Education Committee - Joint
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Bills discussed (5)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
SB243
· 3 mentions in transcript, agenda
Matched: “Senate Bill 243. It's 23232, OK. You want me”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING LOTTERY-FUNDED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS. | Hickey | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1446
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NING POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS. HB1446 Lundstrum TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS WORKFORCE CHALLENGE SCHOLAR…”
|
TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS WORKFORCE CHALLENGE SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. | Lundstrum | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1480
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CHALLENGE SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. HB1480 Andrews TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS ACADEMIC CHALLENGE SCHOLARSHI…”
|
TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS ACADEMIC CHALLENGE SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM; AND TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF "APPROVED … | Andrews | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
SB216
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…Rep. Jason Nazarenko REGULAR AGENDA Number Sponsor Subtitle SB216 J. Dotson TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING POSTSECONDARY EDUCATI…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS. | J. Dotson | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB232
Act 429
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…MEND THE LAW REGARDING LOTTERY-FUNDED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS. SB232 Hickey TO AMEND VARIOUS PROVISIONS OF THE ARKANSAS SCHOLARS…”
|
TO AMEND VARIOUS PROVISIONS OF THE ARKANSAS SCHOLARSHIP LOTTERY ACT; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY. | Hickey | Notification that SB232 is now Act 429 |
Machine transcript
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- October 8, 2026
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
0:00
Yes, members, we have an amendment to this bill. I apologize for that. It's Senate Bill 243? It's 232. 232, okay. Want me to begin?
Senator Jane English
Unverified
0:30
you want me to begin yeah just a second she's just handing out the amendment they're
handing out the amendment yes ma'am thank you very much
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
0:52
okay you could go ahead members we we have an amendment here first I apologize for that tried to have it fully engrossed and just to be straight up with you was looking at all this yesterday uh seeing where there might be a little
issue with the bill stayed on the phone with the lottery folks we appreciate them working all half the day yesterday to get this amendment correct this right here we have an issue with some of the way our books have been and this should straighten it up and i'll fully explain the bill if you'll adopt the amendment go ahead on just the amendment yeah motion
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:26
to adopt motion to adopt them do i have a second second all in favor all opposed thank you all right members
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
1:38
you ready for me to present the bill all right members uh first first of all i'm going to say we're we're presenting this in the joint committee uh probably would not have to there's not a negative effect and it doesn't involve a scholarship uh there there is a possibility that it would actually create a positive for the uh scholarship trust fund but let me kind of explain what's happened here so it's not going to be the easiest thing to understand but but i'll
attempt to explain it uh what we're doing is we're cleaning up an issue that on our books of the arkansas lottery which has actually been there since the inception and i want you to know that I've had a bunch of conversation with the lottery officials, DF&A, and it also even went to legislative audit. So they've been fully aware of this so that they know exactly what's transpired. The easiest way for me to explain this is that when the lottery was created in 2009, which was done by an initiated act,
the definition of net proceeds allowed for a modified cash basis instead of an accrual basis. so basically we've been sending more to the scholarship trust fund than what we what we should have and what that's done is that's created a negative position on our balance sheet so i know all that may sound odd but again we're not so we're going to clean that up so right now as of june 30th of 2024 what we were showing was a a negative position of right under 20 million
dollars now that goes up and that goes down somewhat based upon what our prizes are and also what is referred to as opeb which is your like your insurance for your retirement things to that nature so as of January I think it was about 16 million 17 million so the transaction or what this bill does is it's going to clean up those books so that we won't have this problem anymore now
we're not although we've been putting additional money into the scholarship reserve fund we're not going to use that to take care of this of this deficiency that shows on our balance sheet we have we have 20 million that's been parked in in what is called a short a shortfall reserve trust account for the lottery whenever the lottery was first was first put on they were the way that that was done at that time as revenues were coming in that's what
they were using to fund the scholarships so we there was a possibility that if there was not enough money there that we would have to have have to borrow from this shortfall reserve account we you all what we've done over the past few years is we've totally reworked the lottery now the way all of that is designed is is we actually pay the lottery a year behind so in other words we get our revenues in know how much is there so that we know that we have enough money
to actually pay for that scholarships with the preceding year's money. So there's really no need to have this shortfall reserve trust fund any longer. So what we're going to do is we're going to take that off of the balance sheet and use that to clear up this position on the balance sheet. That's about as simple a way as I know how to put it to you all. Again, I'll attempt to answer any questions.
Senator Jane English
Unverified
5:24
are there questions from the committee either you've explained it very well or nobody knows what we're
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
5:40
talking about i guess my thing is i will let y'all know that dfna has been involved and our legislative audit again they all know about this and
it's and and this will keep us from ever being in a negative net position again
Senator Jane English
Unverified
5:56
center I mean representative McKenzie thank you madam
Speaker 24
5:59
chair just a quick question what is the current balance of the shortfall reserve fund 20 million exactly 20 million on
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
6:11
the money right there and it just depends and we won't know like to the end of the fiscal year or actually even later because if let's just say it takes 19 million to clean this up there is a a possibility that we'll transfer a million into the scholarship fund actually but it's but it's all based upon what what our actuarial does so we're not going to understand know what that is
Senator Reginald Murdock
Unverified
6:34
until we get those numbers senator murdoch thank you madam chair senator hickey will this how and when or what effect does this have on our current scholarship situation and our plans
Speaker 29
6:52
and allocation for scholarships absolutely none it uh it's just replenishing that fund that's been
Senator Reginald Murdock
Unverified
6:59
screwed with so for lack of a better word over the years has not been
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
7:05
properly maintained yeah actually what what we've done is we've actually transferred more money
into the scholarship fund than we should should have the scholarship fund if i remember right has 300 and something million right now, don't quote me on the numbers, but it's 300 and something million there right now anyway. We've actually transferred additional money in there that we probably shouldn't, but we were complying with the way that the statute was done. It really was not generally accepted accounting principles, and this is going to actually move this in so those things will be done according to those to GAP. And we can't just reverse it out. We have to go through
this procedure that this is the cleanest way to do it you asked me if there would be an effect on the scholarship fund it it actually is going to be a positive benefit i just can't tell you how much because i don't know what the what the number is going to be as of june 30th to the end of the fiscal thank you yes
Senator Jane English
Unverified
8:09
sir thank you any other questions here Seeing none. So we have to vote on this House and the Senate. So I would like to have a
motion from the Senate. Do I hear a motion? So move. Do I hear a second? Yeah. Okay. All in favor all opposed thank you we passed
Senator Jane English
Unverified
8:33
in favor all opposed thank you very much thank you I appreciate you all thank you now let me see we have one more here by representative Andrews he's not here
he's not running it. Oh, he's not running it. Okay. All right. Well, then, uh, ladies and gentlemen, I think we are, have completed our work. The meeting is adjourned.
Agenda
No agenda available.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — EDUCATION COMMITTEE - SENATE AND HOUSE MEETING JOINTLY WITH ADVANCED COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION, Mar 17, 2025 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
Senator Jane English
Unverified
Speaker 24
Senator Reginald Murdock
Unverified
Speaker 29
Speaker 34