Children & Youth Committee- Senate & Aging, Children & Youth, Legislative & Military Affairs- House

Chair sees a quarter and we will bring this meeting to as much order as possible. That sound like I know my committee or what not interesting we have no minutes if you'll notice so we will have two for our next. Meeting so we'll start right now on our agenda and first is arkansas department of better and affairs number that we have definitely secretary to present today. And if you will introduce yourself then you may begin your presentation. Good afternoon i'm scott stinger retros affairs. First apology is sector pin couldn't be here today he is currently sitting in a cabinet meeting so you've got me the the plus side of that design the gallery built to slide so I should be able to answer hopefully in your questions you have. That. During this presentation we were asked to come by and kind of give a review of uh where form veterans affairs is currently a little bit history secretary pen and I came on board january eleventh at twenty twenty three so everything in this presentation goes from that nate forward with a little bit of forensics that we had a dig into end of the past on how and the operated. Statutory we do three thanks her we operate too long term care facilities are veterans nursing homes on a north little rock and one of shateville. Northern rock is a it's a new one built in two thousand sixteen it is a village style home eight different houses or cottages out there that hold up to you. Ninety six beds. Fainville is we caught home ish it is a wing off of forty forty year old plus facility used to be the old washing regional fairville it looks like a hospital it feels like a hospital it doesn't look like a home at all so we'll kind of get back to that here in the slot here a little bit but when we caught home is it might have been what a veteran some should look like forty years ago i'm sorry can I arrive you want to could you pull that might just a little bit closer please good up to see you're so important we don't want to miss it whether secretary panter or not thank you. Faith bill does look like a hospital and there again maybe forty years ago that was the standard but it certainly is not today there's nothing home about it and most of the veterans that come on or care it becomes there forever home and so i'm working on we're in a process to fix out. Your thing we do is provide veteran services better services as a wide ranging catch all bucket for services that we do for veterans but the main thing we really do is we represent arkansas veterans in pursuit or their claims and disabilities and things like that in front of the federal va veteran service organizations to do the same thing think american legion d AB f w but what we do as we bring government to bear and so we provide some things those organizations just can't. When I built he slides last of two weeks ago we had seven seven regional vso since then we we we were back to full we have ten so that's a little update. In what those folks do for us is they cover down on the seventy five county vsos each county hasn't. Some are a little bit little bit better than others we train them and we certify them so they can so the county vso's who for us are basically like the front line soldier that interfaces with the veterans out there. We since we certified that allows them to get down on the federal VA system and process claims we helped the maintain that ability we also work appeals so when account of yes of runs into an issue with the federal va and they have to follow appeal they come to one of our ten regional vso's that are our state employees. To handle that the counties of the kind of yourselves obviously work for the county judges so we're partners with them they don't work directly for us. We also operate two state cemeteries or we bury an intern veterans and their eligible family members. We have one and burden arkansas up in the northeast corner of the state they average about seven interments a month. I'm kind of the flagship in the big one is here norfolk and they do about ten a week. So considerably much busier than we are a burder and simply that's just because of the location were bored I arkansas. The. Where veterans are scattered across the state this is a representation of what the federal va believes we have in our console and I kind of get to hear in a second while they just believe it we don't know it for sure. That is based off a surrey that they do annually this is a twenty twenty three numbers. In that little box is that there says. You can see this the federal value estimate the truth is they don't know the truth is we as apartment for our consult don't know. With the what the fed's really know is about a hundred eighty eight thousand veterans that they send a trip they send some kind of check too directly. So they've got that down to the address level but there are plenty of veterans out there that don't have any kind of current disability whatever they're still eligible for other benefits and they still kind of walk around lost in the woods looking for help per se but since turn out out seeking claims for themselves. The ba doesn't track that. A good examples my son who deployed to the border on a title ten mission with yorkshire national guard he's twenty five years old now works for department community corrections. But he since he's but he's a brand new veteran and the VA has no idea that he exists here in arkansas. So working on remedies to fix that. Add this budget. Our budget is a modest three point two million dollars a year from general revenue. That equals about thirteen dollars. Per veteran per year. That we spanned to do everything for veterans that come to us. The. I had a question as to me a couple weeks ago and had a research about it was related elementary schools and a flag program and so when I did some digging on that I discovered that the average elementary school budget pick it across the state and want your districts there they're similar. Their budgets larger than three point two million and that's to do one thing for kids in that school which is educator. That's we put that in there simply for perspective. Are big budget and a appropriation is the twenty four million dollars that it takes to rhine both long term care facilities. Those are all federally reimbursed in the next i'll show you the breakdown of that. Where is the GR go you can kind of see up there where just general advertiser operations us under the headquarters sustained or stuff that any other department out there brigade society even from all the way from there. From the rg which is a small step to probably the biggest DHS we have to have the same pieces of parts as they do. Then up the biggest obviously payroll between service division you can kind of see there were part of it goes into the training the county the sos. And another one that we have in there is the child welfare program that is a current law that is a stand along was wrapped up under advert during transformation in two thousand and nineteen. That laws of states and we're come back in the buying them and ask for a change. There's a heads up that the governor has to appoint the position to lead that program it's a one one percent subdepartment that's AGS seven. The. Kind of begs the question while governor has to point AG a seven but that's the way the statute currently search. And the whole program is funded appropriation was forty seven thousand dollars and they get we give away grants to veterans out there. That have some kind of modified need and we have a way to screen that. That some of these folks are you know one broken refrigerator away from not being able to make the make rat. And so these little tiny micrograms go to those folks and and we've been pretty successful stretching the money that we have for that program. That's a serious division also works appeals like I mentioned earlier and we have partnered with a non profit. Um that's a it's a national lines of of. Attorneys out there that used to be jag officers. And they're across the country and they represent our folks when they have to go through and a administrative hearing against the federal VA for a claim. They are separately funded by other donors. We are part of the program several the states are and these folks have a