After an emotional debate for more than an hour, lawmakers on Thursday failed to decide whether to draft a bill for Gov. Asa Hutchinson's proposal to cut funding for War Memorial Stadium from $895,171 in the fiscal year that starts next July 1 to $447,647 the following fiscal year.
Enough lawmakers left during the debate that the 82-member Legislative Council and Joint Budget Committee lacked a quorum of 42 members to take action. Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, made a motion to draw up bills including $895,171 in general revenue funding requested by the stadium for fiscal 2018, starting July 1, and, again, for fiscal 2019, starting a year later. The stadium is allocated $889,085 in state general revenue in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.
Sen. Hutchinson, who is the governor's nephew, told lawmakers he made the motion "knowing that the governor and we will do a study [about future uses of the stadium], and we'll come back in the fiscal session [in 2018] and [the appropriation] may be changed."
In its next session starting Jan. 9, the Legislature will consider enacting appropriations for state agencies in fiscal 2018.
Gov. Hutchinson, a Republican from Rogers, said Wednesday that his goal is to make War Memorial Stadium self-sustaining. His proposed cut would be about $447,000 in fiscal 2019.
Kevin Crass of Little Rock, chairman of the War Memorial Stadium Commission, told lawmakers that the stadium won't be paid the $475,000 by the University of Arkansas in fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2019 that it received in the past three seasons, even though the Razorbacks are committed to play in Little Rock in the fall of 2017 and the fall of 2018.
The stadium will make its final bond payment of about $525,000 in February, Crass said.
"We are looking at nearly a $1 million cut in fiscal 2019 as compared to fiscal 2017 on a $2.8 [million] or $2.9 million budget," Crass said. "In my view, and I don't want to overstate it -- we'll work with what we have to work with, it would put the stadium in a severe fiscal crisis."
But Rep. Stephen Meeks, R-Greenbrier, said he "would like to see this money go away completely."
Crass said, "If the proposition is, let's cut general revenue so you can become self-sufficient, it is an interesting approach to take, because what it is going to result in [is] a stadium in disrepair [and] a field that might not be even safe to play on." He said the cost of a new field could range from $250,000 with a successful claim against its warranty to $600,000 without such a claim.
He said the stadium has more than 200 events a year and is actively looking at luring concerts and other events. The state owns the footprint of the stadium and everything outside the stadium is owned by the city, he said.
But Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, said stadium officials had about 18 years' notice that the University of Arkansas was looking at playing fewer games in Little Rock and about 10 years since they started receiving state general revenue.
"Why weren't you put on notice at that point to make changes to make sure that you could be fiscally sustainable?" Hester asked.
Crass said he's had less than eight days' notice about Gov. Hutchinson's proposed funding cut and it had never dawned on him that it would be cut that much.
"And I have not given up on Razorback games," he said.
Hester said he was quoted in the news media about wanting to cut state general revenue to the stadium or selling it last year. Little Rock is "certainly welcome to, in my opinion, to have that and they can pay for the funds that are necessary to upkeep the stadium," he said.
Hester said the Razorbacks can't sell out War Memorial Stadium for football games, "so it would be a fiscally responsible decision to move to Fayetteville. ... If the Razorbacks pull out or not is nothing that we can choose as a Legislature.
"We can't keep social workers. We can't take care of our foster kids, yet we want to subsidize a football program. I think it is the furthest thing from a need we have in the state," he said.
But Crass, an attorney, said, "The Legislature probably does have some control over whether the Razorbacks play in Little Rock.
"Whether you want to exercise it or not is the question, and that's not why I am here," he said. "Legislators in other states have forced universities to play for the benefit of the state [or] whatever cause you're advocating."
Crass said the stadium projects budget deficits of about $300,000 in each of fiscal years 2019, 2020 and 2021, with Hutchinson's proposed general revenue cut starting in fiscal 2019, and "that is with some fairly rosy projections for continued events.
"As I sit here today... I cannot see this facility becoming self-sufficient [where] we cover all our expenses by our event revenue. I just don't see it," he said.
Crass said Gov. Hutchinson's recommendation for conducting a feasibility study about use of the stadium "will assist us in developing a plan going forward" for the stadium.
But he said, "If the goal of at least some of this committee is to ultimately take that general revenue down to zero, I don't see how we can pay the bills," he said.
Sen. Eddie Williams, R-Cabot, said there isn't one state park in Arkansas that makes money and "we pour money into it every year.
"I know we tax the state millions of dollars a year to supplement parks all over the state, and this is really no different," he said about War Memorial Stadium.
"It's not a stadium. It's a monument," Williams said.
Earlier, Gov. Hutchinson told reporters that he has "a strong commitment to War Memorial Stadium and any action I take will lead to a more successful War Memorial and its future.
"This is just part of the process of rolling out our budgeting plans for the future. Unfortunately, the focus became that it's fully funded for the first year. Ultimately, I would like to see an events center like War Memorial self-sustaining. That's the way it has been historically. It's always operated in that fashion until, I think it was, 2006," Hutchinson said.
"I hope to have additional announcements in the coming weeks about further plans for War Memorial," Hutchinson added.
Information for this article was contributed by Brian Fanney of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 10/21/2016