Funds OK'd for libraries, senior centers

State taps rainy-day money to offset budget cuts’ effects

A legislative panel signed off Wednesday on distributing rainy-day funds -- $1 million to public libraries and $1 million to senior citizens centers -- in the next fiscal year in order to restore money cut by the 2015 Legislature.

The Legislative Council's Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Subcommittee approved Gov. Asa Hutchinson's requests for using the funds in fiscal 2017, which starts July 1. Hutchinson uses the rainy-day fund for emergencies and priorities that can't wait until the next regular session, which starts in January.

The subcommittee's action makes good on a deal between legislative leaders and Hutchinson during negotiations in this year's fiscal session on the general revenue budget, said subcommittee co-Chairman Sen. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia.

In last year's regular session, the Legislature reduced fiscal 2016 general revenue funding for public libraries, from its original $5.6 million down to $4.6 million, and for the Department of Human Services' Aging and Adult Services Division, from its original $17.6 million down to $16.5 million.

The budget reduction in the Aging and Adult Services Division cut funding for senior citizens centers, but the House of Representatives in 2015 steered $1 million in one-time General Improvement Funds to the centers to help offset the cuts, according to House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia.

During this year's fiscal session, some Democratic lawmakers pressed their colleagues in the Republican-dominated Legislature to restore the funding for public libraries, saying the cuts led to a reduction of library services, particularly for rural areas. Both Sen. David Burnett, D-Osceola, and Rep. Camille Bennett, D-Lonoke, made proposals to restore the $1 million for public libraries using surplus funds.

"At this point, it is just a short-term fix," Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, said after the subcommittee's action.

Legislators need to reassess the amount of general revenue funding for public libraries and senior citizens centers and whether to restore funding to original levels, he said.

Gilliam said, "I know there are members that would like to make it [the funding] ongoing." He said he's "open to suggestions" on how to do that.

In other action Wednesday, the Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review Subcommittee approved Hutchinson's request to distribute $350,000 in rainy-day funds to the Arkansas Agriculture Department.

Hutchinson said in a letter to the Legislative Council that the funds will be used by the state Plant Board to make repairs to the Bureau of Standards building. The money will be used for a roof replacement needed to avoid possible accreditation issues that could result from leaks into the Plant Board's testing and laboratory facility, said Wendy Cartwright, a senior legislative analyst for the Bureau of Legislative Research.

The state's current balance in the rainy-day fund is about $31.1 million, and the balance will be about $28.7 million after libraries and senior citizens centers each get $1 million and $350,000 goes to the Agriculture Department, Cartwright said.

In fiscal 2016, $35.8 million has been spent out of the rainy-day fund on a variety of state needs, according to the Bureau of Legislative Research. The rainy-day fund will receive $50 million in surplus funds at the start of fiscal 2017, Cartwright said.

During the Legislature's special session on highway funding and various other matters last month, the Legislature enacted a plan -- relying largely on surplus funds and increased investment earnings by the state treasurer's office -- to raise about $50 million a year in state highway funding to match another $200 million in federal funds available in each of the next five years under the new federal highway law.

In the first year of the highway plan -- fiscal 2017 -- the state's rainy-day fund will supply most of the money needed -- $40 million. In later fiscal years, the plan relies on using 25 percent of future general revenue surpluses and $20 million a year from the treasury's interest earnings.

Metro on 06/16/2016

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