Education Committee - House and Senate

Good morning members thank you for being here this morning for joint committee on education. We've got item be on your gender and overview of recent legislative action related to state public school employee life and health insurance program is there. Identify yourself for the record and we look forward to your presentation. Thank you mister chair jill the air bureau of legislative research so am going to be brief for hours as to just provide you with a little bit of background on the recent changes to psy funding and give some contacts to the next presentations that you're going to hear from patrick clown with the signal group and grant wallace who is the ebd director. And since about twenty thirteen at least that i'm aware of the general assembly has been working to achieve sovereignty in the state and public school laugh and health insurance program which is a mouth for some just going to call it the program going forward and that program includes the public school employee health insurance plan and the state employee health insurance plan and so today you're going to be hearing about thunding for the pse or public school employee and health insurance plan and twenty twenty one after years of financial issues with that plan and the legislature needing to make large transfers of many into the plan and due to the solvency issues at you all the general assembly and took some action you abolish the board and transferred all of its powers to the board of finance. And at the same time the executive subcommittee of the legislative council began a study of the program to see how you could find long term measures to solve they issues that were happening and they had the goals of making that program actually sound providing reasonably priced benefits to the members of both the AC m PSC plan and providing for a legislative oversat for the program. And the executive subcommittee hired the signal group as consultants to assist them with that steady and since then we've continued to contract with the signal group to provide actual analysis for the legislature including what you're going to hear today from patrick who will talk to you about pse funding. The study and recommendations of the executive subcommittee resulted in eight acts being adopted during the twenty twenty two fiscal session and i'm just gonna hill at three of those for you today cause they will pertain to what you're going to hear from patrick and grant just a few minutes I am act one thirteen created the legislative oversight that the general assembly wanted for the program it requires that all board of finance decisions related to the program come to the legislative council for approval and also created the ebd subcommittee of the legislative council and I know some of you are members of that subcommittee. Act one eleven deals with funding of the pse clients specifically it stated there that it is the responsibility of you all is the house and senate education committees and two through your adequacy review process to determine the amounts that will be provided to ebd for the pse plan through both side a school district funding on a permanent as per participating employee amount and bah desi the department of elementary and secondary education. Act one oh eight established and mandatory reserve balance for the asset and pse plans it said an optimal reserve balance at fourteen percent and then created guard rails in that reserve found have a low end and then and a high end of twelve percent sixteen percent and once the fan reaches either one of those that set up triggers for action that can be taken by the director which has to be approved by the legislature by the legislative council so you're gonna hear about both of those things from patrick in grant just a moment I hope that this provides some contacts to what you're about to hear I would be happy to answer any questions but if it's to do with pse funding a minute deferred to the experts that are coming up after me thank you thank you geo members any questions regarding specifics to legislate a bags though i've brought us this point. See now in the end you know thank you very much. We'll go to item c. We could have missed wireless which client. Good morning gentlemen you'll identify yourself the record and the end beginning presentation thank you and patrick line and actually with signal. Great wallace director of the employee benefits division. Alright so i've been asked to look at the adequacy of the pse funding this is the second time we've done this we did this back in twenty twenty two. When a similar position to where we were before there's there's a few things that have changed but we're still in a very strong position financially. Just a level set there's three level three sources of of revenue that help fund the plan you've got the employee contributions. You've got a district contribution and that's kind of determined by a minimum district contribution a dollar monthly amount and they can contribute more than that and lastly there's a department of education. Subsidiary and amount that gets paid and typically that's just a flat dollar. So the minimum district contribution has recently decreased from three hundred dollars to thirty four fifty so that's where it stands today the employee contributions there's a plan a five year plan I believe to strategically get. The contributions more competitive with benchmark states so those contributions are actually decreasing some are staying relatively flat and that's part of the per the plan. And then the department of education. Fun I believe that's a hundred and forty two million dollars so all three pieces are proportional right now they're all about the same and and that's what helps fund the plan. So we're projecting the fund to close twenty twenty four with two hundred and sixty five. Point seven million dollars and assets. Which is a light because the target reserve is is only sixty four and that target reserve is calculated as fourteen percent of the projected expenses for the given year. So we're in a position where there's a sizable surplus. Part of the reasons why we've built the surplus is covered in twenty twenty we had people noting the doctor they're delaying services some of that came back but there was still a gain across the country on on medical span there was one time money firm or per and the restricted reserve. So all those things have can help build that that surplus. So where were that right now we're still projecting a slight gain and twenty twenty four but if we do nothing to the funding. The expenses are gonna overtake the revenues so we're going to start seeing a loss and twenty twenty five and behind. And then some of the information that we we worked from a grant provided information. On their school district participation and the contribution levels we also got information projections from millman that we. Helped you know use an r numbers because they're closer to all the claims and enrollment we validated it for reasonable ness the only real change to the melman numbers was they weren't including an impact of the navitous rebates yet so that's the pbm change that happened seven one of this year. So that's in the other line what will go soon but we have an increase in the rebates so that's helping. With the phone balance and then what we're going to do is go over various funding scenarios just to show you the impact on if you increase their severe leave things flat how how does the reserve get impacted over multiple years. The. And I think the big take way is that you're in a very strong spot financially. But you have to be strategic on how you spend down the surplus. And eventually you want to incorporate incorporate medical cpi at all three levels of funding. And then your revenue can maintain the same level of increase as your plan expenses so we won't have this roller coaster that I feel like the the funds been on through. Several years now. Any questions about. Just introduction. Said hammers disregarding this first part of his introduction. Okay certain. Bet if you want to go ahead okay. So this charter table is going to be the format for the next several sides I just want to get everyone alcomated what we're showing here or counter your numbers the numbers below district contribution employee finding all those numbers those are in millions. The numbers above that are. Shaded gray those are the assumed minimum district contribution amount so that's a a monthly dollar amount to two hundred and thirty four fifty is where we stand today. Um we've assumed that that amount changes on a fiscal base of fiscal your basis so july. I believe that's the way things have changed historically II think there are some latitude to increase that on a calendar year basis instead but for this presentation we assume that a fiscal year change so to make things a little easier we converted in the next row that minimum of district contribution to calendar year or so basically taking an average of six months the first six months in the last six months to show that on a calendar year basis. So this is the baseline scenario this is if there's no changes to funding whatsoever. And again the the top section we have our or revenue streams district contributions employee funding department of ad funding and other which is mostly made up of a pharmacy rebates. So those total on twenty twenty four four hundred and sixty million dollars. On the expense side down below we ever medical claims pharmacy claims admin fees plan administration and the medicare advantage premium cost. And those total at four hundred and fifty five million dollars roughly. So in twenty twenty four were projecting a net income. Alright yeah again to the assets of around six million dollars without closed a year with two hundred and sixty five million and assets well above the target reserve on the last row. As we move out to twenty five twenty six twenty seven that rejected the fund starts to. The. Decrease so we can see that net income go from twenty million to fifty one million eighty six million dollar lives. And we remain even in twenty twenty seven you'll see that we still have assets. That exceed the target reserve. It's pretty close a hundred and seven versus eighty. But again the traductory of the find. This is we have a negative loss we have a a big disconnect between our expenses and our revenue and that just continues to snowball as the funding states fixed. In the expenses trend up. So in twenty twenty eight you can see there's a hundred and twenty four million dollar loss and that would mean the assets and the fun go negative seventy million. So obviously not a scenario that we hope plays out but I feel like. We've been or the plan has been in this position before