House Education Committee Part 1
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Bills discussed (4)
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HB1901
· 2 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “HB1901”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1032
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1032”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1892
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1892”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB2178
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB2178”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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- October 5, 2026
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
0:00
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members, today I'm pleased to have some guests in the room that I'd like to introduce to you. Dr. Dee Cox, who's Associate Professor of Education at Henderson State University. Dr. Cox, welcome back. She's no stranger to this committee. And she has her class from Henderson State University. These are students who are in the Master of Arts in Teaching program and also Master of Science in Education in our Curriculum and Instruction program. So, Dr. Cox, if you will stand with your group, we will recognize you.
I have another guest in the room, Mr. Chair, if I may. That is Richard Bright. He's standing at the back of the room. Richard, if you'll wave to everybody. Richard is an attorney in Arkadelphia, and he's shadowing me today to make sure that I do everything legally correct. Thank you, Richard, for being here.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
0:57
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair sees a quorum. Call this meeting an order. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll
pick up where we left off the other day with Mr. Ingram, House Bill 1901.
And I hope, Mr. Ingram, you want to recap a little bit or you just want to kind of,
Speaker 6
1:14
I'll leave it up to you. I was just going to thank the committee for that due pass where we left off the other day.
Speaker 7
1:21
I hope you got your votes counted real close, not 11-12 here. Yes, sir. Well, I think where we were, if I remember, you know, you give me
Representative Keith M. Ingram
Unverified
1:29
a lunch break and you have to retrain me, but I think that we were taking questions on this bill. I think that is correct, committee.
You know, we had Scott Richardson with the Attorney General's office and Tony Woods and Dr. Kimbrell here. Or
Speaker 13
1:48
Kimbrell, listen to me. Yeah, Terrell. committee any additional
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:56
questions I know it's kind of hard to come back in after a couple days and
pick up right where you left off mr. mr. Stewart you have questions yes dr. Kimber we I'm going
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
2:11
back and look at some of the
notes and stuff from the adequacy committee meetings we had all last summer and you know we made a recommendation from the adequacy Committee at that time, and did ADE or anybody else come in and bring up another scenario or another recommendation after
Speaker 23
2:30
we made our recommendation? I mean, were you part of the Adequacy Committee meetings? Yes, sir. I was there. Okay. And there
Speaker 25
2:37
was – if you'll go back, I think, and look at those last two meetings, there were no opportunities for any kind of testimony or questions asked of the Department of Education
as to their thoughts on this or anything, sir. Okay, but you were involved throughout the whole thing. I was watching, yes, sir, and I actually talked to some members of the committee
Speaker 30
3:01
about my concerns about this. Okay, all right, thank
Speaker 31
3:06
you. Committee, any other questions? Mr. Steele. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Doctor, could you just give us just
Speaker 33
3:12
an overall and, well, I can't say the issue at hand. I think that may be allowable, Mr. Chairman, because I know there's another bill and we can't talk about that bill.
The issues at hand and the concerns of the transportation issue for those of us who haven't been on this committee for several years, what are we dealing with here? And from your perspective, give us a sense of can this transportation issue be resolved outside of the purview of this bill? Well, when you asked
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
3:52
the question, can we resolve this issue,
this bill doesn't deal with the transportation issue. So I think there is wide latitude as to what could happen outside of this bill. This bill doesn't deal with the transportation issue. This bill deals strictly with the recommendation in the report of the 2% on all items in the matrix. That's what we wrote the bill based upon. We applied 2 percent to each of those components and the aggregate in the matrix and then to each categorical to come up with the figures that we're using.
Speaker 24
4:28
So, yes, I would suspect there's latitude to
Speaker 31
4:31
deal with it. Yeah, but can the department deal with the
Speaker 33
4:37
transportation needs that are not addressed directly in this bill, if that's allowable, Mr. Chairman? we
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
4:49
it, I would suspect, fund high-cost transportation without, no, sir, we don't have the capacity within the public school fund or under the purview right now at the Department of Education
Speaker 25
5:00
to, quote, deal with that issue. I think it's a legislative issue, and it's an issue that you
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
5:11
as a legislative body have to deal with. Thank you. Mr. Carnine, do you have a question? I want to follow up on those comments, Dr. Kimbrell, and thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me go back. I did not get to participate in those meetings because of other family issues, but as I remember, as part of the discussion prior to my not being able to participate,
we talked about the fact that there were a number of districts that were having to take money out of what we would describe as adequacy dollars to actually just fund the normal routes to school. Is that not correct? That was part of the discussion. In other words, the data that we were seeing suggested that districts were having to move money
from their adequacy dollars to actually get kids to school. Is that correct? Well,
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
6:13
adequacy is defined as a number. It's not an expenditure model. I understand, but the
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
6:19
dollars that go to adequacy. Such as this year's $6,023. That's correct. Yes, sir. They were having to move some of that dollar into the categorical transportation to get kids to school. No, sir,
Speaker 47
6:35
that's incorrect because there is no categorical transportation at this time.
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
6:39
Okay, but my choice of words is probably not correct in terms of the specifics, but let's go back. Were people having to use money from one side of the equation to the other side of the equation to get kids to school? Because technically transportation is and is not adequacy. Is that correct? So I would actually punt that one to the AG. I think he
Speaker 24
7:06
talked about that issue and what the court said about whether transportation was a part of adequacy or not.
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
7:17
And, Mr. Richardson, could you help me out on that?
Speaker 53
7:22
Well, the committee is, and the legislators struggled with the definition for what
Speaker 55
7:28
portion of transportation relates to adequacy. And the committee and the legislature came up with the definition of that in the 2008 adequacy report, and then it was adopted by the legislature in 2009 when the full legislature adopted that
Speaker 56
7:46
report. And the definition was that adequacy in transportation is required not for every route mile,
not for every mile that the bus drives, but for – as necessary to get those students who wouldn't otherwise be able to realize that opportunity for an adequate education but for transportation being provided. So students in serious poverty, students in disability were some of the examples that were provided in that report. And I don't know, or at least I haven't seen data that shows how that breaks down.
I think it's a very complicated question, but I think the decision by the committee and the recommendation by the committee was that there's current funding. The funding level currently in the matrix is sufficient to cover that adequacy need. That's in the 2010 adequacy report. And it says, the committee recommends a distribution methodology for enhanced transportation funding, which is in addition to the foundation funding matrix amounts
and utilizes a function of each district's historical route miles that is well above the minimum adequacy standard. So when we talk about an enhanced transportation model,
Speaker 55
9:09
transportation funding model, We're talking about beyond adequacy, as I understand, the recommendation of the committee. Okay. Well, see, that's where I was not part
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
9:22
of or listened to that part of it because I thought, and again, I may have been mistaken, that some of the discussion prior to my missing those meetings
was that we did have districts that were not receiving adequate dollars for their transportation. And what you're telling me is though the committee obviously took a different view in terms of their recommendation. And that's where I wanted to be sure that I understood where we were with this. And so I appreciate your explanation on that.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Representative Roebuck, do
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
10:07
you have a question? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Commissioner. I just want you to review for me the timeline on how we do this. I know there's an adequacy committee that meets, and those members work very hard, and then they submit a report, and then in that report there are recommendations. Is that correct? That's my understanding, yes, ma'am. Could you kind of review for us how that works? I mean, we leave in the interim.
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
10:34
I know that. And then what happens? Well, my understanding is, or my past history has been, that the committee would meet. They would take, at times, reports. There would be different groups who would bring information. The Bureau of Legislative Research, I think, was charged with doing and finding some level of what I guess is CPI. And then I think in the end, that's what in the past couple sessions has actually been what's been applied,
is that this body, the committee, the adequacy committee, would choose a range to apply to the foundation matrix. And historically, they've done that to the matrix, to the foundation-level funding. Over the last couple of sessions, I know the last two sessions for sure, they did not apply that CPI to categorical. This time, the decision and recommendation from the committee was to apply to both foundation-level funding and to the categoricals the CPI of two.
I mean, in a nutshell, that's, in my opinion, how this has worked. Lots of testimony, a lot of discussion, and then the bottom line, Mr. Wilson would come in, make a recommendation of some consumer price index that could be used by the committee to make a decision about an inflationary factor to be placed upon foundation-level funding, and if so, chose the categoricals. And then this body, as a legislature, would decide within that range what that price index would be.
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
12:20
And follow-up, Commissioner. So after that report is complete and that recommendation is made, that recommendation is made to whom? From what I
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
12:30
understand, the recommendation comes to both committees. Joint Senate and House Committee. And the committees on education as a recommendation. And do you recall what the
Speaker 65
12:42
action was from that joint committee? I recall what's in the
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
12:47
report. No, ma'am, I don't recall word for word what the actual,
I think there is some written documentation that has been provided in support of another bill that did show what, I think at that time, Representative Saunders made a motion, but I can't quote it word for word. I just know what's in the report that I had before me. Okay,
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
13:11
and one more, Mr. Chair, with your indulgence. And so then after that vote is taken and that recommendation leaves the joint Senate and House, what happens to that report and those recommendations? Where does it go?
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
13:23
I think my understanding is it comes to both of the committees to make some determination. Oh, after it leaves there,
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
13:29
we voted on it, it's left, it's gone, now who takes up from there? I'm trying to get the procedure here I
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
13:41
guess that's what I was saying It then comes to this body as a legislative body Both the House and the Senate As two houses for approval of the recommendations Coming out of the two committees
Speaker 74
13:53
Thank you for clarifying Thank you Mr. Chair Dr. Kimball, Mr.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
13:58
Dale has a question I know we can't talk about another bill But is this the first time we've had two competing bills you're aware of on adequacy? At this time right now, I
Speaker 36
14:14
can't remember there being two competing bills. Okay, thank you. Mr. Dale, do you have a question?
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
14:23
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Kimbrell, in your comments that you made there was that there should be, to try to center on these inadequacies, I'm going to use that term just a little bit. I know we're supposed to be talking about adequacy, but that there had to be legislative action. Now, I wasn't on the Adequacy Committee, but I was on the Education Committee,
and attended most of those meetings that they had, which was several. Maybe my first question is going to be how many schools are adequately funded for transportation out of the total number of schools? Well, it depends
Speaker 47
15:19
upon what you're asking as the definition of adequacy.