eighty percent when rate. So they've already taken a couple of our appeals and they have one both so they're they're they're really good organization they're based out of northern northern virginia so we're all the peels happen which is in washington dc. And they do all that work for us for pro- probona. The cemetery division you can see there there's an improvement version expansion that they are all fairly funded or were up to and until twenty twenty three when a federal rule changed. An expansion is when we actually go out there develop the land to be used for future and tournaments and improvement is maintenance drainage think fixing a road something like that it used to be that the thirds paid for all of it the rule changed the feds had and twenty twenty three meant that the state is now responsible for improvements. That was never in our base budget prior to twenty twenty three so we had to come back late this year actually and asked for a hundred thousand dollars out of restrictive reserve so we could do improvements. On the cemeteries himself basically we use it for raising real line the standards we have to keep to to receive federal funding think are linked to national cemetery and so when you go down and look a row of the two stones they should all be dress right dress at a certain height like soldier standing in a formation. Lines they get so we have to go out there and fix them via used to give us money to do that now the state owns that as far as the rule goes away to come back and ask you that wasn't the budget and we will come back and ask again for the same thing next fy until we can get through the buy anymore in build that in. The. Long term cash and flung term care division as or is there a big one so I kind of it married to some slide in this presentation we have a twenty on average twenty four million dollars net cash account. From federal reimbursement and it says it depends there and that's because it depends on the status of the veteran. Average cause to run a home either one of them is four hundred dollars a day per veteran. If we have our veterans in order that are seventy percent or greater with disabled a federal va reimburses us for a hundred and fifty five dollars today which is a good thing we make a little bit of money. If it's a medicaid reimbursement or private pay think private insurance. We get reimbursed three hundred forty one dollars today. That's not a good thing you can see them where the math goes on this one. And so we have rules promulgated to address that it will come through rules committee here pretty soon and it basically says you know our focuses on forty percent or better is you do the math it takes four seventy percent or better. Veterans that get reimbursed from the feds for us to be able cost cover the difference that we take a loss on from one medicaid or a private pay reimbursed battery. So you will go down to fayetteville they're again a forty year old facility and it has lost money every year since we went back and dating it back to about two thousand seventeen. The reason it is lost money is because in the past before twenty twenty three it was upside down on the ratio between seventy percent or higher veterans and medicaid and private pay. Essentially we're been even. We let folks in hand we took losses. The other issue were having in favor is the physical structure of the place like I said it's forty plus years old and i'll be honest it's kind of falling apart we were in the process and hopefully we thought we were to known by now from the feds but with the continue resolution and their budget woes are going through that has been delayed to a grand ward for the construction of a brand new said the art facility and rogers are concerned we have sixty five acres only on there that was deeded to us a few years ago. From the waters. And we're prepared to be able to do that and we know that. Yell passes the money and restrict to reserve for the state match and as soon as we get the ground award will be coming forward to do that and they will start bidding out for the any firms and the construction but the long term plan is to replace the fayette will home which is currently least we'll we will accidentally use wms move the folks that we currently have in favorable over the new one and then we will fill that one up. It's enough it's a hundred bed facility. Right now we purposely coup. Fateville to fifty five. The reason it's fifty five is because that's kind of was about the average that we had in there right now we're not going to tell me we're obviously not going to kick anybody out but secretary pen and I were you know we're both thirty year veterans ourselves from the army. We thought that it is it was almost a moral to have veterans in that location bring a men and new because to be blocked it looks like a place you'd warehouse a veteran to die. There is nothing home about it. So we knew because of that decision that fayetteville was going to continue to take a loss. But will we figured out quickly if you looked at north literate. North like for whatever reason at the time was never flipped upside down on the ratio between disabled veterans and medicaid we got it right and that and faith though I mean north large makes enough money. To plug the hole in fayetteville until we get the next one built and we get the next one built that hole will go away. The other issue we have budget wise on the federal side is contract nursing i'm sure most yellow wear of the nursing shortest is everywhere we we average at least forty percent more on what we have to pay for contract nursing then we do for a very nursing staff. We've parked over the side on the unbudgeted list just to save money for match since we got here ninety positions that are orange and lpns that we have to contract because we simply can't get enough to come work for us. The. The. If there's a money slide to this presentation of good news this one's it. If you look at the total of va expenditures in arkansas on the eight thousand and they do know this it is three point four billion dollars that includes direct payments to veterans gr bills student loans. Pensions to some. Some eligible family members and spouse will benefit. If you look down at the direct payments to veterans in the state of arkansas hundred and eighty eight thousand of the vague knows exactly where they live in the state. His hundred fifty five point nine hundred fifty five point nine million dollars a month. That money's common at our counties that money's being spent here. The. It's a pretty good stream and we did the quick math. This. If veterans were an industry. And you and you gave and you did not just the money not directly to them not just to economic impact that economists like to estimate. We'd be about the fourth largest industry in the state and we bring in close to four percent of arkansas gdp. Not a bad rely on three point two million. The. This light right here to picks. The bad side of that if you think. Veterans are good and the state should have more of them. This is the projected distribution and basically all the slide says is there's there's becoming less than less than as they age and pass away. And assuming there is no more large wars in the horizon which is a good thing. They'll do build a cricks. And so that previous line. By nature you would think about smaller unless we do something to bring more veterans in the state. Okay what did we do with the the limited resources that we have. The first thing we didn't do I know double negative there. There's the best way I could put it as we didn't rely on outside of outside funding from a rebates budget with their one exception which was the hundred thousand dollars because right we got there the fence had changed the rules. If you look out that first block right there. Outside funding that averse got since two thousand eighteen is listed in the reasons why. You see eighteen and nineteen in the amounts of one point eight and seven hundred fifty thousand dollars. To the homes. We looked back for entirely forensically really couldn't figure out why we just know we did it. The other had scratcher is two hundred ten thousand dollars from restricted reserve to pay for something with the cemeteries in twenty twenty it could have been a covered related thing we don't know why but the bottom line