Gov. Asa Hutchinson's proposed budget falls short in providing funds for preschool and other programs that benefit children, the director of an advocacy group said Wednesday.
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At a news conference at the Arkansas Education Association's headquarters near the state Capitol, Rich Huddleston, director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, faulted the budget for not including millions of dollars in funding that he said the state's preschool programs need to catch up after not receiving an increase for the past several years.
A federal grant announced in December will provide nearly $60 million for Arkansas' preschool programs over four years, but Huddleston noted that most of that will go toward serving additional children, rather than providing more money to serve those already enrolled.
Funding for the state's preschool program has remained at $111 million per year since 2008. To keep up with inflation since then, the state would have to provide an additional $14 million, according to an interim legislative study released in November.
The budget is a "good faith effort" but "fails to make all the critical investments that we need to make sure children are healthy and well-educated," Huddleston said.
Hutchinson's general revenue budget, unveiled Tuesday, would increase state spending in the fiscal year that starts July 1 by $149.5 million to nearly $5.2 billion, with most of the increase going to public schools, human service programs and prisons.
The budget factors in a $12.8 million reduction in revenue that would result from a proposed income tax cut for Arkansans with taxable incomes ranging from $21,000 and $75,000 and the repeal of capital-gains tax cuts enacted in 2013.
Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said Wednesday that the budget protects the state's higher education institutions from cuts that will affect other agencies and provides funding for schools to meet adequacy requirements.
The governor will work with legislators to assess the need for additional preschool funding, he said.
"There's a lot of great projects out there," Davis said. "At this point, these are the priorities, and the priorities were highlighted in his budget."
Huddleston said the budget does not include new money for after-school and summer youth programs, does not include a state earned-income tax credit for low-income Arkansans, does not provide money to overhaul the state's juvenile justice system and does not "fully fund" the state's child welfare system for abused and neglected children.
Advocates for the poor should urge the Legislature to reject further tax cuts unless they are targeted toward low-income Arkansans, he said.
"We also urge the Legislature to find new ways to raise more money to put into the budget and meet those critical unmet needs," Huddleston said.
A Section on 01/29/2015