Senate Education Committee
January 15, 2025
Senator Jane English I call this meeting of the Senate Education Committee to order, and I'm glad to see everybody here. We're off to another wonderful year, another wonderful session. Lots of good things are going to happen, I'm sure. So what I'd like to do first off is give our members an opportunity to introduce themselves and give us a little background on them and their experience with education. And then we will ask everybody in the room to identify themselves, introduce themselves because all of you are interested in education and something that has to do with education, so we need to know who we all are, who our faces are. So I'll start with Senator Sullivan.
Senator Dan Sullivan Thank you. Senator Dan Sullivan. I have about 30 years in education at about every level, elementary teacher to principal, to junior high, secondary, even a few years in college, if you can count coaching as being in higher ed. Then I went into private sector and was still involved in education in the private sector with young children with multiple disabilities. I was on the Education committee my first year in the House, was on Public Health until then and back here in Education. Looking forward to it. Thank you very much.
Senator Jane English Stephanie.
Senator Stephanie Flowers Senator Stephanie Flowers. I am from District 8, which is parts of six counties in southeast Arkansas. My home base is Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I am a lawyer by profession for 43 years. I've handled education cases, individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and I also represented juveniles in juvenile court and do a lot of family law practice in my past. I've practiced in Texas and in Arkansas. And I'm glad to be on the Education Committee. I first ran for office in 2005 for the House, and that was motivated by my son's educational experience at Dollarway School District in Pine Bluff. And like I said, excited to be here. Hoping to learn what the future holds for the children in my district.
Senator Jane English All right. Senator Murdock. It takes a minute.
Senator Reginald Murdock Good morning, Senator Reginald Murdock. I'm from District 9, which is primarily the Delta, Lee, Saint Francis and Crittenden County and Phillips County as well. I've never been a teacher or educator. I've been married to one for 35 years, so I have a lot of experience. I've been on school boards, volunteer in school districts. Legislatively, I've been the vice chair in the House on the Education Committee. I've been on the Education Committee probably two times down there in the 14 years I've been here. And this is my first time since I've been in the Senate. So obviously very close to the educational process.
Was the author, lead sponsor on one of the most transformational bills that is used in education in Arkansas, which you call it the 1240 waivers, which really is not that anymore . It was something else since last session. I think Act 337, 347, whatever. But anyway, it was always called Act 1240 waivers and it gave diversity to teachers in districts and schools to administer education in various ways. It gave them opportunities for flexibility and it was innovation and it was very controversial at the end.
But it's become the most utilized piece of education in the Arkansas General Assembly since that happened. And I'm very proud of that and what it meant. There were a lot of fears and scares of what that would have become. It never has become that. Many, many, many, many districts have honored me and you in the legislature for passing that piece of legislation. It's been much used.
So I look forward to continue to try to understand and do more informative, innovative things as it relates to education and the uniqueness of our state. We have areas in the state are just different and hopefully we can bring that out of the Senate Education Committee and we can make sure we address all of those things throughout this session. So I'll look forward to continuing and glad to be here and hopefully we can be productive for the citizens and state of Arkansas. Thank you.
Senator Jane English Thank you. Senator Dotson.
Senator Jim Dotson Thank you. Senator Jim Dotson from Northwest Arkansas. My District 34 covers north central Benton County, which is north side of Bentonville and Centerton, all of Bella Vista and the Hiwasse side of Gravette. So it's a compact district in the northwest corner of the state with a lot of population and growing. Education has been one of the key focuses in the going on-- this is my 13th year in the legislature.
I've been on the Education Committee a couple of times. Happy to return as one of the returning members to this body from last session. I worked on various things. The Act 1240 waivers. That still is one of my favorite pieces of legislation that we've done. I think it's been almost ten years now since that was done. And so I've been involved with the Education Committee and process and stuff for quite a while.
Senator Jane English Thank you. Kristen, you can introduce yourself. Yes. You're part of our team.
Kristen Washington Hello, everyone. I'm Kristen Washington, the committee analyst for this committee. And we also have our administrative analyst here, Riley Sewell.