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
15:23
Currently, what we understand the courts have said is that that level of funding that comes in foundation
is adequate to fund the operations of schools. Okay.
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
15:35
But I'm asking you, in that meeting, numbers were given to us about how much each school spent for transportation. How many schools are adequately
funded for their transportation cost? are you asking for my opinion sir
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
15:53
or do you do you know the number well i guess you you're asking
me if it's above the two hundred and seventy six dollars and whatever that's currently in the matrix and they're actually spending more than that that's correct i'm not
Speaker 25
16:11
sure of the exact number sir i haven't seen that print out in a while it's a little over a hundred and something Is
Speaker 94
16:18
there anyone here that would know that information? Mr. Wilson did
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
16:21
some figuring for us in those meetings. If you want to call them in a table, we can address them. Could he stand to the table
Speaker 56
16:32
If I may, I think the answer to that is in the 2010 adequacy report, and that's the recommendation from the committees. And my understanding of this report is that the committees found that the current amount in the foundation funding major wasn't was adequate to cover what the committees and the General Assembly had decided was adequacy in relationship to transportation and that's why this isn't you know what we're discussing is
enhanced transportation funding for high-cost districts or
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
17:06
we're going around and around here I just like to have a
Speaker 106
17:16
number please could you give me one Richard we currently spend two hundred ninety seven dollars and fifty cents per ADM for all districts in the analysis we ran for four years now I think three years the most recent numbers reflect that 89 districts out of
the 239 we currently have actually profit from the method of distribution that we're using right now, and 150 districts spend more money than is provided. Whether that is adequacy or not is arguable. Okay.
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
18:01
So roughly two-thirds of the
schools are not adequately funded for transportation.
Is that kind of a little summation of the numbers there? Yes, sir. It'd be about two-thirds. They're having to take funds out of other matrices
Speaker 106
18:26
to cover transportation, aren't they? They're taking out
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
18:29
other line items to fund transportation, yes, sir. Now, the next point, Dr. Kimbrell, is that I think that's why the committee made the decision that they did. They were trying to do something legislatively to try to right this wrong.
And you said you were there and you heard all of that. And I know it was discussed many times. In fact, we even delayed the decision an extra 30 days there for people to make comments and things. So I just can't see why you didn't have a chance to tell us that
Speaker 25
19:18
that wasn't correct then or whatever. Well, sir, I did talk to several committee members about that.
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
19:23
The 30 days, if I remember correctly, was 30 days to allow additional time for a new CPI to come in. There was some additional information that Mr. Wilson said would be coming from a timing perspective that may give a better indication of the consumer price index that could be used. Because if I remember right, the governor's office and DF&A brought another economist down that had some different figures. And
Speaker 25
19:51
so there was a delay in making that decision, waiting on more information there.
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
19:58
Thank you, Dr. Kimbrell. I may have additional questions later.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
20:06
Okay. I have Mrs. Hobbs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a
few, but they shouldn't take very long. First of all, on this bill, it says the committee has made clear in the 2010 interim study report report, that this recommended enhanced transportation funding was found to be over and above what was required for adequacy. It's on the very first page, beginning at line 32.
So that is an accurate report, that their recommendation was over and above what was required for adequacy. That was testimony. Okay. Whoever can answer that.
Speaker 99
20:47
Okay. Thank you. 2010 adequacy report. MS. Okay.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
20:49
And did you also hear testimony from some people that said the less than 2 percent could also be considered as adequate funding? MR.
Speaker 56
20:59
I think there was a lot of debate over the percentage multiplier.
And, you know, the committees also took evidence that for many of the line items in the matrix, some districts spend more and some districts spend less. I think all of the line items in the matrix, some districts spend more, some districts spend less. And as far as the adequacy amount, some districts spend more, some districts spend less. And that's the model that was approved by the Supreme Court. So I think when we look at what districts are spending more on an item, what districts are spending less, that's not necessarily a determination of who's adequate and inadequate.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
21:35
MS. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And is part of adequacy to fully fund school expenses or are the districts supplemented with the – do they supplement their expenditures with local military rates? MR. I think that's correct. MS. Okay. All right. And last question. I know there's two recommendations out there. Of the two – of
course, since I represent my school district, which one will benefit my district the most?
Speaker 124
22:05
MR. Would that be the Rogers School District?
Speaker 64
22:10
MS. Yes, sir. Or have you looked at the numbers
Speaker 25
22:18
that way and – MR. Yes, ma'am. the numbers our analysis of course there's some questions as to our rounding mr. Wilson has pointed out but in the case of the Rogers School District in the first year under this bill that
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
22:33
we're proposing they would in you have to look at it in relationship to to the two bills if this bill were to
pass, they would generate an additional $95,872 the first year, in contrast to the other bill. And in 13, fiscal year 13, that would move to $178,048, according to our figures, in contrasting the two bills. Okay. Mr.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
23:00
Wilson, I mean, have you looked at these to see if
Speaker 106
23:11
you agree with those figures? Well, yes. The beauty of the statistical model is it finds a cost per mile statewide, and it also
suggests a mean of an efficiency number. And so some of these districts might receive more money than they need for transportation and profit from it, but the model suggests they should even be doing it for less than that, so they're running inefficient systems relative to each other. So we know who's efficient, we
Speaker 135
23:42
know who's profiting, we know who's losing, and we
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
23:47
know who's inefficient. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. Last one, sir. Thank you.
And looking at that, I don't know if you've looked at rent total
numbers or not, but, I mean, will more schools lose according to this
Speaker 139
24:05
bill or gained? Do you happen to know that?
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
24:12
those numbers? I think you've got
Speaker 142
24:15
them in front of you. In the contrast of the discussion we're having with the two processes, there's 150 districts that have been identified that would benefit with enhanced transportation.
Speaker 143
24:28
If the funding stream were to be approved in the legislation that's before you, that number would reduce to 119 that would still have enhanced transportation.
Speaker 142
24:44
Does that answer your question? Okay. So
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
24:49
does that mean are there 249 school districts now? Right. 239. Okay.
MR. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. MR.
Speaker 147
25:02
Mr. Chair, I'd like to make one point,
Representative Keith M. Ingram
Unverified
25:05
if I might. MR. Yes, certainly. MR. Mr. Wilson used a term of profit as far as transportation is concerned, and I would like to just mention that I think that if we begin to look at single items in the foundation and the formula, the matrix, as it would be, there's going to be – I mean, the beauty of the matrix is the flexibility it leaves the schools.
And if we're going to begin to look for profits, I mean, and losses, are we making a profit on special education kids? I mean, is that what we're going to say? Are we making a profit or are we losing money on Spanish-speaking kids? So the idea that we're going to carve out just transportation and talk about profit and loss seems to me is not a real fair statement, and I
Speaker 7
25:51
would like to point that out to the committee.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
25:55
Thank you for that. We have Mr. Stewart, I believe.
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
26:00
Yes, I've got several. One of them, Mr. Richardson brought up the Supreme Court, and I'd like to just read for the committee what the Supreme Court said in their last finding, the conclusion of the special master's report. If I might, what is especially meaningful to this court is the master's finding that the General Assembly has expressly shown that constitutional compliance in the field of education is an ongoing task requiring constant study, review, and adjustment. In this Court's view, requiring annual adequacy review by the legislative committee
is a cornerstone for assuring future compliance. That's what we did. The two bills, and we've been talking about those, one bill is a bill from the Education Committee of the House and the Senate based on many, many meetings. The advocacy subcommittee met 14 times studying this topic. And to answer Representative Ingram's question, what they came up with was that transportation was more volatile
because of the cost. It's driven by the cost of fuel. You have your teachers and the other things doing the other facets of the matrix, and that doesn't change as rapidly as the cost of transportation. And we've seen very recently the price of fuel skyrocketing. Every time that you bring that fuel up, and these schools that aren't getting enough money to start with are suffering more.
They're having to take money out of the other pots of money that are part of the adequacy funding that they are no longer adequate then. So we've got a problem here, and that problem was addressed through a very comprehensive process and came up with a means to help fix that. And the question that this is from Mr. Wilson, and you brought up earlier, Rogers would pick up $95,000 the first year, they'd get another $178,000, but aren't they already getting
more than they spend? the current system, they're already getting more than they spent. Yes, sir. Does that make sense? They're getting more than they spend, so we're going to give them $178,000. We've got other schools that aren't getting enough, so we're not going to give that many. We're going to give it to the ones that don't need it. Is there a question in here? Yes, Mr. Wilson, would you agree with that observation? Absolutely. Okay. And then one other question I think that Mr. Kimball asked, or Representative Hobbs,
I wasn't clear on it. I want to make sure that when she said that if a school doesn't have enough transportation funding, they can just use their local millage rates. But I thought we just passed a bill this week. The schools couldn't keep that extra millage increase. They only get that $6,023, don't they?
Speaker 25
29:04
If they raise, that's only on the 25 mills,
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
29:07
sir. Right. But most of the mills that are above that are usually for bond issues or for –
Speaker 113
29:13
That differs with every school district.
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
29:15
Okay. But not all school districts have additional millages if they don't get enough money through
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
29:22
the matrix. I would suspect, and I don't know the exact numbers, but most school districts do have some because most bonding that occurs in
Speaker 36
29:32
facilities, they have what they term coverage. So you'll actually pass more millage than the actual requirement to pay the bond and the interest rate just so you have coverage.
Speaker 25
29:44
So, yeah, I would suspect that every district out there
Speaker 23
29:48
has some excess debt service mills. But the possibility they wouldn't
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
29:53
have enough then. But also I want to move back to the Joint Adequacy Oversight Subcommittee for some of the members that were not involved and weren't aware of what it actually says. And the first line of the motion that we adopted from the advocacy committee, I'm, you know, move that the funding of the transportation line item and the funding matrix remain at its current funding level.
And then it goes on to talk about making some changes. So what we did or what the committee did was they analyzed everything and came up with the fact that some schools are not getting enough, some are getting more. Let's hold that line right there. Let's just keep that right where it's at. And then in this next funding model, let's actually make some adjustments to try to help the ones that don't have enough. And that's what the Senate bill does or the Education Committee bill does. And this bill just went ahead and said, let's just keep on doing it the way we've been doing it.
