By Rob Moritz and John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — The House on Thursday gave final legislative approval to measures that would lower the state’s bingo tax and the state sales tax that manufacturers pay for utilities.

The Senate approved two bills that would require the state to release more information about child abuse and neglect cases, and defeated a measure that would make it easier for the top vote-getter in municipal races with multiple candidates to be elected without a runoff.

In a 95-0 vote, the House concurred in a Senate amendment to House Bill 1111 by Rep. Tracy Pennartz, D-Fort Smith. In its original form, the bill sought to eliminate the 1-cent-per-card tax on bingo games for charity, but as amended in the Senate the bill would lower the tax to three-tenths of a cent.

The bill “will return almost $700,000 in excess to our communities, to our charities across the state,” Pennartz told House members. Operators of charitable bingo games complained that the tax cut deeply into charitable giving. Gov. Mike Beebe opposed eliminating the tax because it would cut funding for state monitoring of the games.

The bill goes to the governor.

The House voted 96-0 to approve Senate Bill 875 by Sen. Barbara Horn, D-Foreman, which would reduce the sales tax on manufacturers’ utilities from 3.875 percent to 3.125 percent, not including the 0.125 percent conservation tax voters approved in 1996. The bill goes to Beebe, who has said he supports the tax cut.

The House previously approved an identical House bill that has not yet come up for a vote on the Senate floor.

The Senate approved SB 493 and SB 494 by Sen. David Johnson, D-Little Rock, which would loosen the current restrictions on information released about fatalities or near fatalities involving juveniles in state protective custody.

Johnson said the bills were requested by the governor to address problems that occurred during in state police and the state Department of Human Services investigations into the deaths of four foster children in state custody. Lawmakers and others complained last summer about the lack of information provided from the investigations.

SB 493 would require the state to place a notice on its Web site within three days of a report of a death or near death received by the state’s child abuse hotline. The information would include the age, race and gender of the child, as well as the date of the incident, the allegations and the placement of the child at the time.

SB 494 would require the information to be released to the public.

The bills go to the House.

The Senate defeated HB 1393 by Rep. Tommy Baker, D-Osceola, that would allow a candidate for city office to avoid a runoff in a multi-candidate race by receiving at least 40 percent of the vote and 20 percent more votes than the second-place finisher.

The bill failed on a 7-12 vote, but at the request of Senate sponsor Sen. Jack Crumbly, D-Widener, members expunged the vote, which would allow Crumbly to bring it back later for consideration.

Also in the chambers Thursday:

• The House approved, 76-12, HB 1256 by Rep. Dan Greenberg, R-Little Rock, which would make it a misdemeanor to encourage, solicit, promote, assist, facilitate, urge or request a drag race on a public highway. The bill goes to the Senate. Last week, the House voted down an earlier version of the bill that would have made observing a drag race a misdemeanor. Greenberg said he amended the bill so that accidental observers of a drag race would not be charged.
• The House passed, 68-26, HB 2007 by Rep. Barry Hyde, D-North Little Rock, which would impose a campus-wide smoking ban at all public institutions of higher education in the state. It goes to the Senate.
• The House passed, 71-17, SB 38 by Sen. Steve Faris, D-Malvern, which would raise the minimum age for riding a personal watercraft from 14 to 16 and require drivers to pass a training course. The measure goes back to the Senate for concurrence in a House amendment.

  The bill is known as “Rachel’s Bill” in honor of 15-year-old Rachel Rutherford, who died in 2007 accident while riding a personal watercraft on Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs.

Elsewhere Thursday, the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs endorsed SB 1001 by Sen. Hank Wilkins, D-Pine Bluff, which would require the attorney general’s office to create a toll-free hotline for people to report incidents of suspected racial profiling and to keep statistics on complaints received. Attorney General McDaniel has said he supports the bill.

“We realize that racial profiling does exist,” Wilkins told the committee. “What we don’t know is whether it is as big a problem as some people may think that it is.”

The committee also endorsed Senate Bill 942, by Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, which would create a task force to study Arkansas’ criminal justice system.

Elliott said the task force would “consider the policies we have in place — do we need to make changes? Are we satisfied?”

SB 470 by Elliott, calling for a task force on reducing poverty in the state, also received the committee’s endorsement.