LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) _ The Arkansas Supreme Court says a system of grants lawmakers used to pay for local projects around the state violated a constitutional requirement that budget measures have a distinctly stated purpose.
The grants, known as General Improvement Funds, have been administered through the state’s eight economic planning districts, including the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District in Harrison. The grant funds have been used to cover a host of programs across the nine counties in the Northwest Arkansas Economic District that includes Baxter, Marion, Searcy, Newton, and Boone counties.
As KTLO, Classic Hits and The Boot news reported in July, the sometimes controversial source of funding that cities, counties and non-profits have tapped into for the past 20 years for financing numerous community projects has been depleted for Northwest Arkansas.
On Thursday, by a vote of 5-2, justices reversed a lower court’s ruling in favor of $2.9 million that went toward one of eight planning districts in 2015. The case was brought by former state Rep. Mike Wilson, who was also behind a lawsuit that prompted the court in 2006 to bar the Legislature from directly funding local projects around the state with surplus money.
Justices Shawn Womack of Mountain Home and Rhonda Wood of Conway cast the two dissenting votes.
The court did not rule on Wilson’s argument that the grants also violated a ban on strictly local legislation.
Wilson argued the legislation allocating the money provides few details about how it will be spent.
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