Senator Jane English Now, I'd like to take a little couple of minutes and let everybody around the room introduce themselves and tell us who you're with so we have a better idea of who our audience is. And we'll start back there in the corner.
[Audience Introductions]
Senator Jane English Very good. Very good. Thank you very much, everybody, for being here. So now we will begin our little business meeting. And I would like to introduce Senator Dan Sullivan, who is our vice chair for this session. And thank you. Pleased to have you here. And you all have these folders in front of you. So, if you would, all the information that we do during this session is going to be into these folders. And please leave them here. Don't take them with you.
Which is a reminder for some of you who have not been on the Education Committee, even some of us who have been on the Education Committee. Kristen set this out to you, this chronology of changes. And it really is sort of interesting if you look at it and begin to think about where we started and how we are where we are today. So if you haven't had a chance to look at that, I would encourage you to take the time to go through it, because it does give us a pretty good idea of what changes have taken place over the last umpteen years and how we are where we are today. Education, I think, is pretty confusing. We keep changing and adding and new things come up. And so I think this is very important.
The other thing that we have, too, is that we need to adopt our rules. And one of the things that I would make a motion that we add to this is that each bill must have a fiscal impact statement. The House requires that for every single bill that they have that goes through their committees. And I feel like that's important for us to do the same thing. Otherwise it just sits and waits. And if it gets closer to the end, we have a hard time if we don't have the fiscal impact getting things back to the House. So I would make a motion that we have that fiscal impact statement required for all of our bills.
Senator Dan Sullivan Does that have to be in writing?
Senator Jane English No, I mean, yeah, it does need to be. I mean, we need to have this statement come through. We've had it before. And a lot of times it will accompany a House bill, but a lot of times it doesn't. And then if we start something, it won't go through the House at all until it's had a fiscal impact statement. So it just kind of sits down there until they do a fiscal impact. Senator Dotson. It takes a minute.
Senator Jim Dotson Yes. So I know theoretically that can be true, but I know that there have been many Senate bills that have come from the Senate that have gone through the Education Committee without having that. So I'm not entirely sure we have to have that in our rule in order to have one of our bills go through the House. I mean, I think it's fine to have one, but I didn't like the rule necessarily on the House end. And how soon does the fiscal statement have to be in your proposal before it before it can be heard in committee?
Senator Jane English It just comes with the bill.
Senator Jim Dotson And who does it?
Senator Jane English The Bureau.
Senator Jim Dotson It would be the Bureau that would-- I mean, before we adopt a rule change like that, I'd kind of like to see it in writing.
Senator Jane English See the rule in writing?
Senator Jim Dotson Your rule proposal.
Senator Jane English It's in the new rules here.
Senator Jim Dotson I didn't see any changes.
Senator Jane English It's in the--
Senator Jim Dotson It's in the draft?
Senator Jane English Yeah. Fiscal impact statement shall be made available to the committee at least one day before the bill may be called up for final action in the committee.
Senator Dan Sullivan What number is that?
Senator Jane English That's 7B.
Senator Jim Dotson That's only related to higher education grant funding for lottery scholarships, right?
Senator Jane English Mo. I think it's in there, but it is not part. It's only K through 12 bills. It's not higher ed.
Senator Jim Dotson It's 7B. Sorry.
Senator Dan Sullivan I guess mine's more of a question of process. So if we say we're going to pass the rules. And a rule says that all amendments to bills-- okay, so we're not passing a bill. There's not an amendment to a bill. Okay. All right.
Senator Jane English No, this is just the bill. Senator Flowers.
Senator Stephanie Flowers You said the Bureau of Legislative Research would do the fiscal impact? That's not done by DFA?
Senator Jane English Well, I think it's all part of that same thing. DFA does with the Bureau. So the Department of Education does it.
Senator Jim Dotson So if I may. I'm not in favor of this rule simply because I've experienced it for ten years in the House, where it can take-- and specifically this rule 7B does not refer to K-12 education specifically. So we would need to amend it to include that for it to match your intent. But oftentimes it can be incredibly difficult to get a fiscal impact. And with a rule as broad as this, there can be a number of pieces of legislation that have zero fiscal impact.
