Senate News

As the 2024-2025 school year begins, the state Education Department is making grants available to Arkansas school districts to help implement cell phone restrictions in the classroom.

The Arkansas sales tax holiday this year will be on the first weekend in August, Saturday and Sunday, August 3 and 4. Consumers will not have to pay sales tax on any articles of clothing that cost less than $100.

The state Department of Finance and Administration has published new income tax withholding tables. That’s good news for 1.1 million Arkansas taxpayers, because it means they will take home more money on their next paycheck.

More than 870,000 Arkansas residents receive some type of health care through Medicaid, which is operated by the state Department of Human Services. The department has made public a variety of cost-cutting ideas and has been gathering input from people who would be affected by them. Stakeholders include physicians and clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, therapists, rehabilitation and long-term care facilities.

The Arkansas Agriculture Department has completed a series of public hearings on updates to the statewide water plan, which hasn’t been modified in 10 years.

For the first time, the water plan developed this year will include ways to prepare for floods and to mitigate as much damage as possible caused by flooding.

The state Attorney General has sued two pharmacy benefit managers, alleging that they contributed to the dramatic rise in the abuse of painkillers that has ravaged Arkansas.

Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are companies that act as the middleman in transactions between wholesale manufacturers and the people who pay for prescription drugs, such as drug store chains, health insurance companies and government health care agencies

Arkansas families and businesses will save more than $483 million in income taxes next year, thanks to a tax cut passed by the legislature during a three-day special session.

The deadline to register to vote in the November 5 general election falls on Monday, October 7. Keep in mind that county clerks may not accept voter registration forms signed digitally, unless they are submitted by certain state agencies.

Arkansas teacher salaries went up 3.2 percent last year, to an average of $54,309. That ranked Arkansas 45^th in the country. 

The number of fatalities in Arkansas due to drug overdoses declined faster than the national average last year, according to records maintained by the Centers for Disease Control. From 2022 to 2023 the number of fatalities dropped by 13.7 percent, from 591 fatalities caused by an overdose to 510 fatalities.