Gov. Mike Beebe on Tuesday issued a call for the Legislature to convene in a special session starting Monday to consider bills providing more state funding for the state's public school employees' health insurance plan and to open up 600 prison and jail beds.

But he declined to authorize the Legislature to consider a measure to ban the lottery from offering electronic monitor games, such as keno and quick-draw, saying, "They don't have the votes in the House, and the House is not interested in doing it."

The House will convene in the old state capitol building because its chambers are being restored, while the Senate will meet in the current state Capitol.

Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, who has drafted legislation to ban electronic monitor games, said later that he hopes to persuade the Democratic governor today to add the proposed lottery legislation to the agenda for next week's special session.

He said he conservatively estimates that at least 60 of the 100 House members want to ban electronic monitor games.

Four days after legislative leaders said they had enough votes in the House and Senate for bills to approve more state funding for the health insurance plan and to open prison and jail beds, Beebe on Tuesday afternoon issued a proclamation for the Republican-controlled Legislature to meet in a special session starting Monday at 4 p.m.

The governor has the power to call special sessions under Article 6, Section 19 of the Arkansas Constitution.

Senate President Pro Tempore Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, said he expects "a pretty quick" special session lasting three days because lawmakers already have their minds made up about the three bills.

About three hours before he issued his proclamation calling for the special session, Beebe said "somebody [temporarily] threw a monkey wrench into part of this," and one of the bills dealing with the public school employees health insurance plan was changed "back to something that nobody has agreed to and that we didn't like to begin with that messes with the [state's public school funding formula].

"Until they get that straightened out, we got a hiatus," he said.

But Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, said the version Beebe objected to was an earlier draft that was inadvertently forwarded to the governor's office and isn't the proposed legislation that the majority of lawmakers have agreed to support.

The version Beebe objected to "never got beyond the draft stage," said Hendren, chairman of the Legislature's State and Public School Life and Health Insurance Program Legislative Task Force.

The final version would transfer about $4.6 million from school districts to the health insurance plans that cover 47,000 teachers and other public school employees.

School districts would save about $7 million annually because they would no longer have to contribute toward 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.

The proposed measures also would adopt and implement recommendations by the legislative task force aimed at improving the insurance plans' finances. These recommendations include excluding from coverage employees' spouses who have access to insurance from their own employers and limiting a legislatively mandated program covering weight-loss surgeries.

The measures are aimed at reducing a potential 35 percent rate increase next year. Bob Alexander, director of the state's Employee Benefits Division, said Tuesday that he's not sure how much rates will increase next year, adding it's still too early to know.

Beebe has also proposed legislation to reallocate $6.3 million a year from the state's Central Services Fund to open up about 600 state prison and Pulaski County work center beds to relieve the backlog of state prisoners in county jails.

Beebe said he considers the public school employees health insurance, and prison and jail bills to be "incremental.

"If anybody thinks this is the end-all and the cure-all and the be-all of all this stuff, I suspect they'll be dealing with it for a while," he said. "What they did in October of last year was the biggest help because it was new real money from the state to teacher insurance, and it took a 50 percent increase down to 10 [percent]. This is adding onto it."

In an October special session, the Legislature decided to give $43 million in surplus funds to the public school employees health insurance plan.

Beebe said opening 600 prison and jail beds "certainly helps, but if you got 2,500 backed up in the county jail, simple math will tell you it is not the end of the story."

He said he expects the number of state inmates in county jails to level off in the near future.

Beebe said he doesn't know how many votes were lined up in the House for the bill banning electronic monitor games.

"They just said they didn't have the votes," he said, referring to the House leaders' vote count. "My understanding was they were short of 50.

"That was something that I was willing to accommodate if both the House and the Senate wanted to do it. It was not something that I initiated. I am all right either way on that," Beebe said.

House Republican leader Ken Bragg of Sheridan said later that most of the House Republican Caucus members support the proposed bill banning monitor games, though he hasn't been able to reach all 51 members.

House Democratic leader Eddie Armstrong of North Little Rock said 28 of the 48-member House Democratic Caucus voted against considering the proposed lottery legislation in a special session, preferring to consider the matter in the 2015 regular session.

Sixteen representatives favor the legislation and four are undecided, he said.

Hickey said he doesn't believe the governor's office was given "the correct number" of representatives who support the bill.

"It is only fair for him to know what the exact number is to be able to put it on the call," he said.

Senate Republican Whip Jonathan Dismang of Searcy, who supports Hickey's proposal, said he plans to attend Hickey's meeting with Beebe.

Asked whether Beebe would be open to adding this proposed lottery bill to the call for the special session, Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said he'll know more after Beebe's meeting with Hickey this morning.

Two months ago, the Arkansas Lottery Commission decided to pursue implementation of electronic monitor games -- a day after the majority of the Legislature's lottery oversight committee, led by senators on the committee, declared opposition to the proposal.

Backers compare the games 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 some participating locations.

A year ago, lottery oversight committee co-chairman Rep. Mark Perry, D-Jacksonville, urged the lottery commission to consider offering monitor games to boost dipping ticket sales and net proceeds for college scholarships. House Speaker Davy Carter, R-Cabot, who appointed Perry, has said he's not personally interested in trying to ban those games in a special session.

After being hired in June 2009, then-lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue said he hoped the Arkansas lottery would offer keno, something the South Carolina lottery -- where he had worked previously -- didn't do.

But Beebe and some lawmakers said they weren't interested in offering keno, and the idea quietly fizzled in the summer of 2009.

As a result of an extensive restoration project in the House chamber at the state Capitol, the Arkansas House of Representatives will convene starting Monday in the Old State House in downtown Little Rock for the first time in more that 30 years, the House said Tuesday. It will also be the first time in more than a century that substantial legislation will be introduced and debated in the Old State House Chamber.

"History teaches us valuable lessons that we all carry with us when making decisions about our future. What better way to remember our heritage and honor the historic structures that shaped our state, than by passing legislation in the oldest standing Capitol building west of the Mississippi," Carter said in a written statement.

Front on 06/25/2014