A bill barring state grants to entities that perform abortions or make abortion referrals failed to clear an Arkansas House committee Wednesday.
The Senate later approved a bill granting 2 percent pay raises to the state’s prosecutors and judges, and a measure allowing the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System’s board of trustees to increase the amount it charges school districts and other system employers.
On 94th day of the 2013 legislative session, the House approved a bill that would increase the penalties for knowingly selling used bedding as a new product.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD FUNDING
The House Public Health Committee failed to back a bill that would prohibit state grants to Planned Parenthood and other programs that performed abortions or made referrals to abortion clinics.
Senate Bill 818, by Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, needed 11 votes to clear the 20-member committee; it received 10 - all of the Republicans on the committee and one Democrat.
Rep. David Meeks, R-Conway, said the bill would revoke state-grant funding to Planned Parenthood and prevent the disbursement of funds to other such groups.
The state Department of Health provides two grants to Planned Parenthood for AIDS and syphilis education and prevention in districts in Pulaski County.
Meeks said the group should not receive state funds because the state’s constitution prohibits the use of public funds to pay for abortions.
“There are other groups, there are other entities - at least three or four that I know of - that are able to do this type of work and actually do get grants, that don’t have anything to do with abortions,” Meeks said.
But Robert Brech, the chief financial officer for the department, said none of the grant money goes toward abortions.
Karen Swinton, the health educator at Planned Parenthood in Little Rock, said the state already ranks high in the country in teen-pregnancy rates and sexually transmitted diseases. She said the bill could erode some of the progress gained from the grants.
“There’s only one of me. We only get a limited amount of resources to provide pregnancy prevention. If you take away this, the numbers are just going to increase,” Swinton said.
PAY RAISES FOR JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS
The Senate voted 34-0 to approve a 2 percent cost-of living increase for judges and prosecutors.
The pay raise legislation, Senate Bill 365, is sponsored by Sen. Larry Teague, D-Nashville.
The Joint Budget Committee rejected pay raises for these government workers early in the session but said it might revisit the matter later.
On Tuesday, the committee voted to give 6 percent pay raises to members of the state Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals and to the state’s circuit judges, but Wednesday, it cut the pay raise to 2 percent and sent the bill to the Senate.
The measure would increase the pay of the state Supreme Court chief justice from $156,864 to $160,001 and for the other six justices from $145,204 to $148,108. It would boost the salary of the Court of Appeals’s chief judge from $142,969 to $145,828 and the salaries for the other 11 judges on the court from $140,732 to $143,547. The salary for a circuit judge would increase from $136,257 to $138,982.
The bill was sent to the House.
The raises would take effect July 1.
State lawmakers, constitutional officers, judges and prosecutors haven’t received raises in fiscal 2011, 2012 or 2013, according to the Bureau of Legislative Research.
ADEQUACY FUNDING
The Senate unanimously approved House Bill 1774 by Rep. James McLean, D-Batesville, to increase the minimum state funding to provide an adequate education by 2 percent from $6,267 per pupil to $6,393 per pupil in fiscal 2014 and $6,521 in fiscal 2015.
All public school districts would receive the 2 percent funding increase.
BEDDING SALES
The House voted 57-23 in favor of a bill that would increase the penalties for knowingly selling used bedding as a new product.
Senate Bill 1010, sponsored by Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, would make it a Class A misdemeanor to sell fabric, filling, or an article of bedding that has been used with labels reserved for new bedding.
The Health Department regulates the sale of bedding, and sellers can be fined as much as $250 and imprisoned for as many as 90 days under the current law, which was enacted in 1927.
A Class A misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
PETITIONS
The House approved a bill to require sponsors of initiative and referendum petitions to submit information about paid canvassers to the secretary of state.
Rep. John Vines, D-Hot Springs, said Senate Bill 821 by Sen. Keith Ingram, D-West Memphis, was aimed at shoring up the petition process and preventing forgeries. He said the bill would improve the petition process by requiring the sponsor to present information to paid canvassers on the state’s laws.
Rep. Jim Nickels, D-Sherwood, said the bill could deter people from participating in the process, and that paid canvassers might be subjected to mistreatment.
JUVENILE CLAIMS The Senate voted 14-6 to reject House Bill 1878 by Rep. Hank Wilkins, D-Pine Bluff. The bill would have stripped the Arkansas Claims Commission of “jurisdiction over claims against the Division of Youth Services of the Department of Human Services for acts committed by juveniles” after their release.
In November, the commission ruled that the Youth Services Division was liable in the June 2009 slaying of Maurice “Beau” Clark, 67, a Little Rock man who was shot and killed by a teenage offender who had previously been in the agency’s custody. In late March, the Joint Budget Committee approved a $1 million claim against the state Department of Human Services.
Clark’s killer, Antonio Terry, had been in a lockup for the state’s most serious youthful offenders, but an agency supervisor insisted on Terry’s release despite the objections of the teen’s counselors and even though Terry had spent less than half the recommended time in rehabilitation programs.
In June 2010, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright sharply criticized the Youth Services Division, saying its personnel had “completely failed at their obligation. I think they failed Terry. They failed the state, and they certainly failed the victims.”
Wilkins’ bill would have shielded the state agency from being held liable in the future.
TEACHER RETIREMENT SYSTEM
The Senate unanimously approved a bill allowing the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System’s board of trustees to increase the amount it charges school districts and other system employers.
House Bill 1199 by Rep. David Kizzia, D-Malvern, would allow the trustees to increase the 14 percent employer-contribution rate in the fiscal year starting July 1, 2015, and in each fiscal year thereafter by 0.25 percent, if the system’s actuary projects the system’s payback period for its unfunded liabilities exceeds 30 years.
The system’s actuary in December projected that the system’s payback period for its unfunded liabilities exceeded 100 years as of June 30.
An increase in the 14 percent rate “shall only occur if the system implements cost savings from member benefit programs and increased member contributions, measured after July 1, 2013, that equal or exceed the value of the employer contribution increase before or at the same time as an employer contribution increase,” the bill states.
LEGAL STANDING OF LAWMAKERS
In a 19-7 vote, the Senate approved Senate Bill 1164 by Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, to specify that a lawmaker, at any stage of a judicial proceeding, has standing in his official capacity and the right to intervene in the proceeding to assert, defend or establish the constitutionality of a law.
The bill states that it does not supersede a law or constitutional provision about the authority of the attorney general to perform the duties of his office, or prevent the attorney general from performing the duties of his office.
Rapert said the measure would allow a member, who secures free representation, to submit briefs defending or explaining the intention of legislation that has been challenged.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/18/2013