We know it. The Adeptity Committee came up and determined that it's not right, that we're not funding the schools that don't have enough money. Let's just keep on doing it. That's the kind of things that got us in
the court to start with. in my opinion, at least. And one of the questions
I have, and it's for Mr. Wilson, is under the education bill, what do the schools with no increase get for their funding for transportation? Is there, I just said we're going to hold the line on that,
but they are getting money for their transportation. Can you explain that for us? Now, I'm not sure I got the question phrased just right, but I'm trying to say we
Speaker 105
31:41
try to hold them harmless. Tell us how that funding would work. Okay.
Speaker 106
31:47
Currently, everybody gets 297.5 per kid. And if you take that and hold it flat and then use the model to provide for that increase,
it would have been 2 percent. schools that get the money in enhanced transportation, of course, the percentage varies above 2 percent. But for the school districts that don't get any enhanced transportation, for foundation increase, what I get is exactly 1.8927445 percent. So to answer your question, schools that get enhanced transportation, we're trying to at least take a step toward
funding their transportation, schools that are getting excess revenues for transportation are held at the 1.89 level. You might recall the meeting, and I don't know, it might have been the same meeting where we had the DFA economist and director tell the subcommittee that 1.86 was a good number for inflation anything above that was
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
33:02
our under the education committee bill then we were still we're doing an adequate job at that at that level because we're actually above the 1.86 well that's according to DFA right all
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
33:17
right thank you let's see I have mr. Carr and I, and then Mr. Pierce and the last
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
33:28
two people for questions. I have, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I have a
question for Dr. Kimbrell, and hopefully this is my thing.
Dr. Kimbrell, as we look at the total school district budgets, and I know we have a lot of areas of special education, and we've got a lot of ESL, especially in northwest Arkansas, We saw we have a number of students, non-English speaking students, that need special assistance in their programs. Let me ask you, in your opinion, are we adequately funding, particularly like the special populations?
In other words, is enough money coming from adequacy, particularly those that are impacted by numbers, you know, beyond what the average school district in Arkansas would have? Well,
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
34:25
that in a way. Currently this year, every student generates $6,023
Speaker 36
34:31
to provide an adequate education based upon what the committee before determined would be an adequate education.
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
34:38
for all aspects of getting children to school, the teachers, the administrators, maintenance and operation activities, et cetera. The realization that the original work on adequacy shown in the Auden and Picus review is that there are exceptional things that occur in some school districts, such as ELL populations, ALE populations, or concentrations of students with at-risk needs poverty.
And as that poverty concentration went up, more money was needed in order to impact that population. So we created an SLA.
Speaker 36
35:18
So every student in every school will receive $6,023. And then when you have these
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
35:23
other, quote, high-cost needs, the committee found a way to categorize money to go to meet those needs. It didn't mean that if you had an ALE student, You only got the $4,300, whatever it is, per ALE.
That went on top of the $6,023 to educate that child. So in determining that, we're trying to meet the needs of those districts with those high-cost issues. I think that's the debate that is really centered on these two bills now that it's gotten brought up, is transportation out there in that area. Now, our numbers would dictate, based upon what we've looked at over the last three years, because we continue to hear this comment about the cost of transportation is requiring us to use our dollars
and take away from the education of students to transport kids to and from school. Well, we've run some research that shows that over the last three years,
Speaker 25
36:30
Of those 119 school districts that actually get additional money under the other bill, 14 of
Speaker 36
36:37
those have a declining balance. 105 of those balances have actually increased. So I would have to say that, yes, this state has done
Speaker 25
36:47
a good job of providing a level of funding
that meets adequacy for schools, and apparently has gone beyond that. With your
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
36:58
permission, I have a couple questions. I probably didn't ask the question the way I should have, but would you not agree that in those districts, let's take all the dollars there to serve the population that you have, that as a former superintendent you moved around monies legally as possible
to actually provide for the student population that you had in that district. Is that not correct? Yes, sir. That is
Speaker 24
37:29
actually the beauty of the current formula
Speaker 36
37:31
that we have, is that it's a funding matrix, not an expenditure matrix. And at the local level, we can make a determination of how to use not only the 6023, but whatever we raise locally in Mills 26 and above that we have access to or we
Speaker 25
37:49
use to build buildings with, we get to make those decisions at the local level.
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
37:54
Okay. Well, that was what I was after because that was my understanding of what you were saying is that this is, in reality, it's the total amount that we're utilizing, not individual pieces of trying to slice the cake so finely and to micromanage every school district in this state. In fact, I'll say this as a final point. That's been one of my concerns that I've watched over and over of trying to micromanage every school district in the state that all have varying needs.
Representative Bobby J. Pierce
Unverified
38:29
Thank you. I have Mr. Pierce. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've got two questions. One, you all have some papers down there that we don't have. We'd like to see some of the school districts that's going to get hit on this. Do you have those, or can we get a copy of that? I mean, these two bills seem like it's going to depend on who's pitching or who's catching on
Speaker 36
38:51
this. We have copies of the run. You're talking about the run that shows the contrast. Whatever y'all keep talking about it, we don't have it, and I'd like to have it.
Speaker 183
38:59
Mr. Wood, do you get your extra copies with you? I love what you said one ago. Illegally. That's it? I think there's enough. How many of you think? I don't know how many speakers are in the box.
Speaker 176
40:15
Mr. Parrish, you made a minute to look at that? Mr. Yes, that's
Representative Tim Summers
Unverified
40:27
okay, you can give somebody else I'm sorry. Mr. Summers, did you have a question? Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, and thank you. Mr. Richardson, the bill that we're looking at now, in your opinion, does it satisfy
Speaker 56
40:41
all legal requirements? Mr. Yes, sir, and that's, as I understand the recommendation from the committee,
And the two documents I look at most are the 2010 adequacy report, but also the 2010 resource report. And, you know, one of the findings in that resource report was that, and
Speaker 55
40:58
it looked at 08-09 numbers, because I think that was the closest year that the committee had the most complete numbers. It found
Speaker 56
41:06
that schools spend $117 million statewide on transportation. And this equates to approximately $255.66 per student compared with $286 funded in the matrix,
which was $30.34 less than the amount provided in the matrix on the per-student basis. So I think that's part of what led the committee to the conclusion that what was provided in the matrix was sufficient to provide, to cover adequacy, to provide that adequate amount of transportation. And the committees also, in the 2010 advocacy report, made a determination that for the matrix, a 2% cost of living increase was needed to cover increases in cost of goods and services
under the line items in the matrix. So, you know, we have sort of two competing recommendations. One, this one that funds 2%, and another one that would pull from that 2% to fund what is enhanced transportation funding. So you're pulling from what was determined for adequacy to fund something that goes beyond adequacy. And that's where our question comes in and where our concern comes in. If I may, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Tim Summers
Unverified
42:21
Yes. There's obviously some inequities for different school districts the way we're currently doing it, but is this the way to solve those inequities? Well, there probably is
Speaker 56
42:32
a better way. I mean, if the committee wants to provide enhanced transportation, then that ought to be enhanced. But, you know, keep in mind, as you can see when you look through the resource report, which I think is a great report and a good document produced by the Bureau, it shows that for every line item there's a push and a pull for every line item.
And so to take one out and say, well, some districts spend over that and some districts spend under that, So the ones that spinned over are inadequately funded. I don't think that's the way that the committees have looked at it in the past, and I'm not sure that's the method that was approved by the Supreme Court in 2007. Mr. Dale, do you have a question?
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
43:27
As I mentioned, I was in that meeting, and we did look at each matrix separately on what was spent and examined all of that. So that was a part of the review of it. But I was wondering, we've got your opinion of what this bill does. Mr. Wilson advises the legislature. What's your opinion? Does this bill meet all the numbers that are required?
Speaker 201
43:57
1901, sir? Say again? HB 1901, is that what we're asking? Yes, 1901.
Speaker 106
44:08
Yes, sir. Once it's amended to get rid of the rounding errors, it'd be just fine for adequacy
Speaker 202
44:14
purposes. Mr. Wilson, rounding errors, how much money are we talking about on rounding errors? Small amount?
Speaker 106
44:21
Large amount? For the two-year total, a little over a million dollars. Speaking of which, Mr. Chairman, this handout, second column, says $7.
We currently pay $2.97.50 a kid in transportation, and 2% of that is $5.95. For the life of me, I don't know how
Speaker 25
44:46
you round that to $7. We'd be more than happy to explain our rationale on how we calculate that. Mr. Kimmel, would you do that, please? Yes, sir. We looked at applying 2%. If you'll do the
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
45:02
math, it's 2% of $6,023. That's $120.46. We rounded up to $121 and added that to the $60.23, and that's where we got the $61.44.
And the bill that is in the other House, Senate Bill 281, I believe, has each at the foundation level of $61.37. So $61.37 taken away from $61.44
leaves $7. Thank you. Historically, we have
seen rounding occur historically in this. We asked the question and begged the question, with the computerized systems we have today, we don't know that there needs to be any rounding,
Speaker 208
45:45
but that's a debate to have. It's a lot easier to round numbers. I understand. For me, it is especially,
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
45:50
but I guess when you're talking, of course, in the education budget, I guess a million dollars is just not a whole lot of money. But is that in the governor's budget? Is that extra million dollars in his budget? Yes, sir. We did 2% when we
Speaker 131
46:03
did the budget. Okay. Representative Hutchinson, I believe you
Representative Donna Hutchinson
Unverified
46:12
had your hand up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Kimbrell, we just want to make sure we know what we're looking at.
What is before us is what would happen if the Senate Bill 821, which is a reflection of the adequate city suggestions, this is
Speaker 212
46:28
what would happen if we passed that bill. Is that what we're
Speaker 169
46:34
looking at? Yes, ma'am. It gives you a contrast
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
46:37
of each one. If you passed Senate Bill 821 versus House Bill 1901, this is what the impact would be on the districts that were going to get.
Representative Donna Hutchinson
Unverified
46:51
Well, this is a list of all school districts. Another question? Yes. Where is the contrast? It says 2011
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
47:08
through 2012. Is that the same plan? Where is the contrast? Well, the contrast
Speaker 25
47:16
is, utilizing House Bill 1901, each school would be funded at $6,144 per student. Correct. The second column reflects the difference between $6,144 and $6,137 that
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
47:30
would be funded under SB 821.
