I admit to having a favorite among Gov. Asa Hutchinson's proposals for tax cuts: Eliminate taxes on military retirement pay. I anticipate nothing but positive, prosperous results from doing just that. Those with doubts should ask neighboring Texans.
Reader Harvey Gardner Jr., 83, of North Little Rock, a retired B-52 pilot and construction company owner, sure shares my view.
In a recent exchange, Gardner talked of sharing a cold beverage with a Texas legislative friend who emphasized the many pluses to arise from attracting as many military retirees as possible.
Here's a few of those positives, Gardner says: Military retirees are self-sufficient; they don't need freebies or welfare. They draw lifelong guaranteed incomes with annual cost-of-living adjustments. Most average in their early to mid-40s with grown children who don't put burdens on local school systems. They have their own health and drug coverage. Most are well-educated, law-abiding, productive and socially contributing citizens. They're usually homeowners who pay taxes and contribute much to local sales taxes. Retirees also can provide a valuable resource for a capable and responsible work force when it comes to filling part-time, skilled and secondary jobs.
Gardner said his Texas buddy said that for these reasons and more his state openly courts military retirees by offering them homestead exemptions and no income tax.
So it's easy to see why I, too, believe we're missing a potentially beneficial boat, especially considering the abundance of natural amenities and recreational opportunities our state has to offer.
Gardner said he decided to do a bit of research with Department of Defense statistics. He learned that, as of 2013, Arkansas' ratio of military retirees stood at roughly one military retiree to every 11 civilian retirees. The ratio in Texas stood at one to 13.
The number of military retirees on a national level is anything but insignificant. The website Statista says the estimated number has been steadily rising for years. It stands at 2.1 million entering 2017. By 2026 that will have climbed to almost 2.2 million.
It's downright foolish not to do everything we can as a state to convince these veterans Arkansas is truly an ideal location to spend their retirement years.
Besides being relatively centrally located to many extended families, we are a day's drive to the finest beaches in America, and home to some of the finest fishing, hunting, golf course and retirement communities as well as recreation on lakes and streams.
So I salute the governor for moving to attract ever-increasing numbers of military retirees to Arkansas. It's a win-win step we should have taken years ago.
Deserving deputies
I'm hoping voters in relatively impoverished Newton County will turn out in record numbers Feb. 14 to give their overworked and badly undercompensated sheriff's deputies a richly deserved valentine of a raise.
Gosh knows, these lawmen are indeed among the most deserving, already being among the most underpaid across the state. A news story by ace reporter Bill Bowden says incoming full-time deputies earn an embarrassing $21,260 a year.
So voters in this county with a population just over 8,000 where more than half the property belongs to either the state or federal governments--which means the local government receives no tax revenue on it--must decide how valued their deputies are in a special election.
Meanwhile, Chief Deputy Jarred Morgan told Bowden that mountainous Newton County, with its magnificent Buffalo National River, steep and rugged hiking trails and dense forests, understandably has become one of the busiest in the nation when it comes to search and rescue operations.
As Bowden's story explained, "that translates to long hours in a county that doesn't pay overtime. So deputies have to take compensatory time off. Often, when deputies leave for another job, they've accrued hundreds of hours of comp time, Morgan said. While the departing deputy is being paid for comp time, the sheriff's office doesn't have the funding to hire a new deputy."
Morgan and other deputies appeared before the county's Quorum Court on Nov. 7, to respectfully plead for a budget increase to accommodate at least reasonable salaries.
He said they were simply seeking fair compensation, "especially for the additional things we have to do and the unpleasant things we regularly deal with. We usually have two deputies in the evening to cover the 822 square miles of Newton County, but oftentimes deputies work the entire county alone."
So I'm hoping the good people of Newton County will show up by the hundreds, if not thousands, to approve the 1 percent sales tax that can help pay their jail's operating expenses while lifting their deserving deputies' salaries at least to, well, starvation levels.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 01/01/2017