LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas agencies have had the ability to offer employees shorter workweeks for more than thirty years, but steep gas prices have prompted the state to take another look at ways to cut down on workers’ time behind the wheel consuming fuel and polluting the air.

Lawmakers said Tuesday they’ll study whether the state needs to revise its policies and find ways to allow more workers to cut down on their transportation costs by cutting the workweek to four ten-hour days instead of five eight-hour days. The move follows several other states changing their workweeks in response to record fuel costs.

“There’s only so much that a person who is working hard every day for the state of Arkansas who is making maybe $8 to $10 an hour can bear paying $4 a gallon for gas,” said Sen. Tracy Steele, who proposed the study approved by the House and Senate committees on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs.

Steele said he’s unsure whether legislation may be needed in the session that begins in January to make changes to the current policy allowing flexible schedules for some workers. Currently, 33 state agencies already use some type of shortened workweek, State Personnel Administrator Kay Barnhill-Terry told legislators Tuesday.

“This is not something that’s totally new,” she said.

Barnhill-Terry said she didn’t know how many state employees currently work on four-day work schedules.

Richard Weiss, director of the state Department of Finance and Administration, said the state has allowed agencies to change working hours for employees as long as all workers still work at least an eight-hour day. Any changes from the five-day, 40-hour workweek must be approved by the governor.

Weiss said the policy was first enacted in the early 1970s and has been continued by every governor since then. It was last updated by Gov. Mike Huckabee in 1997. Weiss said Beebe is looking at revising the policy, but it was unclear how much would change, if anything.

Beebe said he had allowed some state agencies to give their employees four-day workweeks, as long as they could stagger their staff to be open during business hours. He said several agencies had applied for the waiver to the governor’s office.

“We will continue to do that as long as it’s the kind of agency where they have the manpower and are able to continue to provide their essential services,” Beebe said.

State agencies have provided abbreviated workweeks long before gas prices began to rise. Some work units in the Department of Human Services county offices have offered employees four- day weeks as long as it meant the office was still open five days a week.

“A four-day workweek (cannot) mean closing the office down for the day or restricting access to services,” department spokeswoman Julie Munsell said.

Also, maintenance workers for the Arkansas Department of Highway and Transportation work on a four-day schedule during the summer to take advantage of long daylight hours.