That's the $7 difference. The third column is the amount of enhanced transportation that would be provided to the districts that were determined in the funding, the linear mileage formula that Mr. Wilson has to receive enhanced transportation. So the difference in those two columns, the second column and the third column, would show you the contrast of what amount of funds under House Bill 1901, well, the
Speaker 215
48:09
contrast would be under 821. The negative numbers, the red numbers, show the difference. All
Chairman. Okay. Let's see. Committee, any other question? I believe we've...
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
48:31
Ms. Hobbs. One more, please, sir. MS. On this enhanced formula, it's based on average daily membership, not linear mile. Is that correct? MR.
Speaker 25
48:40
The enhanced formula for transportation, I think that question would be better answered
Speaker 106
48:50
by Mr. Wilson. He created that formula. MR. The enhanced transportation is based on route miles per day that are necessary to get the kids to school and back home. The activity miles, such as football games and band competition, are removed.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
49:05
Okay. So it's not based on average daily membership? No. Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 226
49:11
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Duncan Baird
Unverified
49:17
I've got a question, and it probably applies to both of the bills that are out there. You know, we meet in annual sessions now, and I was just wondering why we have the funding for two fiscal years as opposed to just the next
Speaker 201
49:36
fiscal year? The funding bill, Mr. Baird, is for both years. The appropriations are not.
Speaker 106
49:43
So what we're doing is approving appropriation for fiscal year 12 in this session, and then the fiscal session will renew that for 13, and the adequacy subcommittee has the law behind them to review any funding problems we may
Speaker 201
49:57
encounter along the way but don't anticipate. MR. But the adequacy subcommittee can
Representative Duncan Baird
Unverified
50:04
come back, and I think it even says in the law that they shall, if needed, come back prior to the fiscal session and take a look and
make any changes. Is that correct? MR. Yes,
Speaker 106
50:16
sir. We hold a shorter version of budget hearings in the fiscal sessions, and we look at six of the largest agencies. Obviously, K-12 is one of those. Do you think it
Representative Duncan Baird
Unverified
50:27
raises questions if we put a number in the law right now for the
second fiscal year, and then you come back prior to that session and take in new information and make a change to that? Would that possibly raise questions about maybe the first number or the second number?
Speaker 106
50:46
Both bills have both years for funding in there. with the anticipation being that there's not going to be enough significant change to make a difference. And the budget sessions, the fiscal sessions, therefore, we can get done very quickly with appropriation only and be done with it. However, should there be a major change,
Speaker 150
51:12
then the law suggests that we can change the year 13.
Representative Duncan Baird
Unverified
51:19
What is the total amount? If you – I guess
when we're setting the total foundation funding, what is that total amount statewide? Is it $1.8 billion or is it more than that? What is that total number? I mean, if you multiply the per
Speaker 106
51:44
student times the statewide ADM? Right now, foundation would be approximately $2.8
Speaker 108
51:50
billion, and we would add another in excess
Speaker 106
51:57
of $200 million for the categoricals.
So close to $3 billion? You're looking
Representative Duncan Baird
Unverified
52:03
a little over $3 billion for this bill. Okay. And the adequacy report was done in November, and so there's, by my calculation, there's about 20 months between November of last year and the second fiscal year
Speaker 229
52:16
that we're putting this number in there for? There is. Okay. And inflation
Wilson, did you say $3 billion? Yes, sir. And what is the amount we're discussing?
Speaker 106
52:33
The 2.7? Well, no, foundation is 2.7. The categoricals are in the bill as well, so it's
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
52:40
a little over $3 billion. I know, but the amount that this committee really is discussing about the enhanced transportation, what's that total amount? Oh, it's $2.73 million. $2.73 million out of a $3 billion budget. Yes, sir. I'm going to take one more question, and then we're going to move on. Mr.
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
52:58
Stewart. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Going through the bill in the 1901 and looking at all of the places where there's figures, did each one of those get rounded?
when we go into the, I think, seven places in here where we put a dollar amount times the ADM, did
Speaker 243
53:16
all of them get rounded? For 11-12, the foundation was rounded, as Dr. Kimmel has already mentioned, and the alternative learning environment was also rounded.
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
53:30
When you, I see about six or seven places, so if they were all rounded,
and we did the budget at a 2%,
but you went into these categoricals and did a 2% to each one of those and then rounded it, wouldn't your cumulative effect be more than 2%? You take 2% of five numbers and then you round each one of them up, you're going to
Speaker 23
53:57
come out with more than the whole. We didn't round all of them up, sir. We rounded
Speaker 36
54:01
some down. Okay. One was an increase of $1.02. We left it at $1. Okay. So we went
Speaker 152
54:08
down $0.02, but the rest of them went up?
Speaker 143
54:13
Well, they vary from 2.008 percent, 2.018 percent, 2.047 percent. The intent was just to ensure compliance with not being below 2 percent because we
Speaker 142
54:23
thought that was a charge that we were to meet. Have you done analysis to see what the cumulative effect? Mr. Wilson,
Speaker 152
54:30
have you done a kind of crunch the numbers and see what happened
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
54:36
there? Well, right now we pay
Speaker 106
54:40
$50 a kid on professional development. If the increase is a dollar, you're looking at about half a million per dollar.
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
54:49
Okay, so every dollar that we've gained in the rounding up costs us half a million dollars. So the cumulative effect could be more than, have you crunched the numbers to somewhere around a million dollars at least, probably? Well, let
Speaker 106
55:03
me point out that the two fiscal impact statements are identical for the two bills with the expectation that this one would be corrected. Okay, so this bill
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
55:11
needs to have some corrections in it to fit your fiscal impact statement. Yes, sir. Okay,
Speaker 25
55:17
and would you all agree with that?
Well, we don't know what the rounding figures that Mr. Wilson used. There has to be rounding there because his analysis uses not the fiscal impact, but I know that the other bill that we're looking at has rounded numbers too. So there's some rounding that goes on to make things simpler for people to use. In other words, we know that this year adequacy is $6,023. It probably was $6,022 and some cents,
and it got rounded up to $6,023. Yeah, I'm more concerned with
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
55:56
the categoricals that got rounded because there's more places you can do the math there. And the total impact on the budget is what I'm kind of getting at. Has anybody tried to do an analysis of the two bills to see the total impact difference?
Speaker 231
56:20
Mr. Wilson? No, sir. I created the fiscal impacts identical.
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
56:24
Okay. But in your opinion, this bill doesn't really match the fiscal impact statement in its current form? The funding in
Speaker 201
56:31
1901 would be slightly more money than the fiscal impact. Okay. What's slightly more? I think the cumulative might
Speaker 239
56:39
be a million dollars. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
56:47
I said I wouldn't take any more questions, but Mr. Steele is sitting there with his finger on the mic, so I'll take this as the last question from the committee.
Speaker 31
56:55
Well, really not just a question, but just, Mr. Chairman, more of a comment to the chair. It just really makes it difficult when
Speaker 257
57:04
we're referring so frequently to the other bill. If we're going to kind of lay them both out and have testimony from both, then it will give, I think, us the opportunity to have a clearer understanding. But we're really talking about two bills, but it's actually one bill on the table. That is correct. And we should just be talking
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
57:23
about that one bill, but I think because one of the handouts had the other bill in it, we got into that also.
But really, we're talking about 1901 today. That's correct. That's a good point. To me, at this time, we've hashed this around
for over an hour, So I think it's time to – Mr. Carnine. I'd
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
57:47
like to move that as we go into the debate of this that it would be limited to 10
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
57:53
minutes, 10 minutes on each side. Proper motion. All in favor say aye.
Aye. Opposed? No. I believe the ayes have it. At this time, we'll go to the audience, and I think we have several people signed up to speak against it.
And the first one is Mr. Abernathy,
Speaker 258
58:08
Mr. Bill Abernathy. Okay. Committee, I remind you
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
58:22
that we do have lunch going to be brought in at 1145, and we're
going to try to take about a 15-minute break, and we're going to work until session starts at 1 o'clock.
You're receiving a handout that Mr. Abernathy has. want you to look at. Take just a second, and then we'll
Speaker 258
59:01
proceed with him. Mr. Abernathy, would you identify yourself, the record, and who you
Speaker 264
59:06
represent? And you may proceed. I'm Bill Abernathy.
Speaker 265
59:11
I represent Dale Abernathy and the Rural Ed Education Committee. I was chairman, co-chairman of the Adequacy Committee for two terms. I was chairman of this committee for two terms. And I'm here to speak against this bill because this bill does not do what the Adequacy Committee after thorough study said that we should do. And I hand this handout, and I wish you had time to read that,
because what that does is to tell you the trail we followed, the legal trail we followed, what we're supposed to do. And if you'll look at that, if you will look at that, every place it says study and recommend necessary change, necessary change. And the testimony, well, I don't know where it meets that. every legislative session is to do this study and make necessary change and
that's what we have done specifically on transportation that's the debate here this morning we have studied that for four years and we have had a lot of you can't do this you can't do that but the courts as you said and in our law says study use research data and recommend necessary change every component in that matrix is to be fully funded that's the legislature's responsibility to be fully
funded and if it and and in that fully funded category that that goes to every school there's seven components in that matrix if you look at that's a formula Another word for formula. One component deals with transportation. In that component, we looked at that and said we're going down the wrong road. We have 150 districts underfunded the way we're going.
We have 89 districts fully funded and over. Those who are fully funded and over, they take that excess money that they don't have to use for transportation and transfer it into their instructional program. Those who are underfunded have to pull that out of their instructional program and transfer it over to transportation. You say, well, okay, okay, they do. How does it have effect? If you look at the average salaries of those who have the excess money,
this is critical because it shows you what this is doing to our schools. The ones who have the excess money, if you take the top five that have the most excess money and you take the bottom five who have the least money and they have to transfer from their instructional program into their transportation, the average salaries that they can pay out there is just over $13,000 difference.
That's what tells you what it's doing to your instructional program. You need to get this. Those districts who are having to transfer from their instructional program, they are paying on an average of $13,000 difference less than those who are transferring in. Now, that's just the salaries. All the other instructional program that's out there, they're having to do the same thing. So that is what's really hurting those school districts there. Now, we talked about this bill.
This bill is over the half a million the first year and over the million more than we recommended in adequacy, according to our research. And is it in the governor's budget? It said, yes, while I go, look at your package, and you'll see what's in the governor's budget. That's the balanced budget, and it's $6,143. Look at this bill. It's $6,144.
