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2021 Legislative Update
LEGISLATIVE
UPDATE
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Controversy and COVID-19 marked a lengthy and fraught legislative session. Lawmakers convened for the lengthiest legislative session since 1931. Lawmakers handed Arkansas students and educators a mixed bag. AEA monitored, tracked and testified for and against several bills as they were debated. Here’s a rundown of the good, the bad and the ugly.
Some of the biggest wins included the culmination of years of advocacy by AEA to increase teacher pay and increase the state’s investment in public education. Lawmakers passed Act 680 which increases the median teacher salary in the state by $2,000 and sets aside tens of millions of dollars to aid districts in reaching this new goal. Act 680 builds on Act 170 that lawmakers approved in the 2019 session which increased the minimum teacher salary by $4,000. In addition, the legislature adopted Act 614, which increases per pupil state funding of education to $7,182 in fiscal year 2021 and up to $7,349 in fiscal year 2022. This represents the largest increase in state investment in public education in 14 years. These bills were sponsored by Rep. Bruce Cozart. Yet, another big win for public education was the passage of Act 513. This law extends eligibility to receive an Arkansas teaching license to Arkansans working under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. This will open up the teaching profession to more future educators and help to diversify the workforce. This bill was sponsored by Rep. DeAnn Vaught. Another effort to diversify the education profession came with the approval of Act 636. This new law requires school districts to craft a teacher and administrator recruitment and retention plan to ensure a school employee workforce that reflects a school district’s student body. This bill was sponsored by Rep. DeAnn Vaught. AEA worked with legislators to pass Act 744 which builds on the work that NEA and AEA have been doing to develop Community Schools. This new law secures state support for school districts who want to implement a Community Schools model. This bill was sponsored by Sen. Missy Irvin. Act 612 which initially sought to ban various public employees from the right to collectively bargain, was amended to specifically target educators was adopted by the General Assembly. Currently, there are no school districts that bargain a contract in Arkansas, so this does not immediately change circumstances for educators. However, it does preempt educators’ ability to bargain a contract moving forward. This bill was sponsored by Sen. Bob Ballinger. AEA partnered with a coalition of public education partners to defeat HB1371, a massive voucher scheme. This bill sought to divert tens of millions of dollars to unaccountable private schools. This bill was sponsored by Rep. Ken Bragg. Unfortunately, Act 904, a much smaller, $2 million voucher bill did win legislative approval after the bill sponsor, Sen. Jonathan Dismang, pushed the bill through the Revenue and Tax Committees instead of the Education Committees. In addition, AEA members inspired another bill that will improve voter access to elections information. When AEA staff were preparing elections and voting information for members in the 2020 election cycle, they discovered that not all voters had access to see a sample of the ballot that they will see when they go vote via the Arkansas Secretary of State’s website, https://www.voterview.ar-nova.org/VoterView. This new law requires all county clerks to upload all sample ballots online so voters can know what all they will be asked to consider when they go vote.
This bill is now Act 128 and was sponsored by Rep. Andrew Collins. Several other voting and elections-related bills were considered during the legislative session including SB485 by Sen. Kim Hammer. This bill sought to reduce the number of early voting days in an attempt to limit voter access to the polls. AEA cosponsored a rally on the Capitol steps and a press conference inside the Capitol leading up to the final vote on the bill. Fortunately for democracy, this bill was ultimately defeated. In the final days of the legislative session, Sen. Trent Garner passed Act 1002. This preempts local governmental bodies, including school boards from adopting a mask mandate. On the last full day of the legislative session, Senate President, Jimmy Hickey passed Act 1004 which abolished the State and Public School Life and Health (PSLH) Insurance Board and transferred their duties to the Board of Finance. The PSLH board governs both the State Employee health insurance plan as well as the Public School Employee health insurance plan. This proposal was largely in response to a looming $70 million deficit in the Public School Employee health insurance plan. Last, but not least, in a testament to the incredible work that our members, both active and retired, did to resoundingly defeat the massive attack on public retirement systems in Arkansas in 2019, there were zero bills filed in the 2021 session that sought to undermine the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System or any other public retirement system. This remarkable victory has become a sustainable organizing achievement. This proves what we can all do when we act collectively to improve public education and the education profession. A twist in the 2021 legislative session saw legislators vote to enter into a months long recess instead of final adjournment known as sine die. This is largely due to the delay in receiving data from the 2020 US Census. State lawmakers are required to redraw Congressional districts based on population data from the decennial census. This process is called redistricting. Lawmakers are expected to reconvene in the Fall to complete the drawing of the new Congressional district maps. Lawmakers have also made it clear that they plan to approve significant tax cuts in the Fall. The state ended the 2021 fiscal year with nearly 1 billion dollars in surplus funds.
YOUR LAWMAKER NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Arkansas educators know first-hand the struggles that their students are experiencing, not only during the pandemic but also before. At the end of the day, our calling is to support students and utilize our professional expertise to help students learn and grow.
