News

This week, the Education Secretary Johnny Key made a presentation to the House and Senate Education Committee about the Arkansas Ready for Learning initiative. Ready for Learning is a planning and guidance document created to serve as a game plan for district and school administrators as they begin to grapple with making decisions for the […]

There were 806 new cases of COVID-19 reported at today’s briefing. The Governor announced there had been four additional deaths and 36 additional hospitalizations since yesterday.The counties with the highest number of new cases are as follows:Pulaski-104Washington-78Sebastian-56Benton-49Faulkner-51The Governor said today that we will be having school next year. To allow districts more time to prepare […]

The Health Department reported an increase of 734 cases today. The breakdown of counties with more than 20 new cases is as follows: Washington-72Pulaski-87Benton-60Pope-46Mississippi-39Yell-32Johnson-26Saline-21 There have been 4 deaths in the last 24 hours. Hospitalizations are down by 11. The Governor reminded those in Northwest Arkansas that Washington Regional is not the only testing location […]

There were 259 additional cases reported at this afternoon’s COVID-19 update. Of those, 57 were from Pulaski County, 14 were from Washington County and 26 were from Benton County.Health officials say the number of testing has decreased due to the holiday weekend.There were 9 additional deaths reported in the last 24 hours. Of those, 5 […]

There were an additional 439 cases of COVID-19 reported in today’s briefing. Of those, 77 cases were in Washington County, 46 were from Pulaski County, 36 were from Yell County, and 36 were from Benton County.Health Secretary Dr. Nate Smith said he is particularly concerned about the rise of cases in Central Arkansas. He said […]

As the state began a new fiscal year this week, we received optimistic news about the state budget.The fiscal year for the state budget always ends on June 30 and begins on July 1.While general revenue for Fiscal Year 2020 was $168 million less than the year before, it was $369 million above what economic […]

Governor Asa Hutchinson announced Thursday that anybody in Arkansas can vote by absentee ballot in the November elections. Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston has interpreted the current laws to allow the ability to vote with an absentee ballot due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you are concerned about the virus, you can request an […]

Governor Asa Hutchinson announced today that training for Army National Guard troops scheduled for this weekend has been canceled. The number of active COVID-19 cases in Arkansas has gone down from 5,976 yesterday to 5,757 today. This means that there were more recoveries than new cases today. The Governor also noted that the 10 most […]

The State of Arkansas will observe Independence Day as an official state holiday on Friday, July 3, and Saturday, July 4, 2020.   State Capitol Offices and all State Buildings will be closed. The State Capitol Building will, however, be open to visitors on those days from 9:00 AM until 3:00 PM. To download a […]

The head of the state’s prison system, Arkansas Department of Correction Secretary Wendy Kelley, has stated that she will be retiring at the end of July. Governor Asa Hutchinson said there will be an announcement sometime next week about her replacement. Governor Asa Hutchinson has authorized a merit pay increase of 2.2% for state employees. […]

There were 439 new COVID-19 cases announced today in Arkansas. There has been in a decline in new cases for the last five days. Governor Hutchinson said the state is working to expand the number of contact tracers, particularly those that have a medical background and strong language skills.  2020 Covid-19_infographic.pdf

There were 678 new cases reported today of which 669 are in the community. This is the largest number of active community cases reported in a single day. Of the reported activity from active cases in the last 14 days, 2% say they visited a restaurant, .6% visited a barbershop, 2% went to church, .3% […]