Lawmakers push to finish session by end of month

State lawmakers this week plan to begin negotiating with Gov. Asa Hutchinson on the state’s proposed $5 billion general revenue budget for fiscal 2016 and to wrap up action on their top-priority measures as the legislative session ticks toward a close. Legislative leaders hope to complete the session by the end of this month.

Legislation to complement the governor’s $32 million plan to reduce prison crowding and to overhaul the state’s workforce development programs are also on the to-do list for this week, legislative leaders say.

Today is the 64th day of the regular legislative session.

“The push is to try to get us out of here sometime close to the end of the month, and we are going to try to stay that course,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy.

With legislative leaders aiming to end the session by the end of this month, lawmakers have fewer bills to consider.

The number of bills introduced by the March 9 filing deadline — 2,037 — was the lowest for a regular session since 1997, when 1,840 were filed, according to Bureau of Legislative Research figures.

Before they end the session, lawmakers also must decide what, if any, constitutional amendments to refer to voters in the November 2016 general election.

Legislators have filed 41 proposed constitutional amendments. The Legislature can refer up to three proposed constitutional amendments to voters in each regular legislative session. It typically refers a few proposals to voters every two years.

Dismang said he doesn’t believe any of this year’s proposals should be referred to voters for the November 2016 general election.

The proposals include

an amendment to allow the governor to retain his powers when he is outside the state, and to have candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run jointly on the same ticket rather than separately. One proposal seeks to double the two-year terms of county elected officials.

“I think each one of us talk at different times about how much we respect the constitution, and it would be a testament if we didn’t pass out anything, to [show] that respect,” he said. “But we’ll let the process and the committees work to see if there are some things that rise to the level” of deserving a spot on the 2016 ballot.

“I would prefer some type of reasonable tort reform be presented to the voters, and we have talked [about] it for a number of years, and at this point I just don’t see a path to see that happen,” Dismang said.

The Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee consists of four Republicans and four Democrats. The committee’s composition led committee chairman Eddie Joe Williams, R-Cabot, who unsuccessfully proposed an amendment in 2013 to change tort laws, to tweet in November: “So much for tort.”

House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, said of constitutional amendments: “I don’t think it is the end of the world if we don’t send anything out, but there may be two or three good ideas in there” to refer to voters.

The Joint Committee on Constitutional Amendments will convene starting March 23 to decide which, if any, of the proposed constitutional amendments should be referred to voters.

As for the proposed fiscal 2016 general revenue budget, Gillam and Dismang said they expect legislative leaders to begin private meetings on it with the governor this week. Fiscal 2016 starts July 1.

“Things are going to be tight, that’s just the reality,” said Dismang.

Gillam said he doesn’t expect sweeping changes to the governor’s proposed budget.

“We work within the confines of the budget we got, and we’ll make the tweaks to the governor’s budget accordingly, and I think it should be a fairly smooth process,” he said. He said he still wants to increase funding for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

In January, Hutchinson proposed a general revenue budget that would increase state spending by $149.5 million to nearly $5.2 billion, with most of the increased funding going to public schools, human-service programs and prisons. He also proposed spending the state’s projected surplus of about $216 million on a variety of state projects.

The Legislature and Hutchinson enacted Act 22 to cut income tax rates for Arkansans with taxable incomes ranging from $21,000 to $75,000 and repealing certain capital-gains tax cuts enacted in 2013.

Act 22 is projected to reduce state general revenue by $22.9 million in fiscal 2016 and $90.3 million in fiscal 2017, according to the Department of Finance and Administration.

During the first eight months of fiscal 2015, net state general revenue is $94 million ahead of forecast. But state officials have said it’s too early to be sure that surplus will be available on June 30.

“With what the spending priorities appear to be of the General Assembly along with the [tax] cut priorities, I don’t think there is a whole lot that we are going to get done in either direction. But we [have] got to work through the process and allow everybody to make their presentations” on their tax-cut proposals in legislative revenue and taxation committees, Gillam said.

