Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Arkansas Times, and KUARFM 89 and hello again everyone.

Thanks very much for being with us.

With student debt in America exceeding a trillion dollars and Arkansas University unveils a plan for debt free education for some.

We'll get more on that in just a few moments.

First, as we prepare this edition, the Governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has summoned the Arkansas General Assembly to a special legislative session beginning Monday.

No surprise there.

The governor, no surprise here, has introduced, is proposing tax cut legislation as well as amendments, significant amendments to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

Both sides.

Now we're joined up top by Representative Aaron Pilkington, Republican of Knoxville and Senator Greg Letting, Democrats of Fayetteville.

Gentlemen, thanks very much for coming in of the same party as the governor.

Your thoughts, your reaction?

Well, one thing is I'm extremely happy to see that we're continuing to cut taxes.

I think when we were having the session, there were a lot more fears about the recession, the health of the economy.

And as as things have gone on, I think a little bit of those fears especially in Arkansas subsided.

We feel that we're doing a good job and and now we're going to provide some tax relief to the citizens of Arkansas, which I think is is long overdue.

You know the governor stated before and many people in my party have that they wish to eliminate the income tax.

And so I think this is a small step, but the right step in the right direction.

You know, we're essentially cutting taxes for, I think it's around 1.1 million our Kansans which is a majority of taxpaying our Kansans.

And so we're excited about that.

I think what we'll see is more economic growth because of it and it's just making us more competitive with surrounding states as well.

Yeah, before we go on, here's a clip of the Governor's announcement at mid morning on Friday.

Today, I'm calling a special session of the legislature beginning next Monday, focused on three things.

Cutting taxes, streamlining state government, and protecting our freedom.

Arkansas has some of the most transparent FOIA laws in the country, and these reforms will do nothing to change that.

But some are weaponizing FOIA and taking advantage of our laws to hamper state government and enrich themselves.

They don't care about transparency.

They want to waste taxpayer dollars, slow down our bold conservative agenda and frankly, put my family's lives at stake.

Greg, letting up in Fayetteville.

Senator, letting your thoughts, everybody loves the tax cut.

My question is, the priority always has to be making sure we're providing that relief for the Arkansans who need it the most and not those necessarily at the top.

My question though here is, where's the urgency?

Because only about a month ago, Republican leadership in the legislature said that while there is an appetite to cut taxes, those tax cuts could wait until early next year.

And now here we are just a month later going into a special session with very little notice, ostensibly with the priority being cutting taxes, but pretty sure that the the real priority is somewhere else on the governor's call.

Well, Mr.

Letting, there's no equity, are you saying in, in in the tax proposals?

My understanding, and I'm still coming through it having only received the draft late yesterday, is that there will be some relief for Arkansans, lower income Arkansans, but it's a one time credit of about $150.00.

My understanding is that relief is generally going to be more towards the the top of the scale.

All right, Mr. Bilkinton, that's in fact the case, is it not?

That is, in fact, the case.

But what Greg is not explaining is really when you think about it, you're saying, oh, well, the top game the most.

When you do a broad cut like this, they're the ones who are already paying the most taxes to begin with.

And so you hear this time and time again where, oh, well, they're not, you know, too much is going to the top and not enough everyone else.

The reality is, though, that's the group that's paying the most taxes.

Well, there's a graduated system, though, is it not?

Correct.

Progressive tax system, correct.

But you know, the reality is, like I said, the Greg said we're doing a credit.

I mean we're trying to help out everyone in this system and of course too when we look at the people who are investing, who are doing job creation, things like that, they need relief as well.

And so I think the best way to do it is instead of you know trying to single out one group here, one group they are having this overall cutting of of of the rates down helps them, helps everybody.

Now granted some people say well the in fact the dollar amount here is greater for this person than that person and that's true.

But you have to take in consideration that that person is paying more taxes than the other person.

So that's just, it's it's an, it's an argument that we always disagree about.

But in reality, we have cut taxes time and time again and we constantly see our economy grow.

We have never seen a time, at least since I've been in the legislature where we've cut taxes and we've seen our economy falter, cut services, anything like that.

We continue to do what we need to do and we continue to run up large surpluses as well.

So you know, I'm not as concerned.

Maybe, Greg is that we're not doing things to to help out everyone because growing the economy, a rising tide lifts all ships and that's what we're doing here.

And so I think we are doing the best for Arkansas.

We've continued to do this before or we will continue to do this and we continue to see the results where we have a growing economy and we're running large surpluses.

