Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.

Hello again, everyone.

Thanks very much for being with us.

The 95th Arkansas General Assembly is upon us.

The regular session now a week old.

And, of course, the preparations began months ago.

They never actually end as every year the legislature's paramount mission is to approve a budget for the fiscal year to come.

But that mission could be a bit more complicated this time around, given some uncertainties, some matters beyond State government's control.

For example, what will Washington do to the Medicaid program?

Will the state expand health services to new mothers?

How much for public education and for the administration's school voucher program?

And the governor's agenda for Higher ed.

Governor Sanders touched on several of those points in Tuesday's State of the state address to the legislature.

The results of our first two years speak for themselves.

Our economy is up.

Crime is down.

Education is improved.

Arkansas is growing.

And the state of Arkansas is very, very strong.

And next year, education freedom accounts will go universal so that every student in the state of Arkansas will have an opportunity like Elijah.

That is historic and that is because of work.

By working together, we have achieved tremendous progress on our K through 12 schools.

Education is a lifelong journey, and in this administration, education reform will be as well.

This session, we will ban cell phones in our schools from Bell to bell so that our kids are not distracted in the classroom or out of it.

And we will break the cycle of mental health crisis facing our students.

We will update the Social Media Safety Act so that it's no longer held up at court and begin to get enforced.

Higher education can be the difference between a life in poverty and a life of great success, and it should be available to every single person in our state, no matter what their background.

And today, let us commit to make that happen.

Today, I'm announcing my plan to improve our state's higher education system.

Arkansas Access.

We will make it so that you can submit one application, pay one fee, and use the same application for any state supported college or university in Arkansas.

Arkansas students go to our colleges and universities to be educated, not to be bombard with anti-American, historically illiterate woke nonsense.

We will make it so that any professor.

We will make it so that any professor, tenured or not, that wastes time indoctrinating our students instead of educating them, can be terminated from their job.

In a moment, some thoughts on Ms.. Sanders program and some possible alternatives from the House Democratic leader.

First, we're joined by Representative Matt Brown, Republican of Conway.

Sir, thanks very much for coming aboard.

Thanks for having me, Steve.

Your thoughts on the administration's program.

So first, I'm very excited about the things that the governor said in her State of the State address last Tuesday.

The governor, of course, wants to make herself known as the education governor, which we attacked last session with K through 12 education overhaul.

In this session, the governor stated that she wants to now take higher education.

Of course, she mentioned the Arkansas access program that she's implementing.

I'll be curious to see the legislation on that and hopefully we can get that passed through the House.

One thing that the governor mentioned in her speech, though, that I really appreciated is she mentioned that for so long in this state, we have been trying to do a one size fits all in terms of education.

We've told our high school students that you must go to a four year college if you want to be successful.

And I think that's done a big disservice to our students because, number one, not every kid is cut out for a four year degree.

And number two, I think that that places a negative emphasis on things such as vocational schools, technical schools, the trades and things like that, the things that really drive our economy.

And so one thing that the governor has said that she wants to do with higher education is to expand scholarship access for programs such as technical schools, vocational certificate programs, things of that nature, and also to essentially encourage kids to do that, because as I've told many people out knocking doors, talking to voters, you know, colleges are fine and dandy, but people forget that people will pay very good money if their toilets don't flush, their lights don't work.

And those are jobs you can outsource to China.

And so I really appreciate the other's emphasis on that.

What is it possible that we are putting all together the legislative and executive are putting too much emphasis on career education, on workforce training, and not enough on a broad general liberal arts approach to education?

Well, with full disclosure, I'm a liberal arts graduate, so I've been there, done that.

But no, I think that I've said for far too long this country, we place so much emphasis on college being the only key to success.

And what have we gotten from that?

We have people coming out of school degrees and they're getting into a job workforce where they're maybe not qualified for a job or they can't find a job because their degree in art history is not translating into employment.

And at the same time, we are penalizing the trades.

I mean, I hear it from my constituent in the company's in my district all the time.

We need more good workers and they're having trouble finding those.

And I think we've not had enough emphasis on that because, again, these are jobs that can't be outsourced.

These are jobs that have to be done right here at work.

In terms of the Learning Act and the voucher, the governor has set aside many millions of dollars for additional for the Lawrence Act.

The voucher program actually.

Are we on a collision course given the reduction in revenue through through tax cuts?

Are we on a collision course budget?

What budget wise?

So one thing in passing learned that we had to look at is, you know, there is a big impact to the budget with the educational freedom accounts.

But one thing that the governor has done with our budget committee in the legislature is to ensure that while we are promoting tax cuts, we are doing it in such a manner that is judicious and is fiscally responsible.

And one way that the governor's budget has been able to do that is by concentrating on trimming the fat.

