Gov. Asa Hutchinson has vetoed legislation that would grant the state Department of Education $850,000 in spending authority to continue paying for a panic-button alert system in public schools in the fiscal year starting July 1.
The Rave Panic Button helps protect about 476,000 students and 39,000 faculty in the public schools in Arkansas, said Todd Miller, a vice president of public safety services for Framingham, Mass.-based Rave Mobile Safety, the company behind the Rave Panic Button app. Funding has come from various parts of state government.
Hutchinson said in a letter to the Senate dated Thursday and released Friday that he vetoed Senate Bill 446 by Sen. Larry Teague, D-Nashville, because "it is now up to the local school districts to choose whether to pay for the panic-button alert systems.
"When the panic button system was initially presented for funding in [fiscal 2016], it was presented as a pilot project that the local school districts would eventually pay for," the Republican governor said in his veto letter.
"After funding for [fiscal 2016] from the Department of Education and for [fiscal 2017] with money from the attorney general's office, it's now time for the local school districts to choose to fund this or not," Hutchinson said.
Teague said Friday that he likes the concept of the panic-button alert system "but we don't have the money" to fund it in fiscal 2018, which starts July 1.
"I've been very clear we don't have the money for the whole session," said Teague, who is co-chairman of the Legislature's Joint Budget Committee.
Rep. Scott Baltz, D-Pocahontas, sponsored Act 950 of 2015, which required public schools to have a panic-button system by Sept. 1, 2015, if funding was available.
Baltz said Friday that Rep. Joe Jett, R-Success, told him last week that a governor's staff member told Jett that the panic button "would never be funded again" unless Baltz voted in the House for Senate Bill 140. SB140 was aimed at persuading out-of-state companies without a physical presence in Arkansas to collect sales taxes on their sales to Arkansans and remit the collected taxes to state government.
Baltz voted against SB140 on Monday as the bill failed to clear the House in a 43-50 vote. The bill needed 51 votes to pass in the 100-member House.
Baltz said "it's wrong" to hold the protection of more than 500,000 students, faculty and staff hostage "for a perceived tax increase."
Jett countered that what he told Baltz was that a governor's staff member, whom Jett declined to identify, said Baltz needed to be worried about what would happen with the panic-button program if Baltz "didn't get on board" with SB140.
Baltz later stuck by his claim about what Jett told him.
Jett said Baltz indicated he would vote for SB140 if the governor agreed to continue funding the panic-button program. Baltz confirmed that's what he told Jett.
Asked whether Hutchinson authorized any of his staff to have Jett talk to Baltz about the program and SB140, Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis wrote Friday morning in an email, "I will check, but that would really surprise me."
Davis could not be reached for further comment by email or telephone by early Friday evening.
In 2015, the state Department of Emergency Management signed a $950,000 contract with Rave Mobile Safety to provide panic-button phone apps to public school employees after Act 950 of 2015 took effect. During fiscal 2016, the implementation of the system was funded by the Education Department using unobligated funds. The attorney general's office provided $850,000 in settlement funds to the Department of Emergency Management for the system in fiscal 2017, according to attorney general's office records. Fiscal 2017 ends June 30.
Rave Mobile Safety's lobbyists are Ted and Julie Mullenix of Mullenix & Associates. Ted Mullenix is a former state representative.
Miller said he hopes Rave Mobile Safety can work with Hutchinson and the Legislature in a special session to again provide statewide funding for the panic-button program. The program is used in about 25 states across the nation, he said.
Metro on 04/08/2017