is all cemetery finding up to twenty twenty three was a hundred percent federal. The one we definitely know about is twenty twenty two on the one point four million. In november of twenty twenty two average at one point four million dollars from the restricted reserve. Two unwinged failure the idea at the time was to contract from the administrator all the way down to the lowest c and a. The entire operations of that home. When that went at one point four million was put into that cash account the cash account currently said it only two hundred thousand dollars. You can't make payroll in those homes at two hundred thousand dollars. So there's no way that was going to be contracted we came in a january did some really fast math realize that that wasn't going to happen let the money stay or he sit currently fifteen months later that cash and counts got one point nine million. We cycle through anywhere from. Five hundred up to seven hundred thousand dollars a month through the cash account getting reimbursed the same amounts roughly three and a half four weeks later from. Federal va in medicaid in some medicare. Um. So. The stories tells right there is we tight some things up we scrutinize everything that we do in the homes we change leadership. And we've rided that ship. And we've done that without comment to ask for anything more. We've also conducted county view so training support veterans we we took that money out of hide there was no training budget for us. Um. And the way we currently do that and we we take the money allocated through through asian grants for us to help the counties pay the bill is kind of the peanut butter message depending on the size of the county either get nine hundred dollars or a thousand dollars a quarter. Now it's a hundred dollars difference but that also will be the difference between a tiny little county. Versus washington county. Doesn't it make a whole lot of sense it is what it is will probably come back and recommend some courses of action which may take statue change here in the future buying him. To look at it more of a metric base away to measure. We could have some we we could have big counties out there. Not doing the veteran level business at small counties are for whatever reason. We just didn't believe based off our budget that taken that peanut butter spread and out thin across the across the bread as probably the way to do it. So we're we're developing courses of action to to address that right now it'll be presented in the future. Out of the grandsonis account we did pay counties we pay their instead of pay to keep their counting the sos certified what we couldn't do this year was paying on time in the past we have paid quarterly this year we we got to pick we paid one court in the realize the budget and exist in so and we get payroll savings back at the end of this year june we will pay the accounting it's only way we can do it in our current budget without going out and asking there again for some kind of outside of based budget. Relief. We will continue to cover failure with north line rock in the cash fund it makes enough money to sustain both right now. The ideas when then when the next one's built will keep rolling that money over for instance it takes thirty five percent match to build a new home the feds pay. North carolina does exactly what we've stumbled on to and they built a fifth home and they had enough money in their cash account they didn't have to come back to their legislature to ask for the match because they had it out of cash. That's just because they managed it well we took some lessons learned applied it us in. There again from one point four million to uh nine point one in about fifteen months. Um. We did use and on profit to cover appeals for her federal cases with the va from our veterans. We it's probably no so that's a really good price for us. The other are thing we did do is we used a nonprofit that was a purchaser of. Financial data from trains union the folks it out there that tell you about you know your factor scored all that stuff. Um. It's it's an odd relationship because before we did this at never heard of a government agency going to a nonprofit. For a basically hand out so with this nonprofit dear is anyone out and bought the data from transunion. The credit agencies know where veterans live so that missing roughly forty thousand we know here in the state of arkansas that we have no idea what counters are in transunion does. So we were getting that data from them and we're going to know by county so we can track them in and and develop the programs were thinking about in the future. To build reach out to those folks that probably have some kind of issue. And need help in they simply don't know about advert and don't know what we do and don't know where to go help. I've retired six years ago from the army I left an army's really really good military is really really good about training you take care of you and your family while you're there and that kind of stuff but you retire on a month on a friday and on monday there's nobody there to catch it. And so I kind of for about a year wonder round in the upfront around the words trying to figure out what I needed to personally do with the a and I try to do it on my own and it was extremely difficult. Because when you veterans out there. When they think about leaving the service. And they think about the va they intuitively don't think the archaeological veterans affairs they think i've got to deal with the federal government in dealing with the federal government the federal va is a difficult. So I knew advert existed I kind of knew I thought they did at the time had no earthly ideas going to be in this job in the six years later. But the bottom line is a roped around trying to get some help into our random to somebody at the d a d and then they pointed me to add. Which was um I was still very grateful about things I had my own issues to deal with leaving the army. But I was one of the probably the forty thousand six years ago and they're still out there. The. What we don't do but we probably should have kind of alluded to the slide a little bit on the things we're thinking about. Um after we've got her arms wrapped around the department of the last fifteen months. What we have seen is. Is hit or miss out there in the counties with their counties vsos. Like every like everything else we have some folks that work for us you could you could argue that or hit her miss. Um the counties are no different. So. We believe we can fix some of those problems because it was me going to the counter vso plastic county when I retired looking for some kind of help. To train them better in the give them some resources that they don't have so for instance when we go around for the governor's capital of the day and we go around to do some business accounting the year says we've actually discovered counties. One in particular. That was running a windows four computer and that's all it had. I do not want as far as a thing but you cannot get into the va system to represent any of our veterans on a machine like that. We got a machine that works. Uhm. We had we had a a wind of seven machine and one of the homes and you know so when we came and board on on boards a week we don't know got some quick winds but those more there's wins out there like that and we we fixed her we writed our own shift we had to do that at ever. And so now we're focusing on the counties because they truly are the face. Facing forward to our veterans out there. The other thing we need to do better than counting some time. There again we did it quarterly we didn't take any outside funding of out of ever based budget so we could truly figure out where we were on what we needed to do to do some. Honest budgeting in the future we know that now we think we can do it but we'll probably need a little bit of help. Another thing we don't have is any kind of marketing budget or anything like that for the department literally when I got out and they got heard of our some veterans affairs I thought I knew what they did I really found out II was clueless until I got this job here. And i'm just standard only one veteran out of two hundred and twenty thousand or in the state. Um. People leaving the service do not they're again intuitively think the architect apartment