As you can imagine, the federal government is incredibly bloated and unfortunately, the state government is bloated a little bit as well.

And so one thing that Governor Sanders has been focusing on is making government more efficient.

And by doing that with the cost savings, we then free up the budget to be able to pay for things such as education, freedom accounts, and also pay for tax cuts.

And I think that's another reason against the legislature being very judicious with tax cuts, because we'd all like to go to a 0% income tax.

But we also know that in reality, we have to make sure that we are fiscally responsible where we do this.

And so we've seen this incremental reduction over time.

And since Republican majority has taken control of the legislature, we are able to cut income tax by half.

And God willing, we'll get the other half as well.

But we're doing it a little bit at a time to make sure we can afford it.

Where is the bloat in state government, in your estimation?

Well, for example, the governor's office put out a report that was nearly a thousand pages long.

And I'll be completely honest with you, I've not read to skim parts of it, but it talked about things like, for example, consolidating it.

We have so many IT departments across the state.

There are duplicating services and things of that nature.

And one of the proposals was, is if we consolidate some of these programs and get them all under one roof, if we go ahead and upgrade our IT infrastructure to modern day technology that's less costly to maintain, we can actually save tens of millions of dollars just doing something as simple as that.

So there's lots of things like that that that that Governor Sanders is looking at to again make state government more efficient and pass the savings on to the taxpayer.

Yeah.

Back to the learned sex for a second.

The state's rural superintendents issued a position paper not terribly long ago expressing real concern about the future of public school education, public school spending anyway.

They're concerned that the tax cuts and the learning program combined are are endangering their per pupil funding.

Your thoughts?

Well, I think that with I call it education reform, of course, that's the single biggest thing we've done to education in this state.

And I think that we all agree that change can be scary because we are going a little bit into new territory.

But one thing I do know is that what we have done in this state for the past 20, 40, 60, 80 years in education is not working and has not worked.

What have we got to show for all that effort and all that money?

Bottom of the barrel rankings.

And since we've implemented Lauren's act last year, in the 18 months since it's taken effect, we are already seeing the results of Lauren's act.

For example, the governor mentioned in her State of the State address that according to U.S. News and World reports, Arkansas has already increased its educational ranking from bottom of the barrel to 38th in the nation, just in 18 months since Lawrence has passed.

What the governor did not tell you was that was overall education, including higher education.

When you just look at K through 12, which is what Lawrence dealt with, we were actually 35th in the country right now.

That is a number I think that we can all be proud of, because for so long in the state, the joke has always been, thank God for Mississippi.

Now we're really starting to see results.

And another number that I'm very proud of, too, is that that same report shows that Arkansas and Arkansas now ranks 13th in the nation in terms of high school graduation rates.

Your district is like Conway.

Your district is largely urban, I think, but you've got some rural areas, two districts, and I may be wrong about that, but can as a as a member of the General Assembly with authority over statewide education, are you confident that that small schools, the public school fine will be held harmless?

Yes, I think so, because, you know, the most important thing, I think the policy of this state is, of course, education.

I mean, education is our future.

The people of Arkansas, the young people of Arkansas, our greatest natural resource, and we have to put education first.

And I think that we see that with our governor and our Republican majority in the legislature.

We are putting education first and working to make sure that continues to be first.

The Medicaid program that the big item, you know, not a big item in any way in state government spending, Washington, that you have a new administration coming in and there is the prospect of some significant cuts.

For example, block grants.

What are your thoughts on that?

Well, right now, it's kind of too early to tell because we don't know exactly what's going to happen.

I do know that I think Medicaid reimbursement is going to be an issue in the upcoming session, and we've been talking about that.

And essentially just a function of, you know, we've had inflation over the past several years and our Medicaid embarrassment has not kept up with that.

And that may change in a decade or longer.

Exactly.

And so now we run into a situation where providers can't afford to provide the care.

And so one thing that we'll have to look at the legislature is fixing that while being both fiscally responsible, but also being responsible providers out there and making sure they can continue to do the work they do.

It's going to be a big deal in the upcoming session for sure.

One of your colleagues in particular, Mr. Pilkington from Knoxville, is a tremendous advocate of extend expanding Medicaid to cover a full year of postpartum care.

He's he's he didn't have any look that last session.

He's trying it again.

Will he have some well, his luck be better this time.

I hope it is.

Represent Pilkington from Knoxville is a good friend of mine.

And one thing I've been very proud of is his maternal health care legislation.

One thing you know, as the Republican Party, we're very pro-life, but it seems like people forget that pro-life also extends to babies after they're born and mothers and things of that nature.

He's already has some bills that he's working on.

I am encouraged the governor mentioned her stay the state address, that her administration will also make maternal health a priority in the upcoming legislative session.

So I look forward to seeing what legislation he's going to bring and see what we can do to improve the outcomes from better for mothers in the state.

