Backers say bill aids workforce training

Students walk across campus at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville in this file photo.
Students walk across campus at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville in this file photo.

BENTONVILLE -- Regional school districts would be able to pool resources into one workforce training center under a bill that drew praise Saturday at a forum of legislators in Bentonville.

Senate Bill 288 by state Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, who owns a plastics company and is a former member of the Gravette School Board, would allow more than one school district to put money and other resources into workforce development centers that all participating districts could use.

The bill came up at a forum hosted by the Rogers/Lowell and Greater Bentonville chambers of commerce at Northwest Arkansas Community College on Saturday morning. Chamber officials and educators said the bill, if passed, would be a boon to attempts to teach public school students directly relevant skills for area employers.

"We have a program like this, but it's not available to all students simply because we can't provide transportation," said Debbie Jones, superintendent of the Bentonville School District.

The district has to rent space at the community college and tell students they must get to the classes themselves, making it impractical for many, she said. Meanwhile, a regional center with cooperating districts could provide bus service on an economical scale, supporters of the idea said at the forum.

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Spokesmen for the Rogers/Lowell chamber also praised the bill, saying it would help efforts to provide more workforce education for specialized, in-demand skills such as welding and computer programming for industrial equipment.

Without a change, school districts can't spend money outside the district, Hendren said at the forum. But that was not the only obstacle to such cooperation, he said.

"As a former member of the Gravette School Board, I can tell you that there was a time when Gravette and Bentonville were not cooperating as they are cooperating now," along with other districts in the region, such as Pea Ridge, he said.

Much of Saturday's forum was spent discussing state efforts to collect state and local sales taxes on purchases made through the Internet. Online retailer Amazon announced Friday that it will begin collecting Arkansas sales taxes on online sales to state residents after state lawmakers took up legislation on the matter.

The state Legislature's efforts were criticized by the Washington, D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform as an attempt to tax out-of-state merchants who "will not use or benefit from any public service, program or project funded by Arkansas' sales tax."

That argument is ludicrous on its face, state Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, said Saturday. Items purchased online cross Arkansas highways, county roads and city streets, he said. Often they arrive at taxpayer-funded airports, he said.

Online purchases have become too large a segment of the economy to ignore, Douglas said.

Metro on 02/12/2017

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