Hickey previews legislative session

TEXARKANA, Ark. — State Sen. Jimmy Hickey Jr. provided a preview of next year’s session of the General Assembly on Thursday during a video conference sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce.

Hickey, R-Texarkana, who recently was named the Senate’s president pro tem, touched on COVID-19 safety protocols developed for the session beginning Jan. 11, as well as various issues such as income tax reform likely to come up.

Assembly leaders have spent “hundreds of hours” planning how to conduct the session as safely as possible as the coronavirus pandemic continues, Hickey said. Measures include the House and Senate meeting not in their normal chambers but in larger spaces that will allow distancing. Committee meetings also will emphasize distancing, and separate rooms with video feeds of committee proceedings will be provided to the public. A system to schedule when bills will

considered will also be in place to eliminate concerned members of the public having to gather and wait for bills to come up unpredictably.

Hickey said he would support a reduction in state income tax rates, though doing so must be fiscally responsible. Gov. Asa Hutchinson has proposed reducing the top individual income tax rate for new residents to 4.9% for five years to attract business talent and retirees, a plan that faces “an uphill battle,” Hickey said. Previous legislation will drop the top rate for current residents from 6.9% to 5.9% next year.

“I do think that we have to be fiscally responsible because nobody wants to pay taxes. That just goes without saying, but by the same token, these roads that we drive on and this infrastructure that we have, we have it because of tax dollars.

Nursing homes are funded that way. Assisted living facilities are funded that way. There’s all type of things out there that the government is funding that if that was to go away, then we wouldn’t be able to operate the way we do or to have the lifestyle we all want,” he said.

Texarkana’s border-city income tax exemption does not seem in danger, but the local delegation must remain vigilant in protecting it, Hickey said.

“People don’t like to discuss it because they think out of sight is out of mind, and that’s always been best. However, everybody up at the state does know that Texarkana has that. The majority of the legislators that we have talked with, they understand the exemption. Some of them, of course, they do not like it.

“It’s always the legislators’ jobs to be sure Texarkana keeps that. At the current time, I would not say that I see any push to take that away. However, we do keep that solely because the legislature allows us to,” he said.