That's where we come up with that over a million dollars over the years. Now, what we're doing and what we're asked to do here is to spend more than a million dollars over the year so that the schools who are already overfunded in transportation can have more money and can have more resources in their instructional program and pay their teachers more than these down here that's underfunded. That's the big issue there, and I hope that you will have the political courage to help this adequacy committee change the direction we're going.
We are told by our consultants in the beginning, develop a formula. We tried every way we could get through, and we couldn't. This one don't cost any more, but we start in the right direction. So I hope that you will help have the political courage to us start down the right road and protect our instructional programs all across the state. Mr. Chairman, I will. Thank you, Mr. Abernathy. Questions to anyone?
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
1:04:38
Mr. Stewart. Yeah, so basically what you're saying is, if I understood you, the rich are just getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. You heard
Representative Donna Hutchinson
Unverified
1:04:54
it real clear. All right. Thank you. Ms. Hutchison. Ms. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it's good to see you again. Thank you. I attended some of those meetings, and I know not everyone got to speak, and we were disappointed in that.
And there was also a lot of discussion that closing the so-called small schools were making other schools drive longer, and that maybe closing these small schools wasn't the best idea because it increased transportation for the largest schools. Do you remember us having that as a discussion? Yes, I do. I also remember people discussing that maybe this make-believe school we dreamed up needed
to be improved a little as time has changed. And do you think this make-believe school that we dreamed up is still a good formula to go by, that we should have another make-believe school that might reflect some of the problems we're looking at
Speaker 265
1:06:00
now? I think the program, I think we're on the right track, period. I support what we're doing. And I refer to Education Week, and they rank us number six in the nation as the laws that we have in place.
Sixth in the nation, compared with all other districts. We're sixth in the nation with our laws and the delivery system. This issue doesn't deal with just small schools. If you don't have the, okay, Monticello, the school district there in town, they're not needing any more money. They're fully funded. But around Monticello, they're way underfunded because they have to pick up students. And if you look, it's not just large, small schools. It's where they have large transportation. And that's the issue, and it takes it right out of the instructional program
when they're underfunded. And that concerns me.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:06:54
Okay. Ms. Hobbs? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Hi, Mr. Abernathy. Help me remember, because you've been at this a whole lot longer than I have, but I'm assuming some of those schools that need more money on transportation are considered to be isolated schools? Some of them are. Is that correct? Okay. Do those schools also get additional revenue for being isolated schools?
Speaker 265
1:07:16
Some of those do that are isolated.
That's a small amount, and it doesn't nearly pay for their cost. cost. I can point that out to you
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:07:28
and prove it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Abernathy. For your testimony,
Speaker 264
1:07:32
we have a minute and a half left. Thank you,
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:07:35
Mr. Chairman. Committee, good visit with you. We have a minute and a half left for nobody for it, I don't think, signed up for it. So we'll go to the next on the list against. And Mr. Harder talks real fast, I know. So he's got a minute and thirty-five seconds mister order
Speaker 274
1:07:54
thank you mister turban i'll be real quick uh... we had no intention of speaking against this bill but the amendment uh... language matters and the section one amendment simply has what we believe to be historical errors uh... and once passed and signed into law this becomes the gospel and so that gives us heartburn specifically line now page one line twenty nine it says that transportation funding for certain school districts that may
have high transportation costs the the uh... two thousand ten our resource allocation talks about a disparity of uh... from seventy five eight hundred forty two dollars And Richard Wilson's testimony in the Senate yesterday talked about $99 to $907. There's no may to that. In terms of typo, but that matters, on page 2, line 9, I know of a August 23, 2010 resource allocation report.
I do not know of one, cannot find one for 2008. So that matters over time. Continuing on, lines 10 through 13, the evidence gathered by the committee demonstrated that the amount of revenue provided in the foundation funding is sufficient to fund the overall adequacy needs of all school districts. The matrix history that was passed out to you, never have we talked about the overall. all. All of the adjustments, all of the Act 57 adjustments were done to all of the line
items viewed individually. They never were collectivized into, well, this is good enough, we don't have to worry about what technology does or instructional materials. It was each one stand alone on its own. So that doesn't even include transportation. Mr. Harder, I hate to tell you this, but the time is up. He was doing good. He was on a
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:10:03
roll, but that's the way the rules are.
Speaker 236
1:10:13
At this time, we'll come back to the committee. Mr. Ingram, would you
Representative Keith M. Ingram
Unverified
1:10:26
like to close for your bill? Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, committee, I appreciate you hearing this and that rounding that we talked about. That's what pretty well got me out of accounting as a business major at the University of Arkansas. There's nobody I respect more than Bill Abernathy and his beliefs and how he is generally considered
Mr. Education State of Arkansas. stood up for rural school districts. And many of you freshmen don't remember this, but if many of you all remember, Mr. Abernathy tried to pass a bill two years ago to fund rural transportation. He couldn't get it through. We didn't fund it. So we found another mechanism to try to fund rural transportation. We want to mess with something that has worked for our state since it got us out of Lakeview, since it got us out of a major lawsuit that we addressed that we have not had a problem
with since we implemented in 2007. He talks about the cost of transportation. There's no question that is a tremendous expenditure in schools. He talks about the difference in the school teacher salaries, and he relates it to transportation. And I would submit to you, how do you explain that of the 119 schools that are going to be affected by this money, that 105 of them have had increased balances? Why wasn't that used to pay the teachers more?
I'd submit to you that the difference in the cost or the pay of the teachers is a function of the location where they are. I mean, it's simple. We know that to attract people in eastern Arkansas, we're competing against Memphis salaries for teachers, for nurses. Same with Pulaski County here, northwest Arkansas. So I would submit to you that that is not a case that it is taking away transportation dollars or taking money away from teacher salaries.
What we have here is a foundation funding bill that has tremendous flexibility. The one thing that we say in Little Rock and that we hear over and over is let our local people make decisions about what's best for not only our schools but other things as well. This gives the flexibility to allow our schools to meet the needs. As I said earlier, you know, if we take this, we are changing a foundation spending bill.
I mean, we're making it a spending bill. Are we going to come back two years from now because we have a high Spanish population, a Hispanic population that we're having to pay, that we're losing money on what we're spending for those students? So I would urge you to vote for this House Bill 1901. we're risking $2.7 million
to throw us back into what could possibly be another lawsuit Mr. Chairman I'm closed I appreciate the committee taking their time to hear this Thank you Mr. Chairman
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:13:42
for bringing this Committee what is your pleasure I
have a motion to do pass All in favor say aye Aye All opposed No I believe Do the ayes have it? Do you have two hands?
Speaker 282
1:14:03
Roll call this thing. Representative Bradford. Representative Webb. Representative Pierce. Representative Hutchinson. Representative Stewart. Representative Brown. Representative Baird. Rep. Summers Rep. Hobbs Rep. Carnine
Rep. Dale Rep. Hopper Rep. Hopp Rep. Klemmer Rep. McLean Rep. McLean Rep. Dickinson Rep. Dickinson Rep. English Yes. Representative Steele? Yes. Representative Wren? No. Representative Roebuck? No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:15:08
Passed with 12 votes. Bill passed with 12 votes, Mr. Ingham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Committee. Committee, next we're going
Representative Denny Altes
Unverified
1:15:37
to look at... House Bill 1032. House Bill 1032. Mr. Altees, you recognize yourself for the record, please.
I'm Representative Denialtis. You may proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, members. I want you to remember that this same exact identical bill passed out of here a few weeks ago and I brought it back to committee to change the title to more accurately reflect what the bill does. The bill doesn't direct anything. It only allows its all permissive language. Basically, the bill clarifies what is both the acceptable and constitutional framework
for teaching the Bible in an academic pursuit. This will give our teachers the protection they need when they teach. As you heard Dr. Kimbrell testify, he said if this bill passes, he would change nothing and everybody is neutral on the bill. I'd appreciate a good vote. That's confidence. Ms.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:16:38
Hobbs, you have a question. Move do pass at the proper time,
Speaker 263
1:16:45
sir. Ms. Robux, you have a question.
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:16:48
Thank you. Welcome back, Representative Altus. My question has to do with the difference in what your bill does and what we're currently doing in our school districts. MR. Absolutely nothing. Then
Representative Denny Altes
Unverified
1:17:03
why do we need a bill? MR. As I said, this will protect our teachers. It codifies what we're presently doing, and it will protect our teachers when they're teaching, because it sets up a framework within the teach to keep us from being sued.
All the bill does is what's being done now, which allows the school districts to pick a curriculum that they want and then submit that for approval, and then the teacher volunteers to teach, and this sets up a framework for those parameters, a framework within which to teach. So if they stay within the parameters and don't get involved in religion, if they stay within the politics, music, art, literature, and history, then they're okay.
Speaker 69
1:17:54
And Mr. Aldis, I believe when you came
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:17:57
before, we talked about who would teach, and I wrote down some of the questions that were asked earlier. You talked about that it would be volunteers that are already on the faculty would be teaching. Yes. Is that your understanding? Yes. that in your bill, so I assume that would be done by the State Department would have rules? MR. No.
Representative Denny Altes
Unverified
1:18:18
It's all up to the school districts, all local control. School districts are in charge.
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:18:23
MS. But you're allowing the State Board of Education to have an elective credit, is
Speaker 297
1:18:29
that correct? MR. Yes. I don't have the amended bill
Speaker 65
1:18:34
in front of me. MS. Will it actually be on
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:18:39
a transcript? MR. Yes. for an elective academic study. Mr. Chair, could I
Speaker 301
1:18:47
have Dr. Kimbrell answer that? Dr. Kimbrell, do
Speaker 25
1:18:54
you take your seat, please? I'm sorry,
Speaker 303
1:18:56
Madam Co-Chair. I was visiting with another legislator. I'm asking about the bill states
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:19:01
on line 29 that the State Board of Education shall allow,
I believe that was the word that Mr. Altus added, for an elective academic study of the Bible course or courses. So my question to you is, sir, will the State Board of Education allow an elective credit? Will
Speaker 25
1:19:20
you – is that what the intent? Currently, yes, ma'am. If a school wants to teach for an elective
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:19:27
credit, a course that is non-religious, non-faith-based, but is a literacy course, et cetera, then it is allowed, school districts are allowed to do that.
