ALC-Review
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0:00
Thank you.
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Thank you.
Speaker 2
4:30
members if everybody will take your seat we're gonna go ahead and get this meeting started so we've got a fairly lengthy agenda today so we're not going to waste any time and with that Ms. Kathy, if you'd get us started.
Speaker 3
5:02
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On your agenda, the first item, B, has been pulled from
Speaker 4
5:09
the agenda today from DHS. They are going to make some changes to that, and we'll probably see that at a later date on an agenda. So the next thing on your agenda will be item C, which are our methods of finance. On the first page of the C packet is the letter from Office of Accounting, DFA. They have three methods of finance that they've sent over for today's agenda.
On page two, you'll see the first one is UALR. This is a revised method of finance going to $509,797. And this is for the Collaborative Learning Center for minor renovations to the library, updates to the student computer lab they note that they have cash funds and foundation funds to cover this cost the next two are going to be for uams the first one is for 853 143 for
the second floor internal medicine space they're consolidating internal medicine into the second floor of the outpatient clinic and moving cardiovascular to the first floor of the outpatient clinic. They note that they have clinical reserves and revenues to cover this expense. The next one that you have for UAMS is for their campus energy performance contract for implementing recommendations of investment grade audit created in consultation with the Arkansas Energy Office, and this is going to be for $100 million. You'll note that the total projected
cost is $149 million, so we'll see an amendment later on, a revision of this, updating this, but this will be covered through bond proceeds, and those are the methods of finance on today's agenda. All right, members and representative Dotson.
Speaker 6
6:58
You were recognized for a question, there. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is, I guess,
Representative Jim Dotson
Unverified
7:05
is somebody from UAMS here? Yeah, we do. I saw just Maurice was here just earlier, and
Speaker 10
7:09
Dr. Patterson. Maurice, are you around? Yep, there they are. Yeah, I will.
Speaker 12
7:23
Right around, yep, right around there. There you go. Yeah, and
Speaker 15
7:33
we need an extra chair. Maurice or Dr. Patterson, if y'all just want to pull one of
Cam Patterson
Unverified
7:37
those chairs up. Henry's got one. Henry's got one, yeah. Great. I think we need more chairs. If y'all just go ahead and give us your names and positions
Representative Jim Dotson
Unverified
7:48
for the record. Don't you start with that book? My name is Cam Patterson. I'm the Chancellor
Speaker 20
7:52
of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. I'm Christina Clark, Vice Chancellor for Institutional Support Services.
Speaker 21
7:57
Brian Cotton, Associate Vice Chancellor of Campus Operations. Maurice Rigsby, Vice Chancellor of Institutional Relations. Great. Welcome. Happy to
Cam Patterson
Unverified
8:04
have y'all here. Representative Dotson, recognize the procedure of question. Thank you, Mr.
Representative Jim Dotson
Unverified
8:09
Chair. This is really, I saw that you have $100 million bond proceeds, and I mean, I don't know how much of that goes, how much you're going to have to pay on an annual basis and that sort of thing, but I know a year or two ago, the UAMS was in some financial troubles.
uh you're cutting staff reducing reducing different things uh can you kind of give us an update on where you're at with that and how you're going to afford to pay back a hundred
million dollar bond sure i'm delighted to so uh when i was being recruited here about two years ago uh that was the middle of fiscal year 2018 uh we run a july to june fiscal year and uh you read in the Democrat Gazette that UAMS was going to lose 70 million dollars in that year we finished up fiscal year 2018 on January 30th 2018 last year
losing less than 15 million dollars and we presented to the University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees for fiscal year 2019 the first balanced budget that had been submitted to the Board of Trustees and at least five or six years we closed out our books we did our final audit for fiscal year 2019 a couple weeks ago and we finished about 44 million dollars ahead of budget and we have submitted in a second in a row balanced budget to the Board of
Trustees of the University of Arkansas system which was accepted we are determined to be good stewards of the generous resources that are provided to us by the legislature here in the state of Arkansas and we are confident that we are going to be able to cover the costs of this bond issue we went to the bond market at an extremely opportune time with with a sound financial balance sheet and we're able to get less than three percent rate on on our loans so