So this is a supply side argument that you're making.

You could say that yes.

All right, Greg, letting up in Fayetteville, Senator letting, I'm sure they're working our Kansans who are going to get the one time $150.00 tax credit or just thrilled with the argument that, you know, we're going to take care of people who are earning far more money just because they happen to be paying more in taxes.

Again, that's just how a progressive tax system works.

If you earn a lot more money, you should be paying a little bit more than somebody who is working a factory job.

But here we are once again favoring those at the top of the scale while doing some things to token for every day working our Kansans.

You know, again, we all support tax relief, but we want to make sure it's targeted to those who need the help the most.

My colleague Representative Pilkington mentioned taking care of the job creators, but we're looking after the workers because you can create a job, but if workers aren't willing or able to work those jobs because those jobs aren't meeting their needs and not meeting their expenses, and that job doesn't really do much good.

So we really are trying to keep the focus on working our Kansans when it comes to tax relief, or at least Democrats are trying to.

Well, sadly though, Greg is missing the point here and he's sidestepping the issue.

The reality is, is when they say top earners, they say an individual who earns 80K or more, which for a lot of people, especially to live in somewhere like Northwest Arkansas where Greg represents or Little Rock, that's not as much as other areas.

He's also saying it's size of the issue that a lot of those people, those factory workers, lower income individuals are not paying as much taxes as other people.

We're trying to find a system in which we cut across the board which benefits all as opposed to picking and choosing one or the other.

You know, I'm glad to hear that he's concerned about the workers.

And you know, I wish that his party would do more to cut taxes to because ultimately cutting taxes helps the workers because we know as as you pass taxes on to businesses, those ultimately go to the consumer.

And the problem is when you're have a low income earner who has less disposable income, they also end up paying the tax.

So I think this is a good policy.

We continue to see growth every time we cut taxes and the arguments from the other side continue to fall fly in the face when years go by and we continue to see growth and run large circles.

One more question on fiscal policy and then let's go to FOI.

But here's this, You were during the session a passionate advocate for a prenatal, a post Natal care, particularly the Medicaid program.

And one of the reasons it went nowhere was for a shortage of money fiscal considerations.

The argument could be are we cutting taxes at the expense of programs that the state ought to be undertaken particularly in the medical and educational fields.

Sure, that's a great question.

One of the things like I said is we've we've run surpluses.

I think ultimately we will do the Medicaid expansion for postpartum care.

You know we were had an over billion dollar surplus.

We could afford it.

We passed legislation that created savings within the Medicaid frame, whether it was changing the way we did continuous glucose monitoring or the lark bill that Senator Davis ran that we're hoping these soon we'll get back the numbers on how much that's going to save the state.

So I think what we're doing is finding really smart policies to push that help create savings so that we can expand programs.

And so yes, I don't think we're going to be, we're not cutting services.

There's things we can do.

The argument may be like you said that, well, we can't do it because we're worried about cost.

And like I said, it was a very different time back during the regular session.

We're worried about the future of the economy, what was going on.

We're wanting to get the full price tag of learns.

There's a lot going on now.

The dust is kind of settling and I think what we will see as time goes on, we will ultimately will pass that that expansion, especially when the Medicaid unrolling completes.

We have a better idea of what our Medicaid spins going to be like, what's it going to look like and then move ahead.

But those are those are different buckets that you know you pull one string and you move ten.

Let me, let me give your colleague in Fayetteville a chance, Senator letting that is also the question when we're cutting taxes, what are we not investing that money in?

It's true that we're sitting on a surplus, but right now it's surplus.

You know those those are one time dollars.

Tax cuts are ongoing.

Are there better ways to invest that money to help all our Kansans in terms of the program, say with the postpartum expansion, which is something I support.

I applaud my colleague for pushing that.

But there are other things that the state could do because often times when we we pitch policies to help working on these like expanding pre-K different issues like that we're told that we simply can't afford it and yet here we are sitting with some money and the decision is going to be to cut taxes again for those tend to be at the top earners in the state instead of taking care of working day Archansans are investing in sustainable programs to help everybody.

Well let me stay with senator letting let's move on Senator if we can to the to the their term reforms and other changes anyway the the administration's term is reform of the to the FOI your thoughts on that Arkansas is one of the states that has one of the best Freedom of Information laws in the country is my understanding and I I can't see any need.

There's certainly no urgency in reforming what appears to be by all accounts one of the strongest laws that we have in this country.

