Panel OKs Planned Parenthood funds

Saturday, December 15, 2012

— A legislative panel on Wednesday decided to invite officials of Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma Inc. to attend a meeting next week to answer lawmakers’ questions about the group, after the panel approved state grants to the group for HIV prevention and syphilis education.

The Legislative Council Review Subcommittee took the action to satisfy a lawmaker who had raised questions about the family planning agency.

Lawmakers defeated a motion by Sen. Jason Rapert, RBigelow, to grant funding for seven social service groups while withholding funding for the two Planned Parenthood projects.

But they lacked enough votes to approve all nine grants.

With Rapert saying he wanted to hear from the nonprofit organization’s representatives and ask them questions, officials looked fora way to end the deadlock.

Subcommittee Co-Chairman Sen. Randy Laverty, D-Jasper, then summoned Rapert and Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, to meet with him privately.

After private negotiations between Rapert and Elliott for more than an hour, Laverty announced that Rapert and Elliott had reached a compromise. They agreed the panel would support nine state health-care grants, including the two to Planned Parenthood, and hold a hearing to allow officials of Planned Parenthood to answer lawmakers’ questions.

Subcommittee members quickly approved the compromise.

Elliott said the legislative panel will have a hearing with Planned Parenthood officials “so people know we have addressed both sides of this issue.”

The hearing would allow Rapert to question Planned Parenthood and give the abortion-rights and familyplanning group a chance torespond, she said. Laverty said the hearing would be held Dec. 21 at 8 a.m.

Afterward, Rapert said he’s read newspaper articles about “allegations of misappropriation of funds and situations that continue to nag [him],” but he declined to provide details about these allegations.

“I would just like to hear from the Tulsa entity that is providing these services in the state of Arkansas what is the status of those investigations, have you got any current investigations going on, or are these Planned Parenthoods in other entities,” he said.

“If they come in and they are able to provide us information that gives comfort to members that feel the way I do and that there are no problems, then they are fully capable of competing for these [grants] just like anybody else,” Rapert said.

A spokesman for Planned Parenthood could not be reached by telephone for comment late Wednesdayafternoon.

The state Department of Health asked the legislative panel to approve nine grants totaling more than $150,000 to several groups that provide syphilis education and HIV counseling, education, prevention and testing, including two to Planned Parenthood. The proposed grants would be financed through federal funds.

The department proposed adding $20,000 to a $180,000 grant for Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma Inc. of Tulsa to continue to provide HIV prevention to students in the Little Rock School District, according to the Bureau of Legislative Research.

It also proposed adding $13,000 to a $39,000 grant to Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma to continue to provide syphilis education to students in the Little Rock School District, the bureau said. The grant awards would be contingent on the state’s receipt of the federal funds.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 12/15/2012