Education Committee - Senate
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Senator Jane English
Unverified
0:00
I've called this meeting of the Senate Education Committee to order, and I'm glad to see everybody here. We're off to another wonderful year, another wonderful session. Lots of good things are going to happen, I'm sure. So what I'd like to do first off is give our members an opportunity to introduce themselves and give us a little background on them and their experience with education, and then we will ask everybody in the room to identify themselves introduce themselves so because all
of you are interested in education and something that has to do with education so we need to know who we all are who our faces are so i'll
Speaker 4
0:43
start with uh senator sullivan thank you senator yeah dan sullivan i have about 30 years in
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
0:49
education at about every level from elementary teacher to principals in junior high and secondary, even a few years in college, if you can count coaching as if being in high-risk. Then went into private sector and we
were still involved educationally in the private sector with young children with multiple disabilities. I was on the education chair my first year in the house, was on public health until then, and back here in education looking forward to it thank you very
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:26
much Stephanie I'm senator Stephanie flowers I am from district 8 which is about six parts of six counties in southeast
Arkansas my home base is Pine Bluff Arkansas I am a lawyer by profession for 43 years I've handled education cases the individuals with disability education Act, and I also represented juveniles in juvenile court and do a lot of family law practice in my past. I've practiced in Texas and in Arkansas, and I'm glad to be on the Education Committee. I first ran for office in 2005 for the House, and that was motivated by my son's educational
experience at Dalloway School District in Pine Bluff and like I said excited to be here
hoping to learn what the future holds for the children in my
Senator Reginald Murdock
Unverified
2:37
district senator Murdoch good morning senator Reginald Murdoch I'm from District
9, which is primarily the Delta, Lee, St. Francis, and Crittenden County, and Phillips
County as well. I've never been a teacher or educator. I've been married to one for 35 years, so I have a lot of experience. I've been on school boards, volunteered in school districts. I've been legislatively, I've been the vice chair in the House on the education committee. I've been on the education committee probably two times down there in the 14 years I've been here, and this is my first time since I've been in the Senate.
So obviously very close to the educational process, was the author, a lead sponsor on one of the most transformational bills that's used in education in Arkansas, which is the, you call it the 1240 waivers which really is not that anymore it's something else since last session I think act 337 347 one of them but anyway but it's always called act 1240 waivers and it gave diversity to teachers and districts and schools to administer education in various ways it gave them
opportunities for flexibility and it was innovation it was very controversial then but it's become the most utilized piece of education in the Arkansas General Assembly since that happened and very proud of that and what it meant there were a lot of fears and scares of what that would have become it never has become that many many many many districts have honored me and you as an in the legislature for passing that piece of legislation has been much used so I look forward to continue to try to understand and do more informative
innovative things as it relates to education and the uniqueness of our state we have areas in the state are just different and hopefully we can bring that out of the Senate Education Committee and we can make sure we address all of those things throughout this session so look forward to to continuing and glad to be here and hopefully we can do be productive for the citizens in the
Speaker 15
4:49
state of Arkansas. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Dodson. Thank you. Senator Jim
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
5:01
Dodson from northwest Arkansas. My district 34 covers north central Benton County which is north side of Bentonville and Centerton all of Bella Vista and the Hawassie side of Gravett. So it's a compact district in the northwest corner of the state with a lot of population and growing education has been one of the key focuses in the the going on this is my 13 year 13th year in the legislature I've been on education committee a couple of times happy to
return as one of the returning members to to this body from last session worked on various things the back 1240 waivers that still is one of my favorite pieces of legislation that we've done I think it's been almost 10 years now since since that was done and so I've been involved with with education committee and process and stuff for for quite a while thank you Kristin
Speaker 27
6:06
you can introduce yourself yes you're part of our team hello everyone I'm Kristen Washington
Speaker 28
6:16
the committee analysts for this committee and we also have our administrative analysts here Riley Sewell yeah I'd like to take it
Senator Jane English
Unverified
6:24
a little couple minutes and let everybody around the room introduce themselves and tell me tell us who you're with and so we have a better idea of who our audience is and we'll start back there in the corner let's stand up so we can see your
Senator Jane English
Unverified
7:23
Just need you to speak up pretty loud because the acoustics
Speaker 43
7:28
in here are awful. Hi, I'm Brad Bartels. I'm the Executive Director and General Counselor for the Arkansas Education Association. I'll just play
Speaker 45
7:37
with you on it. I'm Carla Mathering. I'm the assistant director at
Speaker 46
7:42
NDA. I have not granted us with the insurance association.
