FAYETTEVILLE -- The governor's highway plan appears poised to pass, a former minority leader of the state House said Friday, in part because the Legislature exhausted every other option over the course of years.
"What I've been hearing in the House on both sides of the [partisan] aisle is that this bill is workable," said Rep. David Whitaker, D-Fayetteville, referring to the highway measure backed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican.
"Do I like everything in this bill? No," Whitaker said at a forum hosted by the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce. "I can honestly tell you after six years in the Legislature that every other option has been looked at." The forum, attended by Whitaker and Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, began in the Fayetteville Public Library at 4 p.m. Friday.
Hutchinson's plan to raise $95 million a year for the state Department of Transportation to spend on highways won state Senate approval on Thursday. The measure would levy a wholesale sales tax on gasoline and diesel fuel, increase registration fees on electric and hybrid vehicles, and transfer at least $35 million a year in casino revenue and other state funds to the agency. The Senate's 27-8 vote sent the bill to the House.
The wholesale tax created by the bill would start at 3 cents a gallon on gasoline, already under a 21.5-cent-a-gallon excise tax, for a total 24.5 cents. The wholesale tax on diesel would start at 6 cents a gallon, on top of the 22.5-cent excise tax, for a total 28.5 cents. The increases would be effective Oct. 1. Future increases would be limited to 1 cent a year.
Another portion of the governor's plan would require a general election vote to indefinitely extend a half-cent sales tax for roads, due to expire in 2023. That is expected to be referred to the 2020 ballot. In all, the plan would raise $300 million a year for roads.
Increasing taxpayer money for roads was a recognized need every year for the six years he has served in the House, Whitaker said, but no consensus ever formed. Now lawmakers are staring at urgent highway needs put off for years.
"It cost $200,000 a mile for 2 inches of overlay," a layer of asphalt put on roads to cover cracks, Whitaker said. "If you let the road deteriorate until you have to get to the base by milling it up, you're talking millions of dollars if not tens of millions per mile."
On other issue, both lawmakers pledged to look into neighbors complaints about a red dirt mine west of Fayetteville in the Greenborrow Road area off Arkansas 16. Some of the 50 or so attendees of the forum said complaints about the operation have not received a response from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
Other concerns brought up by audience members concerned new managed care requirements by the state Department of Human Services on treatment of the developmentally disabled. Earlier that day, a lawsuit was filed by 15 residential care facilities in Pulaski County Circuit Court in Little Rock on the matter. The suit claims that department's officials "have refused to heed the warnings of various stakeholders" that the three managed care companies planning to participate in the program cannot be ready to take over responsibility for recipients' care next month, when the new rules are supposed to take effect.
Lawmakers share some of the same frustrations as health care providers on these regulations, Whitaker said. "When you ask a question, the answer you get seems to depend on the time of day," he said.
Hendren replied that while he understands the frustrations, it is undeniable that bad actors abused the system. "People are going to prison over it," he said, referring to lobbyists and former lawmakers who have pleaded guilty in an ongoing federal investigation.
NW News on 02/23/2019