Confluence

“This is a really big deal,” the message read. “You ought to come down here.” The text was sent to me on Sunday afternoon by one of the participants in the rally for Arkansas teachers. (In fact I had intended to cover it first hand but other events got in the way at the last minute.)

Plainly it was a big deal, although it was not a “really” big deal; what the rally was intended to inspire — a significant pay raise for Arkansas’s public school classroom teachers — simply wasn’t in the cards. It wasn’t in the call — meaning Governor Asa Hutchinson’s call for the special legislative session which began on Tuesday. Even had it been included (the “call” is a governor’s program for special meetings of the General Assembly, an agenda which cannot be altered save by an extraordinary majority vote of both the House and the Senate) there was no appetite among the ruling Republican super-majorities for addressing teacher pay, at least before January’s regular session when a new governor will take office.

The incumbent, who will shake her hand (likely it will be a woman’s hand, as you’ve heard) and then resume his campaign for the White House, had raised the possibility of a boost to K-12 pay weeks ago. Almost as quickly he pulled back, having been advised by his party’s legislative leadership of stiff resistance to the idea. Indeed, some voices in the GOP conference, notably its more conservative members, were opposed to a special session for any purpose, up to and including Mr. Hutchinson’s signature issue: an acceleration of the personal and corporate income tax cuts previously enacted but keyed to the state’s economic performance, measured mostly by treasury balances. With the state some $1.6 billion to the good at the end of the fiscal year last June (July’s surplus approaching $30 million) the door was open — but just so far. There would be added $50 million to a reserve fund for local school districts to improve school safety, but the new expenditures stopped there. Except for the tax cuts, which are, after all, a form of expenditure.

Taking the top personal income tax bracket from 5.5 percent to 4.9 percent and the corporate rate from 5.9 to 5.33 would reduce state revenues by more than $760 million over this and the next three fiscal years. Yes, the prime beneficiaries of the administration bill would be the most affluent taxpayers; yes, the credit of no more than $300 (styled as an offset to inflation) for those in lower income categories is a onetime nod, a comparative pittance.

Assuming something less than an eviscerating recession and banana republic inflation, the General Assembly’s conservative wing maintains there will be adequate monies to fund an increase in educator’s wages in the next year. Besides, better to wait for the legally mandated determination of educational adequacy, to be completed in time for the January session, before deciding what is an adequate salary for teachers. (Teachers have a different attitude.)

In a different political climate and were the parties more evenly balanced numerically, in the General Assembly and the electorate, the special session and the schematic it will — and won’t — address would be a boon to Democrats. Senior members including Senate minority leader Keith Ingram (D. - West Memphis) were quick to seize on a report in the Washington Post that warned of a nationwide crisis in public schools. “’Never Seen it This Bad’: America Faces Catastrophic Teacher Shortage” read the headline. The article was relayed in cyber-space by at least a dozen legislators to untold numbers of the presumed sympathetic, too few to make much difference, at least at this juncture.

Tax equity has never been a hallmark of Arkansas governance, no matter which party held the governor’s office or controlled the legislature, nor is it known for what might be termed strategic investment: public schools, higher education, health and human services. Moved to end abortion in the interest of life, shaving very nearly a billion dollars from the revenue stream, Arkansas should now consider a different sort of adequacy study, the Annie Casey Foundation’s annual evaluation of the states in terms of the overall well-being of its most vulnerable — its children. We continue to outpace the nation in some of the worst ways: obesity, low birthweight, prekindergarten enrollment. We rank 43rd among the states. That’s a really big deal, but not a good deal.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Steve Barnes is a columnist with Editorial Associates in Little Rock.)