The school district has to create the curriculum for approval. Okay. And follow
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:19:44
up while you're there, Commissioner, what is your understanding or your feeling about who will teach this? Will it be a licensed teacher in what area? Would it have to be a social studies teacher? Currently, it
Speaker 305
1:19:56
can be in either the literacy area or the social studies area. So just because
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:20:01
you had an art teacher that volunteered to teach the course, that would not happen?
Speaker 47
1:20:09
Or could? Well, I'm sorry, ma'am, but it's been a little while since I've read this. I'm not sure. I think those were the
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:20:20
concerns we had earlier. And I know Representative Dickinson is not here, but if my memory serves me correctly, That was her concern about who is going to teach the course. Well, I
Speaker 36
1:20:28
can tell you that right now we require any of those courses to be taught by licensed personnel. From what I read in this bill, it does
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:20:34
what we're doing right now. It does exactly what we're doing now?
Speaker 25
1:20:40
In the personnel issue. The personnel. Yes, ma'am. It says personnel assigned to teach the course shall be licensed to teach in the state of Arkansas. It does go on further to say it shall not be assigned to teach the course based upon any of those areas of religion, faith, Lack of faith or present
Speaker 36
1:20:59
religious affiliation and criteria involving a belief or lack of belief about the Bible. We don't currently
Speaker 25
1:21:04
have that in any rule that we have, but they must be a licensed teacher.
Speaker 59
1:21:11
What would be the curriculum materials, Commissioner? I
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:21:15
have not looked at the curriculum materials as such. That's a local decision that is made about not only in the teaching of these electives, but even in the others. We do have adoptions of the four core areas and then the areas of art, music, et cetera. But the district gets to choose which particular materials they'll use. So that's the same as we would do with these two districts.
Well, actually, the district that's now teaching that. The
Speaker 25
1:21:45
district gets to determine what those materials will be.
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:21:49
Okay. Commissioner, one more. Is it true that there has been at least one district that was doing this and now is choosing not to do it?
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:21:59
My knowledge is we have one district currently doing it. We had another district, Little Rock, that was doing it at one time. They let their course approval lapse. You have to do that annually, and they are going through that process again, and then another district that is currently in the process for approval.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:22:14
Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before you leave, could I ask a question? Yes, sir. How long
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:22:22
has it been since you've been in the classroom?
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:22:27
Teaching in a secondary classroom? Secondary classroom. You were a math teacher, right? I was a science and math teacher. We won't count coaching. I was a science.
Speaker 315
1:22:34
I taught chemistry and biology and math. Gosh. Did
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:22:39
you, when you were. Almost 23 years now. 23 years ago.
Since I've been in the classroom. When you taught, did you find yourself adding a personal
Speaker 36
1:22:52
flair to what you taught? Was it hard not to
Speaker 318
1:22:59
add a personal flair to what you taught? You
Speaker 36
1:23:03
know, and I taught biology. Did you teach evolution? Actually, the content involved both. And so, yeah, I mean, that was where you had to be real careful that you didn't use any personal beliefs about those.
You taught them as a subject matter. In teaching chemistry, it's hard to have a flair. It's hard to have a flair.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:23:22
I guess that's what concerned me, I guess. You know, I know we have it now, and it's just I know they're not supposed to teach or let different flares get into something like this. But I guess I didn't ask the representative this the last time he was here. And as I look around the table, I have to know some of the denominations at this table.
But I just wonder, when we come to baptism, what's going to be taught about baptism? Thank
Representative Denny Altes
Unverified
1:23:50
you, Mr. Kimball. That's not going to be taught. And like I said, it's all permissive language. Questions, anyone? Mr. Carnot, I'm sorry, I forgot you. Thank you,
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:24:02
Mr. Chair, that's okay. If I can ask Dr. Kimball one last
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:24:07
question. We didn't get our money out of this. Oh, I think we're doing that okay.
Yes, sir. I'm convinced of that. Anticipating that this bill would pass, in the current practice that you have at the department, is this going to fit right in? Is it going to create additional costs? If, in fact, it does what our sponsor is indicating, is this an assistance to the department in trying to manage, in some
Speaker 36
1:24:45
respects, a controversial? It's not going to change what we're doing, and without this, my
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:24:52
personal belief in talking with our leadership team
is if this bill does pass, the state will have more liability than it does currently. Okay, say
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:25:03
that again, and I really need an explanation because that does trouble me. It is going to create liability? liability?
Speaker 25
1:25:11
Well, right now, there is no statute that governs or guides the state board in this area.
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:25:16
So the state board has made elective courses in our public schools to have a process in which a school district could teach an elective and they can bring forth different matters that they
want to teach about. And there's no statutory requirements around those. In this case, there would become a statutory requirement that would require
Speaker 36
1:25:41
some governance, especially when you talk about these issues around the personnel. Right now, we don't ask those
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
1:25:47
questions of whether they had any belief or non-belief. The district at the local level makes that decision. So if the district then makes that decision, teaches that course, and there is concern raised by the community,
that concern is with the local district and not with the state. If they have to ask for our approval and then any guidelines that may have to come forth from the rest of this bill could create some problems. Again, that's all speculation.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:26:29
it wouldn't. Any additional questions? Ms. Clemmers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going from information, Representative Altus, that we heard when you presented this before.
So refresh my memory here. This curriculum is an optional curriculum, or is it a required curriculum? I mean, we know it's an elective course, but if a school chooses to have this elective, must they use your curriculum? No, it doesn't specify any curriculum. It says
Representative Denny Altes
Unverified
1:26:57
a public school district that elects to offer this academic study of the Bible shall implement the course in accordance with Arkansas Constitution and the United States Constitution, including the manner in which the course is taught in the classroom and the assignment of school district personnel teaching the course.
And it talks about the personnel that he just talked about. It's all permissive language. Would this be then like a
Speaker 310
1:27:21
sample curriculum that might be used? Because that's what I'm more, I mean, does your, I'm saying
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:27:27
if you wanted to, My school, I say I have a school, and I'm in charge. I would never want that job. Thank you very much. But if I had that job and somebody said, we want to teach this course, and the school board approved teaching the course, whatever process it goes through,
what would this change about what they're going to do? Nothing. Would they have to come consult with this
Representative Denny Altes
Unverified
1:27:56
curriculum? No. No, this doesn't outline any curriculum. It just says that it will not teach religion. It says it will teach only history, art, literature, and politics and stuff like that out of the Bible. There will not be religion taught, and that's all it says about the curriculum. The curriculum, there are several out there available,
and the school district, local control, has the option of picking any curriculum they want and then submitting it for approval. and this doesn't say that it will be approved or not be approved. Everything is permissive. All this does is say that we will not be teaching religion. I really want to talk you out
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:28:35
of your sample materials when you're finished with this bill, Representative Altus, and at the appropriate time, Mr. Chair, I'd like to move to pass. Committee, any
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:28:45
other questions? Seeing none, we'll go to the audience.
Either one won't speak against this bill or this bill. All right, coming back to the committee, we have a motion to do pass. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. No. I believe the ayes have it. Mr. Altes, you have passed your bill again. Thank you very much. Committee, at this time we will look at House Bill 2178. Had a little arm twitching up here on the bench. So we'll do this next, and then we'll listen to Mr. Link.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:29:25
2178. Point of personal privilege. Are we, I heard we were having lunch brought in.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:29:34
For the men, I understand the men are going to. Yes, Ms. Clemmer, we are having lunch brought in. 1145 is supposed to be there. Okay, I was wondering, I have to present another bill, so I was curious.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:29:46
Thank you. We'll save your lunch if you have to leave.
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:29:55
Mr. Chairman, I want to ask for a point of personal privilege, and I don't know that this has ever been done before. Oh, Lord. But I would like to ask for a point of personal privilege and ask the following people to join me at the table to help present this bill. Donna Murray, President of the Arkansas Education Association. Dr. Richard Abernathy, Executive Director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators. Mr. Luke Gordy, Director of the Arkansas Education Accountability Coalition. Bill Abernathy, Director of the Arkansas Rural Education Association.
Speaker 331
1:30:28
And Dan Farley, the Executive Director of the Arkansas School Boards Association. Everybody here? Okay. I
Speaker 310
1:30:43
think Mr. Abernathy is on his way. Is he here? No. His father. Okay. Someone sees Mr.
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:30:54
Abernathy out in the hall, if you tell him he's wanted at the table.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. You've been given the editorial that was a surprise to me this morning when someone called and said, you need to get the paper and you need to read the editorial. And I thought, oh dear. And they said it's about something that you're doing. Well, I've got a little towing bill that I'm going to be presenting on the floor later on today. and I thought, oh no, it's about my towing bill. But when I read the editorial, I realized that it's about this bill. And I was very, very pleased, so I'm sharing that with you today
because it quotes me in the editorial as saying that some bills are bills, but this bill, House Bill 2178, is a miracle. And so today I bring you a miracle. Now I ask these people to come to the table because I think they've all signed up, Mr. Chair, to speak for this bill. So I'm going to direct Mr. Hudson to just mark their names off that list. We're not going to hear from them today. That'll be
Speaker 58
1:31:56
proper. Well, Mr. Abneth, he only wants to talk, but anyway.
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:32:00
And the reason for that is because I've listened to them for over four months, and I've really said very little. I have said some things, but very little. So today they're going to listen to me. Last month, at a national meeting in Denver, our U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, told thousands of educators from all over the country that our nation's schools are in deep trouble and that bickering among teachers, politicians, and administrators
is sinking efforts to improve education. Well, I sure wish that Secretary Duncan could be here in this room today because he would be so proud of Arkansas as we consider House Bill 1278. For over four months, representatives of classroom teachers, administrators, school boards, rural schools, Department of Education, where is Tom Kimbrell? We didn't get him to the table. I am so sorry we left you out. Oh, my gosh, get up here. The Department of Education, the Arkansas Educational Accountability Coalition,
the Legislature, the Bureau of Legislative Research, and please let me take a point of personal privilege to name Cheryl Reinhart's name because she is absolutely an angel. And Dr. Brent Benda, who's just walked back in the room, who's been our chief statistician and researcher for the last four months, We thank you, Dr. Binda. These people have continually and faithfully worked together to draft this landmark piece of legislation which will provide guidance for an effective teacher evaluation system for our state.
