Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

AML States Its Position

By JOHN MILLER

Arkansas' Municipal League made its position known on some of the proposed amendments for the Nov. 5 General Election.

Tambra Smith, Gurdon city recorder-treasurer, who is also on the advisory council, attended a meeting of the committee for second class cities Wednesday, Oct. 2, and said the league refused to comment on any of the four proposed gambling amendments.

However, the AML did bestow its blessing on Amendment 1, which would set a flat millage for school districts at 25 mill across the state.

Under this amendment, all school districts would be paid $3,709 per student, with the 25 mill rate to be used for maintenance and operation.

The organization is opposed to proposed amendments two and three, with Amendment 2 being the 1/8 cent sales tax increase to support the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, the Arkansas Department of Heritage and Keep Arkansas Beautiful.

Amendment 3 concerns statewide initiative and referendum petitions, amendments referred to the voters by the General Assembly and legal challenges to ballot titles.

This amendment would limit the number of items on a general election ballot to three, and would make challenging these items more difficult at the last minute.

Problems with challenges to amendment titles came in the 1992 General Election when the entire slate of amendments was literally wiped off the ballot because of last minute challenges.

But the league simply refused to take issue with any of the four gaming amendments, preferring to stay neutral on them.

In addition, Smith said, the league discussed its stands on legislative proposals which will be discussed in the coming General Assembly.

The primary push from the AML is to replace the state income tax by removing exemptions from the state's sales tax.

The league, she said, has opposed granting exemptions to the sales tax for years because they are unfair to some business organizations and erode the current state tax base.

According to AML information, the current exemptions and exclusions on the sales tax have resulted in more than $800 million in lost revenue, which would more than replace the funds lost by repealing the state income tax.

In addition, the league states 64 percent of those responding to a recent survey feel the state income tax hampers business and economic growth in the state, while also forcing Arkansans to pay a disproportionaely higher amount of income taxes than other states.

The league is lobbying Gov. Mike Huckabee to try and forego his food tax rebate plan, and, instead, going with its plan to repeal the income tax and remove exemptions and exclusions to the state's existing sales tax.

The AML is also working toward a sales tax being collected from mail order vendors operating in Arkansas.

Legislation, Smith said, could be enacted by Congress which would require mail order firms to collect state and local taxes on interstate sales. This, she added, is currently not being done and is costing the state and local economies millions annually.

However, possibly one of the most important pieces of legislation considered, Smith said, is amending the Senate rule on all bills requiring mandated costs to local governments be passed by a 2/3 vote of the committee.

The idea, she said, being for the House and Senate to fund these mandates when they are sent to the local level, instead of simply passing laws and expecting cities and counties to find the money somewhere to implement them.

"We'll (the AML) be meeting in Little Rock during the session," she said. "We're going to let the General Assembly know we're there."