A nonprofit child advocacy group gave a mixed review today to Gov. Mike Beebe’s balanced budget proposal.

The $4.5 billion proposed budget for the next fiscal year, unveiled this morning, calls for reducing the state’s sales tax on groceries from 3 cents to 2 cents. Beebe also is proposing setting aside about $146 million from the General Improvement Fund as one-time money for state needs, including prisons, Medicaid and the Department of Human Services.

“Gov. Mike Beebe said he was committed to improving the child welfare and children’s mental health systems, and his budget priorities reflect his commitment on these issues,” said Rich Huddleston, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, in a statement.

Huddleston said investing in a rainy day fund would be critical in preventing cuts to the Department of Human Services in the event of a severe economic downturn.

“On the flip side, we are disappointed that the budget does not address two major economic issues facing working families: the lack of health care coverage and the lack of access to subsidized child care,” he said.

Huddleston also questioned whether a 1-cent cut to the grocery tax might be too large given the current economic climate. A smaller cut would allow room for tax relief targeted more toward low-income families, such as an earned-income tax credit or fixing a flaw in the state income tax that penalizes low-income single parents, he said.

Beebe said today he usually considers it bad policy to use one-time money for ongoing programs, but in this case he felt it was necessary. He made the proposal even though some advisers in his administration thought it was a bad idea, he said.

The director of a nonprofit group says state lawmakers didn’t go far enough last year in easing the tax burden on poor families in Arkansas.

Rich Huddleston, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said today the group will ask the Legislature next year to correct what it considers a flaw in a 2007 law that eliminated many from state income tax rolls.

Act 195 of 2007 raised the minimum level at which Arkansans start owing taxes to the federal poverty level — $9,800 for an individual and $20,000 for a family of four. Huddleston says the law sought to offset the cost of raising children by providing a tax credit for married couples with more than one child, but the credit for single-parent homes is the same regardless of the number of children in the home.

He says Arkansas Advocates will ask the Legislature to increase the credit for single-parent families with two or more children.

“We shouldn’t penalize our most economically vulnerable families simply because of their marital status or the number of children they have,” Huddleston says in a news release.