This system clearly outlines expectations for an assessment system centered on teacher excellence and, more importantly, teacher support. This is so important because research tells us that over half of our teachers leave the classroom within the first five years, not because of low pay, but in a document from the Arkansas Partnership for Teacher Quality, it said the key reason why teachers stay in or leave the classroom is their level of principal support. While pay, professionalism, classroom discipline,
and students were significant contributors to a teacher's decision to stay or leave the classroom, this report says the level of principal support was the key common factor in both decisions. Yes, Mr. Duncan, we are not bickering in Arkansas today. We have worked and will continue to work together, collaborating, cooperating, building consensus through open dialogue with all stakeholders that you see at this table. This has been a long and interesting journey,
but nothing worthwhile is easy. And as I've looked back over the many drafts, the emails, the notes, I realize how far we've come since that first day that we all got in a room to discuss our visions of where we wanted to go with teacher evaluation. Did we all begin with the same vision? Heavens no. Did we all agree over the last four months? Oh no. Did we argue? Oh my yes.
Did we all have differing opinions? Of course we did. Did we ever want to quit? Oh, yes. One day I wanted to walk out. One day I did walk out, and I said, I did. I walked out, and I said, you know what? At the next meeting, just send your lawyers. I said, I'm through. I said, y'all, send your lawyers, and I'm going to send mine. And that was Cheryl Reinhart, and she facilitated that meeting and did a great job. Did we all get what we want in this bill? No. But we're here today all supporting this bill, and this is our bill.
Why were the hundreds of hours of work so critical for our state and our classroom? But more importantly, why is this bill so
vital to student achievement? Well, one reason centers on a report from the National Council on Teacher Quality. Their report is called Blueprint for Change in Arkansas. In that report, NCTQ states that in the 2009 State Teacher Policy Yearbook, Arkansas received an overall grade of C-, but we earned a D in identifying effective teachers.
NCTQ said in that report that Arkansas should turn its immediate attention to seven issues. And the issue listed as number one was to ensure that teacher evaluations assess effectiveness in the classroom. But the main reason that this work and this bill is so vital, it is because it will make a major difference in teacher quality and student achievement for years to come because it's firmly centered in support for our classroom teacher.
The Arkansas Department of Education is to be commended for having teaching evaluation as a priority, as shown in the rules, regulations, and policies regarding teacher quality that were changed in the first half of 2010. And today, several schools are piloting a model, and early feedback is very, very positive. House Bill 2178 will be the legislation that provides guidance for an effective teacher evaluation system that is consistent, uniform, and affects all classrooms across our states.
So what does it do? Well, first and foremost, the system recognizes student learning as the foundation of teacher effectiveness and provides for quality assurance and teacher growth in four areas, planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, and professional responsibilities. And throughout this system, ongoing support is guaranteed. The timeline is realistic. It provides time to get it right with maximum input from all professionals. By September 1, 2012, the State Board of Education will develop rules.
Between September 1, 2011, and August 31, 2013, there will be intensive training by ADE. And in the 2013-14 school year, there will be a one-year pilot. And in the year 2014-15, in that school year, the system will be fully implemented. Mr. Chair, with that, I bring you House Bill 2178, and I proudly, on behalf of all these people, move, do pass.
Speaker 75
1:38:32
Committee, questions? Mr. Wren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Representative Tommy Wren
Unverified
1:38:37
Madam Chair. I appreciate you bringing this legislation to the table. Normally I hear from my administrators, and I didn't on this one, so if you'll allow me the pleasure. the administrators of this great state if I can address this to Mr. Abernathy they do support this, all administrators and my second
question would be that I guess to Ms. Roebuck or to whoever can answer this, we've got a pilot program right now and I know you said by 2014-15 school year we'll have this going in all schools
but I guess how are we going to implement this would be be my question so
Speaker 346
1:39:20
thank you representative and and then we've had a very good
Speaker 347
1:39:25
debate and I will give dr. Roebuck credit for keeping this group together because sometimes we're like herding a bunch of cats but she's done
a very good job doing that administratively around the state we support the concept of teacher evaluation in the sport that is going allow our administrators to give our teachers with this particular bill their Our pilot program, we're having some very good success projects out there right now that I've been privileged enough to set in on some of those committees, and they're doing some marvelous things with it. But just quite honestly, now your work comes in front of you because when it gets down to the implementation of this, the devil's in the detail.
And administrators, if we expect administrators to be in the classroom and actually perform an evaluations and be an instructional leader of those buildings, we're going to have to give them more time. And there's several different ways of doing it. One's hiring more administrators, which is obviously a funding issue. The other thing is taking things off their plate. But I'm afraid that without something taken off of their plates, that we're not going to be able to effectively implement this bill. But we certainly support it. We support the concept.
And I think administrators around the state of Arkansas are proud of the fact that they're going to actually receive training on how to properly evaluate teachers and get
Speaker 31
1:40:47
everyone on the same page. Representative Steele. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one quick
Speaker 257
1:40:54
question. How is the or what is the weight on student performance
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:41:03
in the evaluation process? It's half, Representative,
and that was probably the result of thousands of hours of discussion back and forth of really what should student achievement be. All of this camaraderie, and
Speaker 33
1:41:15
that never changed at all. We're still back at 50%. Thank
Speaker 38
1:41:20
you. Additional questions? Mr. and Mrs.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:41:25
Hobbs. This is more of a
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:41:30
technical, and I know it's probably been amended several times, But on page 4, the bottom line, at least on my copy, it has a number 8 in parentheses.
And it looks like that sentence is left incomplete. It says, replace the use of seniority as a primary
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:41:55
a number 8 on the next page. But it doesn't. And then it
Speaker 352
1:42:12
says, increase the awareness of parents
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:42:31
and guardians. So it. I appreciate that.
We will take care of that on the Senate side. Thank you.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:42:38
Any additional questions? Seeing none, we'll go to the audience.
Anyone want to speak against this bill, for this bill? Seeing none,
committee, back to you. I think we have a motion to do pass. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Leave the ayes. Have it. Congratulations to Dr. Roebuck. And all your other cats down there. And Ron Harder said that
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
1:42:58
when we passed this bill that we were all going to come down because there are other people in the room that help.
So y'all all come down because Ron Harder said we had to do
Speaker 8
1:43:15
a group hug. Committee next, we'll look at House Bill 1882. I'm sorry, 1892, 1892. Representative
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:43:20
Link, you may want to get down there when they get through hugging. Ms. Hobbs, do you have a question or comment?
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:43:35
I do, sir. I have people that got up very early this morning to be here. And on my agenda, I'm listed at the top. I'm going to be here, obviously, but could you give us some hint of when they may be able to come testify? I don't know if they have to get back to children or whatever. I don't know. We actually have
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:43:57
you about 6th or 7th on the list. We made a new list last week. People were coming in and signing up.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:44:07
On my agenda that says Thursday, March 24th, I'm at the top. We have a Mark Hudson
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:44:12
agenda up here from last week, carryover from last week. It was a member's own last week is what we told everyone. And everybody came in and signed up. And that's what we did. But we'll get to you as quick as we can. Okay. And,
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:44:27
again, they may want to go get some lunch and say, if you get up early, can you tell me about what time?
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:44:33
What I would suggest, I'd say if they get back here at 1230, we'll try to let you do your bill at 1230.
Thank you. Okay. Representative Link, you're recognized since your bill. I am Representative Kelly Link, District 86, from Flippin. and I'm presenting Bill 1892 has to do with empty school buildings. I believe we have an amendment. I don't see Mr. Hudson. He left the house. Okay. He didn't
get it passed out to him. Okay. All right.
The amendment will be best understood after you look at the rest of the bill, but the amendment changes a percentage from 90 to 40, and that concerns the minimum amount of appraised value that a school could accept for an empty building. And that was on request of some administrators. Rep. Steele. Motion at
Speaker 202
1:45:38
the proper time. Okay. Let's get our amendment
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:45:41
out and make sure we're doing everything real proper.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:46:16
We have a motion to adopt. We
have several motions to adopt. Any additional questions from the committee? Seeing none, we'll go to the audience. Anyone who wants to speak against this bill?
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:46:43
a minute. We need to adopt that amendment.
I think maybe what the motion was, I just jumped ahead. We have a motion on the floor to adopt the amendment. Representative Carnine, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Amendments adopted, Mr. Link. All right, now, and no other questions, we had a motion at the proper time, and we went to the audience, and we have someone to speak against this bill.
Speaker 368
1:47:14
Is that correct? Would you identify yourself? Yes, sir. Kristen Gould, Staff Attorney, Arkansas School Boards Association.
I'm afraid that Representative Link is feeling the knife between his shoulder blades, because I was fine with this bill under the First Amendment, and, indeed, Representative Link worked wonderfully with me, and the First Amendment contains my suggested language, which was 90 percent. And I did not know that he was amending his bill again and taking the 90 percent down to 40 percent. The only problem I have with this bill is the number, because I'm very concerned that
this number could very likely embroil school districts in lawsuits brought by taxpayers saying that they have misused their authority for selling property that belongs to the state, the political subdivision for far less than fair market value, which would violate Article 14 of the Arkansas Constitution, which holds that school property may only be used for
school-related purposes. I felt that 90 percent was close enough to the full appraised value to pass legal muster, but something considerably less than 50 percent is a problem. I was up here talking. I
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:48:39
have a question from Mr. Carnine, I believe, and then Mr. Pierce and
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:48:44
Mrs. Summers. My understanding of this law originally is that the current law is that you have to take advertised bids. They have to be publicly. The public has to be notified that the school district is, in fact, going to sell the property.
Speaker 368
1:49:01
Is that not correct? I am not aware of any statutory law that requires school districts to sell surplus real property by taking bids. Even if a school district did choose to liquidate surplus real property that was in excess to their needs, and they chose to do so by means of bids or an auction, they would still be required to meet the Constitution to sell it at or near fair market value, so they would have to set a reserve at or
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:49:30
near fair market value. Well, okay, fair market value, and now we're back into the appraisal, et cetera, et cetera.
But I guess my point is the public doesn't, does the public or does the public not have to be notified that the district is, in fact, intending to sell surplus property?
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:49:54
You're saying that how would a board sell surplus property besides having it actually voted on in a public meeting? Well, certainly it
Speaker 368
1:50:05
would be the school board who would have the ability to form the legally binding contract of sale.