of veterans affairs they think the us the a. They deal with they don't understand it they don't get any help they go to the dav american legion or. They try their best but what they what they can't do just because their private organizations that i'm wrong with their partners with us but they don't bring government to bear. We have that ability and our success rates pretty high. The only problem is is most veterans don't know about us. All that kind of begs the question if you if you look at what veterans do at their forests. Um they've proven they can be trained. Most among homes. Most of them have better jobs. Um. They they're part of the community. Why would we want more of that. So we are working on a honour on a plan right now. To figure out where we know figured out. Working on a plan into keep the veterans that we have in arkansas the ones that are console produces we know those points are production right now the largest producer of veterans in the state of arkansas arkansas national guard. Just because of current deployments they produce about three hundred brand new veterans a year my son being one of them the other one is locked here for space. And then soon to be able air national guard based when the f thirty five and for sixteen mission kicks off there. Laura and I had to go through south one of the active guys. Stationed out that camp robson at the time you go through a program where they teach you everything that they think you need to know to be successful in the civilian world. They do that every month it is about thirty people to go through it so on average about thirty people leave law care for space we have our vso is right there to catch them now as they come out. Out of the last class that was I think about thirty two. Forums said they're going to stay in arkansas. And these are people that are thereof activity from around the united states. Our take is we just need to tell him how great arkansas and what we can do form and how we can help them. And we're working on that as we speak. Like I said earlier arkansas I mean veterans are an economic engine in the state. There's about forty thousand of them that we don't know about that we need to get arms around that they can as they understand that we are there to help the stuff that we can provide for them so they don't walk around. And hopefully not have the experiences that I had to go through and some of my other. Fellow veterans have had to go through. And at the end of the day we would like to do some of the stuff ourselves and rely less on a non profit. Are you ready for questions yes mayor thank you representative springer you're recognized. The. Thank you madame chair of good afternoon and thank you for your information I may have missed something is there other reasons why the very consummatory that's located in little other power port of your report you indicated that there are two cemeteries minded there's one in little rockets yeah do you count that one is part of north no man the one little rock is federal we have the two state ones who want a north little rock the other burden represent a fight you're recognized thank you madame chairman thank you again for your report I know that this is going to be fee but what do you see as the potential completion date by the new herman rogers. We would like to have a complete and twenty twenty five. Usually what happens is the grants award notice of would have already come out we're on the teams with just the folks that make these decisions last week. And because the continue resolution they have a list they haven't put it out yet and they won't now and I know there's a budget deal out there right now soon as that passes I expected come out when that happens if. If we can get it out by june and we are high enough on the list. Um. It will be we'll start will come as for the release of the fifteen million for that from restrictive reserve which is the state match. And then will put it out immediately forbid the any process will be about six months so if it comes out in june will say december and then somewhere early. Twenty twenty five we can start breaking ground. Follow it early twenty twenty five. And in the meantime you've spoken of the condition of the fable home how can we be sure that those their transliving the best life that they can and that facility. We need all the standards at four care. In. We. We talked to him constantly they've been there some of it been there for twenty years. Um we are. The facility itself. I'll just be blank is not a home. The facility self is a hospital so we try to make it as homey as possible they they we try to install community some of our friends some of have their spouses there some of the some of those medicaid patients we talked about and we have a veteran there and they want to bring their spouse in we don't say no or not separate him we just take the loss. So we do everything that we possibly can to make it is home worthy as possible but the facility itself is old. Even though the stuff in it is modern and up to day it's just the facility itself it doesn't look like a home in this new facility well we get a bill. Thank you urban if welder to recognize the manager thanks for being here today I didn't want to ask you some questions on the long term care division slide that you've got mentioned four hundred dollars a day as your cost water things that contribute to that associated cost how do you come up with that four hundred dollars a day associated associated cost are. If it's favour we pay a lease for that food cost staff costs the staff in the nursing staff port is the most expensive we do pay for medications that get reimbursed in then supplies whatever you can think medical supplies in in in storage that we keep. Okay format form pharmacy professional fees per pharmacy professional fees for the darker we have on staff professional fees for physical therapy okay follow it managed to see you said that's roughly fifty five beds or fifty five veterans in favor yesterday yet so that would be roughly twenty two thousand dollars day or eight million dollars a year just in cost to run the facility yesterday okay how does that compare to a normal long term care facility like just a nursing home in general do you have any idea that when II don't know okay. I don't can we direct that towards staff or someone to see if there's a way we can get a comparison of what that looks like it just seems to me that that that's a higher cost and i'm just trying to figure out what the wild the cost would be hired for a veterans long term care facility than a regular if there's any difference there. Blake has equived they member. Representative unger your recognized matter. Zeroing enter your comment about the veterans administration not knowing your son existed as a veteran I heard that correctly. So to go back in time and number of minds. A social acquaintance. Who works with the va hospital happened fadeville and does veterans outreach. Reached out to me to express the concern. About the disconnect between the va in the national guard. I wouldn't track down the g one of the national guard and he assured me that when they demobilised they fill out cons of paperwork that would connect them with the va system. Was this literate chrome along. No that lieutenant across my friends and I can tell me is wrong though so what the va does know is a snapshot in time so for instance. Use the soldier or my son as an example they come off a deployment they do meet with the federal hassle or information and then the veteran at the time gets a job and move somewhere else. The federal va has no idea where that veteran goes. The only way they know is if they send him a check. So they may not they may know that instant that veteran comes back from a deployment or they leave the service but that doesn't necessarily mean that's where that veteran's going to wind up so for instance when they leave the rock air force base that they say they're coming to arkansas. The va will know that and they will send us their information. To including their dd to fourteen we have access to all those. If the veteran. It in in the meantime decides to go to a different state. The va doesn't track that we have no idea where they were we just know that they didn't want up in arkansas. Thank you. Representative may bear you