Lawmakers: Education, Prison Priorites Clashing

Saturday, March 8, 2014

FAYETTEVILLE --The stage is set for a schools versus prisons budget fight in the next legislative session, said two lawmakers at a Northwest Arkansas political forum on Friday.

Money for prekindergarten programs in schools has not had an increase in six years, said Sen. Uvalde Lindsey and Rep. Greg Leding, both Democrats from Fayetteville. Yet money for prison-related expenses got the lion's share of new appropriations out of greater-than-expected revenue this fiscal year. Those appropriations are being made during the state's fiscal session, which is winding down.

Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville and David Whitaker, D-Fayetteville, also attended the forum hosted by the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce. Hendren said the new appropriations for prisons largely went to pay debts already incurred, such as holiday and overtime pay to prison personnel and compensation to county jails holding a backlog of state prisoners. "It isn't because we're building new prisons," said Hendren, a member of the Senate Education Committee. "We're paying what's owed."

Those expenses and the prison backlog that caused them result from the decision to curtail programs enacted in Act 570 of 2011, Leding and Lindsey said. The reforms in Act 570 were designed to reduce prison expenses by beefing up probation and parole programs. Those programs were sharply curtailed when a state inmate with multiple parole violations was arrested in May in connection with the kidnapping, robbing and murder of a Fayetteville teenager. The parolee also had at least 10 other felony charges pending against him, all filed while he was out on parole for four and a half years.

There was an effort to add more money for prekindergarten programs in the fiscal session, but the measure faltered. "The fight is not over," Lindsey said. "It will go on into the fall budget hearings and into the 2015 regular session" of the Legislature. Other issues on education spending will also be taken up, such as the wide range of things the state allows school districts to spend money upon. "We are spending way too much money on things that are not proven to be productive," he said. For example, money that is supposed to be spent on programs for free and reduced lunches is sometimes allocated to pay for teacher aides, he said.

"We spend a lot of money incarcerating folks that would be better spent in an education that will help keep more people out of prison," Lindsey said. "That's a crucial, bedrock philosophical distinction."

All legislators at the forum agreed the decision made by lawmakers to spend no more than $25 million of the $125 million surplus was wise. The fiscal session has a limited duration of 30 calendar days, with an additional 15 days possible if two-thirds of both chambers agree to it. The spending of $100 million requires more consideration than it can be given in a fiscal session, the lawmakers agreed.

NW News on 03/08/2014