Yeah, she opposed much of his legislation last time around.

Right.

Is you saying that she may reverse herself?

She may.

She did specifically mention maternal health in her state of the State address.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what we come up with.

Mr. Brown, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you.

Come back soon.

Thank you.

All right.

We'll be back in a moment.

And now the loyal opposition, Andrew Collins of Little Rock is the leader of the House Democratic Conference.

Before we began, let's take a listen to a little more from Governor Sanders State of the state address.

Education, cost of living, public safety.

Those are the priorities that have defined the first two years of my administration.

And with your help, those are the priorities that will define the next two as well.

And this year, we will expand and require evidence based programing in our prisons and we will make it happen so that we are doing a better job with our state.

But none of that happens with the chronic prison bed shortage that we have in Arkansas.

That's why I'm glad that we've worked to open almost 1500 prison beds at existing facilities, easing the burden on our county jails.

And for the first time since my dad was in office, we have worked with this legislature to expand our prison system with plans for a new 3000 bed prison in Franklin County.

Arkansans are struggling with the high cost of groceries, gas and just about everything else.

The good news is that in just a few days, the reckless tax and spend policies of the Biden administration will be over and we will have President Donald J. Trump back in the White House fighting for every single American.

But Arkansas families need relief now.

The cost of living is what drove this administration to work with our legislators and cut taxes.

Not once, not twice, but three times.

And yes, you will get tired of hearing me say that.

But now we're going to focus after we've been able to reduce the personal income tax by a full percentage point over the last two years.

We will turn our attention and our taxes are quickly dropping.

And we just released a report on Arkansas forward initiative that will save our state at least $300 million and hopefully much more.

The budget I introduced this year will control spending increases while making needed investments in priorities like education and maternal health.

Representative Andrew Collins, your thoughts?

Well, thank you, Steve.

I think there are some things in the governor's speech that I agree with that Democrats agree with, and we look forward to working with her on it.

Returning Mr. Trump to the White House, and that might not be one of them.

There was a lot of rhetoric in there that was incendiary and political.

And obviously we don't agree with that.

And there are some proposals on the policy side that we just need, I think, more information on and some I think we're going to be problematic and not the direction that we believe we should go as a state.

Obviously, there are things that we, as Democrats believe should be priorities, some of which are shared by the governor or she has said in the past they are her priorities.

Maternal health is a big one.

Public education, mental health and improving and protecting our democracy.

I didn't hear a lot about those issues in that speech.

And we'll see how some of these higher education and other reforms are constructed and whether we can support them or not.

Well, both you and your Senate counterpart have indicated there is common ground with some aspects of the governor's program.

Could you be a bit more specific?

Where what is that common ground and where can you work together?

Sure.

And with the caveat that, again, none of this has been released, so we need to see the fine print.

I think conceptually getting rid of the grocery tax is something that we would support.

It's a regressive tax.

It's something that many of us have called to get rid of in the past.

Backfilling the revenue is important, I think, for supporting conservation in the state, but the grocery tax is something we should get rid of.

Also, I think free breakfast and lunch in schools for kids is something that has a great track record for educational outcomes in student health.

We support that.

We support summary, but we did support it last time and support the continuation of it.

Some of the higher education things I think are all right too.

I think a single application for all colleges and universities in the state is a good idea.

Some of the more substantive parts of that proposal, I don't know.

You know, higher education is important.

Traditional higher education is important as well as career training.

I don't think you should be taking money from one to support the other.

They both merit our investment.

Well, your reaction to to the governor's proposal to eliminate indoctrination, as she put it, from higher ed?

Yeah, I have questions about that.

I don't know what that means.

For one, I don't know what we're talking about when she says woke nonsense.

It sounds to me like it's content control.

It sounds to me like it's.

Are you saying something that the governor agrees with or disagrees with?

And if we go down that road.

First of all, academic freedom is a very important part of higher education.

And, you know, people have taken pains to protect it over the years.

This goes the other way.

And second, I don't know how we recruit and retain great teachers and build the programs and the kind of higher education infrastructure we want to build to advance Arkansas forward.

If this is the direction we're going, I don't think it's going to help us improve higher education.

Well, in terms of K-12 education, though, the governor has set aside or has requested additional money for the voucher program, the individual accounts concern you.

Oh, absolutely.

And we disagree with vouchers.

I believe every single member of our caucus voted against the bill, the Lawrence bill, not because of some of the things that support literacy and other investments, but because of vouchers, because, frankly, vouchers are not good for public schools in the state.

It takes public money and sends them to private schools.

And the track record just isn't very good.

We've also seen with vouchers that some of that money is going to things that most people would not identify as appropriate.

You know, horseback riding lessons and baking lessons and things like that.

It is a program that goes in the wrong direction for public education in the state.