this will allow us to implement a project that will accomplish three things one is it will allow us to build a second energy plant which we desperately need in a hospital that needs energy 24 hours a day seven days a week for people who are near death it will allow us to revise the the pine cedar corridor on the eastern part of our campus to make it easier for patients to access our campus and it will generate about a hundred million dollars that we can use for uh badly needed deferred maintenance on our campuses so if i heard you
correctly in two years you went from a 70 million dollar deficit to 44 million
Speaker 27
10:55
dollar surplus that's that's correct congratulations thank you no further
Chair
Unverified
11:05
questions all right representative Fortner you were
Representative Jack Fortner
Unverified
11:08
recognized for a question sir thank you could you just real briefly explain where it went from 100 million to 150 million
Speaker 33
11:19
that's pretty good job so we've got 54 million for the actual energy plant 45 million in
critical deferred maintenance and running all the numbers 12 million for the pine cedar corridor and I'm missing one 59 million for other deferred maintenance so roughly 100 million in deferred maintenance part of the energy efficiencies are also lighting replacing generators we've got 20 generators that would be replaced with this energy plant they're at or beyond their lifespan. Other HVAC mechanical that is original to some of our 1950s
buildings will be in this. We've also received a generous amount from the city on the Pine Cedar Corridor. They gave us $4.6 million to assist in that project. Representative Fortner, I want to mention this part of maybe
Speaker 35
12:18
a part of your question is related to the appropriation authority so for this this year the part of it and I think Kathy mentioned that in her opening that 100 million portion of it is within the appropriation authority that you all have approved for us and so
we will come back because this is a three-year project we'll come back to get the remaining 50 million dollar to add that to the
Representative Jack Fortner
Unverified
12:45
project as well that was my question
Speaker 39
12:51
thank you all right members seeing no further questions and without objection these items will
Speaker 3
12:58
stand as reviewed mr. chairman the next item on our agenda
Speaker 4
13:01
that's item d these are our discretionary grants and on d1 the first one is for arkansas department of health their first
one there is state funded and it is for funding for the northwest arkansas center springdale for burn care education and burn education and burn training supplies dealing for local emergency medical communities. The next one also for the health department and this one's federally funded is for working with emergency departments to gain access to overdose patients in crisis and support them throughout their treatment. The third one on that page also federally funded is for financing
and operational improvements to Arkansas's critical access hospitals. And then on the next page, Department of Health, 100% federally funded, this was an amendment to an existing grant that they have to reduce the new HIV infections in Arkansas, and they'll provide voluntary testing, counseling, outreach, education, and link to high-risk populations. So number four, number five, and number seven, those are all amendments to grants doing that. number six and number eight are grants amendments that provide statewide hepatitis intervention
services including outreach education text testing and detection and then those are the grants for the health department that takes us over to department of human services grants and that's on page four of this packet the first one is with their aging adults and behavioral health services and this is for an amendment for $106,544 to provide medication-assisted treatment to uninsured and underinsured diagnosed with opioid use disorder.
Grants numbers 2, 3, and 4 are all for homeless individuals who have serious mental illness to help them find and obtain adequate housing. And I received a message from the agency. They pulled grant number 5 from the agenda, so you won't be reviewing it today. The final group of grants on today's agenda come to us from the Arkansas Beef Council. On page six of that D package, you have one for the Four States Fair. These are funded by their agency special revenues.
This one is to provide programming and to conduct the Agricultural Learning Center, which is operated by the Four States Fair. They conduct year-round events and special programs related to both the beef industry and the beef product nutrition. That learning center has over 40,000 people per year that visit it, and it's mainly youth-oriented audiences. The next one from the Beef Council is also funded by their special revenues to the Arkansas Cattle Women's Association,
and this is to conduct several special products related to beef promotion. And those are the grants on today's agenda. All right. Seat 80. Is that you, Senator Hammer?
Speaker 10
16:03
Okay. Yes, sir. Senator Hammer, I'll get you. There we go. Thank you. Could I ask DHS a question about two,
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
16:14
three, and four? Sure. Kelly, you want to come sit on this one?