In fact, that's probably what you see the majority of the bills that are coming, just waiting for a piece of paper to even be placed on the agenda. So if we adopt this rule, you'll file a bill and it will not go on the agenda until-- and as great and competent and capable as the people at BLR are, they have a lot to go through. They process all the things in the House, they process all the things in the Senate. And so it might be two weeks before you get a fiscal impact that says there is no fiscal impact there. There was nothing-- we're making one small modification on education curriculum standard or something, and there is no fiscal impact to it. It's a normal process. But the bill will not appear on the agenda before you can even take that up.
And so I don't think that-- if there is something that is a fiscal impact or suspected fiscal impact, I think making a rule that a member can request a fiscal impact before we take further action on it would be a better thing to have in our rule than requiring every single bill that comes through here to have a fiscal impact. But I've said my two cents on it.
Senator Jane English Senator Flowers.
Senator Stephanie Flowers 7B doesn't say that the bill can't be on the agenda. It says the bill has to have the fiscal impact statement made available to the committee at least one day before the bill may be called up for final action by the committee. So it can be on the agenda. That's my interpretation of what I'm reading here. I might be wrong, but I don't think so.
Senator Jane English Senator Murdock.
Senator Reginald Murdock Thank you. So, chair, so I understand your intent of what you're saying, you're trying to not slow down the process. Obviously you're not. What you're wanting to make sure is that the process is not impeded by something that is unnecessary. So I think there may need to be a little further conversation, maybe even private conversation. I don't know that we get to something that is sensible and workable for what you're trying to do and what you're trying to prevent.
None of us want the process to be slowed down. I've seen evidence of what he's talking about. But I have also seen evidence of where that was necessary and needed to make the legislation truly be understandable for everybody before we make a decision. So I do think both things can be true, kind of what we're dealing with here. And so we have to come to a decision. I see both sides of this.
Senator Jane English Senator Davis, do you have a thought?
Senator Breanne Davis What the right thing is. I was trying to think if we said we have to have a fiscal impact statement, but suspend the rules to hear bills that clearly don't have a fiscal impact, or if we just do it and you could present and not take final action on a bill present, but maybe not vote. I mean, I don't know. I don't really know that there's a right answer because, ultimately, when it goes down to the House, you have to have one. So you're going to get one regardless, I understand what you're saying.
You may have to wait a few extra days to actually present down here. But I mean, I think we can usually tell by reading the bills if there's going to be a fiscal impact. And so that's where it slows the process. I don't know what a good medium is for that. Yeah. We may want to discuss and maybe approve that final rule, like maybe approve the other rules, but maybe come back to that one next time if we can do that.
Senator Jane English It's part of the rules that we will choose to adopt today or not.
Senator Breanne Davis We can't do it later is what you're saying?
Senator Jane English We can adopt the rule with this sitting out if we want to do that. And then we can come back and address it again. I think we did this the last session. I think you had the same arguments the last session. And yeah.
Senator Jim Dotson So adopt 7 without B in it?
Senator Jane English Yes.
Senator Jim Dotson Adopt everything, including 7, without B in it.
Senator Jane English Yeah, without B.
Senator Breanne Davis Then we can come to an agreement on it.
Senator Jane English We'll come back to the discussion on it.
Senator Dan Sullivan Just one comment. The House can do what they want. If they want to require a statement on everything, I think we've got a lot of big bills to consider with a lot of dialog, a lot of testimony. And if we're going to hold things up on a fiscal impact that we may or may not need, and I think we can trust our members to know, yeah, this is something that has a fiscal impact. I'm going to get it done. If it's not, let's go ahead and get our business done. And if the House wants to hold it up and do what they do, that's their business. That's not ours. But I'm favorable to sitting it out and having more discussion.
Senator Jane English That's fine. Senator Flowers.
Senator Stephanie Flowers So you mentioned something that took place during the last session. I wasn't a part of the committee, so I'd like to know what, as it relates to this rule. You all deliberated on it?
