The Arkansas General Assembly is meeting this month for the first ever fiscal session in the state’s history. The voters of Arkansas passed a constitutional amendment in 2008 that calls for annual sessions, with the fiscal session being limited to 45 days to pass budget bills.
The leaders of the House and Senate are pushing to make this a short legislative session, taking up budget bills and setting the amounts for the new Arkansas Lottery Scholarship program.
The move is to fund the lottery scholarships for not only the incoming 2010 freshmen but also current students in college who meet the 2.5 grade point requirement. The amounts would be $2,500 per year for those attending two-year schools and $5,000 per year for those attending four-year schools.
Freshmen qualify by scoring a 19 on the ACT or having a 2.5 grade point if they are enrolled in Smart Core. If not, they have to achieve both the 19 and 2.5 grade point average.
As far as 2011 funding for UCA, early indications have the executive branch offering a budget recommendation that would restore the January cuts to all the institutions of higher education, which would mean a return of the $1.2 million to the base funding we are at now.
There also could be a chance for additional funding if revenues hit targeted marks. However, institutions would have to be extremely careful to budget those amounts as we have seen three cuts to state funding in the past 22 months.