where there has been a a surplus of money and the strategy has been towed do nothing because we didn't really need to and then you'd get to twenty three years down the road not only do you have. An issue where your assets are below your target reserve but you also have to. Increase. You revenue enough to asset. The expenses to neutralise that gain lies. And I think the solution for the most part has been. Putting one time money into the fund. So yeah that that helps build your assets up and it may. Make you more solvent for a year to but it really doesn't solve the issue that you have this disconnect between your expenses in your your funding. So that's what we're trying to plan for in in over the next couple sides any questions on the baseline. So again a part of our strategy has been once we get the expenses in the revenue on the same basis that we want to. Increase the revenue at a medical cpi that alliance with the plan expenses so here what were showing is. If we start right now in twenty twenty five fiscal year twenty twenty five and increase this minimum district contribution that's the only level lever that we're pulling here if we increase that at medical cpi three point seven percent. How does that impact our numbers so. We're in better shape than we were on the last line. But we still have this lice that continues to grow out of twenty twenty eight so increasing the two thirty four fifty minimum district contribution with a medical cpi is not going to be enough to remain solvent. And twenty twenty eight you'll see that the assets dropped a fifty one million dollars so that's below our target. So the scenario shows if we increase two levers of funding so the minimum district contribution increases without three point seven percent. But we also increase the department of education funding so that one hundred and forty two million that's received into the fines. If we index both those numbers at three point seven percent. That again helps build more income and it neutralises some of those expenses. But again it's not enough so when we go out to twenty twenty eight. We have a seventy six million dollars loss that were facing the top the target assets are above. The target reserve but if we projected this out a year to more. And there is nothing. Done in addition to the the medical cpi the fun would go negative. So then we like that two potential solutions on. I'm what to do to get the plan where where it needs to be. And both have pro's both have have some kinds in my opinion. So this would be a steady approach. To increasing the funding. We would still leave district are the the employee contributions the same but we would increase the district contribution and the department of that funding at a higher. Percentage of eight point eight percent is what we solve for. And we spread it out over ten years. So you can see that your assets actually grow in the first couple of years we have a gain a slight gain in the projections and then we have a loss and. In the last year twenty thirty four our assets are at one hundred and seventy five million our targets one forty one so they're in the same neighborhood of where we want to be. We still have a loss of. Forty eight million in that last year to overcome but this assumes all the expenses. Hit the projections exactly as trend there's no plan design changes there is no are of peace that save money so there's all different ways that the plan can manage these costs to. Help. You know mitigate trend in some ways so you had this is probably a more conservative approach. You know you're going to be solvent. And you're gonna have a sizeable surplus for the next five years and then things were slowly client down to where you need to be. The. I'd say the biggest negative with this is that. You're sitting on a massive surplus and. Your increasing yet you're increasing the funding that's coming into the plan so that may not be something. Is attractive. The. Then the last scenario that we ran shows. A one time adjustment. To the minimum district contribution to help align your revenue and expense so. And twenty four twenty five twenty sixth we actually do nothing to the funding we we leave it flat and that's going to help accelerate our assets decreasing so we can buy this asset are surplus down as quickly as possible. And then starting in twenty twenty seven we're gonna increased our funding levers up to. Three hundred and sixty five dollars on the minimum district contribution so it's really a one time step to get those revenue and expenses in line. And I like. Yeah the outcome here in twenty twenty eight so we have assets that are above are reserved targets slightly but our game loss is manageable it's twenty two million dollars. So that's approach if we want to spend it down quickly and then bump it up. With a one time adjustment to get things on a level playing field. To any questions about any of the scenarios or where things stand. So they're hammering ready. Recognized thank this year not I know in other meetings you'll make presentations and want just hit on a couple things on page. Five words assumptions and care the arch. The the assumptions are the projections included medical claims pharmacy claims rebates etc. The if you had to put these in order as far as. Watch contributing the most drivers to the increases which ones I would you put those in order. The medical claims it's the biggest effort you. Look at the different expense items. So you can see here. The medical claims three hundred and eleven million dollars your pharmacy claims ninety seven million so even though the trend on the pharmacy claims is a little bit higher than eight percent versus six percent. There's a higher volume or a higher baseline in your medical claims merit medical claims are typically seventy five percent of the total spend so that's. You know the biggest driver here. Okay and then. If medical claims were the biggest then you said thirty five percent correct. Roughly roughly okay. The way we're going about dealing. With our population when it comes to what. Adged to the medical claims you know the way we see the doctor though we don't see the doctor we have discussions about what was visits and all those other things. What what do you recommend as far as what other states are doing that we're not doing in order to bring those medical claims down and does the medical claims include the percentage that we pay our i'll call third party administrator I guess blue cross blue shield does it include the percentage that we have paid them for administrative cost so the now so those are strictly claims the the third line here and the expense section shows the administrative use of that would be what is paid to the the various spenders what patrol are you on please. When you say that I want slide six. Have translates to aren't really on any of the tables such as. The. The. Okay so this is take the administration fees. In and twenty four goes for thirty four point six you project out of a month right long in twenty thirty four. They're up to fifty two point nine which the rationalization is to why those administration fee should increase at the rate that they are over that period of time. If you delication is the same if population is the same which the justification for that administration written all that high so it's it's two four part of. Part of this whole projection and we have this is an assumption or carriages that there's an assumed increase in the population so you do have a enrollment increases so that that plays into all these fees around a pm pm per month or pmp per member per month so if you have more people in your program you're just going to pay a higher dollar amount even though the rate may see the same you're you're gonna pay more dollars to the. To the vendor they're also is an assumed inflationary assumption on on the increase to the the fixed fee itself. And believe that's around two point five percent or broad accuse thank you mister. Represented back you recognize. At that thank you mister. So good work a lot looks like you know a lot of work on this I have a question concerning it it seems like where were saying that there's going to be a now we're trying to make these adjustments as we go to to get rid of the surplus and I like to ideal I actually liked your last from the best cost you get rid of that surplus there's not even have that money sitting around toyout I like that concept but the thing that none of your models project is anything that's that's tied and increases that are tied to a pursuing of maybe corresponding increases that you're projecting in the expenses it doesn't it seems like that would be a more widow a better way to actually do this so in other words. You would say okay we're going to increase this is how we're going to understand this this is how we're going to distribute to increased cost. The department the apartment is going to pick up two percent well at whatever the percentage is group and then tie that directly the increase is titles directly to the increases in the total expenses for the plans so that way the plan would almost be self riding itself all the time and I just curious is why we didn't do a lot that's a great point and and actually in the slash scenario I probably didn't cover it very well but there is a one time adjustment. But then this last part of the sentences and increases were five percent annually afterwards so. Really that if you look at the expenses and you adjust out the enrollment increase it's about a five percent. That's for basically what the the expenses of training at five or six percent so so the plan would be a line those those revenue and expenses one time and then from there in a medical cpi we found us three point seven percent so. Hopefully the plan can manage to a little bit lower than white mileman's projecting with the six in the eight percent but in the scenario we set five percent account and make what the. That future expenses are so then we are once you get a line you got your expenses going at the same rate as your revenue and then you're in good shape. Follow so why wouldn't we actually have a form that would. Take that rate of increase in entire directly to the expenses. You know some some. Yeah well you're not sure it's too late because you don't know what you're expenses are going to be so yeah you have to determine your avenue in advance and then the expense it's not a fully insured product so you don't know how the claims are going to come and you could have so in theory that's what you're trying to target but you're gonna be off you're going to have a gain area and have a loss and that's part of the. What were recommending with this fourteen percent target so you may and you're trying to aim for fourteen you have a good year