ALC - Hospital, Medicaid, & Developmental Disabilities Study Subcommittee
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- October 2, 2026
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
6:11
OK. thank you everyone for your patience. we're gonna go ahead and get this committee meeting started this morning and I apologize Id missed the update on the time so all my fault that we're going to start a little bit late but if everybody don't take their seats we're ahead and get started all right everybody's here right
Speaker 4
6:26
all right thank you all for this exciting morning. I'm really
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
6:30
excited for everyone to see the final and our look at what we're looking at not quite that fun with what we've come up with for our plans and our opportunities for user for them to make a difference in Arkansas. I'm really excited for you guys to hear what we have
going so if we want to get Secretary mann here and get that out of the way for
our reimbursement rates we'll get that part behind us if you recognize yourself and you can proceed with your report when you get
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
7:02
there. Thank you. Thank you. good morning Janet mann, secretary DHS and just very quickly I'll summarize in your packet is our monthly letter updating on where we are on the Alfcost report reporting
we have finished that cost report it has been put out for public comment. The date of this letter is is September 10th but it's for the month of august. so public comment was30 days. It ended on September6th. We are compiling those staff is review ing and sending a recommendation up to the secretary's office. I have not seen the recommendation of staff yet after that then it will be going through the normal process so that I really don't have anything else besides that so we should be able to hear
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
7:44
something next month you think on where we are with our rates? Yes ma'am, I hope
so. yes. OK all right any questions from committee members all right thank you so much for your report.ppreciate it. OK well with that we'll go down to our next session we'll have mason Bishop and cameronrtie here from our worked and here their recommendations that we proceed with. thank you all for flying here to be with us today and again appreciate your patience. with me today
you guys can recognize yourselves when you get seated and get ready to proceed
Speaker 18
8:26
with your presentation. good morning uhpresent bentley and senator English, good to see you all again. so we're here
Speaker 19
8:32
this morning to give you a set of preliminary recommendations as a result of the work that we've been doing this spring and summer regarding workforce development social services modernization and reform and we're excited that we've
been able to try to balance the realities of certain situations regarding agency alignment the situation in Arkansas with the work that's been done around Arkansas launch and other initiatives while at the same time really trying to help figure out ways that can improve service delivery and in particular again as you've heard from me in the past create a common customer experience for both businesses and job seekers and workers across the state of Arkansas and we think we have a set of
recommendations here that present a very strong balance and ability to serve people better we actually have affectionately called this learns for all to build upon the momentum that Arkansas has gained around the Learns Act where you've reformed the K through 12 school system and have initiatives there and now what we're suggesting is that we expand that to all available talent in the state of Arkansas including nontraditional adult workers and
others who need assistance so with that I'll go ahead and get started with the Poweroint hopefullype I hit the right button. So we have had an advisory group working on this made up of a number of stakeholders from around the state including agency personnel legislators and others so we're gonna have we have another advisory group meeting this afternoon after this meeting and so you're going to see we're going to be sharing the same thing with them so what is the vision real quickly we want to modernize and transform workforce development and human
services system through an integrated administrative and service delivery model the streamlined state and local program administration improves both the quality of and access to services and supports and promotes fiscal integrity and resource efficiency for the benefit of Arkansas s residents and employers so this is the vision and we've really tried to stick to this vision and all the work we've done what are our goals? We want to promote upward mobility and increased wages for families we want to provide greater access
to services that promote longer term employment and labor force attachment we want to maintain a strategic approach to helping employers access sources of talent for well paying jobs we want to create efficiencies that promote effective government services outcomes and impact and we want to innovate to meet rapid changes in employment, labor markets, skills needed for jobs and deployment of technology so really these are the goals that we have focused on as we've done the work and make the make the recommendations to you today
in terms of the design of what we're doing we want this to be person centric not program sec centric again one of the big problems we have in a lot of these programs is often we focus on what's best for the program and not what's best for the person. This is something I hear Senator English talk about a lot. what are we doing to help people so we wanna be organized around what an individual needs not which funding stream you happen to be accessing and again that's one of the big problems we're trying to address is right now depending on where
you access services a lot of times you get locked into that pattern and you don't get access to the full array of things that might help you become self sufficient we believe in a work first approach where employment and training proceed and inform eligibility determination. This is particularly important on the social services side the first message you want to send to people is we are here to help you we are here to help you become upwardly mobile to help you get out of this situation you find yourself in and to help you rise above poverty and the way you do that is
