Arkansas Blog: Smooth sailing

The school funding bills breezed through the House today. Even the most stalwart school people in the legislature seem to think the effort meets the court test, in concert with other plans.

But I still want to note for the record that the state will be spending about $214 more on each school child in Arkansas over the next two years, and finish below $6,000 per student. At the same time, the legislature has voted to spend almost $600 more on every legislator over the next two years, pushing them up near $15,000 per years in state support, not counting per diem, expenses, etc. Good thing there are only 135 of them.

A couple of other legislative notes: 1) the primary seatbelt bill cleared Senate committee 2) Rep. David Johnson, fighting the good fight against the greedy payday lenders, objects to my theorizing that the House, in its 90-3 approval of the bill, saw it as a free vote with an expected road block coming in the Senate committee. He's sure the House routinely voted for a good bill because it was the right thing to do without any expectation of what snares lobbyists might have ready on the Senate end. He knows his colleagues better than I do. I hope to have a bit more on the Senate end of things before the committee meeting tomorrow.

Comments

Max--Although I agree with about 98% of what you put on this blog, sometimes you pull facts out of the air in an attempt to make a point and you just lose me. Comparing the increase in per pupil school funding and the increase in legislators' salaries is apples and oranges...no, not even apples and oranges, more like apples and chihuahuas.

Now, we could debate all day whether we are getting our money's worth of our part-time legislature. But the amount we pay per legislator is intended as compensation for the work we get out of that legislator each year. Is it worth an extra $600 a year? Maybe, maybe not.

The increase in per pupil school funding isn't a compensation measure. It's a question of covering expenses. Maybe compare the $600 per year increase to the average teacher salary increase that the $214 is going to generate. I don't know if that will be $600, but it will be a lot closer.

We'll probably pay $3 or $4 more per day for Medicaid care in nursing homes next year. Multiply that by 365 and you get $1000-$1500 per year. Does that mean we value nursing home residents more than legislators or more than school kids? Of course not. The numbers just don't compare.

If anything, if you want to assess the level of "commitment," look at the total dollars spent. I don't know the precise numbers, but I know that the $214 per pupil increase statewide amounts to millions of dollars next year, a whole lot more than the total cost of the legislators' salary increases.

I'm as skeptical of the value of the legislators as the next guy. And I'm as big a supporter of public education as the next guy. But comparisons like this do nothing to further the honest debate about where state government should be spending our money.

Posted by: blueinaredstate | February 26, 2007 05:08 PM

Max, you're right on. Legislators will get a 2% pay increase, plus any increase in their expense money. Meanwhile, the school funding bill that passed the House today includes only a 1% increase in the minimum teacher salary.

Posted by: PVNasby | February 26, 2007 05:24 PM

OTHER LEGISLATION:

Max in the future I hope that Hillcrest doesn't get mamoth utility poles run thru it.

Rep Dunn's HB 1367 passed the House and is slated to be voted on in the Senate tomorrow by 1:30pm.

The Sierra Club of Ark has contacted most senators IN OPPOSITION to HB 1367.

HB 1367 allows utility companies who now have a right of way to expand and increase that use WITHOUT PUBLIC INPUT or hearings.

Senator Terry Smith of Hot Springs is senate sponsor of 1367. Please contact your state senators so you can help keep local decisions local.

Locate your senator here:
http://www.arkansas.gov/senate/senators.html
or Click on bluename.

Posted by: Lwood | February 26, 2007 06:51 PM

Blue, I see where you're coming from, but the apples and oranges thing isn't applicable here. *Some* of our school children (maybe even *some* of our teachers) might one day be legislators (or presidents).

I'm more of a mind that spending money on bringing up children in our state has bigger payoffs for the future than spending money on spoiled legislators, percents be damned.

Posted by: widj | February 26, 2007 10:01 PM

Exactly my point, Widj. When you add up the dollars, our investment in public education is many, many times larger than the dollars we will spend for the $600 increase in legislators' salaries.

Posted by: blueinaredstate | February 27, 2007 08:29 AM

Arkansas Blog

Smooth sailing

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