So I'm going to need to learn a lot more.

I know there has been some discussions about security.

That's understandable.

But when we come into public life, we absolutely take into consideration that we will be in the public eye, that people might have more access to our individual lives than we would like.

And so that's just part of being in these positions.

And so if I can presented clear evidence that there are genuine security risks, that these reforms address only those risks and don't do anything to guard important information from our Kansans, then maybe I could be inclined to support it.

But I'm going to need to learn a lot more.

Well, there are legitimate concerns, but sure, we're dealing with taxpayer dollars too.

Sure, you want me to address FOI or taxpayer FOI?

Well, no, I mean by that.

I'm at the cost of ASP protection.

Oh yeah.

I mean I all publicly funded.

Yeah, sure.

Totally.

And we should definitely know where that money's going and and who's getting spend.

And that's actually one of the things in this bill that my understanding is that that will be reported to legislative council and and that will be submitted to us for approval and review which I think is important.

You know we need to make sure that public dollars where it's getting spent.

But like Greg said I mean security concerns are are a massive deal.

You know, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was one of the first press secretaries Everton to require Secret Service protection.

Actually last year on the campaign trail there was a man who was arrested in Lamar AR in my district who was on his way to an event.

Me and the governor were at and Clarksville downtown with the intention to shoot Governor Sanders is what he told people before police apprehended him.

So there's definitely a risk.

I think when it comes to security, there's they've had credible threats before.

So, you know, I'm a father of two young kids.

She has three young kids.

I can definitely understand the anxiety as a parent who's in public life to making sure that your spouse and your children are not being put in harm's way.

So, you know, I I think it's perfectly reasonable.

Greg's totally right.

This is a great law.

We love our FOIA law here.

That was done by Governor Rockefeller.

I think it's one of the best things we did back in the 60s, but it was done back in the 60s.

The reality is e-mail, text, change, select channels, all those things are now part of the normal conversation and I think it does require a chance to look at it.

You know, Representative David Ray is the one leading the, the charge on this in the House And and David's a very smart, very capable legislator who I know is not taking this as some Willy nilly change.

He understands the gravitus of this type of bill.

And I'm really happy we're doing this in a special session actually because we can have the focus that needs to be on there instead of just being one more bill of 1000 bills during a regular session.

Well, the term transparency was used several times during the governor's news, couple of times anyway.

What price transparency?

What is the price of transparency?

Yes.

What?

What's what level of transparency?

What should Arkansas, what should citizens be prepared to accept, What they should be prepared to accept?

I think they should understand that when we are trying to do the work of the people, security is something that sometimes maybe doesn't need to be as transparent as possible.

You know, during my first term, we passed laws, you know, changing the FOIL law, I think in regards to school safety plans, things like that, which I think we would all agree we're willing to say, you know what?

Probably we don't need to know that.

Why would you need to know that, the security plan.

But when I think it comes to spending, I mean we always should know where it's at and who's spending and what, because that is the people's mind.

That's taxpayer money.

And like I said this bill from my understanding from reading the first draft is that we will actually get reports about spending where it's going and what and and what's being used for.

That's the great thing about Legislative Council.

You know people forget even though we're part time legislature, we still meet in the interim and we review budgets and we go over things and we actually have a budget committee that meets.

We have an audit committee that meets and goes over state agencies and what we're spending money on what we're not and those that work is still happening.

You know I think if someone thinks that this is just a complete repeal of the FOIA law.

It's it's a misguided interpretation and it's and it's alarmism at it's worse because our reality we're trying to just improve a system to make it better and make sure that the governor is her safety and the safety of her children are protected.

Senator, letting your thoughts.

I'm glad to hear that my colleague does support transparency.

But the problem here is we're moving very quickly on a very important issue that we all, you know, to reform a law that we all express support for.

And we're going to make these changes very, very quickly next week with very little transparency in developing this law.

Not all lawmakers were given a chance to provide feedback.

Again, this is something that apparently we all do support.

So shouldn't we all have a say or at least be able to provide some input and how we're going to change this law if it's that important and it affects everybody?

We were given very little notice that the special session was going to happen.

I don't know if some of my colleagues got advanced copies of the legislation, but certainly I didn't get anything until late yesterday.

And so less than 24 hours later, the governor is calling the special session to begin next Monday.

Special session, I imagine we've been told it's going to wrap up on Wednesday.

