§ 6-21-406 - Conditions for offering textbooks for adoption, sale, or exchange. - Arkansas Statutes

6-21-406. Conditions for offering textbooks for adoption, sale, or exchange.

Before any person, company, or corporation shall offer any school textbooks or other instructional materials used in kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12), inclusive, for adoption, sale, or exchange in the State of Arkansas, the person, company, or corporation shall comply with the following conditions:

(1) (A) The person, company, or corporation shall file a bid and contract form in the office of the Commissioner of Education showing the prices at which the publisher will agree to sell to the State of Arkansas during the contract period.

(B) When the State Board of Education accepts any or all of the textbooks or other instructional materials in the bid and contract form and so certifies in the form, the bid and contract form shall become an official contract.

(C) The state board is authorized to permit publishers to bid current wholesale prices, or the state board may require publishers to bid lowest existing contract prices at which the textbooks or other instructional materials are being sold elsewhere in the country.

(D) The state board shall certify in the call for bids whether it wants current wholesale prices or lowest contract prices.

(E) In the bid and contract form, the publisher shall certify the date on which the current wholesale prices were established and submit a list of all existing adoption bids showing such items as may be requested by the state board on an official form furnished by the state board.

(F) At the end of each fiscal year of the contract, the publisher shall submit a certified list of all state contracts made during the fiscal year just closed on all books or other instructional materials for which the publisher has a contract in this state.

(G) The publisher shall automatically reduce prices in Arkansas whenever a contract is made at a lower price in another state after the date of the contract in Arkansas.

(H) If any publisher makes a contract on a special or state edition in another state after the date of the contract in Arkansas, the state board is authorized to require the publisher to supply the special or state edition to the schools of Arkansas at the contract price in other states.

(I) The state board is authorized to require a publisher to bid an exchange price on all basal or supplementary textbooks bids, and all the price regulations in this subchapter applying to regular contracts shall also apply to exchange prices; and

(2) (A) The person, company, or corporation shall deposit a copy of each textbook and other instructional material in printed or manuscript form in the office of the commissioner.

(B) All publishers doing business in the State of Arkansas shall maintain one (1) or more book depositories at the publisher's expense in Arkansas.

(C) All items offered for sale in Arkansas pursuant to this subchapter shall be equal in quality to those deposited in the office of the commissioner and shall meet the minimum standards and specifications set forth by the state board.