Speaker 49
16:24
i guess not mark welcome to welcome to review subcommittee thank you mr chairman mark
Chair
Unverified
16:38
white chief legislative affairs with dhs and i've tried to get kelly up here but he just wouldn't come ah that gum him we'll figure out a way jay
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
16:50
hill with aging adult behavior health great all right senator
hammer you recognize the procedure question thank you Mr. Chair. I know this is 100% federally funded, but when it comes to assisting the homeless
individuals, they all have been identified as serious mental illness. Is this after they have received their treatment and they have been deemed to be able to live independently, and these are funds to help them with independent living? Yes, sir, it is, and
Lee Watson
Unverified
17:14
these are four individuals that are all being served by the community mental health centers, the three community health centers that you see listed okay and these individuals
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
17:25
no way shape or form are involved in the passes then or they are involved in the passes
Chair
Unverified
17:31
I don't ordinarily not if they're being served by the community mental health centers then that means they are not Medicaid recipients and so they would not be part of
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
17:42
the past okay and so this is going to be for actual brick and mortar housing facilities for them is that is
Lee Watson
Unverified
17:47
that right yes it would be for a structural facility could be an apartment it could be
Speaker 38
17:53
home yes sir okay thank you thank you Mr. Chair thank you all right you guys are excused thank you all right members seeing no further questions and without objections these items
Speaker 4
18:02
will stand as reviewed Mr. Chairman the next item that we look at is our e-packet these will be our services contracts and
on page one of the e-packet is the letter from Department of Transformation and Shared Services the Office of State Procurement Mr. Ed Armstrong and in this letter he notes that there is one contract, we'll see it on page 12, that is being asked to ratify for the Arkansas Department of Community Corrections. All other contracts that we'll be seeing today appear to be legal contracts and are submitted for your review. On page two of this packet, you have your
construction-related contracts. The first grouping we look at, numbers one through eight, these are all going to be for ASU Jonesboro, and these are all on-call contracts for landscaping surveying services and architectural services. Then on page three, you have contract number nine for Henderson State University. This is an amendment to an existing contract that they've had for architectural services, and they're adding an additional $200,000 to this contract to cover
any unforeseen needed repairs during renovation work that they're doing. Number 10 is the military Department. This is an original contract for $152,300 for design professional services, architectural and engineer services. This is for their resource management training center for the design of that, and that is located on Camp Robinson. Next, number 11, is Parks and Tourism, and this is a contract for projects that are working at Lake Fort Smith and Pinnacle
Mountain State Park. Number 12, Rich Mountain Community College is an on-call architectural contract, original. Number 13 is state police. This is an amendment to the contract that they have for their architectural services, finishing up Troop L headquarters facility located in Lowell, Arkansas. Those are the construction-related contracts on today's agenda. All right, members. Are there any
Speaker 38
20:06
questions? All right, seeing none without objection, these items will stand as reviewed. The next
Speaker 4
20:12
group of contracts begin on page six of the e-packet
and these are intergovernmental contracts. The first one is DHS with the Department of Community Corrections. This is for a contract for providing a medication assisted treatment services using state opioid response funds. The second one is DHS with the University UAMS. This is to design and evaluate all programs in their prevention plan for eligible services under the Family First Services and Prevention Act. And number three is DHS with UALR, and this is to contract to perform
data collection and reporting in compliance with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquents Prevention Act. Those are the intergovernmental contracts on today's agenda. All right,
Speaker 38
21:00
members, any questions? All right, seeing none, and without objection, these items will stand
Speaker 4
21:06
as reviewed. The next group of contracts begin on page 8 of the e-packet. These are our out-of-state contracts. The first one is for Arkansas Tech. This is an original contract for $300,000 with re-up education. This is a company that will provide an educational technology solution,
including student database, proprietary coaching models for re-entry marketing. And this is done as a sole source contract, so in your green packet of letters, letters beginning on page one and going through three is the sole source justification for this contract and this is they have identified this group as the only one who provides the services they're looking for to re-enroll stopped out students that would be former students who are not re-enrolled elsewhere and the vendor will pursue these former students at no upfront cost
with a tuition share due only if the students enroll at tech number two is the crime information Center, and this is for storing and distributing criminal justice data to criminal justice agencies in Arkansas. Number three, Crime Information Center, this is for arrest disposition recovery services. Number four, DHS, this is for consulting and system integration services. Number five, DHS computer aid, this is for lead developer services for database upgrade support and application
development and testing. Number six, DHS, this one is an original contract for jump technology services for adult protective services. Number seven is an amendment for emergency shelter services for DCFS clients. Number eight is a DHS contract amendment for data mining and Medicaid finance operational support. Number nine is a DHS contract with Cognizante. This is for project Management Office, the Arkansas Integrated Eligibility System, and staffing and resources,
and number 10 at the bottom of page 10 in the section of E. This is DHS with EQ Health Solutions. This one is to administer prior authorization and retrospective review services for their behavioral health, development disabilities, and aging and adult Medicaid population statewide. Number 11 is state police. This is for implementation of IntelliGrants, an electronic grants management system for the Highway Safety Office.