Speaker 52
8:33
i'm scott smith i'm bently wallace on the chancellor day as
Speaker 31
8:49
current chair of the board of the two-year college association i'm scott sullivan i
Speaker 54
8:57
get work for S.A.U. and S.A.U. T.A. Marisa White,
Speaker 37
9:03
I'm with DLR. I'm here to help Raleigh.
Shank all the way ASU system can drag
Speaker 46
9:23
partners. New orderly, you don't practice that. Very good,
Senator Jane English
Unverified
9:29
very good. Thank you very much, everybody, for being here. So now we will
begin our little business meeting, and I would like to introduce Senator Dan Sullivan,
who is our vice chair for this session. And thank you. Pleased to have you here. And you all have these folders in front of you, so if you would all the information that we do during this session is going to be into these folders please leave them here don't take them with you so yeah yeah yeah and which which is a reminder for some of you who have not been on the
Education Committee even some of us who have been on the Education Committee Christian sent this out to his chronologic chronology of changes and and kind of went in it it really is sort of interesting if you look at it and begin to think about where we started and how we are where we are today so if you haven't had a chance to look at that I would encourage you to take the time to to go through it because it does give us a pretty good idea of what changes have taken place over the last umptium years and how we are where we are today so
which is education I think is pretty confusing we keep changing and adding and and new things come up and so that I think this is very important the other thing that we have to is is that we we need to adopt our rules and one of the things that I would make a motion that we add to this is that each bill must have a fiscal impact statement the house requires that for every single bill that
they have that goes through their committees and I feel like that's important for us to do the same thing otherwise it just sits and waits and we can't as it gets closer to the end we have a hard time if we don't have the fiscal impact getting things back to the house so I would make a motion that we have that fiscally impact statement is required for all
Speaker 62
11:42
of our bills thank you pardon it's what
Senator Jane English
Unverified
11:53
No, I mean, yeah, it does need to be, I mean, we need to have this statement come through. We've had it before, and a lot of times it'll accompany a house bill, but a lot of times it doesn't, and then if we start something, it won't go through the house at all until it's had a fiscal impact statement, so it just kind of sits down there until they do fiscal image Senator Johnson it takes
Speaker 70
12:26
a minute yes so I know theoretically that
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
12:32
can be true but I know that there have been many house bills that have come from this or Senate bill that had come from the Senate that have gone through the Education Committee without having that so I'm not entirely sure we have to have that in our rule in order to have one of our bills go through the house I mean I think it's fine to have one but I I didn't like the the rule necessarily on the house end and how soon does the fiscal statement have to be in your
proposal before it before it can be heard in committee it
just comes through it with the bill?
Speaker 25
13:30
And who does it? The bureau. It would be the bureau
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
13:35
that would. I mean, before we we adopt a rule change like that, I'd kind of like
to see it in writing see the rule in writing yeah your rule proposal it's
in the new rules here I didn't see any changes it's in there
Senator Jane English
Unverified
14:05
it's in the draft yeah yeah fiscal impact statement shall be made available to the committee at
least one day before the bill may be called up for final action in the committee remember that seven
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
14:27
B that's only related to higher education grant funding for lottery scholarships right I think it's in there but it is not part
Senator Jane English
Unverified
14:47
it's only k-12 bills it's not higher ed oh
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
14:52
it's 7b sorry I guess mine's more
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
15:08
of a question of the process so if we say we're going to this we're gonna
pass the rules and a rule says that all amendments to bills okay
so we're not passing them but it's not an amendment to a bill yeah okay all right this is
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
15:36
just the bail senator flowers that the Bureau of Legislative Research
Senator Jane English
Unverified
15:38
would do the fiscal impact that's not done by DFNA well I think I think it's all part of that same thing, DF&A does with the
Speaker 66
15:47
Bureau. Okay, if there's one of the Bureau's fiscal impacts will come from the Department of Education,
the DF&A will send those as well.