recognized thank you madam chair late summer early fall we had a presentation on the child welfare program that you all have in how that money wasn't really being utilised in the years pass but you were doing quite a bit of effort to make sure that people know that the service is there and how you can help people have you seen that difference this year the I think you might have said forty seven thousand dollars is applied I mean has it been utilized this year we got better records now yes man we we spent every time and then move some more into it plus appropriation so we were on the second round of self funding that program as we speak wow wow because it had not been utilized really the year before hardly at all and we knew that there were need so it's good to know that those people are getting the help that they need yes ma'am we made a we made a management change in then refund of the program. Thank you I see no other questions from committee so thank you very much for being here and thank you for your work and for your report today thank you. Next on our agenda's the infant and child death review report. When you're able if you are. Introduce yourselves and tell the sugar with you may begin. Okay it looks rare like stop but red means go okay is that better good afternoon my name is samaria hill I am with the infant and child death review program and I am the coordinator. Hi i'm laura robertson on the executive director of the arkansas commission on child abuse rape and domestic violence and I am sitting in four one of the panel members that is from our commission she is out on medical leave today so please bear with I am sitting in for a sharing williams. And we also held um another the chair of the infinite child death review state panel wanted to be here with us today but unfortunately he was called into court with it with this regular regular job so he's unable to be here. So they start out the mission of the infinite child death review is to review all unexpected information and child deaths in the state of arkansas these reviews result in the development of interventions and recommendations through multidisciplinary team collaboration and community education and policy. Icr was a established and twenty ten and consists of eleven regional teams that review unexpected debates of arkansas children ages zero to seventeen years the teams cover all seventy five counties giving icr the potential to evaluate one hundred percent of reviewable pdatric deaths as required by act eighteen eighteen of two thousand five all local team members work in or reside in the areas of the teams that they serve which allow first hand insight into the local environment and needs of the community. The icr program remains committed to the goal of reducing preventable child debts within arkansas. The effort requires the steadfast commitment of all local t members and the icr coordinator staying abreast of best practices regarding child death reviews and also the instance of partner organizations for expertise in prevention strategies specific goals for the icr program include training all local team members on death review expectations and contributions providing specific team recommendations to the icr state panel. Within the state of arkansas in twenty twenty one I city are a local team's reviewed the cases of one hundred forty seven children who died from injuries the majority of injury debts were due to motor vehicle crashes suicide and undetermined causes which are which were primarily armed said in unexplained informed death so we've shared with you today the four icr report for debts that occurred in twenty twenty one. Thank you. Thank you are you ready for questions yes. Are there any questions. Senator seller on your recognize thank you sorry maybe I missed we on homicides and that deaths yet if you could reset what you're covering next to that which you just cover that the it's listed within the report the the homicide in debts that the icr regional teams were able to review for a twenty twenty one k for a fee that twenty eight infants and children died by homicide and twenty twenty one do we know what the percentage of the. People that are committing those homicides are out on parole or no sir I do not have that information so is is one of the goals to reduce those numbers. Yes that that is that is the goal of the icr and we. Are able to provide this report to any agencies or organizations that ask for it so so you can or so they can see one of the coles and be if we are letting people out of prison or out of jail and then they are committing additional crimes it would seem to be important to know how frequently those are the people that are committing homicide. Am I making myself clear yes are we and with icr we only look at ages zero to eighteen. I understand if we're trying to reduce the number so we have twenty eight children's deaths and if we want to cut that number and have it seemed important to know who are the people that are committing those homicides. Would that be correct that that is not something that we look at as far as the infinite child get through I guess i'm asking who does that I don't know that but II could you try to find out but I don't I don't have that information at this point. Madame chair I guess i'm low confused we're trying to cut the number of deaths. And if i'd say of the deases if a large number of those are repeat of vendors and people that are getting out of jail on parole. It would seem that that would be important to know if no if we want to cut that number right are you okay if she'd tries to find out for you which agency or who actually and I like the note I don't like to know what actually you're for we find out that that half of these are homicides are done by people who were on parole so what are we doing to stop there with we can't make a change if we if we don't have a plan to reduce that number being upon the people that are committing those grands. So you will find that information if you'll get it to blake then he can get it to see that i'd like to know what what are we if we're going to reduce the number we got to know who the people are committing the crowd and what are we doing to stop those people from recommending crimes thank you they come around june representative may vary your recognize thank you II think madame chair I can't get two detailed and I have not talked to the family but I did get an email yesterday and should have spoken to them before I go too much into it but just so we can talk after as well to get a little bit more details but the gist of what this situation is is a person who lost their child and it was ruled a suicide but she doesn't feel it was a suicide. And very frustrated that no one really investigated further and the request was can could a um instead of having the local municipality or the local sheriff's office or whatever investigate it could there be something that would allow state police to come in has that issue come up with for for parents who may have last someone it's it's ruled as suicide and they fear that it really wasn't a suicide is there is there anything already in place that would give them a way to challenge that as far as the infinite child death review we we don't look at that and we cannot determine that the manner of death which describes how the infant or child died and explains the cause of death that's determined by the arkansas state medical examiner's office and in and we do not change the manner of dear but the arkansas state medical examiners office may be able to give more insight into into that question okay if you could help me connect me who I need to talk to about that cause it sounds like it wasn't really investigated in again i'm only here in one side of the story but it's certainly made me go off you know there should have been more investigation on that that doesn't make sense right but II can definitely help with a point person to to get you there contact information that you may be can talk to and in about that yes that can definitely help you welcome. Any other questions by committing. Seeing none thank you for your report today thank you and thank you all for your time. Next on our agenda is crossed against children division quarterly report from major drew. And if you'll introduce yourself then you may begin your