Pre-K, not prisons
They’ve done it again. The legislature provided funding for prisons in this special session. About $6.3 million was funded this time to open 600 prison beds. That’s about $10,500 a bed-far more than we pay per student for K-12...
Accounting year ends in surplus
June closed out this fiscal year with net general revenues of $539 million for the month (-1.4 percent less than last year) according to this morning’s report from the Department of Finance and Administration. The year as a whole...
Report shows Private Option making a difference
A new report shows the Private Option is having a positive impact in Arkansas. The report, which was released by the White House, shows that Arkansas, and other states that extended coverage to low-income citizens, has created jobs and...
Children entering foster care may be better served at home
Too many children enter foster care for a very short period of time. Removal from the home and placement in foster care can be a traumatic experience for a child, and the state is looking at ways to serve...
Juneteenth – Freedom through education
Today is Juneteenth, a day to celebrate the promise of freedom to black children and families throughout the United States. Though the freedom we celebrate today was provided by the Emancipation Proclamation more than 150 years ago, we still...
85 percent of minimum wage earners are over 20
The teenager at your local burger joint is probably making minimum wage, but he or she isn’t a typical minimum wage worker. If Arkansas passes the ballot initiative to increase the minimum wage to $8.50 an hour, most of...
Thousands of Arkansas kids rely on CTC renewal
The federal Child Tax Credit (CTC) helps many low-income and middle-income working parents make sure that their kids grow up strong, but key improvements to the CTC are set to expire in 2017. The CTC prevented 1.6 million kids...
What makes special revenue special?
Special revenue collections are a major source of revenue for the Arkansas budget, totaling $1.8 billion in FY2013. However, they are often left out of the budget spotlight because the ways in which these funds are spent have already...
Moving forward with the ACA, Private Option
Moving forward with the ACA, Private Option Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Arkansas is poised to reach the “finish line” in covering kids and families. Because the state legislature passed a “Private Option” to implement the Affordable Care...
Thinking of men’s health as Father’s Day approaches
With Father’s Day just around the corner, we’ve been thinking a lot about our fathers and the other special men in our life and how we’d like them to stay as healthy as possible. Bill Corr, with the Department...