Amendment to reallocate Arkansas Youth Expo funds to county fairs fails after roll call

An amendment to Senate Bill 106 that would have reallocated $42,600 from the Arkansas Youth Expo line item to county fairs failed after a roll call vote in the Joint Budget Committee.

Representative Kavanaugh, explaining the measure, said he reduced the Arkansas Youth Expo appropriation to $5,400 "to match the rest of the livestock shows in the state" and proposed dividing the remaining $42,600 across county fair line items. "I'm taking AYE's funding down to $5,400 to match the rest of the livestock shows," Kavanaugh said when introducing the amendment.

Senator Hester spoke against the amendment, saying it would take money away from an event that served many children across the state and urged the committee to leave the appropriation intact. "We want to take funding from something that 1,500 Arkansas kids out of 72 counties participated in last year," Hester said, arguing the Expo benefits multiple districts.

The committee took a roll-call vote on the amendment. The committee clerk announced a tally and said the motion did not receive the votes needed; the clerk stated it required 15 votes and received 9 in the affirmative. The clerk then moved on to the next amendment.

No additional detail about the precise yes/no list was recorded in the excerpted transcript beyond the roll‑call exchange and the clerk’s announcement of the outcome. The amendment text reallocates $42,600 from the Arkansas Youth Expo line item to county fair line items within the Department of Agriculture appropriation for fiscal adjustments under Senate Bill 106.