As you read this Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, the First Special Session of the 90th General Assembly is fully underway down in Little Rock.
The Memorial Day holiday slowed, but did not stop, this new three-to-four day attempt to secure a U.S. Defense Department contract for East Camden; correct a potentially costly DWI statute; and oh, yeah, mix in with your holiday schedule a Presidential Primary in Arkansas and the Southern States making up the Southeastern Conference.
Whew!
Now add to all that, a quick, but painless, reorganization of several smaller branches of the state government into much larger and hopefully better run agencies and maybe another item of fixing a proverbially bad and expensive computer system that has never functioned on a state contract.
Now let us tick off that Legislative "to-do list" one Special Session item at a time.
First, and the headline grabber, is the $87.1 million use of taxpayer support for Lockheed Martin, a $60 billion dollar publicly traded stock company for a potential Defense Department contract. This deal will build 55,000 new military-style on-the-ground vehicles in Arkansas. At stake is a potential of 600 jobs.
These new military-style rigs, called Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (or JLTVs) for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps will replace the Humvee line of vehicles.
The bond issue will be the only commitment to Lockheed Martin, according to Gov. Hutchinson. The East Camden campus already has a Lockheed Martin facility which makes components for missile systems. That group this past week received its own multi-million dollar contract to continue its work sans any state bond issue or tax help.
And here is the kicker: If the Department of Defense awards that contract elsewhere, Arkansas (and you the taxpayers) are off the hook. No deal goes forward.
The stickiest item on the Special Session calendar is a fix to the state's statutes on Driving While Impaired. A recent Arkansas Supreme Court ruling overturning a DWI conviction of a driver taking a sleep-control drug has thrown the state into jeopardy to continue receiving federal highway funds. The federal rules could cost the state upwards of $40-$50 million if not corrected.
Another issue involves several small agencies -- Rural Development Services, for example -- currently operating with small staffs, little direct oversight and without some needed positions such as human resources staffing, internal auditing and even public relations officers to respond to public and press inquiries.
While some legislators will tell you, often these smaller agencies are easier to deal with, the reality is that many times a "bad actor" within those subsets of state government can cause real trouble.
The only downside to this quick change is that former legislators may not be in such a direct line in the future to be named to head such a small state agency when out of legislative work. Such as a defeat at the polls, retirement, or needing a better paying job than the office of state senator or state representative.
This will also be a cosmetic effect of reducing state government -- remember that word -- cosmetic. There is no real taxpayer savings going on here. Mostly smoke and mirrors.
Arkansas will participate in the SEC Primary in March 2016. That means, along with your holiday and Christmas cards look for those ugly political flyers about former Gov. Mike Huckabee; First Lady Hillary Clinton and a plethora of others running for both parties' nominations.
Last, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, is the cost of the Special Session.
While the governor has cleared the decks ahead of time on these issues, a two-, three-, or even four-day session may be in store. That's at least a conservative $100,000 cost for these abbreviated sessions.
Wow! Enjoy the brief three-day Legislative rodeo.
-- Maylon Rice is a former journalist who worked for several northwest Arkansas publications. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 05/27/2015