But in the absence of any explicit statutory process to liquidate real property that I am aware of, They could, at least in theory, put a sign on it that said for sale price based on the appraised value and wait for an
Speaker 371
1:50:28
offer to come in from a qualified buyer. Here I did all those
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:50:33
things and I didn't realize I needed to do it is what you're saying, I guess. Again,
Speaker 371
1:50:40
Mr. Chair, obviously. The process, Representative Kernan, was certainly not wrong.
And I'm not saying that wasn't a good way to
Representative Bobby J. Pierce
Unverified
1:50:53
do it. Mr. Pierce you have a question Thank you Mr. Chair Being in with three consolidations The property value on some of these buildings that you get When you inherit a consolidated district Are not very great because you've got to take care of them or keep them up And then they turn into a liability for the school district And sometimes you're just waiting for somebody to come along and say We'll take a prize for it because we
Speaker 380
1:51:13
tried to give away a perfectly good gym
but eight years later it wasn't a perfectly good
Speaker 368
1:51:19
gym. Sometimes you can have a greater value for the realty under the piece of property than the property itself because many of these outdated or obsoleted buildings come along with serious asbestos problems and the cost of asbestos abatement or even safely demolishing the building is very expensive. Yes ma'am I agree with you on part of that but
Speaker 382
1:51:38
also if you've got a building that is we were in the consolidate and we had
Representative Bobby J. Pierce
Unverified
1:51:44
a building that was almost 20 miles away from us and we had to go down and inspect it every day
so finally we took the loss and put the sign up and said we'll take bids on the building and we took bids on the building and we sold the building it was the building and the land because the only way we could sell the building was to sell the land as you just said
Speaker 368
1:52:04
the land was more and i and i do sincerely hope i'm not going to inquire but i'm i feel sure that you had an appraisal and you sold it at or near fair market value we sold
Speaker 328
1:52:17
it I'm not going to sit here and tell you
Representative Bobby J. Pierce
Unverified
1:52:22
because if I would have went by the appraisal we'd still be sitting there running a school bus down there every day to look at the I mean a person down
Speaker 368
1:52:30
there to look at the building every day I welcome this piece of legislation because I really felt like being able to go to 90 and have the defensibility of a statute would really help school districts It's just the 40 that worries me is all. Mr. Richardson, I see you
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:52:46
standing there like you want to say something. Would you like to come to the table? Do you want to address this?
Or is anybody here from the AG's office? Well,
Speaker 55
1:52:58
I hadn't really planned to come to the table. That's good. I haven't seen it. But if there are questions from the committee for me,
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:53:12
I'd be happy to take them. Mr. Corden, do you have a question? I'm assuming that you know this is something obviously we don't we do not want to create a legal nightmare for school boards and school districts and the question is does the AG's office have an opinion on this bill and whether
in fact that it's appropriate to have the amendment of 40 percent in a and I understand this this may have caught all of us a little bit by surprise yeah
Speaker 55
1:53:51
we've issued opinions on this matter before and I did have a chance to review
those opinions I don't know that we've taken a position on you know what percentage of fair market value a district would have to accept I think I think our opinions have said in the past that the district could take into consideration the situation that Representative Pierce described where the building and the land becomes a drain on the district and deciding what the fair market value is. But the issue with Article 14 that Ms. Gould mentioned of you must get some value for that is a live issue.
I think the last time I looked at this there was a donation aspect of it too that allowed the district to donate and our opinions have upon that that that would be a questionable practice under article 14 because you could be in a situation of using school resources not for school purposes at that point to benefit someone other than a school purpose which would get you in trouble with article 14 so that would be a problem with this bill and if a if a
Speaker 99
1:55:10
district decided to do that they would open themselves up to some litigation there
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:55:15
thank you very much I was minders the general understanding of where we were with it thank you that's in a
Speaker 377
1:55:22
steward you had a question yes thank you same line
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
1:55:25
I was already marked on on page 2 line 8 and 9 that they can donate the building owned by the school that
is no longer used. So in your opinion, that's not really a good idea? According to the opinions
Speaker 56
1:55:37
that our office has issued, and I think there are several of them,
Speaker 55
1:55:42
the donation would not, in our opinion, the donation would not be constitutionally permissible. There may be some dispute about that, but that's what our office has opined in the past. Representative Steele. Thank you,
Speaker 31
1:55:53
Mr. Chairman. Does the fair market value go down when the school is no longer operating as a school and it's just an empty building. I
Speaker 257
1:56:00
don't know who can answer that question. Mr.
Speaker 33
1:56:09
Chairman, I understand we have a certified appraiser here.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:56:13
If he would like to come to the table, we'd certainly like to
Representative Tommy Wren
Unverified
1:56:23
hear from a certified appraiser. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Steele. That's not necessarily the case. And as Ms. Gould mentioned earlier, you know, there are schools that are located on major highways where the land is actually worth more than the school itself. So in that case, the school, the actual building would be abolished, and the value would be in the land.
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
1:56:47
Thank you. Mr. Summers, I think I saw your hand waving there. You did two or
Representative Tim Summers
Unverified
1:56:53
three times ago. I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question, Mr. Richardson, about the donation part of it, there's times when there's a very appropriate use for a donation to a nonprofit, and, of course, you've got all kinds of concerns from the environmental issue and all that, but are you saying that currently if a school district donated a building to a nonprofit,
that would violate law, and would it be possible for us to correct that particular situation? Well,
Speaker 56
1:57:28
the article says, no money or property belonging to the public school fund or to this state for the benefit
Speaker 55
1:57:36
of schools or universities shall ever be used for any other than for the respective purposes to which it belongs. So if you then, the reasoning and the opinions that our office has issued is if you then
take a school building or school property and donate it to another organization then that's property that's no longer being used for school purposes now if you sell it then you've converted that property to a cash value that the district can then use and the worth of that property would be you know the district would have to work out but when you donate it you're simply giving that that property to the use of another organization that may not be for a school
Representative Tim Summers
Unverified
1:58:21
purpose what would you see as a solution i know uh that is one way that
unused school buildings can be valued and just because they're old doesn't mean that they can't be rehabbed but a lot of non-profits are in a situation where they need space and if you've got a building setting empty why not you or what's what's
Speaker 55
1:58:45
a solution to it well i think we understand the the the point that you're raising but the our opinions have over the years said that the donation is not a proper use of school purposes under article 14 so I don't think there really
is a solution other short of amending the Constitution through but the opinions have also applied that long-term lease is that a solution well I you know that's something that could be looked at as long-term lease I don't know if that's presented in this I think it'd be worthwhile researching mr. chair
mr. link you have a comment sometimes you got
to know when to hold them when to fold them you could be right and some some of these things may They've come to me as a little bit of a surprise today. We've worked through some issues, I think, in working through those issues. We've created new issues, and that's okay. I'd rather have known five minutes ago, but that's okay. Sir, I would like to fold on this one and get my Andy back out of the pot, if I could. I'm asking to withdraw your bill. That's the proper motion. Thanks, sir. All those flavors say aye. Aye. Okay. Committee, we're going to make a clarification.
Speaker 59
2:00:05
Ms. Roebuck, make a clarification. Thank you, Mr. Chair,
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
2:00:11
members. I have been corrected, and I misspoke, Representative Steele, in answer to your question. Your question had to do with weight, and you asked the question about 50%. I want to make sure that going forward, and if we need to re-vote, I'll certainly ask the chair to entertain that. If you'll look on page 10, Representative Steele, that is the answer to your question. It is not a weight. There is not 50% weighted. It is one half in the tested content area, one half or 50 percent of the artifacts considered
by the teacher and evaluator shall be external assessment measures chosen by the teacher and the evaluator. So I misspoke when I answered half because your question had to do with weight, and so it is the artifacts that are 50 percent. So I wanted to clarify, and if anyone wants to change their vote based on that information, I would certainly understand. Does that clarify for you, Representative Steele? Yes, it
Speaker 31
2:01:10
does, and you don't have to take back your hugs.
Speaker 303
2:01:13
Okay, thank you. And I apologize to all my wonderful friends at the end of the table. I misunderstood your question, and I misspoke. Committee, what we're going
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
2:01:23
to do is I want you to, there are sandwiches in my office and drinks, mostly soft drinks, and get you one, bring it back to the table, and we're going to give Ms. Tyler because she has people here to speak for or against our bill. So we're going to do a little work while we eat.
Agenda
Call to Order
HB1901
HB1032
HB2178
HB1892
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Representative Johnnie J. Roebuck
Unverified
Representative Eddie L. Cheatham
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 7
Representative Keith M. Ingram
Unverified
Speaker 13
Representative Randy Stewart
Unverified
Speaker 23
Speaker 25
Speaker 30
Speaker 31
Speaker 33
Representative Marshall Wright
Unverified
Speaker 24
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
Speaker 47
Speaker 53
Speaker 55
Speaker 56
Speaker 65
Speaker 74
Speaker 36
Representative Robert E. Dale
Unverified
Speaker 94
Speaker 83
Speaker 106
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
Speaker 99
Speaker 124
Speaker 64
Speaker 135
Speaker 139
Speaker 140
Speaker 142
Speaker 143
Speaker 147
Speaker 113
Speaker 105
Speaker 150
Speaker 169
Representative Bobby J. Pierce
Unverified
Speaker 183
Speaker 176
Representative Tim Summers
Unverified
Speaker 201
Speaker 202
Speaker 208
Speaker 131
Representative Donna Hutchinson
Unverified
Speaker 212
Speaker 215
Speaker 216
Representative Kelley Linck Chair
Unverified
Speaker 226
Representative Duncan Baird
Unverified
Speaker 108
Speaker 229
Speaker 235
Speaker 243
Speaker 152
Speaker 231
Speaker 239
Speaker 257
Speaker 258
Speaker 264
Speaker 265
Speaker 274
Speaker 236
Speaker 282
Representative Denny Altes
Unverified
Speaker 263
Speaker 69
Speaker 297
Speaker 301
Speaker 303
Speaker 305
Speaker 59
Speaker 315
Speaker 318
Speaker 320
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
Speaker 310
Speaker 331
Speaker 58
Speaker 75
Representative Tommy Wren
Unverified
Speaker 346
Speaker 347
Speaker 38
Speaker 98
Speaker 352
Speaker 8
Speaker 366
Speaker 368
Speaker 371
Speaker 380
Speaker 382
Speaker 328
Speaker 377