report. Have made a jeff you aren't so staples crimes against children's division. Without jumping too far into that previous question you have ma'am why can take place with a not satisfy with the local departments doing make contact with the prior security or that local latest you can't put in a request for staples to the system. The. I have it on the quarterly report from october through december. On page one you'll see the heartland received sixteen thousand one hundred and twenty seven calls eight thousand three hundred and seventy or except for report a cd handled one thousand three hundred and fifty two of those these ffs took five thousand two hundred and ninety six would one thousand seven hundred and twenty two of those differential respites. Page two reflected allegations by type investigated by cc a monthly breakdown. Page three shows the. What many reporters are reported. On pays for you see the month of breakdown occasions open and close within their three month time period CC d open one thousand three hundred forty two closed one thousand three hundred and fifty seven with four hundred and sixteen of those being found true there was a substantial national rate of thirty one percent with their we have two thousand five hundred sixty seven more active and two sixty four or forty five days fees five and six will reflect the breakdown by counties the cases are sign. It pages eight nine will reflect the reported allegation and the victim ages. The. The. Pages then through twenty will show the relationship between the offender the victims and the ages of the language finder. They just twenty two through twenty nine. Is the air. The prosecutor are report prospering attorney judicial districts in cases of meeting to the prosperity to broke now as declined filed in pending if you look on page twenty nine. You'll see where there was. Five hundred and twenty four cases submitted by us two hundred sixty two of those who fail. The two hundred and two more pending. And sixty of those were declined there's to quarterly report our take any questions if you have any. Considered our seller when you're recognized if thank you madame chairs maybe you're the one I should have asked the last question to you so if we know that there are twenty eight death. Uh child death by murder so what are we doing do we know who's committing those crash. Yes sir we were identifying and by the the allegation type summit be fee to retain fate of supervisors and all all child describing through the highlight and will all track all those to see what the cause of the the death work I believe your question were second to see if there were for old individuals committed in those crimes there's not something that we we do track. This. So what would good is it too and and that blaming him is trying to figure out the system if we're trying to reduce the number. And all we're doing is reporting the data. But we're not using the data to resolve the issues where good is it to calculate to attract the data for our part that the civil part ccd which was simple maybe some of those things may be from education i'm sure you're worried at some returns with when pools and and and pounds open that arrow drownings increase. Maybe don't seem to increase there the education of the security II get that I guess i'm really concerned about the murders. So we have because about when i'm from greg hit county night talk to my law enforcement for all officers and we had a case last week or fifteen people were shot in jones world arkansas. And it turns out a number of them were repeat offenders some with felonies and if we have felons that are recommending murders and their murdering children. And we know how many times that happens like if there were twenty eight if half of them were done by repeat offenders that are to send a strong message to our parallel board and our corrections boards that we should not be letting these people out. And if we just collect the data without analysis of the data I don't know I guess some addressing this the chair so we're collecting data but they're the analysis dude and drive our reaction. I'm really concerned about there i'd see what you're saying but I think you're taking her. Informational part may not all they are here to do is bring us the information and the questions are good I just don't think you're going to get there they're reporting the data I get it right but yeah I don't just wondering if I need to keep coming back to these meetings if we're going to report the data and that save as a result of the data we're taking these actions I don't know that I need to come back and keep listening to the data and just send me the report that I don't want to speak out a turn server I would with think resident is and would be something that the department corrections would be able to to track and provide I don't want to put that off on but I think there's data kept that way. If i'm not mistaken thank you thank you madame chair said a clark recognize thank you madame to if both senator solvent another member requested of the chairs we could ask for a specific meetings. To discuss these and detail correct thank you. The. Yeah. Any other questions from committee. If not thank you for your report today. Yeah. And next on our agenda is dcfs quarterly performance report. Same song if you'll introduce yourself I know this is old hat to you but then you may begin. The. The. Hey good afternoon i'm to finish right and i'm the director for the division of children and family services and this afternoon I am presenting the quarterly performance report for dcfs which highlights quarter second quarter of state fiscal year two thousand and twenty four which is october first twenty three till december thirty first two thousand and twenty three. Um and i'm going to get started and jumping right in to page number one. And this is the number of child mark treatment reports that were incoming into the hotline and so for this quarter there were seven thousand five hundred and four reports called into the child abuse hotline six thousand and two hundred and four of those were assigned to dcfs that's on page one i'm going to page two. Um page two of the bottom you can see in that chart what the most reports were founded true for which is neglect and that is on the small chart at the very bottom of page two. If i'm going to page four related to timeliness of investigations last time I was here you all had asked about timeline is in the work they were doing around that we are continuing to work on timeliness of initiation i've seen victim children and reports and we did increase slightly in this quarter and so we will continue to focus on that being a priority. And then at the bottom of page four you will ask this timeline is of completing those investigations and dcfs remains at about combined eighty six percent for timeliness of completion during the quarter. I'm going to page seven i'm page seven you will see that dcfs worked intent in home cases are in home services with approximately four thousand sixty seven children during the quarter as a reminder we do serve more children in their home with their parents working on keeping them safe then we do in foster care. I am on the bottom of page eight there's a chart for monthly home visits completed to seen families and we did increase again slightly this quarter our division goal remains eighty five percent and we're going to continue to work towards that goal and insuring that we're seeing children and use in their home with their parents. In those in home cases. On the bottom of on page ten the top charge does continue to show the number of children in foster care so we ended the second quarter with three thousand seven hundred and two children in foster care and at the bottom you can see that we continue to discharge our discharges as remain high vs our injuries so we are continuing to work towards moving children a permanency. And if you're interested on the discharge reasons that is in the chart on the bottom of page eleven thirty eight percent of children and foster here were just charged for adoption and i'm sorry thirty s thirty eight percent in thirty seven were for reunification. We continue to have on page twelve we continue to focus on children and you've been placed with family and so we have about seventy seven percent