State S&T Update

Alabama

The Alabama Commerce Commission, appointed by Governor Don Seigelman last year, has released an executive summary report of recommendations for a long-range strategic plan for economic development in the state. The Commission recommends the creation of a scholarship program with no minimum grade point average requirements to provide free tuition to high school graduates who enter targeted vocational and technical programs in two year colleges or technical schools. The Commission also recommended the creation of privately run Alabama Research Alliance involving the state’s six research universities. The Alliance would distribute an unspecified amount of funding for research projects designed to produce new products, businesses, and jobs.

Arkansas

Fiscal worries for 2001 threaten state S&T efforts that were started with unexpected budget surpluses in 1999, according to reports in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The chair of the Joint Budget Committee anticipates potential problems finding more funds in 2001 for the College of Information Science and Systems Engineering at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock The College was started last year with an initial appropriation of $10 million. In addition, the popularity of the state’s Academic Challenge Scholarship Program among college-bound students has resulted in an $8 million shortfall for the program that must be addressed.



California

Technology-based businesses in the state will most likely receive a tax cut for research and development expenditures this year. How large of one, though, remains to be determined as the state wrestles with a $11-13 billion surplus. Governor Gray Davis has proposed increasing the R&D tax credit to 15 percent from the current level of 12 percent of R&D expenses. Two others bill have been introduced in the state legislature that would increase the credit even more.

Colorado Governor Bill Owens has signed HB 1440, legislation that exempts Internet access services from sales and use taxes. Telephone and cable services are excluded from the bill. The bill can be found at: http://www.leg.state.co.us

Separately, the Colorado Department of Local Affairs awarded $161,440 in state funds to six Colorado towns and counties to finance technical planning efforts related to extending high-speed telecommunications to rural Colorado. The funds will allow for preliminary or advanced planning aimed at aggregating local or regional telecommunications traffic to develop the critical mass of revenues sufficient to make the extension of broadband, fiber-based telecommunications economically feasible for private telecommunications service to all parts of Colorado.

Kentucky

The commonwealth’s universities and colleges are most likely pleased with the new biennial state budget in that it includes several unexpected but welcomed S&T items, according to Kentucky newspapers. Appropriations for new S&T facilities include $15 million for a new business and technology building at Eastern Kentucky University that will also house a new small-business incubator; $10 million for lab and research space for Western Kentucky University’s applied science and technology program; and $11 million for “several dozen” technology centers within the community and technical college system.

Louisiana

Governor Mike Foster has announced he will cut the state’s workforce by 8 percent, 5,200 positions, before July 1 to deal with a looming $200 million deficit. The Department of Economic Development would lose 20 positions from the current staff level of 326. In addition, funding for rural and urban development would be slashed $10 million or 50 percent of the total available for loans and grants. The Executive order comes after the state legislature failed to address any of the Governor’s tax and revenue generation proposals.

Ohio

Ohio has chartered its first virtual charter school, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, which will provide K-12 instruction over the Internet. Based in Toledo, the school expects to enroll 1,900 students statewide this fall. Ohio’s 60,000 home-schooled children are a primary marketing audience for the school’s student body. Other targeted groups include children with disabilities, teenagers in detention centers, and older people seeking to pass high school equivalency exams.