through employment education and training we want statewide consistency with regional flexibility. ga in somebody shouldn't be dependent on what happens to them depending on what community they live in or what door they walk through. so we want to ensure that services are delivered the same way in every part of Arkansas with room to tailor to local economic conditions you all have heard me talk about a franchise model and the way private franchises operate and we want to do the same thing here we want to be results based and
publicly accountable so the outcomes such as employment wages credential attainment sustained labor force attachment are measured consistently and reported to you as legislators and we do believe that bold action requires difficult decisions which must be made with the best information and data available and so we think a number of the recommendations we have for you are bold and do require some level of difficulty and challenge but we think are realistic. so what is our foundation here
we do believe that there needs to be a fundamental organizational shift. there's sort of three components to this shift and what's informed us in making these recommendations are a couple of things one obviously what's happening here in Arkansas and the data we've been able to pull thus far in the discussions we've been able to have with a number of stakeholders and individuals but also we're closely monitoring what's happening in Louisiana who has about a year ahead of Arkansas right now in terms of looking at redesigning and what did they do
and what challenges are they facing and what has become sort of their path forward and we think Arkansas and Louisiana have a lot of similarities around the way they should approach this and so what we're recommending is this the office of Workforce Solutions which is currently in the department of commerce we believe becomes the front door for all individuals who are seeking assistance that includes your traditional workforce development services and obviously office of workforcelutions also currently has vocational rehabilitation so
individuals with disabilities use that as the front door but we also believe this should be the front door for individuals who were initially seeking public assistance as well that they see somebody at the workforce agency and they are quote unquote case managed first based on employment and the situation the individual's in and not have their first experience be an eligibility determination we believe that there's an opportunity here to redefine what it means to be an Arkansas workforce center that it can be a lot more
comprehensive and connected in all communities. and that that will be the place where people would go for assistance both virtually and physical ly also the office of Workforce Connections would be the coordination entity for employer relationships and trying to create sort of a customer relationship management amongst a lot of different entities around how do we work with employers then we are centralized eligibility is something we've been a proponent of as part of
our principles and we do believe centralized eligibility is important to still do we do believe though you can still accomplish the same thing by keeping centralized eligibility in the current Department of Human Services they have Aries which is a a lot of investment has been made in that system it's probably the leading eligibility system and so eligibility determination would be done in from the department of humanman Services they would have the system of record and that eligibility
would be sequenced behind the employment planning that would be happening by the Office of Workforce Solutions. So again employment planning education training what is your situation happens first that case management first initial piece followed by the eligibility determination then we you also have what's called the department of shared administrativeervices here in Arkansas. This is really the integration layer what they are currently doing and would under our proposal would continue to do is really they create the
tools and the services that officerorkforce Solutions would essentially be helping implement so civvior which is a common intake so people would have a central point of intake that they could come to they're not doing intake5 or4 different ways the Hope hub platform which is the case management and also Hopehub and the 1033 initiative are where we try to take case management and expand access points to commun faithbased
organizations that would be s that hope hub platform would continue to be managed by shared services but used by officef of Workforce Solutions in coordination with those communion faithbas organizations Arkansas Datahub mastererson index and statewide IT go ver n ance would continue to be managed by the shared services centerssentially that is again providing the support mechanisms for the officefice of Workforce Solutions in particular who then is doing the centralized case management in connection of trying to get people employed
specifically we've talked to you about three pillars integrating administration integrating service delivery and integrating financial management so we wanted to give you some quick bullet points under each one of those areas again under integrated administrative structure we are recommending that OWs be the single state workforce agency and that we consolidate all federal and state employment training and reemployment programs under that that agency right now not to get too in the weeds but Arkansas has been
approved by the US Department of Labor for what's called WOa waiver package. this is very important we've been very involved upfront we created a waiver set of waiver options back in February my company did that a number of states have been utilizing including Arkansas essentially what this means is that Arkansas has been approved to move toward more of a single planning region model which means that right now some of the splintering that occurs
