Legislators to review budgets in fiscal session

Education tops Murdock’s priorities

Legislators are preparing to convene on Monday, Feb. 14, at the State Capitol to begin the 2022 Fiscal Session of the 93rd General Assembly.

District 48 Rep. Reginald Murdock, D-Marianna, said this session is essentially to formally ratify the budgets that have been submitted to legislators.

"This isn't a session where we bring up any bills or anything like that, it is just a session where departments come in, who have already submitted their budgets, to discuss things," said Murdock. "It is just when we gather to formally ratify these budgets that have been filed as to what we want to do. It is a fiscal session to talk about the budget that has been presented already."

According to Murdock, one issue that will be brought up during the gathering will deal with employment benefits for state employees.

"There will be some things dealing with employment benefits that we will either do in special session or during the fiscal session that are important," said Murdock. "It is important to make sure that our state employees are properly covered with their benefits. We want to make sure we continue to support these things and fund them."

Murdock said that in addition to taking care of state employees, legislators will focus on education, highways, healthcare and economic development during the session.

"We do what we can to continue to support important things in our communities," said Murdock. "We need to do more in education and every other area like highways, healthcare and economic development. We want to make sure we take advantage of the opportunity that we have through the dollars that the pandemic has created. There is a lot of money that has come to Arkansas and we need to do a good job at allocating those dollars across the state to see economic growth all across the state. By putting these funds in the right places, we can stimulate that growth."

According to Murdock, education remains at the top of his priority list as he looks to improve facilities and staff retention in districts across the state, specifically in the Delta.

"Teacher salaries and facilities," said Murdock. "We need to make sure our facilities in all districts are up to par. We need to help these districts and superintendents with their abilities to recruit and retain staff in this area. The Delta is a special place in that we have a population that is waning. We have situations where we have to compete against other parts of the state, so we need to invest in our area to increase our ability to compete at a state level."

The Times-Herald made numerous attempts to contact District 49 Rep. Steve Hollowell, R-Forrest City, regarding the fiscal session, but as of press time Hollowell had not responded to requests for comments.