Senator Jane English
Unverified
15:53
So, the Department of Education does it?
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
16:04
So, if I may. Yes. I'm not in favor of this rule, simply because I've experienced it for 10 years in the House, where It can take And specifically this it doesn't this rule 7b does not refer to k-12 education specifically So we would need to amend it to include that for to match your intent, but
Oftentimes it can be incredibly difficult to get a fiscal impact and with the rule as broad as this There can be a number of pieces of legislation that have zero fiscal impact In fact, that's probably what you see the majority of the bills that are coming, just waiting for a piece of paper to even be placed on the agenda. So if we adopt this rule, you'll file a bill, and it will not go on the agenda until, you know, and as great and competent and capable as the people at BLR are, they have a lot to go through.
They process all the things in the House. They process all the things in the Senate. And so it might be two weeks before you get a fiscal impact that says there is no fiscal impact. There was nothing. We're making one small modification on education curriculum standard or something. And there is no fiscal impact to it. It's a normal process. But the bill will not appear on the agenda before you can even take that up. and so I don't think it's if there is something that is a fiscal impact or
suspected fiscal impact I think making a rule that a member can request a fiscal impact before we take further action on it would be a better thing to have in our rule then requiring every single bill that comes through here to have a with fiscal impact but I've said my two cents on
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
18:06
it so Senator flowers boy 7b doesn't say that the bill can't be on the agenda it says a bill has to have
the fiscal impact statement made available to the committee at least one day before the bill may be called up for final action by the committee so it can be on the agenda that's my interpretation of what I'm reading
Speaker 96
18:33
here might be wrong but I don't think so Senator Murdoch
Senator Reginald Murdock
Unverified
18:47
thank you so chair what you're so I want to understand your intent of what
you're saying you're trying to not slow down the process obviously you're not right what you're wanting to make sure is that the process is not impeded by something that is unnecessary so I think there may need to be a little further comes it may be even private conversation I don't off, that we get to something that's sensible and workable for what you're trying to do and what you're trying not to prevent. None of us want the process to be slowed down. I've seen evidence of what he's talking about, but I've also seen evidence
of where that was necessary and needed to make the legislation truly be understandable for everybody before we make a decision. So I think both things can be true, kind of, what we're dealing with here. And so
we have to come to a decision And I see both sides of this. Senator Davis, do
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
19:52
you have thought? What the right thing is.
I was trying to think if we said we have to have a, you know, fiscal impact statement, but suspend the rules to hear bills that clearly don't have a fiscal impact. or if we just do it, you know, and you could present and not take final action on a bill, present, but maybe not vote. I mean, I don't know if, I don't really know that there's a right answer because ultimately when it goes down to the House, you have to have one. So you're going to get one regardless. I understand what you're saying. You may have to wait a few extra days to actually present down here.
But I mean, I think we can usually tell by reading the bills if there's going to be a fiscal impact and so that's where it slows the process um i don't know what the what a good medium is for that yeah we may want to discuss and maybe approve that final rule like maybe approve the
other rules but maybe come back to that to that one next time if we
Senator Jane English
Unverified
20:53
can do that but it's it's part of
the rules that we will choose to adopt today or not it's so if we can't do it later what you're
saying we can adopt the rule with this sitting out I want to do that and we can come back and address this again I think we did this the last session I think
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
21:23
you had the same arguments the last session yeah so adopt seven without be in it yes adopt
Senator Jane English
Unverified
21:29
everything including seven without being it yeah that'll be and we can come to we'll come back to
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
21:38
that just one comment the house can do
what they want if they want to require a statement on everything I think we've got a lot of big bills to consider with a lot of dialogue a lot of testimony and if we're going to hold things up on a physical impact that we may or may not not need and I think I think we can trust our members to know yeah this is something that has a fiscal impact I'm going to get it done if it's not go ahead let's go ahead and get our business done and if the house wants to hold it up and do what they do that's their business that's not ours but I'm favorable to
sitting it out and having more discussion Senator flowers so
Senator Jane English
Unverified
22:16
you mentioned something that took place during the
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
22:21
last session I wasn't a part of the committee so I'd like to know what as it relates to this rule you
Senator Jane English
Unverified