by sending WioOA money only down to the local boards no longer needs to happenssentially OWs can be the administrative authority over the state of Arkansas the state workforce boardard would oversee the operations across the state of Arkansas and but also the for those of you who are legislators in different parts of state including rural umarkansas still has to provide the funding to those local areas or dedicate the funding to those
local areas so nobody's going to lose out on money because Arkansas still even though they're gonna OWS will manage and the state board will manage oversight dollar still have to flow equitably to those local areas and so those services would still continue. this this waiver package is very important approval and it only goes through June30th of 2028. so one of our big recommendations is is that you codify what OWs has asked for and been given permission of by
the federal government and that this be something that Arkansas says this is the vision for how we want to move forward regardless of whether we have a waiver or not this is the right thing to do 1.3 we believe in confirming that Department of Human Services is the integrated eligibility authority looking at A as the eligibility system for workforce and social services programs and that have a statutory component that an employment plan precedes or
accompanies LgB determination for every work capable customer. we do believe that the development of a common intake system the platform job matching integrade data and physical basilia consolidation be assisted by the shared servicevicesent and that they have a statutory mandate to serve both office of workforce solutions and department of humanman Services that we established a transition structure effective July1 of2027 and then we align appropriations
to the way we recommend this administrative structure. under integrated service delivery we do believe that through this we can operationalize service delivery consistently across the entire state of Arkansas while allowing for regional innovation and tailoring we do believe that there are some things you can codify to ensure that physical and virtual infrastructure is integrated and that physical locations whether they be state owned
state leased staterun have some type of access point around integrated delivery instead of having it be a program off program offices that we work toward again having a much broader access footprint for workforce development. that we establish a single workforce intake process so that every work capable customer regardless of where they come into the system receive an employment plan that's part of the case record managed by the officefice of Workforce Solutions and that that precedes eligibility determination
again we talk about consulidating eligibility functions into DHS implementing integrated case management on a shared platform and separate case management from eligibility determination and I think this is really important. one of the things we do unfortunately is we throw a lot of terms around that may mean different things to different people. so part of what we need to really do is define what is case management mean define what is elGB determination mean and really talk about case management which could be things
like employment counseling education counseling is part of quote unquote case management but really defin that in law and talk about who's responsible and how that's going to occur. stablish a single regional point of contact for employers and particularly important is adopting a common performance and accountability framework built on outcomes rather than inputs with a defined reporting relationship to the legislature. one of the things we'd really like to do working with you is ensure that the right
reporting is done that you guys really sort of have accountability dashboard for this so that whether it's interim meetings next year whether it's during the general sessions those type of things that you have a dashboard and you have what are the milestones and metrics that show that they're moving in the right direction that you know the right questions to ask and the right information to try to get back from the executive branch in ally under integrated financial management we do recommend the state of
Arkansas looked to establish and submit a statewide cost allocation model that's again a little bit in the weeds but we think there's an opportunity to do that that would be really a huge benefit what that means is that the costs are shared across all these programs consistently across the entire state right now cost allocations' done in multiple different ways through the local boards through DHs and their programs everybody's doing cost allocations separately and differently and this is an opportunity to integrate through
spreading costs across the entire set of programs this is how you move to more of a service delivery model and not a program delivery model in the absence of approved statewide cost allocation we work to braid federal funds to the extent permitted and seek federal waivers where available again because of the waivers that the office oforkforcelution has now gained there's an opportunity now to have a statewide memoranda of understanding and infrastructure funding agreement and not 14 separate ones
and that we begin the process of requesting inclusion the federal benefits cliff ilot and approval of an alternative cost allocation model we have an opportunity to pilot some things on the human services side and try to address the benefit cliff issue and then directed identified administrative savings toward direct participant services particularly training and support services that address childcare transportation and benefit cliff barriers we do believe that there are cost savings right now one of the
things for next steps that we wanted to report to you is that we're still in the process of identifying that and gathering all the data but I can tell you that the office oforkforce Solutions in their waiver package to the department of laborbor identified just in their world6 million dollars in savings that they believe they can achieve through through the waiver model which now we're s suggesting you codify so there's at least6 million dollars on the table that could be redirected to more training more education more
