Panels favor bills cutting jobless aid, allowing school-bus ads

Legislative committees set to work Thursday considering bills on unemployment benefits, school-bus advertising and other measures despite the blanket of snow and sleet that closed state offices.

The House Revenue and Taxation Committee sent several bills to the full House, including one that would reduce unemployment benefits for Arkansans.

Meanwhile, the House Education Committee sent more than a dozen pieces of legislation to the House including a bill to allow advertising on school buses, a bill repealing state law requiring testing of home-schooled students and a bill promoting transparency in charter-school lotteries.

House Bill 1495 by Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, would allow a school district or school board to permit advertising on school buses. The advertising would have to meet standards set by the Commission for Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation, he said.

"We all know all of our school districts' transportation budgets are stretched thin," Douglas said. "Of course we don't want to open up advertising to just anything. We don't want beer, or smoking or Scotch advertisements. We don't want Seductions [a lingerie store] or other stores that might not be appropriate advertising."

Several committee members raised concerns about whether the bill would force clubs that operate by selling advertising, such as the school yearbook, to compete with the district selling the bus advertising. They also wanted to know whether the advertising would be available to political candidates.

Douglas said the rules would have to go through the legislative rule-making process before any advertising was sold. The measure passed on a voice vote.

The committee also approved HB1381 by Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena, to repeal parts of Arkansas Code 6-15-504 so that home-schooled Arkansas students would not be required to take the same assessment tests as students in public school districts.

The bill strikes most of the language in the statute. It adds language saying that a school district that "chooses to assess" a home-schooled student who enrolls in the district may use the same assessment the district uses when a student transfers from another district.

HB1516 by Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, which would require lotteries held to determine students who receive slots in an open-enrollment charter school be transparent, passed out of committee. The bill defines transparency as having the lottery in a public forum or allowing the Department of Education or an entity designated by the department to conduct the lottery.

Under the bill, the schools must provide to anyone who asks a copy of the methodology used to conduct the lottery. If an open-enrollment charter school violates that standard of transparency, under the legislation the state could reduce the school's state funding by 20 percent the year after the violation.

All three education bills will head to the House floor.

UNEMPLOYMENT

HB1489, sponsored by Rep. Lane Jean, R-Magnolia, would reduce the number of weeks and the maximum weekly benefit unemployed workers can receive. The weeks would be reduced from 25 to 20 and the maximum benefit would drop by about $20 a week because of an adjustment in how the benefit is determined.

The bill passed through the House Revenue and Taxation Committee on Thursday and will head to the House floor for consideration.

Supporters of the bill, including the House Republican Caucus, said it's a necessary measure to keep the state's unemployment insurance fund afloat. They also say Arkansas is out of step with surrounding states that offer less in unemployment benefits to their residents.

The Arkansas chapter of the AFL-CIO opposed the bill, saying the unemployment fund is solvent without the changes, which AFL-CIO representatives said will cut about $50 million from unemployment checks annually.

'RE-HOMING'

A bill was filed Thursday to make the practice of "re-homing" adopted children illegal.

HB1676, by Rep. David Meeks, R-Conway, would make it an unclassified felony to re-home an adopted child, permanently placing the child in a new home with an unrelated person or family without seeking approval from the state. The felony would be punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of not more than $5,000.

The practice came to light this week after the Arkansas Times reported that Rep. Justin Harris, R-West Fork, had sent two girls he had adopted to Eric Cameron Francis and his family. Francis was later arrested and pleaded guilty to raping one of the girls.

Meeks said the bill is modeled after a law passed in Louisiana, one of four states to approve a law outlawing the practice in the past 18 months to 24 months.

Meeks said the issue was fairly new to Arkansas and to the rest of the country. He said the U.S. Congress is also working on federal legislation regarding the matter. It's the second bill filed to outlaw re-homing since the weekly newspaper published the article Wednesday.

Metro on 03/06/2015

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