Gov. Asa Hutchinson named 20 people Wednesday to his Governor's Working Group on Highway Funding, including key members of his administration, people who have promoted highway interests and representatives of higher education.
The working group has until Dec. 15 to provide the governor recommendations "to create a reliable, modern and effective system of highway funding," according to the executive order Hutchinson issued last week.
Members of the executive branch named to the panel include Duncan Baird, Hutchinson's budget director; Larry Walther, the director of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration; and Brett Powell, director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
Philip Taldo, co-owner of a realty company and a building company in Northwest Arkansas, was also named to the group Wednesday. The governor appointed him to serve on the Arkansas Economic Development Commission in January.
The group also includes several proponents of increased highway funding, such as Scott Bennett, the director of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, and Arkansas Highway Commission members Frank Scott Jr. of Little Rock and Alec Farmer of Jonesboro.
Also named to the group was Shannon Newton, president of the Arkansas Trucking Association; Scott McGeorge, president of road contractor Pine Bluff Sand & Gravel; Guy Washburn, executive director of the Arkansas Asphalt Association; and state Rep. Prissy Hickerson, R-Texarkana, a former member of the Highway Commission and chairman of the House Public Transportation Committee.
Powell is one of two representatives from higher education. The other is Robin Bowen, president of Arkansas Tech University in Russellville.
"I look forward to participating in conversations with this diverse committee as we seek a sustainable model for funding our state's transportation infrastructure," Bowen said in a news release.
One observer and at least one member of the working group hope it builds on the work of the Arkansas Blue Ribbon Committee on Highway Finance, which disbanded in 2010. Two of its major recommendations were later approved by voters: the $1.2 billion program to repair interstates in 2011 and a $1.8 billion highway reconstruction program approved in 2012. The latter included a temporary, 10-year half-percent statewide sales tax to help finance it.
State highway officials, while praising the two initiatives as integral to improving Arkansas' 16,000-mile highway system, say those are temporary fixes and they need a long-term alternative to fuel taxes, which account for most of the funding for ongoing maintenance and construction. Rising construction costs and more fuel-efficient vehicles have eroded their spending power.
"This group, I think, can get off to a fast start because it can focus on the solution and not the problem," said Craig Douglass, who did work for the earlier panel and is a member of the new panel in his capacity as the executive director of the Arkansas Good Roads/Transportation Council.
Jim McKenzie -- executive director of Metroplan, the long-range transportation planning agency for central Arkansas --was a member of the Blue-Ribbon Committee.
"I would encourage them to look at all of the work of the Blue Ribbon Committee," he said. "There's no sense in reinventing the wheel. They did good work."
Only one member of the new panel served on the old one: state Sen. Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, chairman of the Senate Transportation, Technology and Legislative Affairs Committee.
Another legislator named to the panel was Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, who sponsored legislation in the most recent legislative session that would have shifted as much as $2.8 billion from state general revenue to highway construction.
Under Douglas' bill, a portion of the money from the sale of new cars and trucks and some road-user items gradually would be shifted from the state general budget to the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. The shift would have applied only to the portion of money that is above what came in the previous year and thus, proponents say, would not only have preserved the base general revenue being collected but also allowed general-revenue growth to be available to other agencies and providers.
Although it won a recommendation from Hickerson's committee, the bill ran into opposition from social services organizations and higher education representatives.
Douglas withdrew the bill at the request of the Hutchinson administration, which also opposed it because of budgetary concerns. As an alternative to Douglas' bill, the governor announced he would create the working group.
Hutchinson named Randy Zook, president and chief executive officer of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, to the working group. The chamber was one of the chief backers Douglas' bill. Jonesboro Mayor Harold Perrin was selected to represent municipal elected officials on the working group. Their organization, the Arkansas Municipal League, also supported the bill.
Also on the panel is Cleburne County Judge Jerry Holmes. The Association of Arkansas Counties had no position on Douglas' bill.
The final members of the working group are state Rep. Andy Davis, R-Little Rock, a member of the Joint Budget Committee, and Jackson Williams, a Little Rock attorney skilled in public finance.
The date of the first meeting hasn't been determined as of Wednesday, said J.R. Davis, the governor's spokesman.
Metro on 05/07/2015