And number 12 is UALR. This one is for a consultant to work with them. This is also a sole source justified contract. It's in your green packet on pages 4 through 6. Their sole source justification states that UALR has received research funding from the U.S. Department of Defense for a four-year program to continue development of nanotechnology-based product for bone regeneration. The FDA recommended that they now begin FDA-compliant data collection for inclusion in future applications
for bringing this to the human market, and this vendor will carry out those processes required for commercialization and manufacturing of bone scaffold. Those are the out-of-state contracts on today's agenda. All right. Let's see here. Representative Sullivan, are you in 43?
Speaker 10
24:26
Yes. All right. You are recognized for a question, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could we have
Chair
Unverified
24:31
someone from the agency come up to talk about item 10 with the EQ health solutions? Okay. So somebody from DHS?
Speaker 39
24:41
Get ready for it, Mark. This is how the review subcommittee rolls, man. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker 69
25:05
Chairman, Mark White, DHS. Paula Stone, Division of Medical Services. Mary Kathryn Williams, Chief Procurement Officer. Great. All right.
Chair
Unverified
25:12
Representative Sullivan, you were recognized. Proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I understand that EQ has several deficiencies and a corrective action plan and that their task is prior authorization and that there are sometimes quite lengthy delays in prior authorization processes, and yet we're extending or adding to that contract. Can you tell me why we're giving them more responsibility and paying them more money when they're underperforming and under a corrective action plan?
And maybe where we are in that corrective action process, have we collected any compensation from them as a result of that? Can you kind of update me on why we're
Speaker 68
26:02
doing it and where we are? So we have been reviewing the EQ Health contract and their deliverables, and they have been behind in one key area, and that is the prior authorizations for speech therapy. There have been some consistent struggles with OT and PT as well, but speech therapy
has been the main concern. We have, they have submitted a corrective action plan. We've reviewed that, but we are also going to go further with that. They have not been sanctioned at this point, but we are looking at their most current report to determine if that needs to happen, if the issues particularly around speech therapy have been corrected. This contract is more than just the OTPT and speech therapy.
They have identified an issue around being able to hire speech therapists in the state of Arkansas and keep those individuals hired and so their corrective action plan is looking at a process for hiring and maintaining speech therapists they are required
Chair
Unverified
27:09
to do those speech therapy reviews. Yeah, I think we visited about this a while back and one of the potential solutions is actually a licensing option that we as the agency or maybe the legislature by expediting
licensures in other states might be able to resolve this have you have we moved forward on that or is that a viable solution so we
Speaker 68
27:35
have not moved forward on that as it relates to this contract and and that would be more of a policy change that would not be done any licensure the department of human services and it's not over a licensure for speech therapist so we have not moved forward with anything on speech therapy licensure.
Speaker 80
27:55
Mr. Chair, may I continue? Give you two more follow-ups, Representative Sullivan. So we've had a few providers who have actually
Chair
Unverified
28:05
had their business at risk because of the lack of cash flow, because EQ is not providing that service that they're contracted to do, and I understand why. so I'm concerned that if we have solutions that are out there that would benefit our business and the consumer why we haven't moved so in any solution
Speaker 68
28:29
around the licensure requirement for speech therapists is not something DHS has control over we do not do licensure for speech therapists what we can do in this contract and what EQ health has asked us to do is to waive the Arkansas licensure requirement for those individuals for a short amount of time enabling them to then hire additional therapists here in the state of Arkansas so the contract has an Arkansas licensed speech therapist that is a requirement in the current contract okay thank you mr. chair thank
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
29:04
you all right y'all uh senator hammer you're recognized for a question sir thank you mr. do you see in the foreseeable future with the corrective action plan that you would have to assess any penalties against
Speaker 68
29:23
against that company that is a within our contract that for lack of meeting those parameters or those contract performance indicators that sanctions can be applied and then I want
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
29:34
I want to back up to number nine um is that going to be
y'all's area to answer questions on on the on the PSC contract or on the uh on number nine I'm sorry senator I believe there'll be
Chair
Unverified
29:48
some different individuals who need to answer those questions regarding cognizant yes Mr. Chair could I get a question can we get them up here you know and if you'll
Speaker 38
30:13
give us your name and position for the record
Speaker 91
30:15
you bet uh good afternoon my name is kevin grace i'm the
Chair
Unverified
30:21
deputy cio all right senator hammer you recognize
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
30:24
proceed sir thank you i'm sorry i know this but ceo cognizante or formally or with who i'm
sorry with dhs all right sorry sorry so i know i probably ought to know the answer to this question but
i'll answer it anyway i noticed on the history amendment number four that part of the justification for the increase is projecting staffing and resources and additional resources due to continued growth resulting in the need for
new and expanded services specifically what services is it what areas are we growing um
Speaker 91
30:54
yes sir so it is for um ivnv which is independent verification services so we we are actually about to let a new contract for those services um that had been previously being performed by cognizante and this was at a request from the fed so cms asked us to increase this staffing they were worried about our eligibility project and just wanted to make sure we had a we we've got a certain number of individuals there and so this was a request directly from cms to uh
to address that gap until that new procurement can be
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
31:27
lit all right and again i kind of mr chair may i have one more one more follow-up thanks so i'm sitting up here trying to remember because when we had the ef thing several years ago i can't remember if cognosanti was one of the good players or one of the difficult players in that whole scenario and they changed their name to ntt data state health consulting you know what the purpose of changing the name was and was there any weighted value to the history of that company that company's involvement with this project way back
Speaker 91
31:54
when so yes sir they were one of the good players so they helped us steer this uh steer this project in the right way and again what the ibm project is is replacing those uh those legacy systems uh and the um the name change was due to an acquisition all right thank you thank you mr chair thank you
Speaker 38
32:12
thank you all right seeing no further questions and without objection these These items will stand as reviewed.