of children foster here are in some type of family settings so that could be a relative fictive can foster home they repeat it foster home or a pre adoptive placement. And on page thirteen we have monthly visits to children in foster care we did decrease this month on that and so just continuing to focus with our staff on the importance of seeing children in foster here in the replacements to ensure that things are going well and working with the foster families or whatever replacement type they might be in. In page fifteen achieving permanencies o just acknowledging that we were trending up and in this quarter we did trend down and so as a team were continuing to focus on our messaging around permanently in how we are moving children to permanency in twelve months of entering in the foster care and that does take you know work with the family and continuing to provide those services and making sure making good decisions about the timelines of that permanency so we continue to focus on that. On page sixteen the number of children available for adoption currently as of this quarter at the end of the square at two hundred and twenty eight children available for adoption and the state. And then the number of children number of adoptions finalize in this quarter was two hundred and twenty eight and options finalist. The. Okay that's I guess. Thank you center sullivan you recognized there's the last time i'll beat the fourth so you're on payg a required monthly in home visit seventy seven percent we want to get to eighty five. So again as a result of the data what is the problem and what are we doing do I mean for what if our goals eighty five and where it's seventy seven why we at seventy seven and specifically what steps are we taking to get to eighty five. Yes so it's a great question I think so too then i'm this is very good example. That if we're charges a letter of later making sure we get there again the numbers don't mean anything it would really help if you would finish your statement we're trying to get to eighty five we can't get there because of and these steps were taking to get there yet so so there's all there is a lot of things that could impact why we're not getting to this too through I would say work for us balancing work loads and priorities in the work and how we're getting there is were about we're continuing to focus on this so i'm doing messaging at my level my area directors are working on this or tracking which cases aren't getting seen how are we getting out to see them and showing the importance that serving making sure that kids are safe in the home with their parents and making sure we've ever been receiving us appropriate service so what i'm hearing you say is one of your number one things is you don't have enough people quote qualified or quality people to get the job done your work forces understaffed. One of the things yeah I mean or go that is a compounding factor to managing the tasks of the daily working benefit that information helps thank you thank you madame chair. Ripped in a firm and you're recognized. Making mansion on appendix c it shows the reasons why foster homes and a closing. In the largest reason being is just the faster family's decision do you have any is record theme that you've noticed like as the reasons why the families who decide to close their home. I think it's all across the board I would say some like some faster families when the child achieves permanency depending on how long that has been they they want that break and then they do eventually close their home erm sometimes it's dcfs i'm gonna on that something were continuing to work on is being having a customer service and engaging with our resource periods sometimes it's they adopted and they're ready for a break but adoption is also an option in that staff can choose to close but sometimes if I get that break and then it's like i'm going to go ahead and close and they make that decision and so all the possible different reasons by you know it is their decision so we we do have to support them and talk them out of it if we can. Do you have any information is to like how long the average foster home remains open before they decide to close. I don't know I could probably see if I can pull that out of our system. If you could i'd appreciate it I will I will try and I can follow up with you and let you know. Sir to clark your recognized thank you madame chair director I appreciate the job you do appreciate you be in here. On the subject of staff. The you know that's doesn't matter who comes to us and it wouldn't matter if it was government or private business that's an issue it looks like it's going to be an ongoing issue. We knew that they you know i've known for thirty years that we baby boomers would be retiring and that it would produce this problem we did know that colwide was going to hit and a lot of this would leave early I thought someone was would come back and we have it to a large degree but if there's going to be less people working. And I should go back and say two that centre hammered out worked on this years ago and getting more funding the legislature all did but we spear that and we found out that funding wasn't the only issue that these jobs are not always the most pleasant and it requires special people who don't burn out to work there but. And I haven't thrown this at anybody else yet so apologize but have we started looking at what if this is the new workforce what if this is only this we can't not that we can hard anybody but we can't get up to wear. Were fully staffed. We looked at how we're going to compact and in do things differently. Our will honestly say a little bit in some of that has been in conversations of how to be balance out and insurer that safety is always the forefront and have we started working in a little bit we started working with our private partners on like recruitment of foster homes if we have private agencies walking alongside dcfs that eventually alleviate some lift on my team right and so in ways like that we have started exploring what is that look like and then how can we cross use dcfs employees to meet the demand of where we are so I would say a little bit we have just because. Uh vacancies are all have been a saying now for a little bit well obviously your business model is not anything like. Krogers or walmart where we can go to self checkout which I hate or mcdonald's or burger king where we have a kiosk which I hate but but if again we're going to have a compacted work force. Then that I would take ever agency that might be watching we've got to start looking at and I think you already know this we've got to start looking at and how in the world do we do this job. I feel for you cause how in the world do we do this job with the safety of children. And do it with less people uh that's gonna take some some real thinking but surely it's going on across the country to and again a really appreciate the job that you do I appreciate that and and I would also say he knows as we work with contractors like we also hear they're struggling to hire and so how do you balance that out across all the system system within child welfare to do that where in for me it's also imperative that we lean on our community partners who were doing some of that work in how they can support us with what they bring to the table so it's critical thank you in relief china think outside the box on how we no matter what keep it safe. While we have to do this job. Thank you I didn't turn your michael okay okay. Ah I have a question on page thirteen you said the decrease to monthly visits to children. Can you just connect to echo representative firm and can you give me some reasons that happens why would go down so the the top chart is for when family service workers actually see their children the bottom charge with an educators of that any dcfs staff so if you look at the bottom chart someone from gcfs are seen them but how we how it quote counts for reporting the family service worker actually has to see them and so again I would say just the demand of the day the work for the what's happening in a day in the office when you're moving different pieces transporting kids just that work of getting it done but. Continuing to travel for me continuing to make it a priority because if we don't see your kids