In addition to weighing possible changes to the governor’s budget, lawmakers also are considering legislation to overhaul workforce development programs and parole programs.

A key workforce development bill would overhaul the state Board of Career Education and seek to improve the coordination of the state’s workforce development programs.

The Senate is expected to consider the bill this week after it cleared the Senate Education Committee last week.

Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock, said her SB368 would change the Board of Career Education membership so it would be made up of up to 13 “industry sector folks who are the people who are creating the jobs.”

Under current law, the board consists of seven members appointed by the governor.

English said the bill also would create a Skills Development Fund in the Department of Career Education that “we hope will grow so that we have an opportunity to work with business and industry, and set up … programs in high schools and in the two-year colleges so everybody has a chance to be able to learn some technical skills and have an opportunity for a career pathway.”

This week, Gillam said he expects the House Judiciary Committee to consider legislation to complement Hutchinson’s plan to ease prison crowding. The bill is SB472 by Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock.

It is part of a $32 million plan to increase prison-bed space, expand parole services and reduce recidivism over two years.

Among other things, the bill also would give any certified law enforcement officer in the state the power to search probationers and parolees, without first obtaining warrants. Parole and probation officers already have that authority. Supporters say the bill would increase the number of officers able to keep parolees and probationers in check, as well as change the behavior of some offenders.

Dismang said he plans to release details of SB2, his legislation to comply with a constitutional amendment enacted by voters last November. The amendment authorized the Legislature to pass a law requiring that rules proposed by state agencies be reviewed and approved by lawmakers before they go into effect.

The draft bill would allow proposed rules to be automatically approved if they are reviewed, but it would require a majority of the Legislative Council’s Administrative Rules and Regulations Subcommittee to vote for a motion to disapprove a proposed rule to stop it from becoming effective, he said.

“And if there is a disapproval, then the members disapproving will have to outline those reasons,” said Dismang.

“In the version that we have right now, we don’t specifically address” the state’s higher-education institutions, the Game and Fish Commission, and the Highway and Transportation Department,” he said.

On Friday, the House approved HB1737 by Rep. David Branscum, R-Marshall, which would require proposed state agency rules to be reviewed and approved by the Legislative Council or the council’s co-chairmen before they would go into effect. The requirement would apply to the Highway Department and highway commission, the Game and Fish Commission and the state’s higher-education institutions.

As it weighs how to deal with proposed state agency rules, the Legislature has fewer bills to consider this session.

When asked why fewer bills were filled this legislative session than usual, Dismang replied, “I guess newness. That would apply to different folks in different ways.”

The Legislature has more than 40 first-time lawmakers, largely in the House. The Hutchinson administration also took over control of state government only two months ago, on Jan. 13.

In previous regular legislative sessions, the number of bills filled by the deadline were: 2,258 in 1999; 2,643 in 2001; 2,885 in 2003; 3,176 in 2005; 2,816 in 2007; 2,285 in 2009; 2,235 in 2011; and 2,492 in 2013, the bureau reported.

The number of bills started dropping in 2007 partly because legislators filed fewer General Improvement Fund appropriation bills compared with previous years, legislative leaders said at that time.

The 2007 regular session came on the heels of a December 2006 state Supreme Court ruling that a $400,000 state appropriation for streets and sewers in Bigelow was unconstitutional because it was local legislation, a ruling that officials said would likely restrict the approval of “pork” projects in legislative districts.

Amendment 14 of the Arkansas Constitution prohibits the state from passing a “special or local act” that arbitrarily singles out a person or place for preferential treatment.

The high court overturned a decision by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Willard Proctor Jr., who upheld the 2005 law to distribute state money to the Perry County town of about 300 people. The legislation was sponsored by Sen. Bob Johnson, D-Bigelow, who led a successful push in the Senate in 2005 to carve out more state money for local projects.

Since that 2006 Supreme Court ruling, legislators have aimed to funnel some state General Improvement Funds to state agencies and planning and development districts, and then recommend what local projects the agencies and entities should spend the funds on.