22:34
all didn't rate it on this in the latin the last session and we decided that that it wasn't necessary
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
22:40
well at any time during the session did you have a bill without
a fiscal impact go down to the house that was sent back for the
Speaker 97
22:50
purpose of Remember this whether we did or not I don't
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
23:03
remember If I may madam chair, I think most Most of the bills that are going to have a lot of controversy around them are bigger bills that have fiscal impact They get those on the front end And if they're if there's something that's kind of
questionable, maybe, that the House is going to require that. By the time it goes through the Senate committee, the Senate floor, and gets down to the House, VLR has got the fiscal impact ready for it for the House committee. So generally speaking, it doesn't slow down the process much on Senate bills coming to the House end, but you may run into it every once in a while. I just don't think I've ever ran into it on any of the bills last session that I was sending down there from the Senate
or that I recall any of the Senate bills coming from the Senate when I was in the House. I don't recall there ever being a slowdown. Most of the bills that came out, they checked the boxes by the time they got to the House committee. So, But it it is entirely possible that it it could upon occasion I just don't recall any any big bills that were controversial anyway
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
24:31
me. Go ahead Okay, so do we need to make a substitute motion to adopt the rules let minus 7 B I'll
Senator Jane English
Unverified
24:41
make that motion all those in favor opposed thank you okay that's what we'll do all right the
other thing that we need to all be aware of is that this last session we passed some
legislation that basically requires that we do a study almost for the any new lottery scholarship so just if anybody intends to put some new lottery scholarship out there we have to do a project ahead of time and looking at the
financial I actually it's to make sure that we have the cash flow down the road so yes on the ballot
one another though that that that that's different than the issue
one this is the The issue one was the constitutional amendment to use lottery scholarship dollars for vocational schools. And that's
different than, and that will be one of those things that has to be
looked at, and we'll have to do the study to see what the fiscal impact is of that down the road. And we're working on that legislation right now, so we don't know.
so the study would be done during the session yeah before we pass any any legislation even for the vocational and technical because those dollars will come out of that
lottery scholarship fund so we need to make sure we have some idea of what we're looking at is to take the money that would be spent would be used for that and to make sure that we have a you know there was a time when we were sort of short on scholarship dollars and that hasn't
happened for quite a while but it did happen and so I think the author of that legislation wanted to make sure that if we add any new scholarship programs that
we did intend we knew what we were doing what was looking
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
26:52
down the road and so the ballot issue didn't
Senator Jane English
Unverified
26:55
cancel that legislation now no no it'll be part of that discussion that that what we're doing so
all right let's see then we during the
our hope is that during the session we'll meet on Monday and
Wednesday at 10 o'clock in this room and we will have a probably this next Wednesday I'm we only had one bill come through the Senate so we probably will look and see and Christian will let me know Friday if there are any other bills for us to take a look at so and Monday is a holiday so we won't
be meeting them and we have to have five members here to have a quorum so think of anything else
that's it anybody not any questions here anybody in the audience have any questions any
thoughts anybody on the committee Yeah, oh, I'm sorry. I thought we passed that. Yeah Yeah, so okay. So that's what we'll do is that next time we will Vote on this. All right. All right Seeing anything else anybody got anything else. Oh and before you leave
Senator Davis, we've all introduced ourselves with you introduce yourself and tell us
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
28:19
where you're from Rhian Davis I'm from Russellville and represent Pope County Conway County in the city of Dardanelle and you've been on the Education Committee before yes this is my second session on the Education Committee but so thank
Senator Jane English
Unverified
28:36
you everybody for coming we appreciate it and we'll maybe see Wednesday if not the next Monday thank you
Agenda
Call to Order
ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING
Vote on Rules
Adjourn
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — EDUCATION COMMITTEE - SENATE AND HOUSE MEETING JOINTLY WITH ADVANCED COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION, Jan 15, 2025 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Jane English
Unverified
Speaker 4
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
Senator Reginald Murdock
Unverified
Speaker 15
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
Speaker 27
Speaker 28
Speaker 31
Speaker 34
Speaker 37
Speaker 40
Speaker 43
Speaker 45
Speaker 46
Speaker 52
Speaker 53
Speaker 54
Speaker 62
Speaker 70
Speaker 25
Speaker 66
Speaker 96
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
Speaker 97
Speaker 115