Senator John Payton

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (26:24)

that and that I would like to see this continue on for our elderly. I appreciate it. I would definitely encourage those that are

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (25:54)

If I'm mistaken, I'm sorry. Hey, my memory's bad. It's quite possible I did. I just know that my senior centers, three of them that I'm very close to, one in Cleaver County, one in Independence County, and one in Sharp County, they continually have, they serve like 120, 130 meals,

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (25:11)

been flat at 10 million but it's been it's been funded at five this is an additional five so as looking at it as additional it's a one-time addition unless unless those of you that are involved in the rsa meetings can lobby and make sure that rsa comes out with with more than five million this go around this is one-time money did we

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (24:59)

uh through an appropriation a couple years ago well yes so five million has been flat funding in rsa for several years in in the budget as far as funding the appropriation has

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (23:43)

but that's originally where this five was was drafted to come from okay and we had to shift all right

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (23:29)

uh from that fund because it is earmarked for food insecurity and uh but the governor beat me to it and so we've got and i applaud her effort to make sure school children all have breakfast and uh so it's being used properly

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (23:19)

you mention that well if i could when i first drafted this it was to pull money from the medical marijuana uh sales tax or tax whatever you want to call it

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (22:28)

Not that I'm aware of. I guess we could probably, if Dana Wells is here, she might can answer that.

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (21:57)

to run those? I'm not one of the sponsors. Okay. Senator Wallace has got the Senate bill, and I spoke

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (22:03)

to him in the last couple of days, and he said he didn't think he was going to be able to get it done. Okay. I didn't get the details on why. Is the,

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (21:16)

And, you know, waiting on the next fiscal year and the next budget means that people are being turned away every day in this program. And this $5 million, I assure you, is not enough to not turn anybody away. And it will not raise overhead because those people running the program are already running on a shoestring and they want to put the money into food products and into meals. Just to follow

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (20:44)

that already has the appropriation, and it will go beyond the end of this fiscal year and into the next. So we can take that into consideration with RSA. There's also been a bill filed in the House and a bill filed in the Senate to help address this. And I don't know that either one of those has got legs and started moving or not. But it is a current urgent problem, as food usually is. Everybody likes to eat three times a day or at least once a day.

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (20:10)

brought up to 10 this money will be helping in months several months into the next fiscal year but we're we do have 384 million dollars of cash flow surplus i don't know it's not interest i I mean, it's revenue that we've collected that was not part of the forecast and not part of the spend. It's cash on hand. The way I'm a businessman, the way I run my businesses, that's a cash flow surplus of $384 million, and I'm asking for $5 million of it to be put into this program

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (19:41)

and not me and so i followed this two months ago and tried to start a conversation and and get

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (19:48)

some sort of assurance that we were going to address this it is a current problem in the current fiscal year and the rsa we're fixing to address would be for the next fiscal year this money when it goes into the account i'm told by mr anderson will carry forward to the next fiscal year so even if rsa is is not

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (19:37)

fiscal year without more appropriation now y'all are the budget gurus

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (19:02)

So 30% of $19 million would be what it would take to remain flat adjusted for inflation. Fourteen of that comes from the Fed, and five is out of the state general revenue that's been allotted through RSA. So basically, the five does not completely replace the 30% increase in cost. It is a round number that just came off the top of my head. I had been told by people that they needed $7 or $8 million, and I said, well if you've got 10 million worth of appropriation and we funded five five is all you can go for this

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (18:58)

number? Okay. So, first of all, $19 million is the total spend.

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (16:52)

increase their administration or overhead, we have waiting lists on the home-delivered meals that exceed the number being served. And this amendment also has the language in it that Representative Kavanaugh requested that she just passed in a separate amendment. So it'll work hand-in-hand with that grant program for the senior centers that are not AAA, not part of that AAA thing. So it'll work hand-in-hand. As a matter of fact, it has the exact same language that Representative Kavanaugh had in her amendment.

JBC-Special Language — April 1, 2025 (16:19)

And these meals are critical. Arkansas is recognized number one in food insecurity. and if you've been to your local senior centers they do a great job have a lot of volunteers that don't get paid anything to help cook and prepare these meals matter of fact the the federal money comes with demands and audits to make sure that no more than 10 percent of the money goes towards administration or overhead and so this being one-time money it's not going to