25-10-111. Budgeting generally.

25-10-111. Budgeting generally. (a)(1) The Secretary of the Department of Human Services shall obtain from each division, office, section, or unit of the Department of Human Services, including the institutions and institutional boards thereunder, all requests for biennial appropriations and all requests for special supplemental or construction appropriations. (2) The secretary shall review the requests and submit to the Chief Fiscal Officer of the State, the Governor, and the Legislative Council a coordinated budget for all divisions, offices, programs, institutions, and services of the department in whatever detail may be required by the state budgetary laws and by the budget forms and procedures promulgated by the Chief Fiscal Officer of the State and by the Legislative Council. (b) It shall be the responsibility of the secretary to operate all of its divisions, offices, and programs and to require that each of the institutional boards under the department administer their programs within those fiscal limitations and restraints which the secretary deems necessary to assure that each program, service, and institution within the department receives an allocation of funds in accordance with the needs of the respective programs, services, and institutions and within the limitation of the moneys allocated and appropriated to the department for the operation of those programs, services, and institutions. (c)(1) Although it is the intent of this act that the Department of Human Services State Institutional System Board and the Board of Developmental Disabilities Services shall each operate their institutional programs and services within the department with autonomy and independence as intended by Arkansas Constitution, Amendment 33, the General Assembly recognizes that reasonable fiscal policies are necessary to assure that the various services of government are operated on a sound financial basis and that deficit spending is not implemented. (2) In furtherance of that policy, the General Assembly determines that: (A) The secretary, with respect to the allocation of funds and the exercise of fiscal restraint over all divisions, offices, sections, units, programs, services, and institutions within the department, shall have the ultimate authority to allocate and limit the amount of funds to be expended in the operation of each division, office, program, service, and institution within the department as he or she deems necessary to comply with the fiscal laws of this state; and (B) Nothing herein shall be construed to limit the ultimate authority of the secretary to develop and operate the various programs in the state institutional system. (3) However, all real property, including capital improvements thereon, constituting the Department of Human Services State Institutional System shall be under the control of the Department of Human Services State Institutional System Board, and the Department of Human Services State Institutional System Board and the Board of Developmental Disabilities Services may convey by sale or lease any real property within the state institutional system.