support services for individuals and we believe it's going to be even more than that so real quickly I'm going to turn over to camemeron to just kind of cover the next steps that we're recommending and then we're available for questions Good
Speaker 23
25:49
morning. thank you for hearing us today so yes that's Mason mentioned we have some proposed next steps one includes continuing to gather feedback we plan to do that through the end
of September so that way we can continue to move forward with anoctober report for you all. So we know that we don't have all the information available we are continuing to gather data and we know that those of you in Arkansas and working in these offices have a better understanding than we do so we are soliciting feedback so that way that can be included in a final report additionally the this subcommittee and the governor's office may want to begin identifying legislative and executive actions necessary to
enact this reform and we're here to support you all with that this month and going forward thank you so we
Speaker 19
26:44
are recommending at some point it might be an option to open a bill file and start to begin and again I've already committed to represent Bentley Center English camemeron and I are here to work with legislative council to work with the executive branch whatever we can do to provide technical assistance and support around
build drafting and moving forward if that's the choice of the legislature thank you very much and we'll
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
27:13
start with questions we'll start with Representative Sttephen meeks thank you
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
27:18
madam Chair. So all this sounds great. back in 2015 I set up a the datata and transparency panel with one of the expressed goals of trying to create a master citizen's file to create a onestop portal for citizens so that we weren't having to haveitize go to 2030
different places and it sounds like you're recommending a a good step along that along that path but I think one of the challenges that we face is these are all wonderful recommendations but you know, state employees they have their regular jobs they they kind of get into the rhythm of of what they're you know, their normal workflow and trying to implement change can be something on top of what they're already trying to
do. we're we're adding another burden for them even though in the long run it'll be great you know like technology AI I've been pushing that for our state. We need to let the computers handle the computer stuff so that the people can interact with with people, right? but again the challenge is and I think you see where I'm going is we we kind of get into this everyday routine and trying to implement change is is never
easy. and so I'm wondering should one of the recommendations here be that we need to have a project manager or hire an employee whose sole responsibility is to push this forward is to make this happen because if you don't have that point person who's really pushing it who's really engaged in this and this is their sole responsibility. chances are trying to get it trying to get it implemented is going to be near impossible because we're just one more
thing we're trying to fit in even though the the ultimate outcome may be wonderful so just your your thoughts on how do we make this happen from a practical standpoint right? who who's who's that person who's going to push this forward? yes great question and
Speaker 19
29:27
I will point to the two probably most relevant examples which is Utah back in the 1990s and Louisiana in the last year in Utah they in their legislation because they were
creating actually a new agency they were doing it slightly different than what we're recommending here they actually codified the legislature the ability of the governor to hire a new executive director who was uhRobert Gross who came out of the private sector and again that change agent so to speak to kind of head things up. Louisiana has basically the governor again has empowered Suziehoen who's over what's now the Louisiana works which we're suggesting is the office of Workforce Solutions sort of counterpart that's going on in
Louisiana to do that as well and not only that but then Louisiana also has hired an individual who is half paid for by human services and have paid for by Louisianaorks because of the split between eligibility and the case management workforce stuff there so similar to what you're talking about. So I100 % would agree with you that at some level this probably comes to the governor's office and through either someone who's an existing employee or bringing in a new
individual, that sort of empowering somebody to and and really it needs to come from the governor in my opinion to say this is the direction we're moving in. we don't really have a choice and the reason I say we don't have a choice because I really don't think we have a choice to do this because I do think with AI and other things that are coming if we do not figure out ways to be more efficient and and consolidate these programs we're not going to have an effective approach to helping people with the AI and technology situation and we're
just gonna throw lots of money around and have the chaos we saw during the COVID era in my opinion so that's why yeah so I agree with you
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
31:21
and that that's one of my one of my greatest fears is we have a generational opportunity here and if we don't get the people who are going to push that generation al opportunity so of course y'all know I'm term limited so I won't be here so my colleagues find we need to find those people who are going to push this for our state or else we're gonna be last again and it's been be because the
opportunities are here and we don't take advantage of those opportunities and so thank you for for your response and hopefully this is an opportunity we will take advantage of. thank you Representative meekson Mason real quick before we go to the next question
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
31:59
if my memory serves me correctly when you guys are on the ground and actually doing interviews and
