House Education Committee
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Bills discussed (1)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
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SB4
· 2 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “SB4”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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Speaker 1
0:00
who are stakeholders and involved in education, and we're going to give them just a chance to introduce themselves momentarily. Also, just another thing, and this is mainly for our new members, all of the committee meetings of the House are videotaped and streamed via the Internet. So that's just something to keep in mind that you are filmed for the duration of the meeting. I think we have just one deal we're going to talk about today
but before we get into that as I mentioned previously there were some folks who didn't have an opportunity to be here and what we're going to do is just like we did last meeting if you weren't here just please stand up and introduce yourselves and tell us who you're with and let the committee get to know you Larry Williams, I'm a cancer at Arkansas State University, Newport. Yes, ma'am. I'm James Smith.
Speaker 6
1:03
I'm Colin Kaplan with the Arkansas Education of the Senior College. I'm James
Speaker 9
1:17
Smith, I'm director of the adult education division of the Department of Education. Congratulations and I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 15
1:46
and do we have any ok yes ma'am it's good to see you Tanya
and we have saved the best for last Dr. Kimball thank you sir
Speaker 22
2:18
yes sir we saved the better for last and the absolute best so do we have anybody else okay yes sir thank you thank you Okay, as you can
Speaker 1
2:43
see, members, there's a lot of people that are going to be involved with the work of this committee. So if you don't take the opportunity to get to know them, they will surely take the opportunity to get to know you.
Speaker 31
3:11
an old funeral director, and we try to get everybody seated. So we do have
seats available. So please come and sit
Speaker 1
3:30
down. We don't want you standing up if you're not going to be comfortable, so please make yourselves at home.
Speaker 22
3:43
Okay, with that, we're going to go and get into the agenda. We have one bill that we're going to be talking about today. It is Senate Bill No. 4. And Representative Vines, if you would please come to the table.
Representative Vines, you are recognized, and I do understand that you have an amendment to Senate Bill
Representative John T. Vines
Unverified
4:13
4. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Madam Vice Chair, and I just hope this isn't my funeral today along those earlier comment lines.
I do have an amendment, and I think it is in the process of being published. This is an agreed-upon amendment from Senator Sample in
the Senate, so we just need to add and include it, and then we can talk about the bill if that's a pleasure of the committee. Excuse me,
Speaker 40
4:36
committee. Do we have any questions pertaining to the amendment?
Anybody wish to speak against the amendment? Anybody want to speak for the amendment? Okay.
Okay, I want to make sure. Does everybody either on your tablet, or do we have the amendment in front of us? Okay. If you're not getting the amendment to pop up on your tablet, Juanita or Mark will come around and try to assist you. If you're really, really having problems, we will get you a hard copy.
Speaker 22
5:38
Now, this is the learning curve right here, right now. Okay?
So we're just going to take a little bit of time to make sure everybody has the information in front of them. and then we will dispose with the
Speaker 47
6:05
amendment. Representative Vines, would you like to briefly explain the amendment?
Representative John T. Vines
Unverified
6:10
Yes, I will be glad to. The amendment adds, of
course, first thing, sponsor. Then we had some language that we had to clean up regarding the election and for the number of the electors. And basically it was just to add that language to make sure it didn't conflict with the existing state law. And I've got Mr. Shep Russell who helped author that here also. You recognize, sir, if you have anything to add.
No, sir, I do not. Okay. With that, questions from the committee? Okay. If not, anybody want to speak against the amendment? Anyone want to speak for the amendment? If not, what is the pleasure of
Speaker 47
6:54
the committee in regard to the amendment? We have a motion. Representative Edwards? Move. We adopt the amendment. We have a motion to adopt. All in
favor? All opposed? Amendment is adopted. Representative Vines, if you would please proceed with the presentation of Senate Bill 4.
