Weekly Updates

The legislature completed the first week of the 2022 fiscal session, approving budgets for numerous state agencies and advancing reforms of public health insurance systems.

For decades prison overcrowding has sparked a financial tug-of-war between the state and Arkansas counties.

Arkansas motorists who wish to contact the State Police for non-emergency reasons can now call *ASP on their cell phones. Dialing *ASP is the same as dialing *277.

Last year Arkansas joined a rental assistance program to help people who have lost jobs or businesses from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

So far the state Department of Human Services (DHS) made 31,373 payments, totalling $64.6 million. The money helps people with rent and utility bills, so they do not have to move out of their home or have their lights turned off.

The state Division of Children and Family Services intends to try out a new method of intervention, by assigning cases to a team of workers instead of to an individual.

The legislature has begun budget hearings in preparation for the 2022 fiscal session, which begins on February 14. Legislators will consider the governor’s proposed balanced budget of about $6 billion for Fiscal Year 2023, which officially begins on July 1.

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of the Arkansas Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the Lake View school funding case.

When the new year begins, the Arkansas Works program will have a new name and will operate under new rules.

ARHOME is the new Medicaid program.

In large part because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the state Human Services Department has a backlog of applications for Medicaid.

The legislature completed a three-day special session in which it passed reductions in state income taxes that will save Arkansas families and businesses almost $500 million a year when they take effect.