This morning in the Arkansas Legislative Council, House Republicans refused to review a contract to Aptus Financial, an in-state consulting firm that won a contract to help state employees determine their Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) eligibility and navigate the process, despite impassioned pleas from Rep. Aaron Pilkington, Sen. Breanne Davis, and Sen. Fred Love.
The PSLF provides loan forgiveness for people who work in public service for at least ten years; that can include government work and certain nonprofit organizations. Student loan debt has become an anchor around the necks of many millennials and gen-Z workers, preventing them from buying houses or creating retirement accounts because of crippling interest rates and predatory lenders.
The charge against the contract was led by Rep. Fran Cavenaugh (who recently announced she would not seek another term). Cavenaugh’s a well-known budget hawk who believes in little else other than the bottom line. She justified her distaste for this contract – which would have cost roughly $66 per beneficiary – by reminding lawmakers they had just given $140 million in raises to state employees. Her reasoning was that those employees could use their new pay raises to fund that measly $66 themselves.
Of course, the point of a wide-ranging contract is to receive what’s essentially a group rate. Rep. Pilkington noted that as an individual, he paid a consultant several hundred dollars to help him navigate the famously difficult program.
Sen. Missy Irvin chimed in and blamed the federal government on the program’s difficulty, saying Arkansas taxpayers shouldn’t have to fix the federal government’s problems. On the one hand, that’s a defensible argument. On the other hand, when the federal government defends LGTBQ+ rights, abortion rights, or voting rights, Sen. Irvin and her friends are happy to cry states’ rights.
There’s another important point here too: it’s not even taxpayer dollars. Sen. Davis pointed out that the funding for this contract comes from interest, not direct taxes. But Cavenaugh would not be swayed, despite the excellent ROI this contract would bring to 30% of state employees. Pilkington agreed that the state can’t fix the federal government’s problem, but the state can provide added value to their employees.
If this is how the House Republicans are treating their employees, how much worse will they treat the rest of us? It’s another example of these extremists refusing to do the bare minimum for the rest of us.
