The Legislative Council on Friday approved Gov. Mike Beebe’s plan to use up to $1.1 million in rainy-day funds to pay for scholarships in the current fiscal year for about four dozen Arkansas students seeking graduate degrees in certain health fields not offered at Arkansas’ higher education institutions.
The scholarships are called Arkansas Health Education Grants.
These four dozen or so new scholarship recipients include students studying dentistry, veterinary medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatric medicine, and chiropractic medicine, according to Shane Broadway, interim director of the state Department of Higher Education.
Scholarships for these new recipients were at risk of being slashed because the state scholarship fund used to finance them had been drawn down.
The grants pay the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition for a limited number of Arkansas students awarded “contract seats” through agreements with out-of-state universities.
Earlier this month, several lawmakers said they want to work during the 2014 session to develop a plan for the state to finance these scholarships on a permanent basis
The Legislative Council Friday also approved Beebe’s plan to use $455,000 in rainy-day funds to pay for new scholarships for students who are dependent children or spouses of law-enforcement officers killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty, and for those who are dependent children or spouses of military personnel killed in action, missing in action or prisoners of war, as well as those who are left totally and permanently disabled.
These scholarships also were in danger of being axed.
According to Broadway, about two dozen new students who are military dependents and about nine who are dependents of law enforcement officers will now receive the scholarships in fiscal 2014. The scholarships cover in-state tuition, mandatory fees and on-campus room and board at an Arkansas public higher education institution.
Twenty-three scholarship programs administered by the Department of Higher Education are being cut byabout $4 million in fiscal 2014, reducing the number of recipients from about 20,000 to about 15,300 as a result of a dwindling grants fund balance, according to Broadway.
In another higher education-related action, the Legislative Council also approved North Arkansas College’s request for authorization to hire two security officers and Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas’ request to hire three security supervisors.
The chiefs of the two schools told lawmakers Wednesday that their colleges are the only ones among the state’s 22 community colleges without police on campus; their security officers would be financed with student fee increases.
In other action Friday,the Legislative Council approved a policy allowing legislative committees hold meetings in Arkansas’ surrounding states between annual legislative sessions with the approval of the House speaker or Senate president pro tempore.
Lawmakers attending outof-state legislative committeemeetings between sessions would be paid from interim committee funds for per diem and mileage expenses in the same manner as for in-state committee meetings under the proposal.
Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, said the proposed policy, among other things, could allow the Senate and House Insurance and Commerce committees to go to Memphis to tour children’s hospitals if the committeeswant to study best practices for children’s hospitals.
“There are a number of instances where we could learn from our fellow states and hopefully this will put into place something that protects the people’s moneys, while at the same time allowing us to learn more about what is going on around us,” Chesterfield said.
But Rep. Tommy Thompson, D-Morrilton, questioned the merits of legislative committees spending state taxpayer dollars in Memphis instead of staying in West Memphis.
“I don’t feel like my constituents would want me spending our money out of state if there was a possible reason we could stay in state and handle our business,” he said.
Chesterfield replied, “It would be my hope that we would all take that position and that this would be used rarely in certain cases.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/20/2013