You know, these things have to touch at least three calendar days, but depending on when you go in and when you adjourn, these things can last as little as 32 hours.

And so our Kansans aren't going to have a lot of time to process, first of all, the fact that we are even in a special session since people have lives and this thing has come up very quickly.

But certainly if anybody is paying attention and realizes that we're in the capital tinkering with this very important law, they're not going to really have the time to engage, to learn about what's happening, to learn just what it is we're changing and what it is we're going to be shielding from them in the future if these changes are successful.

Again, you know my colleagues, right longer than 1960s.

Again, there might be some things that need to be updated, but it should have been something on this, which should not be a partisan issue that all lawmakers had a chance to participate in the conversation in developing this legislation and that our Kansans had enough time to prepare and understand what I ended there.

Senator, I got to cut you off.

We're simply out of time.

Thank you for coming in.

Representative Pilkington.

Thank you for coming in.

As always, look forward to the legislative process taking place next week where Greg can.

We'll be watching and we'll be right back back.

Now, there were three components to the University of Central Arkansas's press announcement, and we will begin with the most extraordinary.

To be sure, there are some criteria that have to be met.

Not every incoming freshman will qualify for the program, but almost half will.

And by studying hard and playing by the rules, they can leave UC A in a few years with a bachelor's degree and leave it debt free.

It's called the UC A commitment program.

We're joined now by UC A president, Dr. Houston Davis.

Mr. President, thanks for coming in.

Good to be here.

Always an honor.

Oh, what?

How does this thing come about?

I mean, how's it going to work?

Well, nothing like that happens overnight.

You know, you don't wake up last Friday and think, hey, we're going to announce that next week.

Over the last four or five years, the university's been doing two things.

First of all, making certain that we're putting a name and a function to every single dollar that flows through our budget.

And then whether that flows toward faculty and staff salaries or it flows towards scholarships or it flows towards student work positions, making certain that we're being as efficient as possible with those.

At the same time, a collective dialogue on our campus about the fact that we know that families are struggling.

The price tag for higher education has only gone up over the last 30 or 40 years.

And there's great discouragement that comes when someone sees that they cannot address that unmet need to be able to go to school, let alone for one year for four years.

So you see a commitment was really born out of us making certain that we're helping students to maximize all the grant name that they should get.

Are they claiming their Pell Grant if they're eligible for that?

Are they getting their Arkansas challenge if they're eligible?

It's amazing how many students don't apply for such.

And then we're going to identify that unmet dollar amount and we're going to use a mix of scholarship and work study assignment to give them that pathway to not have to take on any debt for their tuition and fees freshman year through senior year.

And that was the question of the sources of these, these, these funds, whatever.

First and foremost, it's the existing $192 million budget that we have.

I've spoken with you a couple of times about our ROI initiative, resource optimization initiative, worst name in the world.

But as we've worked over the last five years to plan for what is a national and certainly a state phenomenon in terms of declining student credit hours that are being produced by universities because of the demographic challenges we are worked at, as every 13510 years out, how are we making choices about what we do with the budget we've been earmarking as we've done that work, knowing that if we could get to the point where we could identify some portions of those dollars and then be able to make this guarantee to families, and this is families that are $100,000 and below Arkansas high school graduates this next year, they'll be coming in the fall of 24.

We'll be able to make that commitment.

And the bulk of it is with the existing resources that we already have.

We were very pleased.

The Wingate Foundation liked that we were leveraging the resources They provided a very generous $10 million gift to be able to be wind in our sales.

But that's a small fraction of what it's going to take to be able to do this over many, many, many years.

Yeah, let's hit the criteria again.

Who is eligible?

If you can.

We're targeting Arkansas high school graduates, so publicprivate home school during this next year.

So the graduating class of 24 from high school will be able to come in in the fall of 24.

If their family makes $100,000 and below, they'll be eligible for the UCA commitment.

We'll expect that those students will have applied, filled out their FAFSA to get consideration for the Pell Grant and they will have had to have applied for the Arkansas Challenge.

We want to make certain students are doing those two things.

There was one student in our model that had $7300.00 of unmet need and we looked and we wonder how in the world is that possible?

And they were eligible for both the Pell Grant as well as a challenge, but it not had anyone led them to how to do that.

A core of this is the case management to make certain that those sorts of students get the support necessary to again claim what's already due.

Can you implement this program without doing damage to existing programs at UC, all of our existing scholarship programs intact.

That's what we're really proud to be able to allow the programs or physical plants or all we're going to have to cut corners to make this work.

