Governor Of Arkansas

Steve Barnes: Brace yourself before budget cutting begins in Arkansas

I bumped into Kathy Webb early in the week as both of us were picking up some essentials at a discount store. Good to know that Webb appreciates a bargain, as she, a Democrat from Little Rock, is co-chair of the General Assembly's Joint Budget Committee.

Joint Budget is where the rubber meets the road, where they say yes or no, up or down. Not in prose but in digits. After the deals are done, and the Legislature signs off on the spending formula, in what's known as the Revenue Stabilization Act, it's up to the governor and the Department of Finance and Administration to make the numbers fit, in accordance with the money available — state taxes, federal funds. Not enough money? Out comes the paring knife. Or, as circumstances may dictate, the butcher's cleaver.

How's it going? I asked Webb.

"We'll have to see," she sighed.

"What's going on?" I frowned. (Give me a break, OK? It's August, it was midafternoon and 101 outside, and I had a dozen things on my mind and another two dozen things to get done before sundown).

Webb looked at me as if I was from Mars. Well, she cleared her throat, the state is about to lose a bunch of money. Perhaps I'd heard, her eyes said, that Congress and the White House had reached an agreement on the debt limit, a compromise that involved a few nips in spending; more than $2 trillion over the next 10 years, or, on average, about $200 billion annually.

Expressed another way, the reductions equal all spending by our state government — education, universities, highways, health and human services, prisons, State Police, Game and Fish Commission — for the better part of a decade. And a third of that money comes from Washington.

Some of those dollars, rather a lot of them in terms of some individual state programs, we will have to make do without.

Duh, I said. How bad the damage?

"We don't know," Webb shrugged. "Right now it's just a wait-and-see. But there's probably going to be some pain.

"Anyway," she added, "that's our next — crisis."

I expressed some sympathy for the wails and travails Webb and her colleagues were certain to soon confront, she said she appreciated it, and I'm sure she meant it, and then we went our separate aisles.

I thought to call Webb the following morning, when the state Finance Department released its revenue numbers for July, but figured she was already busy with the figures, trying, along with any number of others in government, to project what the numbers would mean if they don't improve, and quickly. The state began its fiscal year July 1, while the national government's FY begins four months later. Gov. Beebe, who likes to get the tax collection reports on a daily basis, like a movie director looking at the previous days "rushes," had a bit more warning than most of the scene July's takes would portray.

Arkansas Wins National Grant to Fund College Completion

“Governor Beebe gets it: doing more of the same will not boost student success or get Arkansas the additional college graduates it must have to be competitive,” said CCA President Stan Jones. “It’s long past time for bold innovation in higher education to remove unnecessary obstacles to success, fix broken policies that hold students back, speed achievement and redesign pathways to college graduation for the new majority of students who must balance work and school.” The Arkansas Department of Higher Education will lead Arkansas’s involvement in the Completion Innovation Challenge, working to transform remediation and accelerate some certificate-and-degree programs. Participating institutions in the Completion Innovation Challenge include Arkansas State University-Beebe, Arkansas Northeastern College in Blytheville, North Arkansas College in Harrison, Southern Arkansas University-Tech in East Camden, Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, University of Arkansas-Little Rock, University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff and the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.

Do the Right Thing, Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America

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Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

The Governors of Arkansas, Essays in Political Biography

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