Representative John T. Vines
Unverified
7:12
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, committee, for adopting that amendment. The crux of this bill deals with millages and how it affects a few community colleges around the state, particularly National Park, which is ours in Garland County, Rich Mountain, Northwest Arkansas Community College, and I believe North Arkansas at Harrison. And I also have, from the Department of Higher Ed, I failed to mention, we have Shane Broadway with us here this morning also. This is a cleanup bill. We had the opportunity or are going to have the opportunity to run a millage for our community college in Garland County.
And we came the last session, when we got ready to do this last spring, we realized the law was not conducive to that and we needed some language change because, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think Senator Broadway can do that. These stem from the fact that these four institutions started their lives out as technical colleges, and the language was a little bit different than the normal community college. So what this does is it's going to replace the operation language in there to include that a community college may spend millage money to acquire, construct, reconstruct, repair, expand, operate, or maintain facilities, and retire bond indebtedness.
It cleans up some of the election language, and that was what the amendment was about, about to tighten up that language so that we know how it's conducted, who conducts it, who pays for it, and how the special election is conducted. It still maintains the maximum meals at 10 meals and maintains all the subsections necessary for tax rate reduction of our voter petition or local board request, and it does have an
emergency clause. So with that, I'm going to yield the microphone to these two gentlemen I brought with me to add to that for anything we've overlooked in this bill. Senator Broadway, you have anything to
Speaker 55
9:12
add, sir? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not really. I think Representative Vance did an excellent job of explaining this. And one thing I did
Speaker 56
9:19
want to point out, and I was back checking with our staff, in terms of being able to operate, not just to build these facilities.
One of the things that the Higher Education Coordinating Board now requires each institution because it's one thing to build a building, it's another thing to maintain the building long-term. And so now we have board policy that requires that they set aside a certain percentage per square foot, a certain dollar amount per square foot for the long-term maintenance of that facility. And so the language change in regards to operate of that facility will be able to help meet that requirement as well so they don't have to go find other resources in which to meet that requirement.
So this essentially is giving community college a little more flexibility. And one
Representative John T. Vines
Unverified
10:03
thing overlooked, I want to mention also the four things that are different about these four institutions, too. They do have elected boards, board positions. So that plays into it also. And one of the reasons they were carved out and a little bit different from the other two-year colleges. MR. Okay.
Do we have any questions from the committee? Representative
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
10:27
Bibiano. MR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Do you have any examples of when one of these millages had passed for building purposes
Representative John T. Vines
Unverified
10:35
and then later it was reduced? MR. I don't have that particularly. and I can only speak really to the Garland County situation with Dr. Carter, and we have Dr. Carter here, and Dr. Carter, you may want to come forward, but she's operating on less than one mill, I believe, right now, 0.8% of a mill. So she's operating way under the normal capacity for her millage or the normal limits for millage. So we haven't had that problem that you're talking about,
and I don't know if Senator Broadway or
Speaker 61
11:14
someone more familiar with statewide would. It is. I'm Sally Carter, the president of National Park Community College. In 1973, when then Garland County Community College was developed, the voters approved a two-mill tax in order to take care of that college. We had less than 500 people at that time. Now we have 4,000 people and Amendment 59 has rolled our millage back to eight-tenths
of one meal. So it's extremely hard to keep up with the building and those things that we need to do in order to serve
Speaker 56
11:55
our constituents there. To your question as well, to my knowledge, I'm not aware of any outlook to Dr. Franklin's. It's the two-year colleges who have the ability to go out and ask for the local millage, I guess, except for UA Port Smith, but that's a sales tax. But to my knowledge, I'm not aware of anyone who has other than the Amendment 59 rollback
because, mainly because, the two-year system was basically started in 91, so it's still right about 20 years old now. And for the most part, state funding has remained relatively flat, so they do have to depend on that local
Speaker 19
12:33
funding to help keep up and make up for the shortfall of other funds. But I'm
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
12:39
not aware of any representative. Thank you, Mr.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
12:45
Chairman. Representative Hobbs. Thank you, Ms. Chair. On page 3, I notice on line 11
where you set the date or the colleges may set the date
of the election. Previously, it had, I think that they had to have at least a 90-day notice. What kind of notice will be given to voters if this
Shep Russell
Unverified
13:11
bill is adopted? My name is Shep Russell with Friday Eldridge and Clark, and we've worked on the bill for the college. Our state election laws determine how much notice voters get on all elections now.
