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UPDATE: Hutchinson coming to Jonesboro to talk upcoming session

governor.arkansas.gov

UPDATE 1/6/17:  Due to Inclement Weather, the Political Animals Meeting has been canceled today. 

 KAIT's Diana Davis posted the following tweet from L. J. Bryant:

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Governor Asa Hutchinson comes to Jonesboro Friday, just days before the start of the 2017 Legislative session. 

Governor Hutchinson has outlined his initiatives going into the start of the session.  The priorities focus on education, economic development and ways to make the state government run more efficiently. 

Some of the main topic points Hutchinson has emphasized include a $50 million dollar income tax cut, a new higher education funding formula, increasing computer coding and computer science initiatives in schools.

Some efficiency ideas include reforming the state’s pay plan to employees, reorganizing certain state agencies and repurposing tobacco settlement dollars to be used for decreasing the disability waitlist. 

Hutchinson also says he wants to separate the Dr. Martin Luther King Junior and Robert E. Lee holiday.   You can view his entire agenda here.  The legislative session starts Monday.  

Hutchinson is expected to talk about the session during a speech to the NEA Political Animals Club in Jonesboro.  You can see that speech live on KASU Public Radio’s Facebook page.  The speech should start just after noon on Friday.    

Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.