Statement from Rich Huddleston, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families:
The governor’s plan to fund highways took a smaller than expected bite out of general revenue, but will ultimately hurt programs that are already facing major budget cuts. The first year of the plan relies primarily on two Band-Aids to get highway funds up enough to maintain federal match dollars ($20 million from this year’s surplus and another $20 million from the rainy day fund). In the following years, that money is to be replaced by unprecedented and damaging withdrawals from the state’s general revenue fund. The general revenue fund pays for education, state parks, pre-K, child abuse prevention programs, juvenile justice, and other critical state programs.
We need a long-term, sustainable revenue source for highways that doesn’t come at the cost of other state programs. We are disappointed that the proposal did not include any plan to modernize the state’s gas tax to bring it into the 21st century. A modernized, indexed gas tax is the only reasonable way to keep up with rising highway maintenance costs without continually going back to the well of state general revenue. If we fund highways with an additional cut to general revenue on top of the $242 million in tax cuts taking full effect in 2017, major cuts to programs are inevitable.
Taking any money out of general revenue is irresponsible and there is no apparent proposal to make up for those transferred funds. Like in the previous legislative session where capital gains progress was made and then suddenly reversed, we have no guarantee that any promises to backfill general revenue with “increased efficiencies” will materialize. This is not just about preventing future budget cuts to programs funded by state general revenue; it’s also about meeting current and future unmet needs of working families in Arkansas.