visiting with folks across the board in the DHS offices those employees were willing and wanting to help more they didn't have the opportunity to do so so would you say there really is
not by all but by some releases an opportunity they want to make a difference in people's lives and would love to be able to tell them about jobs that are available and go a different route than what we're currently doing.100% I mean
Speaker 19
32:26
the interesting thing about it while change is very difficult for people at the same time I've noticed when you're on the ground not only in Arkansas but in other states I've been in and you talk through the issue with people on the ground and said if you could be on the same team that's usually how it's referenced if you could be on the same team would you take that opportunity and 100% they
always say yes again people fear for their jobs clearly and worry about change. is it gonna mean I lose my job and nobody wants any of that but if you say to them let's take that off the table, yes that that we need the people to do the services and we can do them differently every 100% of the time they said yes we would we would be it'd be worth going through that change if that was the end result thank you Representative Beck. thank you madam chairir. my question is
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
33:19
we talked about the the centralizing of the data and the input and and also about eligibility but then you made reference to that eligibility my stay within an agency that handles that is currently handling that that eligibility so just to get a little bit more granular on that and saying ok so I have this block where I have the data
and really the eligibility for the individuals but that eligibility might have came from a different agency that's sort of a sub agency of not I shouldn't say that non a sub agency that is that is an agency that would be receiving data from the blocks so in other words they're they're doing the eligibility in one aspect whatever that would be and then that eligibility is is up in the larger block of data for this individual so how is that
working because you've kind of got people working across agencies it seems like likedHS has got this block right and then and as as I understand it and then but the eligibility for would come from a different agency yeah it's so
Speaker 19
34:39
it's a great question so one of the unique developments that's occurred again going going back to what happened in Utah eligibility was centralized and that centralization of
eligibility was in this is in the same agency department of workforce Services that the case management and everything's in so everything is in the same agency Louisiana found that that was a challenge to bring that eligibility function and I we feel the same kind of component is here in Arkansas because the airri system that public assistance eligibilityite because don't forget I mean OWs is still doing eligibility but it's for unemployment insurance and other parts so you've got elig ibility going on in OWs and you have eligibility going on in in
in department of human services so the goal is is on the public assistance side how do you have that centralized eligibility but how do you intervene before the individuals what what's happening right now is somebody comes in and they either virtually or physically show up somewhere and what's happening is is they essentially aren't really case managed or talked about employment or their situation it's mainly ok I'm applying for these benefits I get on these benefits and then once I'm on the benefits
something is supposed to happen and what we've seen from our prior work is that there isn't a lot of work and education training activity going on with those individuals so what we're essentially recommending is that and again this is some of the work that has to occur both legislatively and on the executive branch side is how do we develop the business processes and pathways for when somebody comes in either physically or accesses a virtual system and they're interested in getting on public
assistance. how do how do we have the strategy of they actually talked to somebody from OWs first and are assigned I won't call it a case manager let's say an employment counselor they're assigned an employment counselor first who finds out what is their situation what's happening to that individual what are their long term goals short term and long term goals and then based upon that they then apply for public assistance if that's the appropriate avenue for them to
do or they maybe are dislocated worker and there's a different service so they may be an unemployment insurance person who you know does apply for unemployment insurance but again that sort of triaging occurs by the office of Workforce Solutions before they apply or if deemed eligible for any particular public assistance type program how that happens A B Cd I can't answer for you exactly today because that's part of the next steps that we're talking about
that that has to be worked through realistically based upon the people who work in the agencies and others have to kind of design
Speaker 24
37:32
those pro we need to design those processes that's some of what needs to happen over the next couple of months another
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
37:40
question so the the the other question I have is and maybe you've seen it in other states or or that is like we're talking about some of these the private sector opportunities help help hub and all that stuff
and and they do some are doing a great jobs so they they got kind of plug into this new system my my concern would be like we have this this system that they need to plug into where they've been currently operating independently how do we ensure that that that that we helped them or or is our systems gonna help them be able to plug in and be part of this this larger system but yeah so
Speaker 19
38:30
yes I so so the 10th I'm gonna use the term the 1033 initiative which is the utilizing community faithba organizations as access points I think is extremely important and I think we absolutely 100% of what we want to do here is how do we create more access points for people and how do we ensure that those access points are trained up and are consistent and are working together and one of the things I have talked to the to to folks about here in arkansas is that unless
