AN ACT FOR THE ARKANSAS TECH UNIVERSITY APPROPRIATION FOR THE 2026-2027 FISCAL YEAR.
HB1016 is an annual appropriations bill for Arkansas Tech University for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. It establishes maximum numbers of authorized positions and salary rates across the university’s main campus, the Ozark campus, and Arkansas Tech Institute, covering administrative, academic, auxiliary enterprise, and support classifications. The bill also authorizes extra-help staffing levels for temporary or part-time employees and sets the pay structure for those positions.
The measure appropriates funding for personal services and operating expenses from multiple sources, including the Arkansas Tech University Fund and cash funds. It provides separate appropriations for state operations, Arkansas Tech Institute operations, and cash-funded operations, with the largest share devoted to salaries, benefits, maintenance and general operations, capital improvements, debt service, and promotional items. The bill includes standard fiscal controls, requiring compliance with state procurement, accounting, budgetary, revenue stabilization, salary, and higher education expenditure laws, and it contains an emergency clause making it effective July 1, 2026.
HB1016 does not change substantive higher education policy; instead, it authorizes spending and staffing limits for Arkansas Tech University for fiscal year 2026-2027. It affects the university’s budget authority, employee classifications, and maximum salary rates, and it governs how state and cash funds may be spent for university operations, institute operations, and capital-related expenses. Because it became Act 97, it functions as the legal spending authorization for the university during the covered fiscal year.
The available record suggests the bill was routine and noncontroversial. There are no committee transcripts, recorded votes, or noted amendments in the provided materials, and the bill advanced to become Act 97. As an appropriation measure from the Joint Budget Committee, it appears to have been treated as a standard budget bill necessary to keep university operations funded and authorized on schedule.
No specific points of contention are documented in the provided materials. In appropriation bills like this, any potential concerns would typically involve salary levels, staffing caps, capital spending, or the balance between state operations and cash-funded expenditures, but none of those issues are shown here as disputed. The absence of recorded debate or votes indicates there was likely little or no visible opposition.