when I got fifteen percent or your you have a bad year you're at thirteen percent and then you adjust each year going forward so you may need a little bit more revenue to offset that in or that last but yeah you don't know you can't pay that expense perfectly so it's hard to just use a formula to solve her what the revenue needs to be your projecting what the revenue should be and then there's going to be some kind of. Game loss that you're gonna throw up and out years. One more follow up to it i'll be quiet sorry about that but it seems to me like if you project less say your sixty five million dollars surplus or actually so okay we're going to try to make sure that we do these adjustments for the next year that in you basically use the sixty five minutes or some year you know like you said one year's twelve percent next year's fourteen percent understandable numbers here so you're fourteen percent but always try to set it up to we're okay now we can absorb that increase in in the surplus now the surplus would cover them then the next year we'd make an adjustment based upon the previous years expenses and we would. You get our surplus back at some point and go on down the street it seems like it just be easier to come back to things glide more than rapid happened. They wanted this a little more formal because in the past yeah it would it'd be common sense to do it that way but II think that there was nothing for more in place and nothing got on so there is a law or a bill or an act that was put in place where we tried our best to say. Right now in this bill. What is that percentage going to be well we don't know because the claims are going to fluctuate so the best we came up with is tying it to medical cpi which should be a long term percentage that you can increase your avenue out and and kind of hit that was expenses thank you. Senator hammer. Thank you under go back to the slide six on page three and it has to break out of the expenses of home interpreting this right you got five primary contributors to medic claims our ex administration plan administration and the mepd is outright those with the main contributor yes. I can't remember if you've handed out the other meeting but when it comes to the medical claims when it comes to all of these. Did you share or can you share. How it is that you arrived at the projections that you did for example is it on the medical claims for example. Experience of of your projection is based on the theory of the number of employees are going to be added over the time or is it because based on history of the complicated procedures that have attributed to medical claims is all that proprietary or is that something student share with so we could see what it is it goes into these numbers. Well. An assumptions page you can see what the trends. The transit reused and these come from melbourne's projections. So there are the actually for the plan so our job at cigarettes really to look at more the revenue side what we did on the expenses as we looked at millions projections we looked at the numbers and we sat up at these these are reasonable the trends that they use are online with what we would use so. I hope that helps answer the question but does your making your projections on the basis of the information at melbourne provided you so we need your mileman to get the the only expense side and then and then we're work playing with different levels on the on the revenue side to to address the funding so it's it's really more revenue and funding and reserve focus than the actual expenses grant is that some been shared and no means i'm just forgetting that something we get access to I can get you some more detailed information on what they're looking at but from a general kind of hundred thousand answer to your question it really is experience which is driving those numbers there looking at the past you know year eighteen might of what the plan is experienced and the projecting future expenses off of that that number so it's something that's constantly being evaluated and rolled out and getting adjusted upwards or downwards based upon what experience the plan is going through. And large questionnaire share in. In those projections. I'm trying to marry factoring thing in their for behavior modification new drugs from an unseen you know they are supposed to help with different lifestyles. The stands that are do we have we've got that broke out somewhere don't we that shows or do we not actually I don't think we do at this point because of the willness program has been stopped there's really not any behavioural modification or any kind of program in place at this point that really is getting to what you're trying to get to are we spending a dollar on prevention to avoid ten dollars on the cure were not really seeing that right now thank you yes. Representative long you're recognized. Thank you mister chair you may have mentioned it earlier in a missed to the the teachers and have basically the same type of program like the other state employees is forced kind of a goal plan silver bronze for you. We have in the brands being health savings accounts. Yes there afforded the same plan and in the same plan design as state employees the only difference is just worth their premium share and and how that divides out between the two plants but they do have the same plans that are offered to state employees with power going any idea what the breakdown is worse how many digits are in the gold plan versus the brands and it because didn't know it could get it points everything give me to submit it I can get some of those latest numbers thank you sir appreciate thank you. Represent a vart you recognized for mr grant I kind of want to go back to what senator hamer kind of about the prevention or the wellness numbers. And what do you do how do you decide what you're going to cover for willness and what you're not going to cover for wellness so i'll use an example okay so my example is we'll pay for a surgery a white loss surgery but we won't pay for the shyte that helps keep the wait after them so that they don't have to go get the surgery or continue to help to lose that way what because that would be a wellness something in my book vs something drastic as inhabitant the major surgery down. But what constitutes what were gonna cover what we're not going to cover what is wellness why are we not working toward more well nice and less away from. What I would consider to be way more expensive procedures in the end right in it I think you can are asking the million dollar question and it's something that were constantly challenged with and were challenging our or vendors our third party administrator and our pharmacy benefit manager to do those things which is come to the table give us recommendations on what's the latest and greatest now the challenge that they have is advising is around what is the best use of that dollar what has the most study around it that would presume produced the longest lasting result in those things on the weight lost example that you're given and we were in the midst of studying that in really trying to figure out the ethical sea of those matific medications and the long term impact is it really in the best interest of the plan two pay for those one year or for eighteen months or what night and get the savings for five years down the road obviously there's a lot of study there's a lot of work that's been done on the by pass and in the buriatric procedures and we cannot have some predictability we can know what those things are so that's why it is the more safe and acceptable for the plan management and the fiduciary responsibility to go down that path while we still study the weight loss medications and those things and we're doing that across the board whether it's a cancer treatment courty of ascular disease prevention all of those things were I am constantly asking for new and updated information and it is part of our we have a summary plan document which outlines essentially what the plan is going to cover and not cover it we evaluate with that on the annual basis we're looking at it quarterly now to see if there's any kind of interim updates that we need to be making but annually we're looking at it whole listing top to bottom to see if it's doing the best and really what we want to go through but all of those challenges are playing yet when it comes to. Making decisions on whether we cover anything of that you've brought up in and the latest and greatest do we go with the fad or do we go with what's proven and no sacrament quick follow up so I was want the reason i'm I know that was a long way to get to where I was trying to get to but with that not affect the bottom dollar if we choose something that is. Maybe a more willness route versus something that is more of a. Surgical need would that not essentially affect what we've got here on paper for expenses absolutely especially those officers as we look to figure out ways to contain and control those medical claim expenses it really is as I said it might need to go we need to figure out ways to get to and this is the health care industry debate that's going on figuring out how to invest a dollar in prevention to avoid ten dollars on the current and it's something that we've just constantly have to look at and we have to challenge the industry to do the same right now it's not set up to do that I think we've all experienced it's a lot easier to get the surgery than it is the preventative mast measure and we as a body you as a legislative body continuously I would suggest pushing that envelope and getting us to the point that we're really talking more about how do we use health care to prevent disease rather than cure disease thank you thank you mister chair. Members of the additional questions for either of these gentlemen. Say none thank you I do have the answer to the breakdown yep great representative long's question yes if you're looking at pc general there's and this is belly button so this is the employee spouse dependents you're looking at a total of a hundred and four thousand six hundred and ninety participants majority of which fifty two thousand three hundred some art earn your classic plan twenty thousand some idea in your premium plan and nine thousand seven hundred are in the basic plan so that roughly gives you kind of the breakdown. Majority on the public school side do go to the classic plan that is your high deductible plan that you were able to balance with an hsa on those cost. The. Represent it could you question entertainment. Whilst you had any anything additional that you want to add the committee today were in thank you the only thing I would just kind of add or couple of things but I do want to learn from history and and provide a