Three years ago, Henderson State University was on the brink of insolvency, its balance sheet loaded with millions of dollars in uncollectible student accounts. Only an emergency $6 million loan from the state in 2019 allowed the small Arkadelphia school…
In June 2018, when Arkansas became the first state in the nation to implement work requirements for certain Medicaid beneficiaries, Governor Hutchinson was triumphant. “We’ve wanted to establish a work requirement … for a long time,” he said at the…
Inmates at Arkansas's Cummins Unit say guards treated them like “lepers” as COVID-19 tore through the penitentiary.
The Arkansas Department of Human Services is bracing for the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, as state officials anticipate that a rapidly increasing number of Arkansans will rely on the state’s social safety net programs in the coming months.
A study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine found that Arkansas’s Medicaid work requirement led to lower insurance rates among 30- to 49-year-olds in 2018, the group targeted by the first-of-its-kind work rule last year. The researchers also concluded that the policy did not lead to a rise in employment among this target population.
In a report released Monday, the state Department of Human Services said it had terminated the health insurance of another 4,109 individuals due to Governor Hutchinson's work requirement for certain beneficiaries of Arkansas Works, the state's Medicaid expansion program for low-income adults. Those people are now barred from Arkansas Works until Jan. 1.
On Monday, Governor Hutchinson announced seven juvenile treatment and correctional facilities taken over by the Arkansas Department of Human Services on Jan. 1 will be placed back in private control as soon as next July. By the end of the year, the governor said, the state will issue a solicitation for one or more contractors to operate the youth lockups, with the winner or winners likely to be announced in March.
On Thursday, the same day that Governor Hutchinson signed legislation approving “Arkansas Works 2.0,” his plan to enact changes to the state’s Medicaid expansion program, the U.S. House passed a bill that would undermine many of the program’s key tenets.
As expected, the tug of war between school choice advocates and defenders of traditional public schools played out in Arkansas’s 91st General Assembly, which concluded its flurry of lawmaking last week.
A controversial bill that would establish education savings accounts to be used at parents' discretion to fund private school and other education costs passed in a 22-5 vote in the Arkansas Senate Tuesday. Senate Bill 746 and its predecessor, House Bill…
A bill that would establish education savings accounts to be used at parents' discretion to fund private school and other education costs passed in a 11-5 vote in the House Education Committee Tuesday. An earlier version of the bill also passed the committee last week, but the bill was amended to decrease its fiscal impact and gain Governor Hutchinson's support.
Governor Hutchinson's proposal to create a grant that would pay for tuition and fees for students at Arkansas community or technical colleges failed to pass the Senate Education Committee in a 4-4 vote Wednesday. The committee's three Democrats voted against the bill, along with one Republican. It needed five votes to advance.
The Arkansas Nonprofit News Network is an independent, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. Our work is re-published by partner newsrooms across the state.
