Higher Education Coordinating Board has asked the Legislature to consider a cap on how much of a university’s budget can go to scholarships. Lack of such a cap has opened a “bidding war” for students among state-run colleges and universities, the board decided after looking into financial irregularities at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.

The board had to approve a line of credit for the university to keep operating. Extensive use of college money for scholarships wasn’t directly involved, but the university’s open-handed granting of these scholarships had come into question before the finance problems became public. Opponents of such a cap say that the rules are the same for all institutions and that such a cap will limit student opportunity.

Northwest Arkansas is home to the University of Arkansas and NorthWest Arkansas Community College.

Lottery & Scholarships

Voters approved a state lottery for college scholarships, which supporters say could raise as much as $100 million a year. How the lottery will be run and the money distributed is to be worked out this session.

Northwest Arkansas has an interest in any issue that directly affects higher education because of the University of Arkansas, among other institutions.

Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, the lottery’s chief backer, said he hopes the increase in lottery scholarship money will not result in a cutback in existing scholarship programs or get entangled in the debate over a scholarship cap. He also argues that such a large increase in cash is something that should require a redesign of the state’s scholarship system. That view brought him into open disagreement with Gov. Mike Beebe.

“Merely tripling the allocations of some of the existing scholarship programs, nearly all of which have unspent surpluses, is the wrong path to take,” Halter has said. “A new program requires new thinking.” For instance, Halter wants more programs for students who are returning to college after being in the workforce.

Beebe disagrees.

“If you want to boil down the difference, we feel that you can address our scholarship needs and fix our scholarship system without reinventing the wheel,” DeCample said.

Streamlined Sales Tax

Several states including Arkansas have adopted rules that will charging of sales taxes on items sold on the Internet more feasible. The idea is that the buyer would pay the sales tax in the location where he uses the product or has it delivered, regardless of where the product was purchased.

The effect, however, has been to take away sales tax revenue from cities in regular sales. For example, Springdale has long been a regional supply hub for building materials. Buyers can move their goods north or south along U.S. 71 or east or west along U.S. 412. Springdale benefited from taxes on those sales. Now, taxes from purchases in Springdale that are delivered to Huntsville are paid to Huntsville. The loss in revenue has been serious, Springdale argues. Rep. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, has declared this issue to be one of his top priorities.

Springdale posted its 25th consecutive monthly decline in sales tax collections in September. Springdale collected $848,677.11 in September compared with $952,899.48 in 2007. This figure for September, 2008 was the city’s lowest level since September, 2002. Not all of that is from the streamlined sales tax, though. Sam’s Club closed in Springdale and opened in Fayetteville in October 2007.

Assessment Coordination

After the housing market bubble burst, Benton County homeowners in particular protested that their property tax appraisals kept going up while the real market value of their homes was going steeply down.

The issue prompted legislative hearings and is expected to lead to bills on changing the appraisal process.

Defenders of the system point out that state caps on rising appraisal for homes — no more than 5 percent in any one year, which reappraisals sometimes not taking place for up to three years — have left these homes seriously undervalued on tax books for many years.

The gap between the where the appraisals should be and where they are under the growth caps has not fully closed yet, they say.

Trauma Centers

Although much of Northwest Arkansas is near a hospital, much of the area outside of the Interstate 540-U.S. 71 corridor is rural and isolated. Having a statewide system of trauma care is something most legislators from the region say they support. The question is how to afford it at an estimated cost of at least $28 million a year.

lawmakers and the governor believe money raised by a 50-cent increase in the cigarette tax would fund the trauma centers and the Northwest Arkansas campus for the medical school in addition to a number of other health-related initiatives.

Arkansas is the only state without a Level 1 trauma center for intensive, specialized care of severe injury and shock. Arkansas is also one of three states without a statewide trauma system, which is a network of hospitals and other facilities designed for rapid response to severe trauma injury anywhere in the state.

Dr. J. Michael Gruenwald, head of orthopedic trauma surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and chairman of the Governor’s Trauma Advisory Council, told lawmakers earlier this year a trauma system could save as many as 600 lives annually.

A bill to create a statewide system failed in the 2007 session when the House and Senate could not agree on a way to pay for it.

Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration remains a major issues for many in the Legislature, which in 2007 made it illegal for state contractors to hire illegal immigrants but failed to pass legislation that would have made it illegal to harbor and transport illegal immigrants into the state.

Rep. Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, said he would introduce a comprehensive immigration reform proposal to define the term illegal immigrant and specify the kinds of documents immigrants must possess to show they are in the state legally.

“Were going to take and define the documents that can be provided for an alien,” he said, adding there is some confusion about what documents can be used to enter public school or receive public health benefits. “We’re taking and making definitions so that everybody will be on the same page.”

Sample said he also plans to file legislation to address a program under way in Malvern that allows immigrants to use a membership card of a nonprofit organization that works with Hispanic immigrants as a form of valid identification.

He said more than 3,000 people have purchased the cards and are using them to gain access important services.

“They’re selling those ID cards and they look very near like an Arkansas driver’s license, but they’re totally bogus,” Sample said. “I want to limit how the identifications are handled.”

Helmet Law

In 1997, Arkansas repealed its requirement that motorcycle riders wear helmets. This is an important factor in tourism in general and Fayetteville’s Bikes, Blues & BBQ rally in particular, according to state figures and economic impact studies for the festival.

Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Gravette, has introduced a bill that would require motorcyclists to either wear a helmet or prove that they have at least $10,000 coverage under their health insurance. Hendren filed a similar bill in the last regular legislative session.

The new legislation, Senate Bill 29, was prefiled on Dec. 17 for the upcoming session.

Morning News reporters Doug Thompson, Rob Moritz and John Lyon

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