cautionary tale of doing nothing really kind of got us to the point of where we're at right now I would also caution conversations that were having today and things that we do today we might not necessarily be here in five years to be able to remember these conversations and remind other people of these conversations and this is a very complex model because you've got two hundred some school districts that all do their financing in their accounting differently than one another so you're trying to balance the pressures on that end you're trying to make sure that the department of education is not overburden and you're not trying to overburden our members as well so what my goals have been have really been able to make sure that we're getting party between all of those entities as well as public school and state employees that is one complaint that I hear a lot is that though there isn't that party that people think there should be between those two plans. And making sure that it's predictable one thing that we have not had is really and patricks spoke to it of that predictability to where when we come to the legislature we know that those increases are going to be. Tagged at a six percent and eight percent whatever number we find out to be that magic number to wear when you're sitting here in doing the two year budget cycles you're not getting behind the eight ball and that you really can find some measured known number that were all working towards and doesn't come as a shop or surprise to the legislature nor the districts northern members this is one thing to kind of educate in just bill you in we review rates and we're in the second year of a five year plan to really get a seventy five twenty five post that was what was really shown to be the competitive rate in our comparable states so they were working on that that does mean that we have to bring down that member share a little bit and in order to make sure that they're getting that twenty five percent and then it's trying to figure out that increase in the state side in the district side to get to that seventy five percent. Once we hit your five in our model we have pagged a six percent growth to that so that that six percent is shared across all of those funding funding participants and it's known as we move forward so we are on somewhat of a path that achieves kind of what patrick was getting to and and just again we have a lot of unknowns the curing or kind of the roll off of medical claims is about a hundred and eighty days behind when that claim is incurred so the patrick's point were were about midway through a new year or starting a new fiscal year by the time we figure out what the ending balance is on what we did the previous year so we're always in this game of catching up it really is challenging to try to get ahead of the curve but with that I would answer any additional questions thank you all for allowing me to come and be part of the conversation and I look forward to working with you on the future as we navigate this challenge in this opportunity. The. Jamma thank you very much for your presentation today members if you're going to item the in your packet especially exhibit d which is the final adequacy recommendation for the ninety four general assembly by statute if this body of the adequacy study by joint education chooses to amend any portion of this and we have to state a bab boat prior to march first that we are going to amend anything that's in here and so I think it's prudent that as we look in sturdy there's the presentations been given today that we be prepared in the event we were to make. A change to the to the pse plan then we would already have that documentation in place that makes sense so. Without objection I would make this motion and obviously should be open for discussion the pursuit so code ten three twenty one oh four specifically subsections d three and b. I moved to a man the adequacy recommendation by submitting in writing to the president of protember the senate and speaker of the house documentation of the information presented to the education committee today. And statement that the committees will continue to study that issue a provision of the major expanding amounts for health insurance for all public school employees does not say that we're changing anything but just satisfying statute that in the event as we continue to study this we would satisfy that march one deadline so emotion is on the floor to have a second second by senator bryant you discussion on the motion. The. Representative machines are you recognized thank you so that thank you mister would have to make any the strange agreement with recordations prior to march first now we would have to have this this motion in place and documented to the to the president of the center of the speaker of the house prior to march first year. Any other discussed for questions on the motion. See no as in favor of I post may as have it staff note that motion. Will go now to item e cheerley will identify yourself for the record in the beginning of a presentation good morning thank you i'm duly held with the bureau and we're going to pivot back to the twenty twenty four adequacy study all this is partnered to adequacy but where going back to looking forward to what you're going to do in the next binyam so where we are you may remember in january we gave the kind of the background we talked about there's achievement scores and where we were looking at those we think of him without conmeasurers yesterday lorry presented our about facilities spending that's important to consider that as a whole because it's definitely the responsibility of this committee and as part of adequacy yet it's a very different funding model than what we do with adequacy so today what I want to do is just provide a really big picture of you of how bending for adequacy works in our concert in march will get into what we call a resource allocation reports it will take a much more fine grained lurk at fending very suspending for are the very items that are in the matrix plus how categorical and supplement offense are spout but today we're really going to do the big pictures so we can see how it offers together so these are the topics will go through today usually we like to start out presenting what's happening here in arkansas i'm going to start with the national scope just the flows seem to make more sense for this presentation but they might take a look at an arkansas spending model and then we'll consider some of the things that happened in twenty twenty three in the general assembly's actions in how those could affect adequacy in the future so when we get to the national picture elizabeth talk to you about this when she gave the history report. But in my remember for that they are in the early nineteen hundreds at about nineteen seventy education was really a local responsibility so local government spended their public schools. In starting in nineteen seventy there was a series of last suits in states across the country that had to do with the fact that while education is not a provision in the federal constitution most state constitutions including arkansas have a provision to provide public education to their students so what happened in these last suits is their quotes by large said you know state actually this is in a local responsibility better passed here because you've got it in your constitution so that's what happened here in the nineteen eighties with almost a free and that's where the court said am skills are not being pended equitably it's very different in richard communities versus notice rich communities and then again in two thousand two with like the event it also in addition to equity said that adequacy was not being reached so when are as a result of others last suits public education and really became recognized as as state responsibility and so you saw a shift in the bending up until about the nineteen seventies. She local governments are seemed about eighty percent of the fending for their public schools since all these last seats have taken place to see a more equal balance between what local governments and stake governments provide and then. Because of some federal programs such as elementary secondary. Education act of nineteen sixty five which was later rebounded as now tablet behind and now it's every student succeeds act and then I which came in the nineteen seventies to address special education students in some other programs there are government traditionally has donated about ten percent offending you're gonna see when I show you some numbers later on that's been higher in recent years and that's at additional coverage many that's come out so he's think about it nationally about one out of every public five public dollars is spinner on k twelve public education systems and if you look in arkansas and this is the most recent data from the since the twenty one percent of the state budget was allocated to catch up education so just a little bit higher than that one of five and he can see that welfare programs got the largest percentage in police programs got the smallest. If when you look at it that way you can make comparisons among the states and this is uhm up and report to his effort and you can see in terms of epport we tied with minnesota it for twenty first place with that twenty one percent of our budget going to education and the lowest state in those terms was hawy fourteen percent of their budget is allocated to education in new jersey hit the highest with thirty point five percent. Same researchers prefer or up to talk about and make these comparisons looking at per student revenue. And if you look at the most recent data from insight yes on state level revenues for education and then we adjusted these four costs of living differences among the states arkansas had about thirteen thousand dollars per student in revenues. And when he compare at the states where fortieth which persists in the second quinta so the highest state even after those college adjustments remained with new york with twenty three thousand five hundred and nine dollars in their lowest per revenue our perfect student revenue was idaho with the ninetieth of re thirty seven. So after all these last suit started saying okay states yes your responsible the national conference of state legislators came out with the guide in ninety six to help state structure their offending systems for public education and they really listed five different goals that are. Yeah galzer states needed consider the first being equity in this is not only in terms of equity for students are making sure there are on level playing fields and heavy will access to education resources but also equity for taxpayers so that you didn't have one group or one local