Little Rock, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – Feb. 13, 2025 – A bill to abolish the independent boards overseeing Arkansas PBS and the Arkansas State Library passed a Senate committee Thursday.
Sponsored by state Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro), Senate Bill 184 would abolish the Arkansas Educational Television (AETN) Commission and the State Library Board and place them under the direction of the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE). The agencies’ staff, property, authority, funds and more be transferred to ADE, although this would not happen before SB184 becomes effective.
Both agencies act independently of ADE but do work closely with the department.
Sullivan said this is an “efficiency” bill while presenting it to the State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee.
“These boards and commissions meet once a quarter. They have a set agenda, they meet for about an hour, hour and a half or so, and rarely did they come up with things that are consequential,” Sullivan said. “Both of these institutions are very consequential to the state of Arkansas. They mean a lot and they should be aligned with what we do in the state of Arkansas, particularly with our Department of Education.”
State Sen. Clarke Tucker (D-Little Rock) questioned if ADE could take on the added loads of both agencies. Sullivan replied that the department told him it was OK with the change.
Tucker also asked Sullivan whether he thought it was important that the agencies have their own separate, independent authority from ADE.
“I think they function better under the Department of Education and are more aligned with what the goals and missions of the legislative and executive branches,” Sullivan replied. “We give them their money. We appropriate that money and I expect those organizations to align their functions with how we allocate the funds.”
Sullivan has been a longtime critic of AETN, proposing to reduce its appropriation during the last week of the 2024 Arkansas Fiscal Legislative Session. It failed to pass the Joint Budget Committee. He previously attempted to reduce the budget during the 2022 Arkansas Fiscal Legislative Session.
The AETN Commission oversees Arkansas PBS and its finances.
While not signed up to speak, committee chair state Sen. Scott Flippo (R-Mountain Home) allowed Courtney Pledger, Director of Arkansas PBS, to speak. Pledger said if passed, SB184 could jeopardize millions of dollars of critical funding for the almost 60-year-old network.
“It weakens resources for public safety and civic engagement. We’re a lot more than television,” Pledger said. “The bill threatens these essential services by transferring us to a department that by nature, must have and does have other priorities.”
According to Jason Kunau, Chief Financial Officer of Arkansas PBS, the network receives $5.8 million from the State General Revenue, $2.5 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and just under $1.7 million from private sponsorships.
If PBS was placed under ADE, the agency would have to reapply for its Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licenses for its 10 transmitters to be in compliance with FCC regulations, Kunau said. He said the licenses are currently held in the name of the AETN Commission, and the licenses would have to be held in ADE’s name.
“Each one of the 10 transmitters are licensed individually and each of those call signs would have to be amended. Each one of those applications would have to be reprocessed so there would be a period of time that would be necessary to process all of that.”
Kunau added it was unclear if the network’s abilities to provide services would be impacted during a potential relicensing.
Misty Hawkins, Library Director for the Arkansas River Valley Regional Library System, spoke against the bill. Her library system serves Franklin, Johnson, Logan and Yell Counties.
Hawkins said dismantling the State Library Board would eliminate crucial oversight and local representation in libraries. The State Library Board creates agency policies to oversee the Arkansas State Library and disperses funds to libraries across Arkansas on a quarterly basis.
“At this point, it remains unclear of what specific problems this legislation seeks to fix or whether actual professionals in the field were even consulted in the process,” Hawkins said. “Consider the existing federal guidelines required for participation in the grants to states program and the approximately $3 million Arkansas receives annually through this funding. Consider my own regional library system, spanning approximately 3,000 square miles, which lost its bookmobile program due to similar legislative changes in 2001.”
In closing for his bill, Sullivan said concerns about funding were “scare tactics,” and consolidating these boards under ADE would aid in efficiency.
“The governor has had a tremendous package with the LEARNS Act now with higher ed coming on board, all of these things make us more efficient at educating the citizens of the state of Arkansas and both of these commissions fall under that purview,” Sullivan said.
After Sullivan closed, Tucker said he would be voting against SB184.
“This has been carefully setup, thoughtfully, over a period of decades for AETN to do the work that they do and we could be jeopardizing that by moving it,” Tucker said. “The justification we have been given [for moving it under ADE] is just efficiency or alignment, that that’s just not a good reason to jeopardize the existence, as it exists today, of PBS.”
Via voice vote, a majority of the senators on the committee voted to send SB184 to the full Senate.