House Approves Stimulus Bill
The United States House of Representatives approved an $819 billion stimulus bill Wednesday. Among the Arkansas representatives, Democrats Mike Ross, Marion Berry and Vic Snyder voted to approve the package; Republican John Boozman voted against it.

The bill includes significant investments in education, most significantly the National Education Association’s (NEA) proposal to provide flexible funding for states through existing education funding formulas. It also includes increases for Title 1, IDEA and school modernization, as well as important provisions addressing health care, nutrition assistance and unemployment insurance.

Thank you, everyone who contacted your representatives and encouraged them to support the bill. Your efforts made a difference!

The Senate will also be taking up a stimulus bill soon. If there are differences between the House and Senate bills, the two bills will be sent to Senate and House conference to come up with an agreed upon bill to present to President Obama. Both houses hope to have a stimulus bill to send to the president by the Presidents’ Day recess in February.

Health Insurance Bills Need Funding to Work
There are several important bills being considered by the Arkansas General Assembly – but even if they do pass, they may not be effective without further funding provided by the state. These bills, HB 1168, HB 1163 and HB 1169, all authorize spending that would benefit public school employees. However, they do not provide an actual source of the funding.

HB 1168, sponsored by Rep. Cook, is a bill that authorizes the state to equalize the group health insurance premiums of retired school employees and retired state employees. It does not provide the funding to actually equalize the employees’ expenditures.

HB 1163, sponsored by Reps. Cook and Rainey, is an appropriation bill that authorizes the spending of $11,097,114 in fiscal year 2010 for public school employee retirees from one-time funds. This bill by itself will not guarantee that this money is actually used to pay for retiree health insurance. It also does not provide a continuing source of revenue for this program.

HB 1169, sponsored by Rep. Cook, provides additional contributions for health insurance premiums under the public school employees’ health insurance program, only to the extent that additional revenue is provided to fund the measure.

All of these bills are important and must become law. The AEA is working to find additional revenue to fund these important bills.