of tax payers paying in much every year but then elsewhere next they talked about efficiency in the sufficiency is of course my can the best use of resources but also talking about stayed oversight not being so complicated that it was really expensive to develop a system to hours to oversee it and then also not making it such a bargain for schools to comply so as a system that was barely transparent and and worked efficiently as well. And then of course adequate see we are no is providing those resources so that students can meet those levels of learning that states in schools want them to meet. Accountability again that's just transparency and accountability but that the state level in the school level and then finally stability and that so that tax payers in the state now from your year or have a very good idea of what that burden is going to be with the cost of can be and then also so schools now from your year and can make planning decisions cause they have a pretty good idea of what their budget is going to be. Ncsl is actually in the process of updating this document for the first time and bet and that should come out. This summer so I didn't have access to their latest guidance. The learning policy instead came out ten years after that with also some gals referring system and there is really focused on things they thought states should consider including in their in their fending systems so one is that early learning environment and while that's not part of the adequacy we do have state support for early learning and of course in the loans act it was it was definitely a paid attention to you there as well then and they called for equitably funded schools in the high quality teaching they wanted teachers to be both well prepared so there's good preparation systems and also supported throughout their careers. Up to date curriculums and then well organized to schools. There so those are kind of descriptive of where lending systems should be there some researchers education week used to do this they have tried to make assessments of pending system as states education pending systems and albert shanker institute released a paper in twenty twenty three that did this. They looked at. Whether the effort in the state the adequacy of its statements reaching adequacy and equity and by their metrics they found arkansas to be a high effort in the way they judged that was using. The percentage and say budget that's allocated so what we looked at earlier and I said yes arkansas doesn't rule it up and makes a high effort compared to other states they have their own index that is not real and it's pretty obscure and pretty complicated but it's basically I think a regression system that looks at how much would you have to spound against students to the best and average school were i'm assuming i'm the night because that's unlike national tests and they found that arkansas per students spending it's beloved out in most regular strikes and then in equity they found there were allow equity because they say are high poverty districts are spending less for people than our more affluent districts so these are they are findings you'll see next month when we show at differences between schools our picture back with either we're bounding is is different print as we find that are like our schools with high populations of free and red sludge students are actually spending more in most cases so I did go to present this customs recent research but like you know that there are so we we found some disparities with this. So in states are trying to figure out their funding models they had figure out in a work makes adequacy inside there have been four different hunts means of determining adequacy that states have used over the years first and most common is an evidence based approach that's where we do that's what identity pakistan is within two thousand and three in as the bureau we continue to do as we do this by any studies we like it with the research says we look at what's happening in terms of arkansas evidence and represent that to you and you make your decisions based on evidence of what leads to higher levels of student achievement and how much does that cost a second way that states are so uses professional judgment and that simply means they bring in panels of educators whenever they do their adequacy steady and they let these educators say this is what's needed for native quite education and this is how much it costs an item pike is actually did this back in two thousand three as a supplement to their education are there evidence based approach. We do not bring in panels but as you know we do send out surveys each year and get input from our educators so we have something of an element of this with ours. A third method is successful schools and he may remember hearing and again blake pay like an associates talk about this and twenty twenty when they present it to you and it's also the bases for r BLR cohorter schools and successful scores are that's found again using a regression model where your basically controlling for the perth or the demographics of your student and predicting test scores and comparing those to actual test scores and those schools that have actual test scores that are higher than predicted. There assumption is that there's something going on in those scores and so you want to look at those schools to see what they're doing to get their students to there's higher than expected levels of learning and then those schools are years to set fending decisions their fourth model is rarely used it was developed probably about ten years ago texas a and it's called a cass faction it's also based on a multiple regression model register throw in all these things and see how much it's going to cost to get to a gal that has been set by the state so we want ninety percent of our kids to score proficient we'll do a regression model in in make a digit determination or an estimate of how much per student we're going to have to pay to get to that level of learning. So those are the four ways that states have used again we use evidence based then there are so once you've made their decision and you know how much it's going to cause you got figured out how you're going to get the money out to the school districts. So there are four main ways to do that traditionally have done that there is per people or foundation funding that of course is what we do we determine with the use of our materials for charles and just minute with that foundation pending amount is going to be that as out per people up in times that supplemented with categorical or weighted funding to help address those needs of either special populations students were very smile and remote schools school districts thirty four states according to education commission of the states use this model. There is also a resource allocation model that about ten states have used and this bands based on the resources that are needed so instead of sending money out her people you lurk and say okay you've got fifty first graders and you want twenty in a class so you can need three first grade teachers we're going to fand three first grade teachers so that's what the resource allocation model days. Sir five states use a hybrid of that north carolina's one that's done now they find their staffing based on the recent allocation method that them and they get to things like texperts and technology they found they have honour per people bases. And then two states where. Use a guaranteed tax base model and this is where in states whereas local governments still have a larger responsibility financially for their school districts but the state looks and says okay we know you got to have a tax base of this match to be able to find your students at an adequate amount so indeed at the local government can't find it the state will will fill in those house we do this to a point with our estate foundation funding aid and i'll explain that more detail and just minute bad it's really also looking at wet districts account can't pay all the foundation bending eight that's needed we supply their state pants. And then there's a new approaches altogether in you heard from ecs last fall in in representative because are talking about tennessee's model in its college strategic student based model and it. The. It is per people in some sense but they've designed their model because they've set specific girls they want to reach and then they've designed their funding model to make sure that they're both incinevising and rewarding so that schools will reach those goals and representative cuts are contained more about that if you would like. So worth the we do and arkansas was I said we did the evidence based steady which were in the middle of right now and we do the foundation based bending approach. So and first we have together of the revenues and that's done through taxes and regard a number of funds and that are for their gov or a collect other many that's the indistributed to the public schools and these are either from off the top from the general revenues or they're dedicated taxes such as with their educational adequacy find. And there's also a band that bends the department of education and then there is the funding that lorry talk to yesterday about the facilities spending. These are the performer website has been in each of these fans over the last five years these amounts are wets available for a public schools it's not necessarily what's been appropriate or spent. If you look at the totals of others bands every last five years you can see how how they have increased. And then you to get that money out we have it as we said the foundation model and that's how the buck of the money is sent out schools but we are so provide categorical fans and then over the years we've added a number of supplemental phones. So with your foundation band that set by the materials that's what in less are the resources that we say or need it for adequate seen how much there's resources cast however this many once they hits the school districts they are not restricted to spend it unless users so we consider it and restrictive bands and that's why you always hear that it's offending model and not a spending model. The categorical fans are mostly designed for equity so they go out to help and the additional resources that may be needed to help certain students over learning barriers that money is restricted to one of those users. And then there are several mental fans these are opens that are and generally helping with adequately purposes where the matrix sometimes is filing short and for a specific schools and it can be a it's a mix of restricted and and restricted. So. When it look at all of the revenues together or all of the fending sources together that