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Northwest Arkansas Senate candidates focused on education, affordable housing

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Northwest Arkansas Senate candidates focused on education, affordable housing

Oct 15, 2024 | 6:30 am ET
By Antoinette Grajeda
Northwest Arkansas Senate candidates focused on education, affordable housing
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Republican Sen. Jim Dotson and Democrat Kaylee Wedgeworth are competing to represent District 34 in the Arkansas House. (Photos courtesy of the Arkansas Secretary of State)

Education is a key focus for Republican Rep. Jim Dotson and Democrat Kaylee Wedgeworth, candidates competing to represent Senate District 34, Northwest Arkansas’ only contested Senate race. 

A first-time candidate, Wedgeworth said she’s running because she’s long been tired of not seeing multiple candidates on her ballot. 

“We have got to have options for people. You really can’t have democracy or accountability without having multiple options for that,” Wedgeworth said. “A lot of times citizens are told if you don’t like your elected representatives, don’t vote for them in the next election. But when that’s your only option and they automatically win because they’re the only option, then you don’t really have that voice.”

Wedgeworth, a 33-year-old Arkansas Department of Human Services attorney living in Centerton, is seeking to unseat Dotson. The 46-year-old Bentonville resident said he wears multiple hats as Ozark Mountain Roofing’s marketing and business development director, a licensed Realtor with Gibson Real Estate and someone who may “occasionally build a house or two.” 

Dotson was elected in 2012 to the Arkansas House, where he served for a decade before being elected to the Senate. The Republican incumbent has spent one term in the state Senate representing District 34, which stretches south from the Missouri border and includes Bella Vista, Bentonville, Centerton and Hiwasse.

Education

If elected, Wedgeworth said her priorities would include access to mental health and substance abuse treatment, and supporting public schools. The daughter of a retired public school teacher, Wedgeworth said she wants to make sure “public money remains in public schools” and that there’s less government regulation on teachers. 

“By that I absolutely do not mean that we’re reducing background checks or anything like that that would actually go towards safety, but government officials dictating how to do the job when we don’t have a teaching license or we don’t have any training, we need to leave that to the folks who are trained to do the job in the classroom,” she said. 

Education has become a big topic for candidates this election cycle following the passage of the LEARNS Act, a sweeping education law backed by the governor that lawmakers approved in 2023.

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Dotson was a Senate Education Committee member and co-sponsor of the LEARNS Act, which raised the state’s minimum teacher salary to $50,000 and created the Education Freedom Account program, which provides state funding for allowable educational expenses, such as private school tuition. 

Dotson said he’s been very involved in education and there’s still much work to be done as statewide education reforms are executed and “wrinkles have to be ironed out.”

“There’s a lot of implementation process that has to go into continuing to make Arkansas’ education system better,” he said. “So that’s probably one of the biggest focuses of what I have been focused on the last couple years, and do not feel like that work is at all completed yet. Probably never will be, but I think that for this point and time, it’s critical to continue to try to have a focus on that.” 

Critics of the EFA program have argued it’s unfair because private schools don’t have to follow the same standards as public schools, such as accepting all students and providing transportation. The LEARNS Act does require private schools receiving state funding to administer standardized testing to EFA students. 

According to an Arkansas attorney general opinion issued in August, private schools participating in the EFA program are not subject to the state’s Freedom of Information Act, even though they’re receiving public funding. 

Wedgeworth disagreed with that opinion and said if the system remains in place, it must be “equal and equally accountable across the board.” Additionally, she said it’s important to ensure “public schools are adequately funded before we pull a bunch of funding away for private schools.”

“People obviously have a right to have the choice to send their children to private school, but that cannot be at the expense of every other citizen in the state,” she said. “The state has an obligation to provide a free and quality education to all.”

A group proposing a constitutional amendment that would require public and private schools receiving state funds to be held to the same standards is working to place its measure on the 2026 ballot after failing to qualify for the 2024 election. 

Affordable housing

Another issue affecting education in Northwest Arkansas is affordable housing because home prices have skyrocketed as economic development and the region’s population has exploded. 

After the superintendent reported that high home prices were affecting teacher recruitment and retention, the Bentonville School District partnered with the Excellerate Foundation on an affordable teacher housing project.

“It’s a painful problem to have and a fantastic problem to have at the same time,” Dotson said. “It’s much better to be in the situation we’re in than in a situation where we’re shrinking.”

While it may beat the alternative, Dotson noted it doesn’t make rising home costs any less painful for Northwest Arkansas residents like himself. The Republican incumbent said property taxes are one thing he’ll look at as a way to address the affordable housing crisis.

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Arkansas doesn’t have a state property tax; however, cities and counties do collect property tax, which is the main source of local revenue for public schools, according to the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. Because of that, Dotson said finding support to modify property taxes could be difficult. 

“That’s an area in which I think we have some ability to make an impact, and I don’t know that you could ever fix the cost of housing in a booming area,” he said. “Housing affordability is something that’s supply and demand driven, and we have less supply than we have demand for people wanting to live here. So it’s just an issue that will continue to be there until people don’t want to live here anymore, which hopefully is not ever. We want people to continue to live here.”

To tackle the housing crisis, Wedgeworth said officials need to work with local and federal agencies, including city councils and the U.S. Department of Housing, that control zoning regulations or provide subsidized housing programs.

State lawmakers don’t play as big of a role in those areas, Wedgeworth said; however, Arkansas legislators do have the opportunity to get businesses and local partners involved by providing incentives for them to contribute to alleviating the housing shortage and “to invest in the local communities instead of just handing out tax cuts for businesses and corporations.”

Additionally, she noted state lawmakers can play a “massive role” in tenants rights and making sure Arkansans have access to safe and quality housing. 

Arkansas law largely favors landlords. Renters take dwellings “as is” and landlords are not required to provide additional maintenance, according to the attorney general’s office. Tenants must continue paying rent, even if the landlord does not make a promised repair. 

Early voting begins Oct. 21 and election day is Nov. 5. More information about candidates, how to check your voter registration and where to cast your ballot can be found on the Arkansas Advocate’s Voter Guide