Lawmakers make short work of bills

Measures head to governor in wee hours; session ends

Rep. Harold Copenhaver (top center), D-Jonesboro, is congratulated Tuesday by Rep. Mike Holcomb, D-Pine Bluff, after his bill on funding for public school employee health insurance was approved.
Rep. Harold Copenhaver (top center), D-Jonesboro, is congratulated Tuesday by Rep. Mike Holcomb, D-Pine Bluff, after his bill on funding for public school employee health insurance was approved.

Early this morning, the Arkansas House of Representatives and Senate passed legislation boosting funding for the public school employees health insurance plan.

They forwarded the legislation to Gov. Mike Beebe before wrapping up a three-day special session.

Members of the House and Senate had passed identical versions several hours earlier Tuesday.

Lawmakers also approved measures that would increase state funding to open 604 prison and jail beds to help relieve a backlog of nearly 2,400 state inmates in county jails. Bills were also approved that would temporarily bar the state lottery from deploying electronic monitor games until mid-March to give the Legislature more time to determine the future of the games.

The Republican-controlled House and Senate quickly approved the measures that the other chamber had approved Tuesday afternoon.

By 12:45 a.m., both chambers had adjourned and lawmakers were headed home.

Beebe, a Democrat, has promised to sign the bills.

Because the House chambers are undergoing renovations, state representatives met at the Old State House Museum on Markham Street in downtown Little Rock. It was the first time since 1983 that lawmakers had convened at the former Capitol building and the first time since 1911 that lawmakers had gathered there to enact laws.

Senators convened in their chamber at the modern state Capitol.

Senate President Pro Tempore Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, said Tuesday that "it looks like that we are going to do everything we set out to do.

Procedures laid out in the Arkansas Constitution prevent bills from being approved in fewer than three days, legislative officials said.

This is the second special session that Beebe has called during the past eight months to enact measures aimed at reducing large increases in the employees' health insurance premiums.

During October's special session, the Legislature authorized the use of $43 million in state surplus funds to help cut proposed premium increases of about 50 percent for members of the public school employees health insurance plan to about 10 percent this year, and it enacted measures to shift $36 million per year in state funds to the plan in the fiscal year that began Tuesday.

The latest legislation sought to cut a rate increase as high as 35 percent for roughly 47,000 teachers and other public school employees. The state's Employee Benefits Division projects an overall rate increase of about 3 percent next year if these changes and other recommendations by a legislative task force are adopted.

SCHOOL HEALTH INSURANCE

The House and Senate on Tuesday approved multiple identical bills boosting funding for the plan.

The measures collectively would save the plan at least $9 million a year, according to supporters of the bills.

In a 88-6 vote, the House approved House Bill 1003 by Rep. Harold Copenhaver, D-Jonesboro, that would make about 4,000 part-time public school employees ineligible for coverage through the plan.

"Some people say this is a Band-Aid," Copenhaver told representatives.

"Well, I say what we did last [special] session was a Band-Aid by providing funding," he said. "We've now taken that Band-Aid off and it's somewhat painful.

"It is not an issue anyone of us could take lightly," Copenhaver said.

Proponents of the proposal said most of the part-time employees would qualify for subsidized coverage that became available Jan. 1. Under the state's private-option program, Arkansas uses federal Medicaid dollars to purchase private health insurance for low-income Arkansans.

The money stems from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which some people refer to as Obamacare.

The state Medicaid expansion program, approved by the Legislature last year, extends coverage to adults with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level -- $16,105 for an individual or $32,913 for a family of four.

During the past two years, the Legislature has barely obtained the three-fourths majority required in the House and Senate to authorize the use of federal funds for the program. The election of two private-option opponents in the Senate apparently leaves the chamber two votes shy of the 27 required to reauthorize funding in the 2015 session.

More than 150,000 people have obtained health insurance coverage through the program since enrollment began Oct. 1, according to the state Department of Human Services.

The federal government will pay the full cost until 2017, when states will begin paying 5 percent of the cost. The states' share will then rise each year until it reaches 10 percent in 2020.

During the debate in the House, Rep. John Payton, R-Wilburn, asked if pushing part-time employees off the public school employees health insurance would backfire because the most "health-needy" employees would have an incentive to try to become full time while the least expensive part-time employees, who pay in but don't use the program much, would be gone.

Copenhaver said school districts can expect to save several million dollars a year in federal payroll taxes and have options to spend it, such as by increasing the hours that part-time employees work to at least 30 hours a week so they become full-time employees in the future.