Will not.

We've already done that five years ago.

That's the beauty of there probably a whole lot of people that hate that.

I say no, it's a ratio of four to one to yeses, but we've taken very seriously being good stewards of those dollars that ROI initiative.

It's not just been hey something we stick up on a billboard or or put on a website.

It's guided all of our decisions about every dollar that flows through the budget and we're very proud to be positioned to be able to do this.

We know that there's no regional university in the country that's in position to be able to extend this sort of offer especially to families that make $100,000 and below.

We'll see similar efforts that are for for maybe students that are at Pell Grant or Pell times 2.

But we felt like we need to reach that murky middle.

We need to reach that family that maybe 1 parent's a teacher, one parent's A firefighter.

But there's no money left at the end of the month to be able to go toward extraneous expenses, let alone I'm trying to think about how in the world they're going to pay for college.

We want to be able to help that family that we think of.

Again, is that murky middle?

Is it sustainable?

Absolutely, Yeah.

We started this program I look forward to.

We expect that at maturity in the 4th and 5th year, we'll have about 2700 to 2800 students at UCA that will be participating in UCA commitment.

And we're really excited as we look forward 78910 years from now, we literally will have helped thousands of students to be able to get across that finish line with significantly reduced debt or no debt.

We've got to do something about that we can't.

We're proud of the fact that relative to other universities, the debt load that our students take on is admirable.

It's, it's something that we're proud of.

But if you're poor or if you're struggling, it doesn't matter, $1000 worth of college debt may as well be $100,000.

So we've got to find a way to solve that.

And yes, this is a program when you, when you go out there and you announce this, you don't announce it for a season.

We talked about it as an institution defining program yesterday and absolutely we're committed to this for the long haul.

There are, there isn't in some quarters of the country and you're aware of it.

There is, there would seem to be a renewed or a new skepticism about the value, the worth of higher education.

Are you encountering that and how does that affect the dynamic of of a public?

Without a doubt.

I think that what most people think of as ROI return on investment is something that's in the minds of all families as they're deciding, are we going to pursue that degree?

There is a chorus out there of, well, is a college degree really worth it anymore?

I mean, now all the data says yes, even if you get an associate degree, all the data says that you're earning potential is higher than if you have just a high school diploma.

But a bachelor's degree and then above it only goes up.

We've got to allow that chorus is there.

We can't allow the chorus to be joined by families that are looking, saying, you know, we can't measure out how we can pay for it.

Maybe we should listen to that idea that it's not worth it in the long run.

That should not stand in the way of a family being able to pursue that degree for their young people.

It is this being fiscally driven.

Someone told me the other day that a skilled automotive technician can make 100 grand.

And yeah, and someone who with an arts and humanities degree, maybe half that, they could also make 100 grand.

It's just depends.

So the immediate attraction though is, yes, I mean, in the end, we've got programs near term gratification, a lot of wide range of academic programs at the university where there's all sorts of earnings potential.

What we want to do, quite frankly, I want students to be able to look at, here's what I want to study, here's the career I'd like to take and I'd like to have them not even worrying about what their return on investment is.

If we can reduce that debt load, that may even open up paths to degrees and careers that they might not have considered because of that.

But but by all means, you're never going to, and I love this about Arkansas.

You're not going to hear from any of the presidents and chancellors at the fouryear universities that there's not a value to certificates and associate degrees and workforce credentials.

We need more our Kansans doing everything one year certificates up to graduate degrees.

We've got to find a way to get more people getting those educational credentials to advance their lives about a minute remaining.

Sir, is there anything unique about UC, a situation that that restricts this program to to your campus?

Other words, could this be adopted by other four year institutions?

It certainly could.

And and I think you know there are elements of my background, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Georgia, I've sort of stolen bits and pieces of things that have happened and worked in those States and at other campuses.

So I have no doubt that there's replication.

I think the thing that we know, we one thing that we're proud of, we're not doing anything to change admission standards.

We're not an open enrollment institution.

I mean that's that's something that we that's a part of our mission.

The state expects us to maintain those admission standards.

What we need to do is make certain for those students that are admissible to UCA that we're either eliminating, eliminating or mitigating those financial hurdles to make certain they can come to us and be able to pursue and get that degree got into it there.

Dr. Houston Davis, thank you as always for coming aboard.

Always proud to be here.

Appreciate you again soon and that does it for us for this week.

As always, we thank you for watching and see you next week.

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