we don't know what's happening more of a logistics yet but yeah thank you any other questions by coming. Thank you again for the work you do and for your report thank you and last but not least on our agenda is a report from the children dead because the centers of arkansas. This. The. Yeah. The. We'd need like between act entertainment or something right destiny now you're gonna saying no nothing. Just getting. The. The. Again if you want introduce yourself telstra you're with then you may begin your presentation. The. Hi with poli and the executive director of their children's advocacy centers apart. I market humphreys their mbt project director with the children's advocacy centers apart. Their children's I add they can see centers of arkansas and non profit and we have two projects one is the children's advocacy centers that's a network of twenty seven centers across the state of arkansas and we provide free direct services to childhood be spectrum's we work directly with dcfs and CC ACD who have you heard from already today our second project there is under their children's advocacy centers of arkansas is there multi disciplinary team project and their sixty fourteens across the state and the team members include dcfs cacdy prosecutors cac's mental health professionals medical professionals in local long enforcement. The chapter my office eh is. Is a nationally recognized add facility and our cases across the state or a credited centers also and there is my office in cases in him dts in all fifty states so this is a national approach to child abuse some of the highlights and kia accomplishments that we have worked on in twenty twenty three as we conducted a data driven research on statewide cac's and mdts just to divine d to find out where are the gaps where or as services needed throughout the state that we can partner with our agencies to help provide the services so we've taken a deeper diver into that in really what a services in access to services for all child abuse victims in the state of arkansas so we hope to continue to grow the efforts across the state er we have completed three hundred in six trains throughout the state and i'm very proud of that to just a few years ago we didn't do any training so we have expanded our trainings greatly to meet the name needs of our cases and mds across the state. We also have implemented a new database system just to track our data better into also for our clients and protection when they come to our center that we have we are equipped to have a electronic files in keep a thorough database for those children and so that's something that we have improved in implemented in the last year and I am just improving our standard of care through statewide committees we have committees that meet with high level professionals and experts in those different areas they come in and look at how can we improve in increase our services across the state if that's additional training research that we're doing just to make a programs better and so the children will have the top quality programs and services for their needs in our state. And then we have also worked with our different centers for strategic planning just help them provide some goals for their centers to help them expand and grow that's something that's very important to us as we continue to grow as a state are child advocacy centers are our child friendly locations that provide those free direct services to talk abuse victims the referred by cacd dcfs and local law enforcement so that's how their children come to us in the provide we provide forensic interviews advocacy medical exams when needed in mental health services we also provide prevention education so we go out and provide different trainings to local schools churches and other community groups that want to understand and learn about signs of child abuse what to look for and how to equip them if some if they have some signs that they need to call the heartlines so we do provide those kinds of trainings and then even body safety with shouldering in schools. Some hallets for our cease across the state are center in springdale and washington county they just built a humongous building that they serve over a close to a thousand children a year just in washington county so they needed to expand and they were able to do that this year to higher additional mental health therapist into have the room to be able to do that so we're really pleased that they were able to expand cooper anthony mercy child advocacy center in hot springs and provided at prevention education with twenty three thousand kids in twenty twenty three so just the importance of understanding uh prevention understanding that the different trainings that we have done just that one center provided twenty three thousand train twenty three thousand children were trained and had that so excited that they had that opportunity we also opened a center in clarks fill and johnson county so that was giving the access so the children accessing franklin and johnson in the surrounding county so expended that in our center here are in plaski county started renovation for a new center and new location additional location and jacksonville and they are actually moving in today so they are moving into their location in jacksonville their partnered with the jacksonville public schools and gave them space to provide that sender across a state so we're so excited about that opportunity to the sega project again is the multidisciplinary team project and that is a coordinated response to child abuse in these teams meet together on a monthly basis they're sixty four teams across the state we have thirty eight mdt facilitators. And they served in reviewed over ten thousand cases last year together so those cases are reviewed on a monthly basis where they come together and they're able to discuss what the child needs the resources any updates for investigation for the prosecutor it's their time to actually get together a sit down to update and to find out what is needed for that family what is needed for that child and move forward in the m investigations so somehow lights from our mdt we provided local support in technical assistance torrent mdts through onboarding in some additional training to enhance the teams further understanding in their coordinated response mediation approach with conflicts between different agencies were able to use the handle that instead of brushing things under the rug where they're not going to talk we force communication and of course that's always best for their child that you're going to have a coordinator response that that's what we weren't um we also implemented some different training some hands on trainings for our m dt and one is a process program forecast and they actually did a can hands on similation training so that are teams will have that hands on experience so they know what to do an investigation and how to respond in a timely manner but also a child focus response. Er we also did some trainings with our facilitators how to facilitate a meeting until work with the different agencies bill that relationship across a state in broadened and we also supported our mt facilitators through quarterly support calls so being there implementing additional trainings making sure they feel supported at the local level they're also making that connection that they have that support with one another across the state and as you all know when you have a team that's the best response you had that team approach response with all the different agencies working together to benefit that child in that is our goal we have is a state really worked hard to strengthen our relationship with dcfs and ccd local law enforcement and prosecutors of their things that are important to ask them we have been working on that and that's ongoing I am just very proud of the work we have done and accomplish this past year and we appreciate your support. Thank you thank you for what you do are there any questions back to many. We must have been very thorough no questions by committee but we do all appreciate the work that you do for children across the state they thank you and thank you for being here today okay without any further business in front of us I will adjourn us and tell you hope you all have a very heavy easter. We are doing. The.