UAM forest center put in budget bill

But state funding is far from secured

The University of Arkansas at Monticello is seeking state general revenue funding to create a Center for Forest Business.

The Joint Budget Committee on Thursday voted to add an amendment proposed by Rep. Ken Bragg, R-Sheridan, to Senate Bill 213 — the university’s appropriation for fiscal 2022, which begins July 1.

The amendment would provide $841,915 in spending authority for personal services and operating expenses for the proposed center.

It “would begin the process of securing funding from the state’s general revenue,” UAM Director of Marketing and Public Relations Ember Davis said afterward.

The committee acted Thursday despite the state’s budget director, Jake Bleed, telling lawmakers it would be tough to fund the proposed center.

“In the current environment we are in with the [fiscal] 2022 budget and the variety of different measures we have before us that would reduce taxes or revenues for [fiscal] 2022, this would be very difficult to fund, if it indeed is approved,” he said.

Whether general revenue is available to fund the proposal would be a question for the Joint Budget Committee “when we put [the Revenue Stabilization Act] together” near the end of this regular session, Bleed said.

The Revenue Stabilization Act prioritizes the distribution of general revenue to state-supported programs.

The state’s proposed general revenue budget for fiscal 2022 “is very tight [because] we have a lot of various competitive demands for a limited and arguably shrinking pool of money,” Bleed said.

Rep. Lane Jean, R-Magnolia, said Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s proposed fiscal 2022 budget doesn’t have funding for the forest business center.

The proposed $5.84 billion budget would be a $161 million increase over the current funded budget.

Most of the increase would go to human services, public schools and colleges and universities. The governor proposed raising UAM’s general revenue budget from the current $15.1 million to $16.3 million in fiscal 2022.

Among other things, the Republican governor also has proposed a $50 milliona-year income tax cut for low- and moderate-income Arkansans.

“If the UA got the appropriation [and] if they wanted to find the money within their budget, they could do that,” said Jean, co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee.

“This appropriation can be funded from other revenue sources besides general revenue, including cash funds, and they have been working very diligently to try and find those cash funds,” Bleed said.

“This has been a project that has been in the works for a long time and so far we’ve not succeeded in coming up with that funding,” he said. “There is Educational Excellence or Workforce 2000 money, which also can be run through this appropriation. But my expectation is there will be a general revenue request attached to it.”

Bragg, who proposed the amendment, told lawmakers that the state’s economy is more dependent on the forest industry than is the case for any other state in the South, and Arkansas is well positioned to take advantage of this resource.

“The competition in the South is very intensive in forest products because a lot of states are in the same situation with an oversupply of timber, so we don’t have really critical forest-based economic data to provide these industries,” he said.

Arkansas’ research, teaching and extension expenditures by university forest resources programs are near the bottom compared with other southern states, so the state has a distinct competitive disadvantage in recruiting industries from other states, particularly with Mississippi, Bragg said.

“That’s why we are proposing establishing this UAM Center for Forest Business,” to support and deliver services that aren’t provided to the forest-based companies that are looking to locate in Arkansas, he said.

“It is an enormous potential that we have here with our resources that is not being developed, so we have an opportunity to grow our industry, especially in the rural areas of Arkansas that right now don’t see a lot of economic growth,” Bragg said.

“Without an investment in a center like this, this resource is just going to remain unrealized, underutilized,” he said.

Bragg said the proposed center would have a director, three doctorate-level specialists, three graduate assistants and possibly some part-time help if needed.

The University of Arkansas at Monticello’s forestry college has the equivalent of a half-time forest economist who teaches and has other duties, while Mississippi State University’s forestry school has six full-time economists on its staff, and that’s why it is so far ahead in the advancement of its research and development, he said.

The proposed Center for Forest Business is also intended to have the capacity to develop an undergraduate degree in forest business, Bragg said.

“The main thing about it is providing research and assistance and data,” he said. “We consistently have companies that are looking at Arkansas to locate and they ask about data about our forest resource, and we just don’t have it.”

Bragg said the Center for Forest Business could be developed for “the bargain price of about $841,000.”

“That may sound like a lot, but when we proposed this before to the governor and [Arkansas Economic Development Commission], it was a million-and-a-halfdollar proposal, so we pared it down to basically what we think it is absolutely necessary to get this established,” he said.

“We have been working on this for almost eight years,” he said.

Afterward, Davis said the proposed Center for Forest Business would be housed within UAM’s College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources.