Lawmakers face decisions on education funding
Posted on Tuesday, November 18, 2008
GRAVETTE — State Sen. Kim Hendren will be committed, in the rest of his time in the Arkansas Legislature, to offering support for a UAMS satellite campus and to working on education reform, among other initiatives, the recently re-elected senator said Friday.
A longtime state senator, Hendren was unopposed on the 2008 ballot.
Hendren and other state lawmakers will meet in a state legislative session beginning in January 2009.
Lawmakers will need to tackle some major issues when they meet, Hendren said.
To open a satellite campus in northwest Arkansas, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has asked for money from the Arkansas Legislature, Hendren said.
“ We want to continue to get enough funding in that thing. And I’m not really sure how much they’re going to have to have. But we want to try to get enough funding in it to at least continue it, ” Hendren said.
“ We just need to do that to increase our medical services. When we can do that, it’s like oil and natural gas and other things, ” he said. “ If we can increase that supply, it’s going to help control cost and also the ability (to have ) the access to services. ”
Education reform will continue next year, but he will insist on better management of the education dollar, Hendren said.
“ We’re going to have to put a little more money into it, but we need to look at better management at the superintendent’s level and the building-principal level, ” Hendren said.
He will continue to insist that in almost all cases, baccalaureate degrees should be awarded in no more than four years, Hendren said. Some in Arkansas and elsewhere apparently want them awarded in six years, but that idea is unnecessarily expensive and just plain wrong, he said.
“ Now, they’re making their calculations based on (students taking ) 12 semester hours. … I expect to go back to the Senate Education Committee, and I’m going to insist that we begin measuring (the number of ) four-year baccalaureate degrees and ask them to do it. One of the presidents (of a higher education institution ) told me the other day in budget hearings — he said, ‘ I’ll assure you that we’re doing everything we can to speed up the (process ), get the baccalaureate degrees done as quickly as possible. ’ My question then was, ‘ Sir, if that’s the case, how can you be doing everything you can when you’re not even measuring it ?’”
Also in 2009, lawmakers will have to look at funding for prisons, Hendren said.
With tough economic times in the state and nation, state spending will be on the conservative side in the upcoming legislative session, which begins in January, he said. “ It just has to be, ” Hendren said.
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