schools receive this pie can I shows you how it office together so you can see where foundation pending does make up the bark of the fence that schools have how are you need to remember if some of that's the state foundation pending aid and summer that's money that is collected through the uniform rate of tax which is that was first twenty five mills that are collected through property tax so that's that's a split of those fans the next highest in twenty twenty two you can see or that's federal firms like I said usually before appear for covered there's usually around ten percent I think it will settle back down to ten percent as all of those are been as our funds and work their way out of the system ban in twenty twenty two federal funding did my cap flight at the bending for schools after that are your other local and statements there are some state dollars that blow outside of these three pending sources to schools and for particular needs and then there's also local many districts that have over the twenty five miles and get to keep us burns and a lot of times that's our dedicated for facilities but that makes it soon that uhm other local many. The categorical phones make up about four percent of with scores received and that supplemental fans make armas two percent. So foundation fanning just the top focus on out a little bit or quickly in twenty twenty three the matrix provided seventy four hundred thirteen dollars per student and when I sacred a student that's really an average daily membership number that the schools provide in for districts that's the average daily membership for the personally quarters of the year at the prior year and that's the case with mass charters but if it's an each harder if they charters added a grade or if they've increased the enrollment cap you're going to get a mix of uh prior incurrent your fending for charters. And that the year is um derived through this matrix and this is what you'll be working on in the next few minutes is are these items we want in the matrix in his taylor told you this material is an statute it's your fault so it's really when you can manipulate as you want but once you get the items that make sure that's what you want in the matrix and and believes necessary for adequacy then you apply that per people cost to their add all that app and that's that's your foundation pending number. Again pending that are spending model. So I typed about that split and foundation fending and this in twenty twenty three shows you and how that split was if you look at districts that uniform rate of tax collected one point three five billion dollars so that's money that came from the counties to the state in the right back out to the school districts then that equaled a supplied about thirty eight percent of worth the school districts needed to provide that seventy eight thirteen for other students so state foundation bending aid comes in in the house make up the difference for that in twenty three it made up about sixty one percent there are two other smaller sources of bands the ninety eight percent adjustment is simply assumption as that counties that are going to collect ninety eight percent of their property tax if they don't the state will helpful in this house and then miscellaneous bands are funds from and grazing rights of real read so lands where you're not collecting property tax but you're collecting other types of moneys. So you can see for districts the split and then over in charters because they do not have a land base in property tax to support them state foundation pending aid supplies of their fending which was before million in twenty twenty three. So you can see it over the last five years how the foundation fending amount has claimed if you am control for inflation however that sixty seven hundred dollars and twenty nineteen if those were twenty twenty three dollars it would it would be eight thousand and forty six so it may not feel. Like um we're we've kept up with them inflation we do as super intended some things about foundation funding in the materials and we ask them how have to add extent do they use the matrix to guide their spending decisions and we had sixty nine percent of our superior and they'd say that they either moderately or extensively use the mattress to help guide their spending and then we ask the same thing for stapping and we had seventy one percent ever superintendence who said they did that. There are couple of things we want to take that are kind of issues with the matrix that we've run into or that have been raised and is first on his own that we run into and that's preschools. The. Where in there and this is an outside cause these numbers are wrong. When I first started here we had seven standard on preschools and when you have the stand on preschools we can trace all the fending and spending down to the prisco level and we can exclude that from our adequacy. Now this year we have not one but thirteen stand alone schools and we have a header in two preschools that are embedded with other schools. So one of the issues is that happened to this current school year so not the year of where we've done a study there there was no uhm adm counted for preschools so we can't come up with per people cost for those stand on preschools and then when schools when the preschools are embedded with schools that have higher grades we can't really tease out that spending very well so that it matters are analyses just a little bit we have done a dead look at the spending for those thirteen stand on preschools it was thirty five million dollars only two million dollars about was from foundation funding so we we think we're sell heading it pretty close but if we just want to be transparent that preschools are becoming more of a mix with school districts then they had been historically. Also and this is an issue that we've had and legislators raise over the years and also school districts is just some disconnects between our pending matrix and reality so as elizabeth towed you are offending my tricks is based on a school of five hundred and when on in pike as brought that to the legislature in two thousand and three that's because research showed that a school can most efficiently supply all the resources that were needed for adequacy with five hundred kids and that and so you may remember that's when the whole consolidation conversation was really strong and arkansas that legislature that looked at our our situation so well we don't have schools that big so we're going to change it to per people model but they left it at that five hundred level. So today when you look at us eighty percent. Of our schools are below five hundred so when you try to apply that pending model to the school level that that is a disconnect there on the district level we have nineteen percent of our schools that are less than five hundred so it works for eighty percent at the school districts. And then there's just the math that's in the matrix itself and wet this chart shows you is what is in the matter the matrix again is spending for one score k three twelve and it seems that there's eight percent of forty forty every kids are in kindergarten hundred and fifteen or in grades went through three and the remaining three hundred and forty five are in those higher grades. So this is the number of teachers that are offended for each of those grade levels yet if you divide their students out by what's in that adequacies credentiation standards of where it can be in each cloud you can see we're not fending all of the teachers that are needed so we're the mater experience twenty point nine grade level or court teachers in reality schools or school districts could need up to twenty six for those grades so those are just some things to keep in mind as as you think about the matrix. So we're gonna move on to categoric offending and this is spending in addition to the mater excesses are from state bands and there are four kinds of categoricals you heard all about all the yesterday and heard that spend it on a full time student equivalent bases at about five five thousand just under five thousand dollars per student and twenty three and there's a category work off and for english language learners so for every student who qualifies is someone who needs additional instructions again english proficiency there's three hundred and sixty six dollars that sent to the schools esa is based on free and reduced lunch students and it's given it tiered rates based on the concentration every in my least free and reduced lunch students in a score and then there's professional development that goes out on the per adm bases like foundation pending das but it's restricted and that's what's considered a categorical in so restricted for that is a professional development. Professional development as it is has is restricted to one of us uses so they can transfer money from one categoric authentic another so this chart shows you what they started out with in the blue bar and where those spends looked like after the transfers were made so you can see that mostly it's in the esa phones that are transferred in to one of the other categorical fund parts. There are so supplemental fans isolated vending actually predated like you and that's many that's given out for school districts that are either very small and very romote locations and so a face additional operational needs because of that. Then growth bending in the clining enrollment bending were added it's time like you and and these are to help schools that either have growing emrolments or that are losing students and so we're going to see a decline in the revenues they receive through the matrix. And then over the years we've added enhanced transportation this is money that's targeted to school districts that were the what's provided in the matrix for transportation just as it made all their needs. Then their special education high cost occurrences this was fourteen million dollars and twenty three it was paid back to schools on a reimbursement bases to help with those students who's education is particularly expensive detail there are special education needs the enhanced suit an achievement grounds five point three million dollars that was added to is also reimbursed schools for many they spanned on the but we think it was the three original users or a research based purposes about were researchers shown helps students in poverty such as tutoring before an attract score and pre k. Teacher salary equalization firms started out as money when the min on the salary increase to thirty six thousand several years ago the money was given to schools that were already at the minimum but couldn't afford to increase it and then over the years that's sort of morphed into the teacher salary equalization