you get the public sector side integrated iss I I think the there's got the 1033 is always going to be somewhat limited or hamstrung where are most of the dollars and most of the you know case management things happening is going to be on the public sector side so I think the way you expand the 1033 and have it ultimately be successful is to get our act together and have the integration on the case management of individuals who are accessing the public sector side and then they have a consistent coordinated approach
around those access points that are happening in faith and communityba organizations and it's not sitting over here as in your terms as an independent initiative because you can be doing good work over here but then the bulk of the dollars and everything are over here and you don't have that sort of comprehensive approach to helping people again the way I think about this is like I think about it as op operationally as we need to create a franchise model of this. So regardless what does a
franchisee look like? it may be a community of faithbas organization it may be a public sector office in a community somewhere and how do we ensure that that franchise operates consistently and the reality of the 1033 initiative too is often a lot of the work they're doing is a lot more intensive and and helping people through crisis situations and those sorts of things and so part of
what you want to do strategically it seems to me in all of this is figure out what is at what point do are people case managed and what does that look like on the public sector side and at what point are they needing more intensive help and are better adapted to what's happening in the community and faithbas organization side if that makes sense so but it's having that consistent approach and access throughout this entire state of Arkansas no matter which door somebody is coming through so to speak well I I certainly appreciate all the
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
41:03
work that you guys have done and I'm I'm looking very forward to it is a it is a large task but I I think we're up for it so
so and then I do appreciate your help thank you Representative Bec and I just want to say you know at the
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
41:18
very beginning my hope was that no matter where in ourkansan lived no matter where they were in the state that they were going to
have the same opportunities and that there are so many great things going on but unfortunately people have no idea about what's going on even at the community college30 miles down the road so I really love
that opportunity. I love the franchise approach and I love what's going on with restore hope and hopepeubb and if we can make help it to make it successful in every county it's just it's going to be great. so thank you so much for
Speaker 40
41:45
your effort on that. uhpresentative garner thank you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
41:49
madam chairir over here I have a question about consul or switching out services to OWS does that mean and this may be part of the processes that we're looking at but does that mean that OWs is the one that's determining who is work capable
and if so what happens to those folks who are not work capable? where do they go after workforce services yeah
Speaker 19
42:13
I think that's a good question. I think that might some of that may yet to be determined that's where some of the detail work has to occur I think especially involving the agent different agency personnel I would say in general again the OWS would do the first screen sort of upfront kind of triage as I mentioned and then depending upon that it's probably gonna require other individuals
which may be a combination of DHS and or OWs that have to make that work capable determination if somebody is not workcaable then they obviously would be accessing other types of programs and services and maybe there they don't have an employment plan per se but maybe there's some kind of independence plan or you know something else that happens but I think some of those details still need would still need to be worked out between the agency folks and follow up madam chair the
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
43:07
second question I've heard a lot of questions about the local rural, especially in rural areas the local control and rural areas how how will the state measure whether we're successful in consolidation great other other than just yeah that's a great question that's a really good question because that's
Speaker 19
43:28
the one question even I get going back touttah one of the kind of neat things that's happening right now is there's a particular
organization that is funding a potential well we're calling it a planning evaluation in Louisiana because of this very question and my hope would be that we could do a similar thing here and actually try to fund and and we're looking at the efficacy of can they fund a random controlled trial or quasi experimental evaluation in Louisiana to see what happens what what's the result of consolidation and what are the what are the kind of factors I do believe there are certain outputs we should measure like their sort of integration
outputs like did we get to integrate a case management do we have locations that people can access that are you know where programs are co located or whatever those outputs are and then you have your out and shorter term and longer term outcomes I would suggest it would be my hope that we could try to arrange a similar kind of thing here in Arkansas that if you move forward to the legislation it passes you're moving toward this integration model that perhaps we could have a similar type of evaluation here because I think that's one of sort of
the open questions is what is the success of consolidation actually look like and I think again there's output short term measures and longer term measures and those longer term measures would be things like poverty I think and some of those labor force attachments some of those bigger picture items and so that I think that's a great question and I think that's something you could consider putting in legislation again we would love to work with you on that is what would would that look like and again maybe as part of the legislation
