By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — A Senate resolution allowing lawmakers to consider a bill setting the amounts of lottery-funded scholarships during the fiscal session passed in the House today, despite opposition from some members who objected to the inclusion of new language in the bill regarding grade inflation.
Also today, Gov. Mike Beebe’s $4.5 billion Revenue Stabilization Act, the mechanism to prioritize spending, balance the budget and bar deficit spending by the state for the fiscal year that begins July 1, was endorsed by the Joint Budget Committee.
Lawmakers said today their goal is to complete their work and end the first-ever fiscal session by the end of next week.
“I think we have a shot to do that,” said Sen. Gilbert Baker, R-Conway, co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee.
Passage of the lottery resolution, which had already been approved by the Senate and mirrored a House resolution passed last week, required a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes in the 100-member house. The measure passed 76-14.
Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, urged members to vote against the procedural resolution. He noted that on Tuesday the legislative oversight committee on the lottery endorsed new language for the lottery bill that would change eligibility requirements for the scholarships for some students.
“This is policy. This session is not supposed to be about policy,” Burris said.
Rep. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia, said the resolution would simply allow introduction of the lottery bill, which has not yet been passed out of committee.
“We don’t know what the final form of the bill will be,” Maloch told House members before the vote.
The new language endorsed by the oversight committee would delay implementation of a provision in the 2009 lottery law that requires a student graduating from a school identified by the state as one that inflates grades to have at least a 2.5 grade point average and either score a 19 on the ACT or pass end-of-course exams to receive a lottery scholarship. For graduates of non-grade-inflation schools, either a 2.5 GPA or a 19 on the ACT is enough to qualify.
The oversight committee recommended that the provision not take effect until 2011. Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, testified last week that imposing two sets of standards from the start would be unfair to students at schools with grade inflation and give them no time to prepare.
The Joint Budget Committee’s endorsement of the Revenue Stabilization Act came after several committee members questioned an amendment which would transfer $25 million from the Budget Stabilization Trust Fund into general revenue to be used only if individual income tax refunds or corporate income tax refunds exceed the amount of money in the state budget at the end of fiscal year.
“We’re talking about worst-case scenario,” said Sen. Shane Broadway, D-Bryant.
Richard Weiss, director of the state Department of Finance and Administration, said the money would only be needed if the state’s revenues were below forecast at the end of the fiscal year and there were an avalanche of tax refund claims the state was required to pay.
Originally, the plan was to transfer $50 million for the next two years, but because the Legislature now only budgets for one year at a time, the amount was scaled back to $25 million.
Some lawmakers questioned whether money in the Budget Stabilization Trust Fund could be borrowed and used for other things, including being placed in the General Improvement Fund.
Weiss said only once has money been borrowed from the fund, and that money was repaid by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
The governor’s proposed budget increases general revenue spending by $176 million. It also restores most of the $206 million in budget cuts that have occurred this fiscal year.
The Revenue Stabilization Act endorsed today by the Joint Budget Committee also includes a plan to borrow $10 million from the Legislature’s share of the General Improvement Fund to help fund a variety of budget items, including paying county jails about $8 million for the housing of state inmates.
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Rob Moritz contributed to this report.
