Legislative Update - April 7

Past Updates:

April 2

March 19

March 6

February 17

There are only two days left in the Arkansas legislative session! Things are moving quickly. Our education package is moving - four bills have passed, the final bill will be heard on the House floor Wednesday and we lost an important bill in committee this afternoon, but have video of the hearing for you below. There has been a compromise on proposed constitutional amendments that combines financing for energy efficiency projects with loosening interest rate protections on consumer and municipal loans.

Education

SB943 by Sen. Elliott passed the House Education Committee today. It greatly expands the type of information available to parents, students and the public from schools through their website. SB943 goes to the full House on Wednesday - call your Representative!

Three bills from the achievement gap package are on the Governor's Desk:

• HB2163 by Rep. Rainey to improve early interventions to help under-performing schools is now ACT 949!
  
• SB889 by Sen. Bryles to strengthen the Department of Education’s reporting on how poverty funds are being spent to help low income students.
• HB2164 by Rep. Rainey reforms the Arkansas Commission on Closing the Achievement Gap.

Also, HB1646 by Rep. Rainey ensures that polling places will be more available for school board elections in rural school districts that cross county lines.

We had one education setback today:

SB987 by Sen. Elliott to require districts which don’t spend all of their allocated poverty funds to ask for permission from the Department of education and report why they aren’t spending all of the money they receive to help low-income students failed to pass the House Education Committee today. See the hearing on CFC-TV.

Proposed Constitutional Amendments

The Legislature is allowed to refer 3 ballot items or constitutional amendments each legislative session to the ballot for people to vote on.

SJR6 by Sen. Broadway to place a bond measure on the November 2010 ballot that would allow local and state government to issue bonds to pay for making building more energy efficient, to be paid off with the energy savings did not pass the State Agencies Committee this morning.

The committee instead recommended HJR1004, which, according to Arkansas News will:

• Remove interest rate limits on bonds issued by or loans issued by or to governmental units. The limit now is 2 percent above the federal discount rate, currently set at 0.5 percent.
• Remove an interest rate cap of 5 percent above the federal discount rate on consumer loans, but limit the rate to 17 percent.
  

HJR1004 was amended this afternoon to include a section on energy efficiency bonds. It will be considered by the Senate and House Joint State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday morning.