you want to fund an evaluation that would occur as part of the integration consolidation in national legislation this happened in the 199's with welfare reform one of the reasons welfare reform happened as as I've mentioned is in the past is that states had these waivers waiver demonstration authority that started in the early 1990s where they were showing an and each of those waivers had a random controlled trial attached to it so like in
Utah we had out in ourerarns office in west part of Saltlake County people were randomly assign ed to the AD current AFDC program versus the the program that the waiver program that Utah had done and so we were states like Utah and other and Wisconsin everybody was tracking the differences that were happening to people as a result of the current program and the new intervention and the new interventions we're having so we're showing so much more success that that's what drove the states to basically get the federal government Congress and Presidentlin at the time to come to agreement
well in federal legislation two years ago the stronger workforce for America Act which I've mentioned to this group in the past that was WOa reauthorization reform that almost passed it was on the floor of the house but it was bundled under the appropriations bill that Elon Musk blew up in December of 2024 not because of WIA but because of the spending part of it but what we we had that pilot and demonstration authority in there that Arkansas would have been a part of. Louisiana was a part of that Arkansas there were
8 states that qualified where you could have done what we're kind of suggesting here I also had suggested in Congress had written into that pilot demonstration authority that states would do evaluations similar to what we did in the 1990s. so I think your question is fantastic and I think that would be my recommendation is that we look to maybe fund the legislature look to fund some type of quasi experimental random control trial evaluation to see what is the result of consolidation what what happened yeah
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
47:17
okpresentative Barnes thank you first of all thank you so much for you honesty and how you're approaching this because most time we approach things with a dollar mentality and we forget about who's affected by it statepresentative Denise want to say thank you for your question because I'mloan those same lines rural area people having good access but also wanting to
common calls we're getting is when people lose their benefits for various reasons. sometimes it's a small reason and they they lose it and it takes them a month month and a half to get back on so that period of time between the time theylo and then get reconnected they suffer quite a bit so I'm wondering with this one hub place where they lose the billet would it be faster for them to get back home or what it'd be a
Speaker 19
48:19
lot of red tape. Yeah no I actually think it would be better because the idea is by integrating these programs in and having in this case the office of Workforce Solutions be that sort of case management hub for people then they they case so to speak is owned by somebody whose job it is to help them become self sufficient and employed and or re education skills upgrades whatever it is they need maybe it's they need to go to the community college and there's a training
program they can access so the idea here would be yes you would have a person who sort of owns that case and it's not owned by all these different program people across the board so if I lose something here I don't know what it means to me over here and that sort of thing the other thing your question spurs I want to mention too is I think one of major improvements this can make when you look at the issue of outcomes I was at a conference a few weeks ago and I mentioned this to the group when you look at public assistance programs and
you look at things like work requirements that is not an outcome that is an output. The challenge we have in my opinion with public assistance programs medicaid now has work requirements TanF has work requirements. Work requirements only tell any of us what is that person doing while they are receiving the public assistance benefit. It doesn't tell me what happened to them after that public assistance benefit ended or did they become
self sufficient or employed and so I think one of the things this really helps you as a legislature do is set up an outcomes matrix of we don't want to know just that somebody's doing the work requirement what is the result of that And I think that's what an integrated case management system helps you do it helps you connect what are people doing while they're accessing public assistance or a public benefit and what happens to them after they're done accessing that
public benefit did we and this is where evaluation other things help with too did we get more people higher wages longer term labor forcece attachment etc. which is really what we want to do for anybody that's workcaable and so that that's that would be my response representative is that yes I actually I think there would be more transparency around what happens to that individual I think there would be more assistance in a more integrated way and not that they
have to go to five different people and figure out what happened and I think that there's a better opportunity to connect what while they're accessing a benefit, what happens to them post benefitfi did we actually help lift them off the need for that benefit or did they get kicked off for some other reason what was the result thank you so much thank you Mr Bishops I would say that we're trying to get away
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
51:23
from just being case managers of programs and actual case managing
people and helping people and help people be the center of what we're doing which is I really love what we're trying to do here is just actually make it peoplecented and not program centered so actually people will get more help and again one person can help them and not have to go to 10 different people to see what in the world's going on awesome add that representative too because you remind me
