Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The Arkansas legislature's 2024 fiscal session is in the books. The roughly month long session adjourned last week. And while fiscal sessions aren't typically as newsy as the regular legislative sessions that happened during odd numbered years, we still have a number of things to talk about, including the Game and Fish commission director's salary, crypto mining, and a big budget surplus. We're going to talk about that and more with a panel of Northwest Arkansas legislators coming up.
Thank you for listening, everyone. I'm Dave Perozyk, managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and your podcast host this week.
We're talking politics this week, and I've got quite a roundtable of our square rectangular table, in this case, of guests. Here with me today, state Representative Denise Gardner of Fayetteville is joining us by Zoom, state representative Robin Lundstrom of Elm Springs and state Senator Joshua Bryant of Rogers here in the studio with us. Welcome, all of you. And last but not least, my colleague Doug Thompson, our political reporter here, joins us at the table.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome.
So let's get right to it. We're, as I mentioned earlier, state Department of Finance and Administration on Wednesday surprised us with this announcement that state government's general revenue surplus is expected to be about 700 million at the end of fiscal year 2024. And that's almost triple what was originally or previously forecast of 240 million, if I've gotten my numbers right.
Curious about your reaction to this news.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: This is great news. I mean, you know, something that we attempted to hedge for kind of making the state into a bear market is what did our last round of tax cuts, what would they yield? And we predicted that they would not produce as much revenue. And our actual revenue actually was actually 200 million less. But because of our robust economy here in the state, we actually came out.
[00:02:46] Speaker C: Ahead of the game and I went, I called one of the folks in budget and said, I need more information. I want to know the why. And one of the things that they talked about at the very top was our unemployment is lower than the national average. People are going back to work much faster. And we cut our unemployment from five months to four months to three months. So people are going back to work faster. So that's going to be money coming, coming into the till. And I also ask why the difference and original projection was the 240 million and they under projected, and they always do, and it's always extremely conservative. Now, the question's been asked, why didn't we know about this during session and would we do anything different? No, this is a budget session for what? The current money that we have, that 700 million that's projected, actually goes in 2024. Yes, but we can't do anything and we can't touch it, nor should we. That's Robin Luntzer's opinion. But the legislature and the law says we can't do anything with it until we meet in session and decide and legislate what happens to that, whether it's a special session or actual session. And, of course, everybody knows we've been talking about doing another tax cut. That tax cut would come out to about 150 million. So we'd still have, and that doesn't include all of the catastrophic reserve, the governor's reserve. There's a whole list of reserves. So this is putting us in a bond rating in a position that is awesome for us. And it also tells us we don't need to, we can cut in certain areas and we may need to spend in certain areas, and that'll be the great debate that happens next.
But we're in a position where we can have that debate. A lot of states aren't, and that's a good thing.
[00:04:28] Speaker D: Representative Garner, what's your thoughts on the matter?
[00:04:31] Speaker E: I just want to say, obviously, the forecast news is good, and I'm excited about that. It is a forecast. We are generally conservative in our forecast, but it is a guesstimate, and we don't know what that's going to be until, obviously, taxes start coming in in April. So I think that's one of the reasons we didn't know until until now. But I also want to be aware that we're still 5.5% lower than we were a year ago in revenue. And so, yes, we're much better than we forecasted, but we're still behind where we were last year at this point in time. So I just want to be cautious as we start talking about tax breaks. I want to make sure that if we're giving tax breaks, we're making sure that we're giving tax breaks to the folks who really need it and making sure that as ARPA funds are winding down, that, you know, that we do keep enough money to make sure that our programs are funded as they should be. This year we only funded the budget increase. There was only a budget increase of 1.76. That's not even the cost of living. And so we're already, I'm already concerned about some of our programs and some of the potential cuts. And also, we still don't have any idea, I don't think about what the education, freedom accounts are going to do on that third year. So I'm cautiously optimistic.
I do feel like the announcement was a little bit, it sounded, felt a little political in that. No, it probably wouldn't change anything that we did in the last fiscal session, but with the rumors of another special session with budget cut, I mean, with tax cuts, I do worry a little bit about the timing. I just want people to be aware that, yes, we're much higher than our forecast, but we're not.
We're still lower than what we were last year.
[00:06:52] Speaker D: I'm going to.
I've been covering state government full time since 1998, and I understand, especially, Robin, what you said about, you know, they attempt to be conservative on their estimates. Of course they are. I mean, that's financial prudence.
I can't recall a time when Department of Finance Administration missed by this much.
I mean, I'm sorry, but it's just, it's just.
And especially we're towards the end of the fiscal year.
[00:07:28] Speaker C: Yes. It ends June 30.
[00:07:30] Speaker D: It ends June 30. I mean, the last time I recall a myth that even vaguely resembles this much of an error, it was, they were understandable. It was back during the Huckabee administration, and that was a shortfall.
Yeah. So, yeah, like I say, hey, I'm glad the state's flush. Okay. I totally agree. You know, not a matter of agreeing.
The senator's right. I mean, if this is good news, and I'm realize I'm sounding a little bit of a gift horse in the mouth here, but seriously, I would have like us if this was an honest mistake and the estimate was that wrong. There needs to be some corrections made.
[00:08:18] Speaker C: Well, I'm sure people are asking questions. We're all getting the same information the same time you are.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: And I think another large point would just be the amount of federal cash that was injected into the economy at the same time that we are trying to reduce our tax burdens here in the state. So I think they're, they hedged appropriately. It just came out in our favor.
[00:08:43] Speaker D: Yeah, that's the ARPA funds that representative.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: Garner referred to, and I think there'll be some settling. Still with that? Yeah, we don't get cocky. We just stick with the numbers we have.
[00:08:53] Speaker D: Yeah, I'll be glad when. I'm sorry, go ahead.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Well, just, I was thinking that the last round of tax cuts, we actually put another 700 million or so in a reserve account just in case we missed this forecast on the other side. And the fact that we didn't. In fact, not only did we not do it. The revenue we lost, if we had lost at all, we'd have a billion dollar surplus to be looking at right now. So I think you add those up, and we're in a good position to continue to lower personal income tax or corporate income tax, still go towards our projects for the state hospital with our prison systems. I think we're looking for success in the future.
[00:09:35] Speaker D: And I am going to tease Dave a little bit. He said the session is adjourned, and that's technically true, but it's not completely wrapped up yet. I mean, there is the matter of the game and Fish commission budget, which did not get passed. We are going to get to crypto here in a minute, but which of you members of the house want to tell us what happened?
[00:09:59] Speaker C: Well, since I got up and spoke against it, I think I probably should go ahead and dive into that. When that bill was filed, it was actually filed early and properly put through the system, and then it stalled. And for 20 days while they were negotiating, and lots of folks knew there was a problem with the pay increase. It's not a reflection on the current director. It's just. Wait a second. This is, you put in your budget, you don't come back and then add an addendum.
This is not the way this works. And then not getting the budget done and holding it up is the wrong thing to do. I think it's inappropriate to come back the last day and say, well, here the house, you just pass it, hold your nose, even though you don't like it. And when they had been signaling, even to the point of it only got 32 votes. I mean, that's pretty bipartisan when you can get down to 32 votes, that to not listen to the house and we're in charge of the budget. So bring us a budget. Bring us a complete budget, and we want to do our job. It was not something where people were jumping up and down to get out of session. A lot of folks were willing to sit for another 2 hours and let's get this done. The Senate actually didn't signy die. They gave us that time.
But folks higher up the food chain than me decided, no, we're done and we're out of here. So, okay, we'll have to come back and have a special session. We're going to come back into a session when we lower taxes. This may speed it up because July 1 people have paychecks and things that they need. So we'll have to probably in ALC week when it would be less expensive because people are there anyway have a special budget or a special session? I don't know. That's up to the governor. That's again above my pay grade.
And we'll see. But this is one thing that will get added to that, I'm sure.
[00:11:50] Speaker D: ALC, by the way, is Arkansas Legislative Council, which sort of monitors things between sessions. Yes.
So, Denise, is that pretty much what you, does that sound like what happened to you?
[00:12:05] Speaker E: I think there were a lot of issues where we suspended the rules, and sometimes that doesn't have a detrimental effect and sometimes it does. And I think, I think there was some question about which rules should be suspended and which one shouldn't and which of these amendments should go through special language or personnel instead of the regular budget session. So I understood the issue and, you know, I ended up voting for it because I felt like the commission came back and was, was at least trying to make some concessions. I thought we could have stayed and finish. And I just hate the idea of spending taxpayer funds for another special session. But again, if we do it during legislative council, where a third to half of the membership is there already, then it'll keep the cost down. So I get both sides. I understand.
I think there was some miscommunication and some on both sides, and I think there was some misinformation about what the amendment was doing that made it sound much more amenable than it was at the end. And so I get it. I mean, I didn't agree with the way it happened. I don't agree with a lot of things that happened, but I didn't agree with the, with the process. I felt like it was not, it was out of the process and the normal process and we could have done things differently.
So I, yeah, it was an issue for sure on both sides.
[00:13:53] Speaker C: I do think the most important thing the legislature does is the budget. And I think there comes a time when you don't just sit there and vote and let things out because, yeah, that's just one more thing. Whatever, whatever. At some point the legislature has to put their foot down and actually acts like, act like the legislature.
Right. And I think we saw that happen.
[00:14:11] Speaker D: I mean, the budget is the only power the legislature actually has, really, in a lot of ways, yes.
[00:14:16] Speaker C: And I think it was, if there had been some, a little more listening on the front end, we probably could have wrapped this thing up.
But be that as may, it will all come out in the wash eventually.
[00:14:27] Speaker D: Okay. Senator, do you think they'll be able to, I mean, everybody's got, there's been talk of tax cuts. Do you think they'll be able to take up the issue of tax cuts in this special session for game and fish, or do you think that might require a little more time? What do you think?
[00:14:46] Speaker B: I think there's great opportunity to do that. I think it was going to be later in the 2024 year, beginning of next fiscal year. But I think we're primed for the opportunity to at least have those discussions.
[00:14:59] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: And have, you know, an extra purpose for having a special session that we can give a little money back to the people.
[00:15:06] Speaker D: Okay. And I think, I think we've mentioned it, but I'm going to make explicitly sure the fiscal year ends June 30, state's fiscal year. Something's got to be done with the game and fish budget.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: Correct. By then we'll have to meet sometime in June or the very first or second week in July, because downstream, no pun intended, with game and fish, there are people that need their paychecks. Yeah, I have them once in a while. Have one. But when you talk about when Josh brought up tax cuts, if you just do some back of the napkin, I called Bureau of Legislative Research and said, we cut taxes, we've cut them for lower income, we've cut them for middle income, we've cut them for upper income. We've shrunk all the different categories. But if you just do a tax cut from 4.1 to 4.4 to 4.1, and you do a corporate tax cut of 4.8% to, say 4.5.
[00:16:02] Speaker D: So you're talking about the income tax.
[00:16:03] Speaker C: The income tax, both corporate and personal. You're only talking about 12 million, 36 million on the corporate. I mean, we're not talking about radical slash and burn, Kansas type thing where they cut everything and then they had to come back and increase. We're talking about a slow glide path. It's not anything that is going to cause the government to hiccup. So I think we can afford to give people their money back. It's not our money. It's the people's money.
[00:16:28] Speaker D: Yeah, but like you say, it's been gradual all along. We never did do the big off the cliff thing Kansas did.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: No.
[00:16:37] Speaker D: Which is a horror story everybody points to. So.
[00:16:41] Speaker C: And when you look at the budget.
[00:16:43] Speaker E: Want to be cautious, though, as we talk about income tax to the highest earners. We have tried trickle down economics for the last 50 years, and it just does not work. We've got to have a consumer economy where the people who are really needing to spend the money have the money to spend. And I get calls every day from people who can't find homes or who don't know where to get their next meal or, I mean, the economy, certainly the forecast looks, looks much better than we thought it was. But we've got a lot of folks that are hurting in Arkansas. And I just want to make sure that, you know, we pay some of the highest sales tax, some of those things that, some of these regressive taxes, I would love to see us cut those instead of just cutting money. The income tax from the highest earners.
[00:17:30] Speaker D: I think nationally what people are having to pay for groceries has been hot all across the country, and Arkansas does rely a great deal on the sales tax. So is there any possibility that could get looked at?
[00:17:50] Speaker C: I don't know. Everybody has their different thing that they're interested in. Mine's property taxes. We've cut grocery taxes, so I don't know.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: I think the legislature has a hard time taxing productivity when we could tax consumption easier. So I think it would be a hard sell to. Not that a grocery tax would not be a great starting point if we're going to start talking about reducing consumption taxes. But I think we still have to look at the reality that we have to compete with neighboring states that have 0% income tax and that are driving economic development at a faster pace than Arkansas is, such as Texas and Oklahoma in Tennessee. So I think we still need to pursue those. But I don't think it would be off the table to talk about the grocery tax getting lower or reducing to zero.
[00:18:43] Speaker D: Well, you mentioned property taxes. That's especially sensitive subject around here, and.
[00:18:49] Speaker C: It'S going to get worse. And I think we need to find a way to eat. I would, you know, if queen for the day, I'd eliminate them. But we need to maybe look at capping all of them and having a different formula because these counties are having to. For example, Washington county spent 1.3 million just on bringing outside consultants to help them assess all our properties. That doesn't include all the employees, and there's a cost to assessment. And then Benton county, oh, boy, y'all are in for it.
They're having to bring in 30 to 40 new employees just to get the assessments done. The cost of collecting property tax is astronomical, not only to government, but to the individual.
When you tax a person's house, you can also take it away, and that is just wrong. So there needs to be either a revamp of the formula or we get rid of it. And I don't ever see, getting rid of it. So maybe we need to revamp it.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: And that's what Amendment 98, is that what capped us at five and 10%?
[00:19:48] Speaker D: I'm sorry, I'd have to look it up. I don't remember that off the top of my head. And I covered it when it passed.
Yeah, but it did. What we're talking about here, although property taxes are mainly local taxes, I mean, the bulk of them do go to schools and stuff like that. The state certainly does set, you know, certain minimums for schools and they also prescribe the process for assessing them.
[00:20:13] Speaker C: Right. And, and the process, process will separate your head from your shoulders. And it shouldn't be, it should be a whole lot more transparent and easier to understand. Yeah.
[00:20:22] Speaker D: Well, now let's talk.
[00:20:24] Speaker E: All governments would be more transparent and easier to understand.
[00:20:28] Speaker D: It would be nice.
[00:20:29] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Circling back real quick to the human Fish commission and the proposal to up the director's pay from about 152 to 190.
A lot of people look at that.
[00:20:46] Speaker D: And say, wow, including members of the House.
[00:20:50] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: So your takes on that.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: I'll look at it from the, from the Senate side. So that, that bill, as Representative Lundstrom said it was filed appropriately, if not early at the beginning of fiscal session.
They, of course, went through their justifications with it in the lead up to fiscal session the beginning of late last year. And even though it was being held, we've got so much other stuff going on, you don't really, really have a chance to pay attention to it. Well, the original request to compensate the director was to allow the foundation to raise funds, and that didn't sit well with, with several members of the Senate. And I don't know if it would have even went through the House appropriately. But the Senate was obviously pushing back because, you know, we do that with our economic development director where they're allowed to get compensated by private entities and nonprofits. So we were challenged in if we would agree with that because at the end of the day, who would this director be working for?
[00:21:55] Speaker D: Ooh, a good point.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: And so, you know, the compromise was to increase the director's salary or give the authority to the commission to increase the director's salary. And if you look at what the commission is responsible for, they're responsible for about $177 million of funds that they raise. Very little of it comes out of general revenue. It's done through park fees and licenses and all the other things.
[00:22:20] Speaker D: They have their own sales tax that operate.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Yep. They got their own one eight cent sales tax. So they generate their own operations and then you look at what the director has responsibility over, which is roughly 600 employees and all of our, all of our game and fish activities.
That is a position that is highly sought.
And not only is it highly sought, others are highly seeking. Those individuals capable of that. So the Senate looked at it as we did not see it, not unreasonable that we need to compensate this director, give the authority to the commission to compensate the director, equivalent to what the governor compensates her secretaries for. Okay, which is upper, you know, the lower 200s is what she has the authority to go to now, does she? She doesn't. You know, they're within reason of their other pay bans. But that's where the Senate was. And then to come back and see that when the House did not pass it, we were waiting to see what the problem is, the pay, then fix the pay.
And it just stalled. And the Senate didn't know why. And so that's why we, when it failed the second time, on the last day of what was supposed to be signy die for both chambers, when the House signy died, we automatically had it back. We didn't have to recall it. It comes back to the chamber, which it originated. So it's Senate bill. And so we took it upon ourselves to pass an amendment to lower it back to the 152 just to see if the House could respond. And of course, they've already signed. He died. And it'd be a parliamentary feat if they could overcome getting reconvened after they've signed. He died, adjourned without a time.
And so that's where the Senate left it, and we were by a majority in agreement. I don't think any dissenters, less one that just typically votes no on all budget items.
[00:24:16] Speaker D: Speaking of legislative feats, how did you get. We're going crypto now, unless somebody objects. How did you get something that is so not a fiscal issue in the physical, in the fiscal session? And why did they decide that you had the thickest set of oven nets handle this good?
[00:24:38] Speaker C: Way to put it.
[00:24:39] Speaker D: Seriously?
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I think we had a. A year to listen to the problems, full pun intended.
And why me is maybe, is because I got maybe the brunt of the accusations of why we're having these problems. Even though I attempted to articulate that even without act 851 of 2023, the state would still be in the same position it was at the beginning of fiscal session.
So after a year of learning really more about what the rural Arkansans that didn't have the ability for their local governments to regulate noise not because of act a 51, but because 72 of our 75 counties do not have planning or zoning. They don't want planning or zoning.
As I said during session, it's much like in the nineties, dealing with racetracks. Counties that were having large sums of land being consumed by racetracks, they didn't have and didn't want the authority, but they wanted to limit what racetracks could do and the nuisances they create. And so I worked several months late, 2023, talking to the industry, talking to the county judges, talking to the prosecutors, all the relative parties, and, of course, the governor's office, attorney general's office, formulating a plan of how to address this. And it took a lot of work to get their buy in because, as you pointed out, to get a non substantive bill into a fiscal session, they feel like it's a little bit of pandora's box. If you allow one, what more do you have to allow?
[00:26:24] Speaker D: I'd say that's true. I mean, they're very cautious about doing that. And they should be. And they should be. But I would say that the fact that it did, that this particular issue did make it is pretty good indicator of how serious, serious it was. I mean, there were some very upset people in rural Arkansas who couldn't, they felt couldn't enjoy the property because of the buzz, these, these operations.
If there's anybody left in the state who doesn't know, they're under a rock. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's banks and banks of computers. And sometimes they make a hum.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: If done inappropriately or incorrectly, they can make a home. And if you've got an owner of one of these that wants to be a good neighbor, they can produce the measures to make them quiet. If you have somebody that is not a good neighbor, maybe even, not even from America, they tend to not care if they're a good neighbor because they're.
[00:27:33] Speaker D: Making money, but they should because if they don't, here's, look what it provokes.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: If you don't regulate yourself, somebody will eventually regulate you.
[00:27:43] Speaker C: And the process worked. So it did.
[00:27:46] Speaker E: And as a, as a Democrat and a super minority, it's extremely difficult to allow non fiscal bills into the session. But I, too, have heard lots of, lots of issues about it. And I will say that I think the process worked well and Senator Bryant and Senator Harris or senator.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Well, urban.
[00:28:09] Speaker E: Yes. Thank you, missy. All I could think of is Missy anyway. Yeah. But I think everybody, everybody worked well together to, to get something done in a quick way and tried to get the information out that one of the issues in the session both last year and this year when we suspend the rules to hear bills more quickly. I think what happened last year is that we ended up voting on that bill without having all the information. And it felt a little bit like that this time. But I will say that I think, I think you guys spent, I think you guys spent a lot of time trying to make sure that everybody was educated and make sure that, you know, everybody had a chance to testify and that kind of thing. So I appreciate that.
[00:28:58] Speaker D: I'm glad you raised that, representative, because, you know, the Democrats got some, got some criticism from their own side saying, look, this was a real opportunity to show rural Arkansas that, that you care about them, and you missed it. But as you pointed out, the Democrats, correct me if I'm wrong, largely objected to bringing up a non fiscal issue in a fiscal session.
[00:29:21] Speaker E: Exactly. It wasn't the issue. We had several issues.
One of the things that I think is an emergency, and Representative Lundstrom will agree is the Tinytown issue with their landfill. And that was something that, you know, I think needed to be talked about, too. But there are a lot of things that need to be, that, you know, tend to be emergent. But when you start, when you let one in without a special session to talk about that specifically, then you open it up to just about anything. And that's really worrisome for, especially for the super minority. And, you know, if our legislature were a little more balanced, it wouldn't be so frightening. But, but it can be, it can be extremely dangerous, I think, to open it up.
But this time I think it worked well, and the sponsors of the bills worked hard to make sure that we understood what was going on. So I do think that was helpful.
[00:30:24] Speaker D: And crypto isn't exactly the easiest topic to talk about. I mean, I mean, it takes a pretty good, speaking from my own perspective, takes a pretty good amount of newspaper space just to explain what crypto is.
Process works.
[00:30:43] Speaker E: Representative Meeks and the joint committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology spent a lot of time working on it. And so there were videos from those meetings, and then city, county, local in both chambers spent a lot of time and they allowed a lot of testimony. So that was really helpful that we had that information to go back to.
It's when we don't have time for some of those kinds of things that we make bad decisions, I think. And so I was glad to have that time to really understand what was going on.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: I just wanted to lend some context to the discussion for our listeners that we're talking about amending the Arkansas Data Center act of 2023, which basically prohibited localities from passing ordinances that would regulate crypto mines. Am I correct on that?
[00:31:47] Speaker B: If they had the ability to regulate, and like I said, cities have the ability to regulate, counties have the ability. They choose not to. And so if you choose not to regulate, you automatically wouldn't have the ability to amend what you don't want to already regulate.
[00:32:02] Speaker D: I'm going to go ahead and blurt out about the elephant in the room. This is a property rights state. I mean, basically, even in your district, there are folks who strongly believe that the property owner should have the right to do whatever the heck he want, he or she wants to do on his property. Now. And then you got the issue of, well, what I want to do is sit outdoors and enjoy my property without hearing a constant hum of crypto mining. So it's a thorny issue as we set up here in northwest Arkansas.
Everybody thinks we're one big city from one end to the other, but really, as we've said before, it's a different world on the other side of the lake. And there's a lot of.
Yeah, it's not the safest issue for anybody to pick up, let's put it that way.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: So, representative and I think it also.
[00:32:59] Speaker E: Brought up another issue in that a lot of us heard so many complaints that there was a lot of rumbling about just banning crypto in the state. And, you know, then you have the folks that our commerce interested in the commerce and legal issues with commerce. And so it really became a pretty, pretty wild ride, actually.
It was interesting to hear both sides. And even with expert testimony, there were folks that still just absolutely don't want crypto in the state. And then there were folks, obviously, who think crypto is here to stay, and there's no reason not to have crypto in the state if the folks are good players and are making sure that they're doing what they should be doing for the neighborhood. So it was an interesting session, that's for sure.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: Since we have you here.
And Representative Gardner mentioned it, the landfill issue, and there was a bill filed on it.
[00:34:09] Speaker D: Representative Unger. SteVE Unger, spring yeah, and, and Representative.
[00:34:16] Speaker E: Lunchroom was part of that.
[00:34:18] Speaker D: So co sponsored, and Senator Penzo from Springdale was co sponsor on that one, attempted to, tried to get direct appropriation from the legislature for the, for the geological sciences department of the university to do a water quality study. There's air quality studies going on right now.
[00:34:40] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:34:42] Speaker D: But anyway, in case there's anybody out there who hasn't heard of this one, and I really would wonder how you managed to avoid it.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Doug would be offended since he's written all the stories.
[00:34:52] Speaker D: No, I wouldn't be offended. Sometimes if I could go under a rock, I would. But seriously, look, there's bad smells. There's benzine, benzene in the air, which is serious stuff.
[00:35:08] Speaker C: And the court case that just came back and said you can keep operating, but the judge put a caveat on that, and I think the caveat is most telling. You have to do water quality testing.
He did the best he could. I get it. Tinytown knew going in this was going to be tough to get over this. But I think it's interesting that even they see there's an issue and they're requiring water quality testing.
[00:35:35] Speaker D: And I think it's fair to say that even though the majority of the laws are complied with and the regulations, there's a fair question of whether those regulations and standards are sufficient.
[00:35:48] Speaker C: Oh, it's a very fair question. I think that's going to have to be addressed. We tried last session, couldn't get them out of committee.
I think now people are much more attuned to what's going on, and we may have that shot yet again.
It comes back to that good neighbor policy if you're not a good neighbor. And the other problem is, I think part of the problem is state government has not done the regulation that it should, and it was built in the wrong spot to begin with. And we just keep kicking the can down the road. Even our own audits back in 1988 say that this is not a good place to have a landfill. We just keep kicking the can down the road. We're going to have to start thinking ten years down the road and have a different location with the new technology of a landfill.
[00:36:33] Speaker D: You heard it here, folks. Robin Lundstrom saying that we're going to have to wonder if the regulations are sufficient.
[00:36:40] Speaker C: You got to follow him, and you got to go after some things once in a while. Hey, clean water and clean air.
[00:36:45] Speaker D: There you go. But, Sarah. Okay, I'm teasing you a little bit, but in all seriousness, let's go ahead and say this is northwest Arkansas's only landfill.
[00:36:52] Speaker C: That's correct, period.
[00:36:54] Speaker D: And it is especially vital to the construction industry because, you know, if you have to haul your, you know, sawed off ends of your two by fours all the way to Oklahoma, that's a problem. And I will, the senator here is in, is in that business. So that's one of the reasons I'm.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: Pointing at him, I think, and that was one of the expansion opportunities was for construction material.
[00:37:19] Speaker D: It was.
[00:37:20] Speaker B: And I believe it is only a ten year expansion permit.
[00:37:24] Speaker D: Yeah, it is.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: So we've, we've got some time, but ten years in the world of government is not that long.
[00:37:30] Speaker D: Ten years in terms of planning is a blink of the eye.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: It is. So.
[00:37:34] Speaker D: It really is.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: I think we have to do regionally look at what that is going to mean for us in ten years and start those conversations. Probably should have started them ten years ago, but be more proactive. Have representative Unger, Representative Lundstrom, and all of us jointly today, and those elected in the future stay engaged on this issue.
[00:37:57] Speaker D: It's not going away.
[00:37:58] Speaker C: No.
[00:38:00] Speaker A: So how do you initiate that discussion?
[00:38:03] Speaker C: Well, I have been asking the question who and why? And I keep getting, well, it's somebody else. It's somebody else. Actually, it's us. It's also the Washington Mountain, excuse me, Boston Mountain waste management.
We're going to have to put our foot down and say, what's the plan? Where are we going? And actually look at the geological map and say, where is the karst in so we don't hurt our water system. And where can it go in the lower Washington county and a little bit further. That area is where it ends and where other sites have been located in the past where they thought this is where we might end up going for something of that nature. And we've just. We don't need it right now. And we don't need it right now. And that's. We need it now. Northwest Arkansas is growing quickly. The worst thing we can do is strangle it with highways or drowned it in trash. And those are some basic needs that we're gonna have to face.
[00:39:02] Speaker E: You know, I think one of the things we're talking about right now is just one of the most frustrating things about government and coming from healthcare background and a nonprofit background, if we did a gap analysis of the state, if we had a strategic plan, a mission and a vision that we all agreed on and had that strategic plan for at least four years, maybe eight, and then 20 down the road, and we actually worked together on that, we could get something done. But the way the system works is that we don't hear about those problems until we're sitting at a committee table with hearing the best of the best and the worst of the worst of the bill that's being presented, depending on which side you're on. And we don't have an opportunity to spend a whole lot of time working on the middle ground where we could all agree. So I think the whole system is broken, and it would make so much more sense in government to me if we could do basically what we did with crypto and with other things. We've been successful with the nurse practitioner, I happen to be involved in that one. But with the nurse practitioner versus physician responsibilities, we've done that occasionally. I hope we can do that with maternal health right now with some of the stakeholders meetings that we're having. But it's just, it's so frustrating that we don't hear or that even, you know, in talking about the Taneytown issue, that we can't trust the information that we're getting from some of the agencies either. We're not getting asking the right questions. I'm not sure what the problem is, but, you know, certainly the agencies told us that there was no issue in expanding that landfill. So it's just frustrating that we don't have an opportunity to really look at that long term plan and work on it together, because I really think certainly we, the three of us, have been in the room several times together, and we're not that far apart in ideology.
We can get things done, and we can get things done in the state and get them done well for everyone if we had an opportunity to do some of those things as opposed to the way we do it now, I'm.
[00:41:17] Speaker D: Going to say, since AEDQ isn't here to defend itself, you know, it's.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: A.
[00:41:28] Speaker D: Lot of the things. I don't think they're hiding anything. I think they just don't know. I mean, seriously, isn't the testing and all that we're having to go above and beyond what's required in the regulations to find out that there was.
[00:41:43] Speaker E: I wasn't trying to throw them under the bus by any.
[00:41:45] Speaker D: Oh, no, no, no. I'm not sorry.
[00:41:47] Speaker E: I just think that's part of it, is that we don't know the questions to ask or we don't know. We don't know what we don't know sometimes.
[00:41:54] Speaker D: But, yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you had. It's just I felt that needed to be added. I'm also going to say that, you know, we're in a. Earth sciences wasn't my strong subject. Okay. But basically we're northwest Arkansas. Sits on top of a very fractured piece of pieces of limestone. I mean, literally, you can, you can say, well, you know, no danger of that pond over there because there's a hill between us. Well, there's a bunch of cracks and eddies and then whatever underneath that hill that could wind up, you know, stuff from the landfill, no matter how good of a lining it has, could wind up or anywhere else. I mean, we're talking about the landfill. I will point out the air testing showed, yeah, there's been zine in the air, but one of the sites was upwind of the landfill.
So, yeah, in order to nail it down, it's taking some extensive and some, frankly, pretty expensive tests.
[00:42:55] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:42:56] Speaker D: And it needed to know what's going on.
[00:42:57] Speaker C: It needs to be done. And one of the things that came out in the trial was we have changed in our government attitude and departments. Instead of coming in and fining someone $10,000, we come in and say, let's help you. Well, I think there needs to be a balance. When you have numerous infractions but no result, and you hope that they're getting that right. You hope that the agency's coming along and saying, let's work with you on this.
At some point you go, no, you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you're going to get fined and start fining them.
So.
Cause I asked the question, do we have enough teeth? Oh, yes, we have enough teeth. Well, should we use that teeth once in a while?
[00:43:41] Speaker D: Well, and that applies to a whole lot more than the landfill. And tawny, frankly, that's all over the state, all sorts of things. So anyway.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: Well, that is a whole other subject that we could talk about for a few more podcasts.
[00:43:58] Speaker D: Oh, we will. It'll be many a con. Yeah.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: Was there anything else either of you wanted to mention about this fiscal session.
[00:44:10] Speaker D: That came upcoming, special session and what have you.
[00:44:14] Speaker C: I'm excited. We have a balanced budget. We have reserve funds that are, for example, the catastrophic reserve fund has 1.5 billion in it, which is about four or five months of covering the state's budget. If there was something catastrophic, our bond rating has gone up, which is critical. And between the balanced budget, the surplus, and we put more money in education, which there is a limit to, where you can spend all the money in the world and still not have the best education, but having competition, we're now paying our teachers more. So we're going to be keeping those good quality teachers here in Arkansas. So there's a lot of things to be optimistic in Arkansas about.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:44:58] Speaker D: There you go.
[00:44:59] Speaker E: I agree, too. I just want to be cautiously optimistic. There was a Pew survey that came out yesterday, said I had Arkansas as one of the most rapid the states with the most rapid downturn in revenue. And even though the forecast, again, is much higher than what we thought, we are still down 5.5% over what we were last year. And so I just want to be, we're starting on year three for the education freedom accounts. And yes, we're putting a lot of money into education, but we're putting it into these education freedom accounts and we don't have any idea how many people are going to use those. Again, I don't think we have the accountability and the transparency that we need for those, for that education. But, you know, I just think we need to be cautiously optimistic about what's going on here.
You know, I hope that we won't be cutting the programs that eliminate poverty to get to a 0% income tax for our highest earners.
I want to make sure that we are doing the things that eliminate poverty and benefit the economy.
It's tough to even talk about earned income tax credits or child tax credits or wage minimum wages, but those are the things that we could do that benefit everyone and the economy. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want us to just assume that everybody's fine with eliminating income taxes because I don't think at risk of the programs that government is required to do.
We can't keep cutting, cutting the budget and cutting the programs that, that are so important to most of our Arkansans.
[00:46:59] Speaker A: Thank you, Representative Garner. And, Doug, any last words?
[00:47:03] Speaker D: Oh, gosh. We've already gone longer than I expected we would and then covered everything. I once again appreciate y'all coming in for this. Representative Garner, thank you and all that. No, I didn't. Yeah, no, I'll hush.
[00:47:17] Speaker E: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: Appreciate all your time.
[00:47:20] Speaker C: Thank you for having us.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you.
[00:47:23] Speaker F: If you're enjoying this podcast, consider a newspaper subscription to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette or the River Valley Democrat Gazette. We have a special offer for our podcast listeners, so visit nwA online.com nwapodcast to get started. You can also click the subscribe button on our websites, nWA online.com and rivervalleydemocrategazette.com, or call us at 479-684-5509 and be sure to say that youre a podcast listener. Now back to the show.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. Welcome back. If you want to read about this year's fiscal session, check out Doug Thompson's story on the subject this weekend in the northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
A few other stories we have coming your way over the next few days. That I want to mention.
Bentonville, Benton county reporter Thomas Ascenti will have two bike related stories this weekend. One is a preview of the upcoming Bentonville bike Fest. The other has to do with another cycling event that's coming to Bentonville this September.
The city of Fayetteville plans to start collecting a fee to address flooding issues in the city. Stacy Ryburn will have that report.
Mayors in each of the four largest northwest Arkansas cities will be on the ballot this fall. Stacy Rybrin will bring us that story as well. And in the river valley, the Fort Smith planning Commission met this week and rejected a proposed military compatibility area overlay district.
Sadie Lucicero will have that story for us. And Monica Brick will tell us about a joint meeting this week of the Fort Smith board of directors and the Parks Commission and the various projects that were discussed during that meeting and in Sunday's what's Up? Section, which is always full of fun and exciting things to do. This week's cover story has to do with a new music festival that will take place in Prairie Grove next weekend.
All this and more will be available to our subscribers and on our tablet and smartphone apps and in our websites, NWA online.com and river valleydemocraticgazette.com.
Know the news is a weekly podcast brought to you by the newsrooms of the Northwest Arkansas Democratic Gazette and the River Valley Democrat Gazette. Again, I'm Dave Perozyk, your podcast host this week. Thank you, as always, for listening. And don't forget to check us out next Friday for the next know the news. Until then, take care.