School districts would save about $7 million annually because they would no longer have to contribute to the cost of roughly 4,000 part-time employees' insurance. The districts are now required to contribute at least $150 per month for each employee enrolled.

But Rep. David Meeks, R-Conway, said the bill eliminating coverage for part-time school employees "seems like a shell game to me."

In a 25-10 vote, the Senate Tuesday approved Senate Bill 4 by Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, which is identical to HB1003.

"This is a hard one. There is no doubt about it," Hendren told senators.

"None of us came down here in the last General Assembly with the idea that we are going to start excluding people from insurance," he said. "But the fact is a decision has to be made. Do we want to have affordable rates or do we want to have a high eligibility?"

In a 90-5 vote, the House approved House Bill 1004 by Copenhaver that would keep public school employees' spouses off of school insurance plans if they can get coverage through their own employers.

The bill also would limit coverage for weight loss surgeries and eventually would transfer about $4.6 million a year from school districts to the public school employees health insurance plan from school districts' payroll tax savings.

In a 29-5 vote, the Senate approved Senate Bill 3 by Hendren, which is identical to HB1004.

PRISONS

The House and Senate also approved measures to send $6.3 million a year to the state Department of Correction to open up 604 prison and jail beds.

They hope to relieve a backlog of nearly 2,400 state inmates in county jails.

Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 1001, identical bills, passed overwhelmingly.

The Senate voted 34-0 to approve SB1. The House voted 90-1 to approve HB1001.

The House and Senate approved these bills after the Joint Budget Committee approved a recommendation from state Department of Finance and Administration Director Richard Weiss to reduce from 3.3 percent to 3.2 percent the deduction from general revenue and special revenue for the state's Constitutional Officers and State Central Services funds.

The reduction in the deduction became effective Tuesday, the first day of fiscal 2015.

"This modification will increase general revenues available for distribution to state agencies by $6.3 million under the current official forecast of general revenue for fiscal 2015," Weiss wrote in a memo to the Joint Budget Committee.

The $6.3 million will open 250 beds in the Pulaski County work center, 124 beds at the Tucker Parole Boot Camp, 100 beds at the McPherson facility outside Newport, 72 beds at the Ouachita River facility outside of Newport and 58 beds at the Northwest Arkansas Work Release Center in Springdale, Department of Correction spokesman Shea Wilson said.

LOTTERY GAMES

Legislation to bar the state lottery from offering electronic monitor games until mid-March also sailed through the House and Senate. The lottery had planned to begin offering these games starting Sept. 29, the day after its five-year anniversary of starting the sell lottery tickets.

The ban on monitor games would expire March 13 under House Bill 1005 by Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, and Senate Bill 5 by Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana.

The House voted 96-1 to approve it.

State Rep. Mark Perry, D-Jacksonville, who in June 2013 suggested that the Lottery Commission consider deploying the electronic monitor games to increase the lottery's declining ticket sales and net proceeds for college scholarships, voted no.

The Senate voted 34-0 to approve an identical bill -- SB5.

The bills reflect a compromise between Hickey, who wants to bar the lottery from offering the electronic monitor games, and House Speaker Davy Carter, R-Cabot, who wants to delay a decision until after the 2015 Legislature convenes Jan. 12.

Supporters of the electronic monitor games said they are similar to Powerball and Mega Millions, except drawings would be held every four minutes and results would be shown on monitors similar to television screens set up in participating locations.

Hickey told senators Tuesday that he doesn't believe there is any difference between video lottery terminals that are prohibited under state law and the electronic monitor games that the lottery wants to deploy.

Lottery Director Bishop Woosley has maintained that the electronic monitor games are not interactive like video lottery terminals.

Hickey said in an interview that he intends to propose legislation in the 2015 regular session to permanently ban the lottery from offering the electronic monitor games.

Woosley told reporters that he plans to make the case to lawmakers about why they should allow the lottery to operate these electronic monitor games because "it's my job to try and find new sources of revenue."

Lamoureux said senators "need to see the machines" because "we need to know what we are talking about" before reaching a final decision.

The lottery's fiscal 2015 budget projects ticket sales of $428 million with $81.2 million collected for college scholarships. That calculation includes about $12.5 million in quick-draw game revenue with about $3.5 million of that going toward college scholarships. The lottery's ticket sales and the amount raised for college scholarships have declined for the past two years.

A section on 07/02/2014

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