Legislation that would make it easier for communities to carve out a new school district from an existing school district passed through the state House of Representatives on Monday after failing to clear the chamber last week.
The House met for more than two hours while snow fell around the Capitol and state employees let off early by Gov. Asa Hutchinson clogged roadways as they struggled to leave downtown Little Rock.
Meanwhile, the Senate met for about 30 minutes and sent Hutchinson two bills transferring $17 million of the state's surplus funds to the state Department of Correction.
The House spent almost 40 minutes debating whether to bring House Bill 1242, by Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, back to the floor for another vote. The legislation, which now makes its way to the Senate, lowers the student requirement to form a new school district from 4,000 to 2,500 students.
"This is enabling legislation, but this does not really even set anything into motion at this time," said Rep. Karilyn Brown, R-Sherwood, who asked that the bill be reconsidered. "All state statutes, federal regulations and guidelines would all have to be met. It is simply allowing communities such as Sherwood, which is the 14th largest community in Arkansas, to accept our responsibility and our commitment to educate our children."
Residents of Sherwood and Maumelle have expressed interest in forming their own school districts, carving away from the Pulaski County Special School District, which is in the middle of a five-year state takeover for academic distress. Jacksonville recently voted to form its own school district out of Pulaski County, after meeting the 4,000-student quota.
Opponents of the measure said that the legislation is intertwined with the state's desegregation case related to the school districts in Pulaski County. They said there is a danger that carving out the more affluent areas of the Pulaski County Special School District could create a disparity in resources and create districts that are not racially diverse.
"Winston Churchill once said Americans will eventually do the right thing after they've done everything else. We have done everything else to keep from desegregating the schools from Pulaski County including the state of Arkansas paying over $1.5 billion to those three school districts -- Pulaski County, Little Rock and North Little Rock -- over the course since about 1984," Rep. Doug House, R-North Little Rock, said.
"The state of Arkansas was putting money into schools so people would move out of the central-Arkansas areas. The Supreme Court in other rulings has said that's one of the reasons you build schools, so people will move to them," he added, saying he's worried the state might be sued because of a desegregation violation. "It must be clear that the state of Arkansas has unclean hands. ... We don't obey the court orders, we don't fix the problem."
HB1242 passed with a 60 to 21 vote Monday, after narrowly failing last Tuesday in a 49 to 25 vote.
The House also passed HB1087, which adjusts the language in a social media law passed in 2013 to allow some employers to demand access to an employee's social media account as part of a background check. The bill also clears up some confusion by removing language that barred employers from sending friend requests to employees, said sponsor Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena.
"What we found ... is that we went a little too far and actually barred employers from being your friend on Facebook and barred a lot of the common things that ordinarily take place in society," Bell said.
The amended rules would also allow employers who work with fragile populations -- children, disabled adults or others -- the ability to require access to social media postings as part of a background check.
The legislation passed 91 to 1 and will makes its way to the Senate.
The House also approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 1, which establishes the Joint Rules of the two chambers. The resolution passed 93 to 0, and included language that allows the two chambers' State Agencies and Governmental Affairs committees to meet jointly to discuss the 41 proposed constitutional amendments and whittle the list down to as few as three.
House Speaker Rep. Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, said the rules hopefully will take care of some of the concerns raised by the process during the last regular session in 2013 -- scheduling problems, procedural issues and other concerns.
The Senate approved SCR1 on Jan. 22.
The Senate on Monday sent the governor two bills transferring $17 million of the state's surplus funds to the state Department of Correction.
The Senate approved House Bill 1316 to transfer $6 million of the state's surplus funds to the state Department of Correction to reimburse counties for holding state inmates.
It also approved HB1318, transferring $11 million of surplus funds to the Correction Department to pay banked holiday compensation balances for the department's employees.
State officials have projected that the state has about $216 million in surplus funds. Gov. Asa Hutchinson has proposed spending the surplus on a variety of state needs.
The department owes the counties $9.7 million for holding state inmates, so after the $6 million is reimbursed to the counties, "we will still owe $3.7 million," said department spokesman Cathy Frye.
The department owes its employees $12 million for banked holiday compensation, so after the $11 million is paid to them, "we will still owe $1 million," Frye said.
The House adjourned after about two hours before taking up any bills sent from the Senate. Senate Bill 7, which would abolish the lottery commission and pull the independent agency into the Department of Finance and Administration, is on the agenda for today.
The House passed a handful of other legislation that will now make its way to the Senate.
The House approved HB1357 by Rep. Matt Pitsch, R-Fort Smith, in a 90 to 1 vote. The legislation would authorize the Arkansas Highway Commission to enter into agreements to transfer to or exchange highways with counties and cities.
In a 90 to 0 vote, the House also approved HB1364, by Rep. Charlotte Douglas, R-Alma, that aims to eliminate the income cap on the Older Worker Community Service Employment Program, so that anyone over the age of 55 can apply to work part-time through the program.
The House also passed a drone bill, HB1349, by Rep. Justin Harris, R-West Fork, which would make it illegal to use an unmanned vehicle or aircraft to videotape, photograph, or otherwise record a person without that person's knowledge.
The bill also would prohibit the use of a drone to enter another person's private property and violate privacy. A previous version of Harris' bill was scrapped after several legislators said it was too far-reaching.
Harris joked on the floor Monday that no one would want to videotape if his blinds were open and the bill would prevent them from doing so with an unmanned vehicle. HB1349 passed 85 to 2 and will head to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Two bills that had caused a lot of discussion in committee meetings last week were voluntarily moved back to committee by their sponsors Monday.
Bell requested that his HB1376 go back to the House Judiciary Committee to amend some language. The legislation seeks to amend statutes on battery and assault set in the Arkansas Annotated Code section 5-13-201 to include an unborn child in its definition of a "person."
Rep. David Meeks, R-Conway, also asked that his legislation, HB1372, to amend the state's law concerning concealed weapons on private school grounds be sent back to the House Education Committee for an amendment.
The bill seeks to clarify existing law that says a church-operated private school can allow a person with a concealed carry permit to carry a concealed handgun on campus. The change would specifically include private schools not owned or operated by churches.
Metro on 02/24/2015