Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Senator Ross Sees 3 Major Issues

Gov. Mike Huckabee and the 81st General Assembly will have their hands full this session.

According to State Sen. Mike Ross, tax reform, Medicaid and welfare reform will be the three most hotly debated issues.

However, education and the modification of licensing vehicles will receive its share of time also.

Ross is the chairman of the Children and Youth Committee. As such he will be dealing with welfare issues as to how they affect children.

He is also on the Public Health, Welfare and Labor committee, is the vice-chairman of the Committee for Cities, Counties and Local Affairs and is on the joint committee for Advanced Communications and Information Technology, as well as being a member of the Senate Rules Committee and the Joint Performance Review Board.

With the session excused for the inauguration of Pres. Bill Clinton last week, Ross spoke about Gov. Huckabee's agenda, and some of the major issues involved.

Huckabee has mentioned wanting a "fiscal responsibility" fund for emergencies. This would be the state's version of a contingency fund, much like those counties create during budgeting times, leaving 10 percent of their anticipated revenues unappropriated.

Ross agrees with the idea of creating a fiscal responsibility fund for the state. He said this could help avoid having special sessions in cases of emergencies when the assembly would have to convene to appropriate the required funds.

"Arkansas's legislature," he said, "meets every other year in regular session. We now have to forecast revenue through June, 1996 and budget money for all state agencies and the operation of the state government. A lot can happen between now and then."

On the topic of education, Ross said the charter school concept is not new, and no new schools will be created from charter schools.

According to Ross, as many as 15 existing schools can become charter schools. These, he said, will be run by the teachers, and would be exempt from some state regulations.

The local educational entities would be accountable for the results.

These charter schools would not take money away from local districts, Ross said. They would operate based on the same funding formula as existing schools.

The concept of charter schools was approved in the 1995 session, but regulations made it nearly impossible to implement. This sessions, the relaxing of the regulations will be debated to make it easier to create such schools.

Ross said he would like to see issues such as citizenship, character and manners taught in schools, instead of morality.

"We're trying to put education back at the local level," he said.

Under Huckabee's agenda, the topic of Medicaid co-payment was brought up.

Ross said there is currently some copayment for hospital stays and drugs, but the governor wants to expand this to other areas of health care.

However, the senator is opposed to making such moves because Medicaid is the biggest crisis facing the state at this time.

He said because of medical technology, people are living longer. This means more senior citizens have to be placed in nursing homes, which translates into more expense for the Medicaid program.

At this time, it costs between $30,000 and $40,000 a year to care for a senior citizen in a nursing home. Ross said the way things stand today, most Arkansans will wind up on welfare and Medicaid because of these skyrocketing costs.

"When people think about Medicaid," he said, "they think about people not wanting to work. However, more than 70 percent of all Medicaid money goes to care for senior citizens."

Welfare reform, he said, will be the biggest challenge the legislature faces this session.

"Congress is good at dropping problems back on the states," he said, talking about how federal turnback funds were eliminated under Pres. Ronald Reagan.

The loss of these funds, Ross said, caused local taxes to be raised so communities could continue providing services to the citizenry.

Now, Congress has come to the states saying by the year 2000, 50 percent of those on welfare must have jobs. How this is done, Ross said, is up to the states to figure out. Otherwise, the states will lose federal money.

The federal funds, Ross added, make up one-half of Arkansas' overall budget.

The problems the legislature faces this session is how to train those on welfare for work, how to get them to and from the job, childcare and how to get business and industry to hire them.

Gov. Huckabee has also publicly said he plans on simplify how Arkansans license their vehicles.

Currently, to license a vehicle, the owner must show proof of insurance, tax assessment and payment, along with proof of inspection.

Huckabee's plan would replace most of this by doing away with the inspection stickers altogether, and having a decal to show proof of assessment and payment.

This decal, Ross said, would be placed in the rear window of a vehicle. The decal's color would be changed annually, like the inspection sticker's are now.

Doing away with inspections would free up 14 Arkansas State Troopers, and save the state $1.2 million a year. Currently, the ASP has these 14 troopers assigned to policing the inspection stations.

Ross said for those who think they could get away without having liability insurance, the fines would be much stiffer, though what they would actually be has not been determined. A second ticket for no liability would result in a person's vehicle being impounded.

He said by simplifying the licensing procedure, Arkansas would save $32 million a year in time saved by workers.

According to Ross, other states with such licensing procedures have actually seen an increase in the number of people paying property taxes and having their vehicles properly insured.

Tax reform is another of the big issues for this session, Ross said.

He said the state is currently doing well enough economically to offer some type of tax reforms to the citizens.

Ross said he expects the legislature to exempt those families living at or below the poverty line from paying state income tax completely.

He also expects the assembly to double the standard deduction to be doubled to $2,000, while tax credits for children will go up by $25 more per child. He said the marriage penalty, which he called anti-family, would be eliminated.

The standard deduction for married couples, Ross said, would be increased to $4,000.

One of the most important pieces of legislation could be how the tax brackets are set up. Ross said the current method does not allow for inflation.

Therefore, when a worker gets a cost of living raise, they could be bumped into a higher bracket and be forced to pay more taxes even though they aren't taking any more money home.

Instead, Ross said, the tax brackets will be indexed, which will help alleviate the inflation