fanned which is used that during the activity study a target average teacher salary and then this money is burst through a formula two schools that are enter that average teacher salary and then finally there is the additional professional development many and that goes to a vendor to help with professional learning communities in the schools. So all of these burns and talking at a very high level and you probably have some specific questions we're going to really get into the ninety ready of these in march and then properly again in may so some of your questions may be answered when we get to those reports. I didn't want to mention some of the funding that came through the lawrence act this again was not part of twenty twenty three so we can't analyze any expenditures but this is additional many that right now spend it outside of. Of adequacy so the legislature could decide to combine this with adexc or to continue to treat it a separate banding or to create some phenomenally together so I would I didn't just want to go over with some of this money is and these are the line by line this can spread the fiscal analysis that was supplied by eighty eight so most of these are are assumptions that are either from that document or that we blame from their actual legislation that was written in I won't read through our these lines but I do have a summary so about ninety three million dollars from loans will go to the schools to help support teachers either their salaries maternity leave or or merit pay. Then there is eight point five million that's going to go to providers for a students who need tutoring then there's twenty million that also goes but it will go to the schools to help pay for tutors and then there's thirteen point one that will go to higher education to help with those teacher preparation or continuing education programs. And then also in twenty twenty three in terms of funding x six thirty provides some score center money to school tester export school students who can take part in exculers and then actively forty four set the foundation in categorical call fending amounts for for the next buy in here. And that brings me to the end as I said next we will maybe to resource allocation reports for your see lights and light serve data in torts and but hopefully we'll have it all range for it makes sense and we can get through it in a way that it is helpful for everybody. And that's i'll be glad to take any questions free thank you dearly senator hammer you're recognized thank you and thanks for the great report in the great presentation on page three. On graph number six and i'm sure it's out there somewhere and if you could help find like to get it is there correlation between the amount of money spent on education and the reduction of recipients like medicaid or reduction in the conservation rhode island you mentioned while goal they seem to have one of the higher amounts spin on education compared what we're doing it like twenty so it's everything out there could you guys at that you research list so we could. I can look for that out at have not seen that specific i've seen it with incomes but i'm sure there's i'm sure there are some research like a woman for that okay can you get a couple more assuming record going thanks on page six. The. At which five states do versus a per puple or foundation funding in which thirty four states do. That the hybrid producers are better educational outcome than the per proof of or foundational approach II have not seen that kind of analysis of this comes brand ecs and I know they pretend it scripts about don't know that they've analyzed that way but I can again I look for that and see but i'm not aware of any of if you don't mind please I just outcome results and then on the page three absolutely page nine graph three. The the foundation. The foundation and this actually charged into page eleven. Graph twenty one. The foundation funding is what we sent to the school but we don't really haven't control that's that's the deal where we send it out the door we give a recommended model to go back but at the end of the day they make their choice right okay so you got that one of them on page eleven you've got foundation funding. And then you got the procedure then you got the survey on page twelve thirteen that she was sixty nine and said one percent. This. What are we curious now is is there any way to track educational outcomes. Of the schools that do not follow the foundation funding recommendation versus those that do not. Or would there be any value in looking at that to see that the school. They've found the matrix get a better outcome than the ones that did not when it comes to critical education measurements. Yeah. A week I mean we could definitely try to run some analysis with the data we have using the achievement later that added and presented and you know we'd want to control for some backers such as. Uh. Percent premium is slanged that makes a big difference on outcomes but we can take step without for sure okay and then i'll just get off line but in the regional match that questions as if you got what seems to be the majority that are falling foundation funded but then you got some that are not. I think would be of some value to know of those that are not who knows maybe they're getting better educational outcomes by not found it which results that are because in the day we want better educational outcomes. But if we didn't we don't have that I don't know how we would know that which may help us make other decisions that we have to buy for it thank you thing machine cheerlead back on page three graph five. And in you mentioned. There were some discrepancies. I notice in this patch or. How lighted in orange elementary secondary education is ok twelve makes up twenty one percent higher education eleven percent that was thinking from previous beta that. K twelve and harriet and arkansas actually closure to fifty four percent. Was. When you mention discrepancy was that bill are feels are described see from the source provided. Well I my discrepancies I would I think I was talking about that outrage or steady yeah this is this is from this from the sensor so I can yeah let me let me look at that okay alright thank you next representative mckenzie and he was cheap I would just got a few points of clarity and then a question kind of stimulup would senator hammer said are you said in between I believe silence twenty five and twenty six that there's thirty five million available for that was funded in twenty twenty three for preschools embedded within school districts but only two million of that came directly from. A fte wash of some sort. They and i'm butchering that can you eliminate us to where the other thirty three million dollars has come from. The yeah I can. The two million was from their foundation funding and or was from foundation for so even though they're standalone sir they school district inside the school district is in our supplying their funding in so the foundation fending that they receive for their adm that doesn't include prescock yet it's something that's been spent at the prisco level mazda that bending is coming from other site local so we know there's abc many that they receive that wouldn't be considered foundation many I believe that you know some school districts are charging parents to bring their kids to the preschool they don't qualify under one of the other programs so that's that made up about seventeen million dollars about half of it federal funding was eh of nine point five million of it. And then categorical many fending was was I point eight million so what was the state and local share you've mentioned the very beginning and the other side or local fending so this is spending this foundation it was sixteen point nine million it just seems earned again this is a natural common out seems like a wide disparity of what we have allocated within their current funding and what. Somehow school districts are able to muster or pull from the resources foundation or categorical to make these work again again that that's just more of a comment that I have another question in regards to it in terms of order me the matrix issues with the five hundred you know as as the baseline for our weights and measures and you you do a great job eliminating this in terms of the number of school districts but if you know what is the median or or mean population size of school districts cause we learned it on five hundred somehow obviously we have outlines the high end of the scale. So do we have an idea of what the median mean I did that I think I did two years ago for that report and i'd have to look at it down I think our school districts were. About four hundred and eighty in our schools were definitely smaller than that but I i'd have to run that average I can do that if you could provide that community in one then this is very one last follow up in regards to the survey responses so we've we've experienced some of these administrative principle and teacher survey responses before and this is doubt tearing off what senator hammer is mentioned earlier. I appreciate this it's a great sign post for us to understand if the fts work and of what we're passing down is if we're have any type of target acquisition if we don't get it better qualitative information from superintendence and for administrators not on an antique dollar bases this is not helpful and I don't mean that to be difficult or or committed if it's just. Surveys and stimulus heavy express purpose in in the collection of information as specifically from clarified stakeholders if we're just kind of asking one question without any of the denied dynamic response questions questions following it or that information is not provided we can't give an educated you know position on this adequacy process if we don't understand where those there's disconnects or yet historically when they first started sending out the survey to superintendence in the very beginning they're the data systems were just being belt in the data was not very reliable and so the purpose of the survey was to collect all of that data now that we can call so much from data from apps we have moved away from asking superintendents to count their computers account you know are the the things that we can paul from the computer system in in that and we have tried to ask them more in a wet your experience with this or you know what are your perceived needs with this because that's something we can't get out of app scan we may weak can definitely ask more questions of their questions that these committees won't were I was glad to to put those in the surveys but that's just to provide historical how there's kind of mort sorry to continue what i'll be done and I appreciate that