While a comprehensive plan for improving the Arkansas tax system is beyond the scope of this brief, there are some obvious changes that Arkansas could make to (1) strengthen the revenue foundation for the services needed to improve the well-being of the state’s children and families and (2) improve the system’s fairness for low and […]
Arkansas is home to one of the largest populations of Marshallese individuals in the world — people who were born in the Republic of the Marshall Islands but moved here for employment and to have a better life. They are free to travel, work, attend school and live in the United States under a Compact […]
People from all over the state – who have interests as varied as the counties from which they come – routinely ask us how they can make a difference. This question has several answers, but every one of them contains a common theme: learn about the tax and budget system. Understanding these basics provides you […]
Now that the dust has settled from the 2013 legislative session, it’s a good time to take stock of the impacts of tax policy changes made by the Arkansas General Assembly. By any objective standard, the tax changes passed this year fail to make the fundamental changes that Arkansas needs to create a fair, adequate, […]
The quality of school facilities can have a major impact on the education that our children receive and whether they succeed in school. State funding for school facilities should be increased to meet the needs of all districts. The official standard, that facilities need only be warm, safe, and dry, is not good enough. Check out […]
Beginning in October 2013, more than 500,000 Arkansans who are uninsured will have a new way to shop for, compare, and purchase insurance. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a good deal for children and families, our local communities, and our state’s economy. Download this publication to learn everything you need to know about the […]
The vote on whether or not to approve funding for Arkansas’s Private Option, a bipartisan solution passed during the 2013 legislative session to provide health coverage to low-income Arkansans by using federal dollars to buy private insurance plans, was one of the defining issues of the 2014 fiscal session. Lawmakers voted to appropriate the money […]
Across the state, officers of the law protect Arkansas children from significant threats, but what happens when police are charged with the task of enforcing the law and school policy on school grounds? Morganne Sample, who completed a summer internship program with AACF, delves into that question in this issue brief.
State poverty funding (more commonly known as “NSLA funding”) is the part of the state-funded adequacy package for schools that is targeted to low-income students. It is named NSLA after the National School Lunch Act program, the eligibility for which determines each school district’s student count for state NSLA funding. NSLA funding provides programs and […]
Want to know more about the state of children’s health here in Arkansas? As Arkansas’s economy has begun to recover from the recession, ARKids First has been a vital resource to thousands of Arkansas families. The latest data on poverty in Arkansas shows that 27 percent of children under age 18 live in poverty compared […]