Joint Budget Committee

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Members, if you can grab your seats, I think we've got about one minute before we're going to start, and we're going to start in one minute. If you can grab your chairs, seats, glad everybody's excited to be here. We'll be right back. Chair Cesar Quorum, members, we only have one item to take up today, but before we do that, I'm going to turn it over to my co-chair, vice chair, all of the above, Representative Johnson.

I answered anything the chair calls me. I just want to take a minute to acknowledge the fact that the view from down there, looking up here, is different than it's been in quite a long time. 12 years to be exact, because 12 years is how long the state of Arkansas has had the privilege and reaped the benefits of having Representative Lane Jean as the chair of the Joint Budget Committee. That 12 years makes him the longest tenured joint budget chair in the history of the state of Arkansas. Yeah. He's in the back right here. When he started, just briefly, when he started, we had a few hundred million dollars in reserve. We're sitting here today with almost three billion dollars in reserve. That's what happens when you give a quality person a leadership position for a quality period of time. What you're seeing here today is something really rare in state government. It's what I would call an opportunity for leadership transition. That doesn't happen often because that requires an elected official who's in a position of authority, leadership power to voluntarily step out of the spotlight and try to teach somebody and mentor somebody who's interested in what they're doing that takes somebody with with humility and with wisdom and those are two traits that representative gene everybody knows has in space so i just want to say thank you personally for giving me the opportunity to sit here in this chair during this session and uh thank you for your service to save argus i'll give you a more round applause thank you sir thank you mr. chairman those are tears

of joy I'm certain. With that, you're recognized. All right,

so we're all right. Members, our only action today is House Bill 1002. Do we have any questions on House Bill 1002, General Appropriation Act? No questions. What's the will of

the committee? We've got a motion. Do

pass. We've got a second. In discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Members, again, that's our only piece of business today. We do come back tomorrow at 9. What we'll be doing in the morning is only assigning bills that need to go to committees to committees. We're not going to be taking up any other action. So, again, we're going to be assigning bills to committees tomorrow morning at 9. Should go fairly quick. When that happens, I'm not sure. I'll just say this again for the senators that may not have been in the room. We'll come back into session at 10 in the chamber's house. so you all do whatever it is you want to do. All right, with that, we're adjourned. Thank you.