Senator Jane English I think we discussed this in the last session and we decided that it wasn't necessary.
Senator Stephanie Flowers At any time during the session, did you have a bill without a fiscal impact go down to the House that was sent back for that purpose for getting this?
Senator Jane English I don't really remember whether we did or not. I don't remember.
Senator Jim Dotson If I may, Madam Chair, I think most of the bills that are going to have a lot of controversy around them are bigger bills that have fiscal impact. They get those on the front end. And if there's something that's kind of questionable, maybe that the House is going to require that, by the time it goes through the Senate committee, the Senate floor and gets down to the House bill, BLR has got the fiscal impact ready for it for the House committee.
So generally speaking, it doesn't slow down the process much on Senate bills coming to the House end, but you may run into it every once in a while. I just don't think I've ever ran into it on any of the bills last session that I was sending down there from the Senate or that I recall any of the Senate bills coming from the Senate when I was in the House, I don't recall there ever being a slowdown.
Most of the bills that came out, they check the boxes by the time they got to the House committee. So but it is entirely possible that it could on occasion. I just don't recall any big bills that were controversial anyway.
Senator Jane English Do I hear a motion? Excuse me. Go ahead. I beg your pardon?
Senator Jim Dotson So do we need to make a substitute motion to adopt the rules minus 7b? I'll make that motion.
Senator Jane English Do I hear a second? Second. All those in favor? All opposed. Thank you. Okay. That's what we'll do. All right. The other thing that we need to all be aware of is that the last session we passed the legislation that basically requires that we do a study almost for any new lottery scholarship. So just if anybody intends to put some new lottery scholarship out there, we have to do a project ahead of time and looking at the financial. Actually, it's to make sure that we have the cash flow down the road. So, yes.
Senator Stephanie Flowers Wasn't that on the ballot?
Senator Jane English No, that's different than the Issue 1. The Issue 1 was the constitutional amendment to use lottery scholarship dollars for vocational schools.
Senator Stephanie Flowers And technical.
Senator Jane English And that's different. And that will be one of those things that has to be looked at. We'll have to do a study to see what the fiscal impact of that down the road. And we're working on that legislation right now. So we don't know.
Senator Stephanie Flowers So the study would be done during the session?
Senator Jane English Yeah. Before we pass any legislation.
Senator Stephanie Flowers Even for the vocational and technical?
Senator Jane English Because those dollars will come out of that lottery scholarship fund. So we need to make sure we have some idea of what we're looking at to take the money that would be spent, would be used for that and to make sure that we have a-- you know, there was a time when we were sort of short on scholarship dollars. And that hasn't happened for quite a while. But it did happen. And so I think the author of that legislation wanted to make sure that if we add any new scholarship programs that we did intend, we knew what we were doing, what was looking down the road.
Senator Stephanie Flowers And so the ballot issue didn't cancel that legislation out?
Senator Jane English No, no. It'll be part of that discussion, what we're doing. So. All right, let's see. I hope that during the session we'll meet on Monday and Wednesday at 10:00 in this room. And probably this next Wednesday, we only had one bill come through the Senate, so we probably will look and see and Kristen will let me know Friday if there are any other bills for us to take a look at.
So Monday is a holiday so we won't be meeting then. And we have to have five members here to have a quorum. Can you think of anything else? Has anybody got any questions here? Anybody in the audience have any questions? Any thoughts? Anybody on the committee? Yeah. I'm sorry. I thought we passed that. Yeah. Yeah. So. Okay, so that's what we'll do is that next time we will vote on this. All right. Seeing anything else? Anybody got anything else? And before you leave, Senator Davis, we all introduced ourselves. Would you introduce yourself and tell us where you are from?
Senator Breanne Davis Breanne Davis. I'm from Russellville and represent Pope County, Conway County and the city of Dardanelle.
Senator Jane English And you've been on the Education Committee before?
Senator Breanne Davis Yes. This is my second session on the Education Committee.
Senator Jane English So thank you, everybody, for coming. We appreciate it. And we'll maybe see you Wednesday. If not, next Monday. Thank you.
