Arkansas lawmakers face possible special session after Game and Fish Commission appropriation fails

The Arkansas Legislature’s fiscal session seemed to come to an end Thursday, but with some confusion and uncertainty after the House did not pass the only remaining appropriation bill and the Senate responded by refusing to adjourn sine die.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s spending authority for fiscal year 2025, which begins July 1, is undetermined until the Legislature reconvenes. Rep. Lane Jean, R-Magnolia, the House chair of the Joint Budget Committee, said he expects a special legislative session in June.

Members of the Senate expressed frustration with the situation in the House, including the Joint Budget Committee’s Senate chair, Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy.

“I think it’s unfortunate to be in the position we are,” Dismang said. “It’s unprecedented, something we’ve never done. We’ve always been able to reconcile our differences before we close out a session, make sure everyone has an appropriation.”

This marks the first time since the Legislature approved fiscal sessions in 2008 that a state agency’s appropriation bill has not been approved.

The debate over the appropriation started May 2 when Rep. Frances Cavenaugh, R-Walnut Ridge, said she disapproved of an amendment added to the bill on April 30 that would allow the commission director’s salary to increase to $190,000 per year. Several cabinet secretaries make less than this, she said.

Appropriation bills need a three-fourths majority vote to pass each chamber, 75 votes in the House and 27 votes in the Senate. Only 32 House members voted for the Game and Fish appropriation, with 37 voting no and 31 either voting present or not voting. The Senate had passed the bill with no dissent May 1.

On Thursday, some House members echoed Cavenaugh’s concerns that the amendment raising the ceiling for the director’s salary had been added and advanced too quickly. Jean was one of a few lawmakers to urge their colleagues to vote for the bill, but it fell short with 62 votes for it and 21 against it. Eleven members voted present and six were absent.

Lawmakers may vote on an appropriation bill up to three times before it is considered dead, but Jean said at a press conference that presenting the bill for a third vote would not have led to its passage.

He also said Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not weigh in on the appropriation bill, to his knowledge, before Thursday but is likely to do so now since she is responsible for calling a special session.

“I think with a little help from the governor, we will get this appropriation done,” Jean said.

The Senate took steps to resolve the issue Thursday by voting to extend the fiscal session and by adopting an amendment to Senate Bill 21 that would change the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission director’s proposed salary cap from $190,000 to $157,216, his current pay plus a 3% increase, Dismang said.

The fiscal session must end after 30 days, according to the constitutional amendment approved in 2008, but the Legislature can extend it by 15 days with a three-fourths majority in both chambers. Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, said the House would need to return Thursday and have 75 members approve the extension in order to implement it. 

Neither chamber can unilaterally extend the fiscal session, nor can either chamber adjourn sine die without the other’s permission, Hester said. If no additional action is taken Thursday, the session will officially end at midnight and the governor would have to call a special session to address the matter.

“We’re frustrated with it. No one wants to have to stay extra days … We have a responsibility to stay and do the hard work, and when it’s complicated, it’s complicated,” Hester said. 

Dismang, who made the motions to extend the session and approve the amended appropriations bill, told his colleagues he did not feel good about the position they were in, but they’d taken what actions they could. 

“Our number one priority as a Legislature is not to pass policy, but to pass a budget, and we’re going to do our part to pass a budget that should be agreeable to both chambers … I want to make sure we’ve done all we can and we’re also leaving the door open for them to take further action,” Dismang said. “If they don’t want to choose to walk through that door, I can’t make them.”

Concerns and debate

Game and Fish Commission Director Austin Booth’s salary was capped at $152,638 this fiscal year. Jean presented a letter from the commission to the House on Thursday that said Booth’s salary for next fiscal year is expected to be $170,430.90.

Jean told reporters that he had believed the letter “was sufficient” to gain enough votes to pass the bill.

Rep. Robin Lundstrum, R-Elm Springs, denounced the commission’s “incompetence or arrogance” and mentioned that the Joint Budget Committee did not take action on the bill until two weeks into the fiscal session.

“All the other directors and agencies managed to get all their stuff done in a timely fashion,” Lundstrum said. “To ask a member to push this through is inappropriate, and I think it needs to stop.”

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission became an independent state agency via Amendment 35 to the Arkansas Constitution in 1945, but it still must get its spending power approved by the Legislature.

Rep. Jim Wooten, R-Beebe, said he agreed with Lundstrum’s concerns but did not want to spend taxpayer money on a special session or an extension of the fiscal session.

“I don’t think it’s right for us to spend $100,000 to send a message out to them,” he said. “They got the message.”

Lundstrum was one of several members to switch her vote on the bill from “no” to “yes.”

House Speaker Pro Tempore Jon Eubanks, R-Paris, said the Game and Fish Commission was not responsible for the bill’s slow advancement through the Joint Budget Committee. Members of both chambers considered an amendment that would have allowed the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation to supplement the commission director’s salary, but there was not enough support in the Senate for the bill to advance with that provision, Eubanks said.

“It was not planned that it would fall on our floor on the last day [of business], but the agency didn’t have anything to do with the timing of that or how that worked,” he said.

Eubanks also said the Game and Fish Commission had probably “received a stark awakening as to the sentiment of the Legislature” but was “showing good faith and trying to build better relationships with this body.”

He said the amendment to the director’s maximum salary should have gone through Joint Budget’s personnel subcommittee, but Cavenaugh pointed out that the subcommittee had concluded business before the amendment was introduced and the language was only approved by the full Joint Budget Committee.

Jean reminded the House that the Game and Fish Commission employs 636 people that the appropriation allows them to pay.

He told reporters that several employees, as well as some of his constituents in Southwest Arkansas, have contacted him with concerns about whether the commission will be able to function after June 30.

House Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, said he hoped members would find it “helpful to step away for a bit and regroup” before meeting with the Senate and the governor’s office to reach a compromise on the appropriation.

“I certainly fully expect that we will be able to put this issue to bed before July 1, but there’s obviously a lot of moving parts,” he said.