what is the feedback process how do we as members or individual individuals concern your education work with you the department to help inform that because this is you know it's vital. By the numbers here were failing thirty three percent of some superintendents in their perception of what the fts are so how do we get involved that we can ask the right questions and it's a syncton. I think however the chairs would like you to do that I think their specific questions there would be beneficial I just submit those are staff and we can I know employee be happy to populate those together send him over as a single document over to BLR we can get those added into. Saturday day with she recognized. Sorry thank you mister appreciate that is there anything that shows like so when you look at you know arkansas spending a little over thirteen thousand per student versus new york he spending you know twenty three thousand is there any breakdown on what exactly that money's been spent time I mean like we talk about an arkansas funding make sure it's not a spending material and so I just be curious like if new york are they spending that you know maybe because land is more expensive and building is more expensive is is a lot of that money going towards facilities or an you know construction. Vs actually being spent on students are lower student teacher ratios and you know tutors are you know reading specialists whatever in the classroom that actually directly benefits students do you know if there is any breakdown on that state across the states and I don't have anything and that kind of holistically but as we go through our individual items what were spending on the ncs on some of those does have that comparison that we can do sleep as date and then of course with teacher salaries we can do it so when we get to those reports you will see more of those breakdowns okay thank you welcome representative back you recognize for a question thank you missionary and going. My best the question is slow the different in terms of the average school size the adele school of five hundred. So do you have a number the number of students the presentation students in arkansas. That are attending schools that are five hundred and more versus tells over five hundred the percentage of schools that they're send not procedure schools the procedure of students veterans that are in schools that are five hundred and more versus. Five hundred I can calculate that yeah i'll have to calculate like therefore you. Senator hammer you recognize for a question thank you back on page five. Yeah. If i'm interpreting graph hand right were were pretty good on the higher for. But then the other two categories not so good that they're correct. According to their metrics right so do we did they provide in their metrics for simplicity like a check off list of these are the areas. Where you are. Low adequacy and low equity and this is what you can do to or what you should be working on doing in order to get it up to a higher effort level. They will not simple simple the the formula for the adequacy is they've looked at a national average score they there if you wanted to get all students to this that was provisioned how many are to estate spinning or how much is being spout to get that students two thousand so and that's where they found it I think seventy five percent of the districts and I can say we're not spending. At that level and then the equity again is is looking at low low and candidates to experts is more of a fluent districts and whether spending for a student so in like a said on the adequacy. Um. And about a well on the equity we're showing something different than what they're finding will be showing that to you in march in may that you'll see that it looks like our state are schools that have higher percentages of preemer dislights because they do receive extra dollars are able to spend more per student so are funding doesn't show this education we happened on covered is to do their own take on this and they also gave us fairly good rates in equity and night and adequacy web average shanker institutes. Basically said is arkansas making a really good effort that because it is a smaller state animal rural state. That it's just really difficult to meet the challenges offending students at appropriate levels and we are talking about this in our yesterday martin is it's it's can like we we give isolated schools more money because they can't operate as efficiently so in their paper they're kind of arguing that the federal government might help states that are more. Rural and that are smaller because it's the same thing so just enough to efficiencies that stay slight new york or massachusetts can reach so it's an i'm not arguing that but that was it is just an interesting concept that we were saying yesterday we had really thought about about it from that perspective so I think that's what they were but they are had came to the results after looking at other states and what was happening. In the states so is is there any connection then between schools that receive higher funding for free and reduced lunch. And are they actually producing better outcomes because they're getting more money but how we know that that money is actually translating in two better results. Yeah I was with a project more about this but I know I gave this report last year in and looking at the research the rates search their basically if you provided a weight of about point two a bad foundation founding where the screen reduced language students and spent it on smaller classrooms in high quality teachers you did see results that could help them get to um levels of achievement that were like their counterparts. All right mister can we get a copy of that that you presented so if you don't mind i'd like to get a copy of that that you just reference that you presented last year. Okay i've last year study well that specific point that shows on the free and reduced. Up and was yeah i'll have to go back and find this research papers but yes chair you have one last click on yes go ahead thanks appreciate the attitude so back on the on the phone and the foundation funding. The. This does the found how did how do you tie what were had you tie which schools get for free and reduced lunch into the foundation funding. And attach that to better outcomes educationally deserve is their common denominator thread that would bring those two things together constant. The free reduced large money is not tied into the foundation funding correct shows there are three especially. I guess the schools that are not functioning by the foundation funding. Are they any better especially if they're getting. The free and reduced lunch. That. Maybe i'm not articulate well where i'm trying to get to. Yeah i'll have to say my could you repeat that please yeah i'm just trying to make the the connection to the schools that are not spending according to the foundation. And are they. And the ones that are not are they receiving how much are they receiving in free and reduced large. Money. And and do they produce a better outcome they're get the money but are they producing their outcomes because you're getting the foundation funny but they're not spending its way we think that they aren't respending. And how do we know that that might is actually get spent widely if they're not produced better outcomes. Is there any way to go about figuring that i'm trying to think that and we'd have to be really careful how we was I mean we'll try to operational as they will have to be really careful because there's how many um variables that can go into. To as school's performance level or a student's performance level that we can. And we've not looked at it down to that level with the just those schools and so you're talking about schools where the superintendent says that they're using it as a guide right. I think a more focused on the ones that aren't and then if they're getting all that free and reduced lunch money on top of their but they're not producing their own comes I got a wonder what what. How how is all that money you're getting actually producing a better outcome you're not spending according to the foundation model you're getting free and reduced large model money and it may not be all the thirty percent you know they aren't following the foundation funding in or they they're getting all that money but not pollution better outcomes. But yet they want you know they want this equality thing that's what kind of races are flagged me what you do with what you got. Before we talk about give you more especially if you have a high free and reduced launch that you get a lot of money coming in. And we talk offline okay thanks for say a dash richer like relative you sir. Members before I go to nine committee members any follow up questions from committee members. See no representative springer you reconnect for a question good morning thank you miss a chair thank you miss hold out told the enjoy the reports from you and your staff members I really enjoy receiving that information so thank you very much my question is the follow up to senator hammers question that slide a teen on page I or he asked the question about the equity in the findings that there was low equally in arkansas did you are you all looking at specific my question is are you all looking as specific variables and so what what are the variables that you all look at to arrive at the difference between a do you know the variables that this study looked at compared to yours in order to come up with it and if you have that information in the intent to provide later on that would be good but and i'm just curious to know what those variables were in order for them to arrive at the conclusion that they did compare to what you arrived at I think that would help us you'll determine the of them. Conclusions that have been reached do you agree yes and i'll i'll try to get their deep more detailed explanation on for each of these and incentives all right thank you very much all right members thank you very much for your attention to damestile thank you so much for this very detailed report members just make note our next planned. Meeting of this joint committee will be on monday march the eleventh at ten am that is planned to be we're still working out a couple of details the chairs feel the necessity to meet that they due to the fact that we will lose a month in april at least april with a physical session and so we want to try to at least get one presentation in in march if it all possible so that is planned we're waiting on the details make a pension mark on your calendar we will firm that up hopefully by the end of this week and have that added to the schedule seeing no other business for the committee where john.