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Lawmakers want focus on education proposals Tuesday, Apr 4, 2006 By James Jefferson Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Legislators drew encouragement, if not inspiration, from Gov. Mike Huckabee's exhortation to adopt a wide range of new public policy initiatives in the special session on education that convened Monday. In an address to a joint session of the House and Senate, Huckabee devoted as much time to lobbying for his proposal for a statewide ban on smoking in the workplace as for a $132.5 million school funding package to satisfy a state Supreme Court order. The governor also encouraged lawmakers to raise the state minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.25 an hour, limit protests at funerals and adopt stricter monitoring of sex offenders. Some lawmakers complained that the governor gave too much attention to matters other than education, though others acknowledged the pre-session negotiations that produced consensus in the House and Senate for the main education proposals. "(Huckabee's speech) wasn't by any stretch a pep rally," said Steve Higginbothom, D-Marianna. "It made good common sense the things that he said. I'm optimistic that enough work has been done in the preliminaries here so that we can get it done in a week." Sen. Hank Wilkins IV, D-Pine Bluff, said the governor "gives an excellent speech" and addressed many important issues, but didn't give enough emphasis to others. "There's a Senate compromise on funding for school districts with declining enrollment, and that wasn't mentioned." Sen. David Bisbee, R-Rogers, said the speech had "not enough about education and too much about smoking." Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, said the speech was "what we expected," with no changes from what had been discussed in pre-session conferences. Rep. Lindsley Smith, D-Fayetteville, said the governor gave a good speech but that it didn't sway her on the proposed legislation: "I read my own bills." Sen. Jerry Taylor, also D-Pine Bluff, said he would likely support the education funding proposals, though he did not see a need to set aside $50 million more for public school facilities. But Taylor said he opposed to a workplace smoking ban that he sees as too restrictive. He said he particularly objected to a provision in the legislation that would limit the number of smoking rooms at hotels and motels at 20 percent to the total number of rooms at a facility. "Instead of letting the guy who spends $10 million to build the motel ... decide how many smoking rooms they need, we're going to tell them that you can't have more, regardless of need," Taylor complained. "That is Big Brother government at its worst." Sen. Jim Holt, R-Springdale, said he objected to appropriating more money for public education to satisfy a state Supreme Court order that he said exceeded the court's jurisdiction. "We're all being held hostage by the Supreme Court. In a government of, by and for the people, the closest branch to the people is the elected officials, the representatives and senators, which make the laws," Holt said. "(The high court justices are) way outside their jurisdiction to be doing what they're doing." Holt, who is a candidate for lieutenant governor, also said he was against a minimum wage hike that he predicted would be inflationary, and said he likely would oppose a smoking ban that he says ignores how well businesses are doing on their own to clean up the workplace. "I disagree with the policy that we should micro-manage everyone," he said. Jimmy Cunningham, superintendent of the Danville School District, said his biggest concern in the governor's proposal is legislation that would increase the statewide minimum teacher salary from $27,500 to $29,416 by next school year. "There are maybe 80 to 100 schools that are not getting enough money with their revenue stream to pay for the new proposed salary schedule," Cunningham said, adding that he hopes a compromise can be found. Cunningham, while superintendent at Plainview Rover School District, opposed consolidation during a special session of the Legislature in 2003-2004. Taylor's outlook for the special session? "The best I can hope for," he said, "is that we come here and do what we need to do (on education funding), get bogged down on all this other stuff and go home." |
