Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Smithson Informs Board Of Senate Bills

Bobby Smithson, Gurdon School District superintendent commented, during the school board meeting, on several State House of Representative bills which have been introduced over the past few weeks.

Smithson commenting on HB1281  Allows full-time school bus drivers to participate in public school insurance program, "If this bill passes, it will help us recruit more school bus drivers. This would benefit the driver approximately $180 a month in lower health insurance cost."

Mentioning, in information provided, HB1501  An act to require members of the board of directors to annually visit classrooms in the district in which they serve.

Also, Senate Bill 598 calls for a $1,000 raise for all teachers in K-12 in fiscal 2002, and a $2,000 raise in fiscal 2003.

The bill notes that teachers' salaries in Arkansas have traditionally lagged behind those in other states, including neighboring ones, despite annual increases of about 3.2 percent. The result, according to the bill, is a shortage of educators. This according to the Arkansas Legislative Update.

Smithson said, according to material provided, "Gov. Mike Huckabee is supporting a $1,000 salary increase across the board. The latest projection is that each school district fund 20 percent of this increase and the remaining 80 percent would come, in part, from a reduction in other state revenue earmarked for the school districts.

"One superintendent told me his district would not receive any increase, based on the proposal and would have to fund all of the salary increase, if mandated by law."

Smithson said, "He's (Gov. Huckabee) talking more than he's delivering. I feel certain the $1,000 bill will pass. They haven't done much for schools yet."

House Bill 1053  An act to amend Arkansas code 26-26-1902 relating to 12 the frequency of County reappraisals. According to Smithson, the current law requires the real property in each county to be re-appraised every three years.

This bill would require counties that increase this amount, 25 percent shall be re-appraised every three years. Counties whose assessment is less than 25 percent will be re-appraised every five years. This bill was initially opposed by the Arkansas School Board Association.

Its feeling was the increase in the state index per child would over come any loss in decreased assessment.

"I think the amended bill has a good chance in becoming law," Smithson said.

Other bills concerning education not mention by Smithson are:

 HB1774: Will allow students to testify in private at disciplinary hearing before school boards. Under the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act, a teacher can request either a public or private hearing before a school board to contest a disciplinary action.

 HB1883: An act to require public elementary schools to provide instruction in the subjects of visual arts or music for all students.

 SB417: The Spanish as Arkansas' Primary Foreign Language Act of 2001.

Learning about the latest legislative actions can be found at The 83rd Legislative Assembly's website  www.arkleg.state.ar.us/