Speaker 19
51:43
of another one of the challenges you have right now around I'll call them the work requirements and public assistance side is that become right now it's a compliance mentality
it's did we meet a number? did we we don't want to lose money in Arkansas so we want to make sure x amount of people are working while they're on medicaid or we want to make sure our error rates are a certain number of that sort of thing it becomes a compliance exercise it doesn't become a help to the people exercise and I think one of the things we're really trying to do here is say yeah work requirements are a good thing because it means that people are trying to get work experience and exposure but let's not have it be a compliance activity let's have
it be a we're helping people meet a work we're we're meeting a work requirement because we're helping people get work experience we're helping them get skills upgrades we're helping them get education and training access because ultimately we don't want them being a work requirement we want them not needing the public assistance in the first place because they're self sufficient and they're earning enough money to support them and their families that's the bigger picture of all of this I think. OK Senator English have any comments before we
Senator Jane English
Unverified
52:57
so I love that and I I think one of the things that we always kind of have to remember is is it's so easy to talk about compliance. and it's not so easy to talk about how do we help people move to a better place and I think that's kind of what we're all about you didn't have to figure out how we do that and and make all these things available because we do have a lot of wonderful things going on in the state right now that most so many people have no idea that it's out there and they don't have access to some of these
things so we really want to help people move forward we just got to get past compliance because that seems to be our biggest thing we appreciate very much all of the recommendations and the work that you've done with us and and and the thoughts that people have in the committee I think there's a lot of really good thoughts in here that hopefully we'll be able to pull together for some more recommendations. OK. thank you all so much for
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
53:59
this amazing work that you've done and we can give us a groundwork for us to move forward as a committee
to see what our final recommendations will be in October. thank you so much for your time and again I just very very excited about this opportunity to really move a good for a program forward so thank you very much
and I guess we'll let you guys go for now. Thank you. So committee, our next discussion is going to be on
the recommendations. I hope everybody received the packet that's on your table so remember the job of this committee is to send some recommendations to ALC next
month so we need to look at those we're gonna hopefully look at these and make a a initial vote on Thursday to move these forwardgain there's going to be some changes as this as we get feedback from agencies and from all of you. OK? so if you have if other members of the subcommittee want to make recommendations if you a member of the committee you can write a proposal and bring that to the committee as well and you have to email katestele but it has to be a member of the committee of our subcommittee to bring the recommendation to Kate so but I would love any questions or concerns as far as our
recommendations go from the committee Senator Love thank you madam chair and uhn thank you
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
55:06
for outlining the process because I did want to and there's a conversation that's online in regards to the CS waiver waitlist and I wanted to make that proposal because I think that's something that the committee needs to look at so I will be submitting a proposal in regards to that. OK thank you ma'am. Representative Ggarner I just have a quick question
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
55:31
is this gonna be added to the meeting documents OK great thank you very much and just like a pDF Sure no that's I'm with you nothingthing like having something on
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
55:41
on the computer you can share and again you know I I'm excited about this because of the returning investments that we can see in this and the money that we can take to actually help folks whether it be childcare or those are things that we're all very interested in and there's some things that we can really look forward as a committee and those things are recommendations we can put forward as look forward to legislation in 27 so
Senator English and I are both here for recommendations for all of you concerns or questions at all so right don't see any other business walls call this meeting adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Update on Reimbursement Rates Under the Living Choices Assisted Living Waiver Pursuant to Act 213 of 2022, Section 15 [Exhibits B1-B2]
C. Presentation on WorkEd Consulting and Advisory Group Recommendations [Exhibits C1-C2]
D. Discussion of Recommendations by Subcommittee
E. Other Business
F. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — ALC - HOSPITAL, MEDICAID, & DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES STUDY SUBCOMMITTEE, Sep 14, 2026 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit B1- ALF CHOW Report-August 2026 | Exhibit | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit B2- August CHOW RCF | Exhibit | 2 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit C1- Arkansas Workforce Modernization | Exhibit | 14 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit C2- LEARNS 4 ALL | Exhibit | 12 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
Speaker 4
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
Speaker 18
Speaker 19
Speaker 23
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Speaker 24
Speaker 40
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
Senator Jane English
Unverified
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified