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| GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON - PLAYS FAST & LOOSE WITH PUBLIC FUNDS TO HELP WIN VOTES |
Gov. Asa Hutchinson is giving $150,000 from an emergency
fund to three private historically black religious affiliated colleges to provide grants to
assist their students - Arkansas Baptist College and Philander Smith College in Little Rock, and Shorter College in North Little Rock.
From the Governor's Emergency Fund, Hutchinson plans to give $80,000
to Arkansas Baptist College; $55,000 to Philander Smith College; and
$15,000 to Shorter College to provide Arkansas Future Grants, according
to his proclamations. His proposal sailed through the eight-member
legislative Governor's Emergency Fund Review Committee last week.
"The reason for the distribution to the three private colleges is
that these schools previously benefited from scholarships and grants
that were terminated under the ArFuture legislation," Hutchinson said
Friday in a written statement in response to a question about whether
giving emergency funds to the three schools was part of a deal with
Democrats to unstall the bill in the Senate Education Committee.
Right.
Since he became governor in January 2015, Hutchinson has set aside
more than $750,000 from the Governor's Emergency Fund for more than 20
agencies and groups.
During the past decade, the largest amount spent out of the emergency
fund was $472,500 in fiscal 2014, with $350,000 set aside for Pulaski
County tornado debris removal, according to records of the state
Department of Finance and Administration. Democrat Mike Beebe was
governor then.
The latest flap over the emergency fund was in January 2007, when
Gov. Mike Huckabee spent the last $13,000 in that fiscal year's $500,000
fund to partially pay the Department of Information Systems to crush
the hard drives on the governor's office computers during the transition
to Beebe's administration.
During the past 20 years, the most spent out of the fund was $868,483
in fiscal 2001, finance department records show. Huckabee, a
Republican, set aside $240,000 for the Arkansas Development Finance
Authority to use with federal funds to acquire 11 homes, relocate nine
residents and help six homeowners replace their homes in Stamp near the
former Red River Aluminum site, which some believed was the source of
health problems.
Hutchinson's two largest proposed uses of emergency funds have been
$100,000 apiece for the nonprofit group called Restore Hope and the
Morgan Nick Foundation of Arkansas.
In August 2015, Hutchinson organized a two-day conference aimed at
addressing problems with foster care and prisoner re-entry and called it
the Governor's Restore Hope Summit.
In a proclamation dated May 20, 2016, he set aside $100,000 from the
Governor's Emergency Fund for operational expenses of Restore Hope to
unite and engage communities in meeting the needs of prison inmates and
foster children needing homes.
A nonprofit group called Restore Hope Inc. registered with the
secretary of state's office on Jan. 1, 2016, with J. Paul Chapman Jr. as
its incorporator, organizer and registered agent, according to the office's website.
In his proclamation dated May 20, 2016, the governor noted that he
organized a summit called Restore Hope and he followed up by authorizing
the formation of a nonprofit called Restore Hope "tasked with making
real challenges in the way our communities respond to these programs.
"(T)he nonprofit is in need of financial resources for personnel and
operational expenses, and private donations are not yet adequate to meet
its needs," Hutchinson wrote in his one-page proclamation.
In another proclamation also signed May 20, 2016, Hutchinson set
aside $100,000 for the Morgan Nick Foundation of Arkansas to provide
direct services to the families of missing children.
"Private donations have never been entirely sufficient to adequately
sustain the operating costs of the Morgan Nick Foundation," the governor
said in his proclamation.
Asked last week why he set aside the most money so
far for the two groups, Hutchinson said, "They are both two statewide
needs addressing foster care, prison re-entry and child safety.
"The use of discretionary funds does not require long-term financial obligations of the state," he said.
When asked how many emergency funding requests he's received, the
governor responded: "Emergency and supplemental funding requests to my
office are expressed as a general need, and the request is not directed
to a specific funding source. When the need is determined to be valid,
then we start looking for an appropriate discretionary fund that might
work."
The
Bureau of Legislative Research interprets state law to require
that the Governor's Emergency Fund Committee review emergency and
non-emergency uses of the fund, said Kevin Anderson, an assistant
director of fiscal services for the bureau.
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| KEVIN ANDERSON - BUREAU OF LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH |
Arkansas Code Annotated 19-2-404 authorizes the governor to issue a
proclamation declaring that an emergency exists "in the event of riots,
threatened riots, sabotage, public insurrection, threatened
insurrection, storm, flood, famine or other public calamity which
jeopardizes the public peace, health, and safety of citizens of Arkansas
that calls for immediate action."
Other proposed uses of emergency money must go before the Governor's
Emergency Fund Review Committee, whose members are the chairmen and vice
chairmen of Legislative Joint Auditing Committee and Legislative
Council.
The committee started meeting last year, said Marty Garrity, director of the Bureau of Legislative Research.
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| MARTY GARRITY - DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH |
Sen. Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, said, "In the previous
administrations, they were just letting us know they were using [the
emergency fund]. But that is not what the law says, so we are going to
be following the statute."
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| STATE SENATOR BILL SAMPLE |
It's been rare for the committee to decline to review any governor's request to use emergency funds, according to Anderson.
During its 7-minute meeting last week, the committee declined to
review Hutchinson's request to give $7,500 to the nonprofit Sonny Boy Blues Society for increased safety and security for the Arkansas King
Biscuit Blues Festival at Helena-West Helena. Over the past 20 years,
the society has received some emergency funds.
"This festival has grown into a popular attraction, drawing over
100,000 visitors, outstripping the resources of the Helena/West Helena
Police Department and Phillips County Sheriff's Office as they try to
provide adequate protection and security for the event," Hutchinson said
in his proclamation.
But Rep. Richard Womack, R-Arkadelphia, pressed Hutchinson aide David Bell, "Why is this now an emergency? Who dropped the ball and is not
prepared?"
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| STATE REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD WOMACK |
In response, Bell said the governor provided the same amount of funding to the nonprofit last year.
"It is something that the governor wanted to go ahead and do again
this year," Bell said. "You are correct. It is not something that's a
surprise. But it is something that helps with public safety and helps
with keeping the cost down for the nonprofit that's running that."
But Sample said, "I just think this is a slippery slope that you are going down."
Slippery is right.