So more money being invested in vouchers just means more of a divestiture, divestment of money away from public education.

And we can't do that if we want to improve public education in Arkansas.

The governor mentioned maternal health as one of her priorities, but there are different approaches to that.

And I know the previous session, hers differed from another approach which your colleague, Mr. Pilkington, had advocated, and that was an expansion of Medicaid, post-partum Medicaid coverage.

What do you see happening?

I think that extension of postpartum Medicaid coverage is just the bare minimum thing we should do as a state.

Every other state has done this already or move toward it.

And that basically just says you won't be kicked off your health insurance after 60 days if you're on Medicaid and you give birth.

It's an important thing, too.

Is there sufficient political momentum for that, though, when you and your colleagues?

It remains to be seen.

You saw that Representative Bill Clinton introduced a bill to accomplish that.

I've introduced the same bill.

So there's bipartisan interest.

I'm not really sure why.

This has not been something that's been embraced by the governor.

I think it should be embraced by the governor.

There was a task force that she put together over the summer, came up with some ideas around maternal health.

I'm concerned that it won't be enough to move the needle.

We are worst in maternal health in Arkansas among all 50 states.

That's a deep hole to dig out of.

We have to try things that we know we're going to work.

And I think that's one thing that will at least help move the needle a little bit.

Beyond that, we have to look at things like paid leave for new mothers.

We have to look at child care.

It's difficult to find child care.

It's expensive in the state if we don't think of this holistically, we're just going to miss the boat and not move the the ball forward in a way that we have to do if we're going to get out of the cellar on this issue.

On the broader health issue, the broader Medicaid issue, there's great concern among a lot of professionals, health professionals, anyway, that the we have a new administration coming in in Washington that perhaps block grants will be the administration's approach has to be of concern to you as a legislator, whether you're for it or against it.

Yeah, it is of concern.

You know, in Arkansas has always had a somewhat stingy Medicaid program.

We've tried to do a lot with a little.

In some ways, that's a good thing.

You know, you want to be thrifty and not wasteful.

But the downside of that is that our Medicaid program reimburses at such low rates that we have a shortage of providers throughout the state.

So when you look at maternal health and mental health in these birthing deserts in rural Arkansas, where you can't get maternal care and you can't find a behavioral health specialist in rural Arkansas, a lot of that comes back to the fact that we don't reimburse health care providers enough in Medicaid.

And I think if we move toward a revised model for Medicaid in the states, that's only going to exacerbate that problem.

We have to rethink the way that we are providing health care from the state side in Arkansas.

If we don't make this investment on the front end, it's going to come back and back and come back to bite us on the back end.

And it already has started doing another health question, and that's as expected.

Some of your colleagues have introduced legislation to restrict pharmacy benefit managers.

What's the assess your assessment of that legislation and how much momentum it may have?

I think that we'll probably have some momentum.

Pharmacy benefit managers have taken on a role that is not always constructive in our health care system, and I think pharmacists have felt that they have begged and pleaded for support from us.

I have supported their efforts in the past.

It's going to be a fight, though, and it was a fight in the interim between people who wanted to do something to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, further benefit pharmacies and of course, pharmacy benefit managers objected to the changes.

I don't know how that's all going to shake out.

But tentatively speaking, I think we do need to continue to reform so that we give some hope for our community pharmacies, which serve so many people in the state.

The administration's plan to expand the prison beds by as or a 3000 at a site has been recommended.

And this has put her, to put it mildly, at odds with a bloc of lawmakers and their constituents in West Arkansas.

What's the General Assembly's take on this?

Yeah, well, this is this is absolutely a big issue, and it's an issue for a few different reasons.

One, there are people in Franklin County where this prison is being proposed that just don't want this prison.

I've yet to see the clamoring for for this prison as an economic driver from the people who actually live there.

Some places in the state might be different.

There were issues with the site selection.

There were issues with the way it was rolled out in a, you know, secretive way, frankly, and was sprung on people with very little notice.

I think there's a big issue with the cost.

We were told a $470 million and now it's something like $1.5 billion.

And who knows what it might end up being.

So those are concerns.

I think the big concern that underlies all this to me is Arkansas is one of the highest incarcerating places in the entire world after El Salvador.

If we were a country, we would be number two.

And is that making us safer?

I mean, I think we've been doing this for a long time.

That's been the approach just to lock people up for longer.

The research shows that doesn't really make us safer.

There are things we can do and should do to make ourselves safer.

I don't think extending sentences indiscriminately and building more prisons is the answer, and it sure is coming at a huge cost.

I wish we could continue, but we're out of time.

Representative Andrew Collins in Little Rock, thanks for coming in.

Thank you.

Come back soon.

Appreciate it.

And that does it for us for this week.

As always, we thank you for watching and see you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.