It depends on the particular election date, if it's primary, if it's general election or a special election. And I think in this case it would be 60 days notice.
That's great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, ma'am. I believe the
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
13:44
Vice Chairman of the Committee has a question and a comment. I would just like for the Committee to hear how to your colleges – which ones are able to ask for this millage increase and which ones aren't.
Speaker 71
13:58
Could you elaborate a little bit? I'll try and ask. There are around eight or nine
Shep Russell
Unverified
14:09
community college districts in our state. And pursuant to a constitutional amendment, there could be petitions to the Department of Higher Education and the legislature for the formation of the particular districts. And each district is authorized at the time the voters approve the formation of the district to approve millage.
That millage is designed to provide some operational funds but in particular to finance facilities for the college and so those districts were formed back in the 70s there's one in Mississippi County Union County Garland County Boone County there was one in Sebastian County that was Westark before the U of A took that over and so the legislature after this amendment was passed in the original law set up to vote the millage added a statute
said you could go to the voters for additional operating millage, operating millage. And what National Park Community College wanted to do was go ask the voters for additional millage to finance facilities. And so that's what this bill is designed to do, give the authority to the college to ask the voters for additional millage to retire bonded debt to finance new improvements for the college. Thank you for that clarification.
Speaker 74
15:39
a committee representative Lowry. I have a
Speaker 75
15:41
question relative to page 2, line 23. I probably just need some clarification on what all is covered under operating budget because it seems to indicate here that the millage election could be used when a community college finds that their current funds, and I guess those are based on tuition and grants and such, that it's insufficient to cover their budget.
Is that a possible trigger as well for being able to call a millage election if they
Speaker 71
16:14
just find that they can't meet budget? And that's how the original legislation was proposed.
Shep Russell
Unverified
16:20
When the college needed money to actually operate on in the budget, then the college could ask the voters for additional operating millage. And that provision has been slightly needed to be amended by the amendment that you put on that was approved on the legislation.
Because with debt service, there's not necessarily a budget for debt service. There's a budget for operating. So we've revised the language to say that they could go and ask voters if they needed the money to operate or to pay bonded debts.
Speaker 75
17:00
Follow-up, please. Mr. Chairman. Go right ahead with you, Larry. Thank you very much. So, in other words, we are moving this ability to have millage elections past bond indebtedness and past facilities being able to allow the millage to be called if the two-year college is falling short on its operating day-to-day budget.
Speaker 78
17:22
You already have that authority. That's already there. party
Speaker 75
17:25
by these for the alleged right particular uh...
Speaker 71
17:29
this just adds for bot basically that's for bondage okay all right thank you
okay saying uh... no other questions uh... does anybody wish to speak against the bills amendment does anybody wish to speak for the bill as amendment if not what is the pleasure of the committee and if there's anybody in the audience who would like to speak either
for or against the bill okay if not uh... what is the pleasure of the committee version of course are uh... motion do pass we have a motion do pass as amended all in favor say aye all opposed okay motion uh... bill as amended passes thank you very much representative funds thank you me i
Speaker 47
18:22
have put in a hard day's work. It is 10.20.
This meeting is adjourned. Have a motion to adjourn? All in favor? We are adjourned. We'll see you Thursday at 10 o'clock.
Agenda
SB4
Documents
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Speakers
Speaker 1
Speaker 6
Speaker 9
Speaker 15
Representative James McLean Chair
Unverified
Speaker 22
Speaker 28
Speaker 31
Representative John T. Vines
Unverified
Speaker 40
Speaker 47
Speaker 55
Speaker 56
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
Speaker 61
Speaker 19
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
Shep Russell
Unverified
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
Speaker 71
Speaker 74
Speaker 75
Speaker 78
Speaker 82