Policy Research

(June 2017) Tom Easterly, a Murphy Commission Education Team volunteer who later played a role in a landmark Arkansas State Supreme Court decision has been named the Policy Foundation's 'Unsung Hero' of 2017.   Easterly,...

(July 2017) Management consultants conducted efficiency reviews in Kansas, Louisiana, and North Carolina this decade, at costs ranging from $2.6-to-$4.2 million.  Volunteers led an earlier Kansas project.  A Policy Foundation review of published reports in these states1 found a...

  "Certain funds are not being distributed to low-income K-12 school districts as originally intended."  Policy Foundation Efficiency Project, Second Report, Recommendation #50, p. 181   (May 2017) Mission creep describes the tendency of government programs to expand...

  "There is significant evidence that reductions in marginal state tax rates encourage state economic growth ...Rates on productive behavior should be reduced." “Reduce the state's income tax…repeal the state's capital gains tax.” Arkansas Policy Foundation,...

"Formal or informal oversight for these recommendations and others should rest with an individual or team that shall work in a collaborative manner with the executive branch to advance efficiencies." Policy Foundation, Arkansas Efficiency Project, Recommendation...

"Mission Statements. Agency officials expressed support for efficiency as a concept, though few mission statements include the term. Each agency should include the word efficiency in their mission statement and post it online in an...

"The most callused aspect of the current education monopoly in Arkansas is that it willingly and deliberately forces children--except those whose parents have wealth--to attend bad schools.” Policy Foundation report,1 September 1998   (January 2017) School choice...

(January 2017) The Wall Street Journal, America's leading commercial daily published a column in its January 14 edition that discussed the Arkansas state government Efficiency Project.  Policy Foundation Executive Director Greg Kaza wrote the column, which noted...

"Formal or informal oversight for these recommendations and others should rest with an individual or team that shall work in a collaborative manner with the executive branch to advance efficiencies." Policy Foundation, Arkansas Efficiency Project, Recommendation...

(November 2016) The Policy Foundation's Efficiency Project has identified 184 cost-saving initiatives underway at Arkansas state departments.  The initiatives are listed in a report that has been delivered to Arkansas Gov Asa Hutchinson. Gov. Hutchinson directed...