Library, elderly funding restored

Rainy-day fund tapped for $2M

Legislative leaders and Gov. Asa Hutchinson have agreed to restore a $1 million cut in state funding for libraries and a $1 million cut in state funding for senior citizen centers.

Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, and House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, on Friday said the agreement was reached in negotiations with the Republican governor on the proposed state general revenue budget for fiscal year 2017, which starts July 1.

Last year, the Legislature reduced state general revenue funding for public libraries from $5.6 million to $4.6 million and for the Department of Human Services’ Aging and Adult Services Division from $17.6 million to $16.5 million in the current fiscal year.

The budget reduction in Aging and Adult Services cut funding for senior citizen centers, a department spokesman said. Gillam said the House of Representatives in 2015 steered $1 million in one-time General Improvement Funds to the senior centers to help offset their cut.

Some Democratic lawmakers have pressed their colleagues in the Republi-

can-dominated Legislature to restore the funding for public libraries, saying it led to a reduction of library services, particularly for rural Arkansans.

Dismang said legislative leaders and Hutchinson have agreed that the Legislature will increase the state’s rainy-day fund mainly by allocating a large share of the state’s surplus of more than $50 million to the rainy-day fund. The fund now totals about $31 million.

Under this agreement, he said $1 million of the rainyday fund would go to public libraries and about $1 million would go to the Department of Human Services’ Aging and Adult Services Division for long-term care grants.

Restoring the funds “will give the members time to figure out where the cuts will come from to fully reinstate them as ongoing [funding]” during the 2017 regular session, Dismang said.

Sen. Bobby Pierce, D-Sheridan, said Friday in a written statement that “this is a great example of what we can accomplish when we put aside partisan differences and focus on what’s best for our communities.

“I’m glad both sides worked together with leadership on both ends, with the governor’s office, to handle this situation,” Pierce said.

In recent weeks, both state Sen. David Burnett, D-Osceola, and Rep. Camille Bennett, D-Lonoke, have made proposals to restore the $1 million for libraries.

Bennett proposed an amendment to the state Department of Education’s Arkansas State Library appropriation bill — House Bill 1052 — that would require the state’s chief fiscal officer to transfer $1 million in surplus funds to the state library public school fund account to be used exclusively for grants and aid to assist public libraries in the fiscal year ending June 30, and up to $1 million in the fiscal year starting July 1.

Bennett said she’s pleased that the governor and legislative leaders have reached an agreement.

“I’ll definitely be pushing next year to restore [the funding] permanently,” she said. “It is hard to operate a library if you can’t count on the funding.”

Burnett also proposed an amendment to HB1052 to require the state’s chief fiscal officer to transfer $1 million in surplus funds to the state library public school fund account to be used exclusively for grants and aid to provide assistance to public libraries.

Earlier this week, Burnett told lawmakers that libraries are much more than a repository for books.

In rural Arkansas, public libraries provide access to computers and the Internet, and “our libraries are essential to the needs of our people,” he said.

“It’s absolutely a shame if we don’t support our public libraries,” Burnett said.