Speaker 4
32:21
Mr. Chair and the next group of contracts are our in-state contracts
and they begin on page 12 of section E. The first one is for community correction with the Renew Life Center. This is for re-entry housing. Number two is community correction and this is with Restore Hope. This is to provide ex-offenders, help them identify education and training opportunities. This is the contract that is requesting ratification And the letter requesting ratification is on page 7 in your green packet. The request is that the amount of $450,000 was done under an MOU by community correction.
And during transformation, it was found that this contract had not been sent for legislative review. So they are working to correct that and prevent that type of thing to happen in the future. Then number 3 is the correction department for waste. and I do want to note on that number two they have not paid any funds out on that. Number three is the correction department with waste disposal services. Number four is health department with stroke registry medical record abstraction services. Number five on page 13 this is with
the boys shelter this is for qualified residential treatment program services for DCFS clients statewide. Number six is emergency shelter services as well as number seven. Number eight on page 14 is for adding certified nurse assistants to the contract for nursing services to residents of the five human development centers. Number nine is for residential sex offender treatment for juveniles. Number 10 is for community-based services, sanctioned programs, diversion programs,
transformation services, et cetera, for one of the judicial districts. On page 15, contracts number 11 through 17, these are all going to be contract amendments for the insurance department with various agencies on aging, and they help work with Arkansas Medicare beneficiaries and their caregivers to navigate and compare options for Medicare services and systems. That takes us over to page 19 and then we have contracts number 18 and number 19 are both for the nursing
department nursing board one is they're both for nurse investigators and reporting of those investigations number 20 is UALR this is for alcohol and other drug abuse prevention services number 21 this is veterans fairs with pharmacy care of Arkansas this is for pharmacy services for their Fayetteville and North Little Rock VA homes number 22 workforce services this is to assist families in reaching self-sufficiency this is part of what is offered through TANF program
those are the in-state contracts on today's agenda all right
Speaker 38
35:21
members are there any questions All right, seeing none and without objection, these
Speaker 4
35:27
items will stand as reviewed. Mr. Chairman, the next group of things that we have today are reports and communications. The first one, F1, this is a report that is provided by Office of State Procurement, and per Act 417 of 2019 that we passed recently is service contracts amendments without a material change.
The subcommittees will receive a report of that and may request a contract be included in another part of the agenda for discussion at the meeting. I do want to report that I did receive a call from a member of the subcommittee who requested these contracts be provided to the committee. So in item G, we will see these contracts in the form that you're used to seeing them in and look at them that way. Moving on, though, F2 is the report beginning on page 8 of this F section for the Medicaid non-emergency transportation report.
This is the August report, and last month the committee requested some changes to that report, which should be reflected on that new report. F-3 is, excuse me, F-3 begins on page 21. This is going to be the contracts, executed contracts under the thresholds for both, all the services contracts. F-4 is a report also that we received from the Office of State Procurement.
This is an emergency procurement report. There's only one item on this. It's for ADEQ, where they had to purchase temporary flood barrier installation when they had the recent flooding on the Arkansas River for $27,404.41. And then F5, another report begins on page 26. This is the report on the Optum assessments that
are being done by DHS. So those are the reports on today's agenda. And the only other item we have is the listing of the contracts, which is in item G from our original F-1 report. All right, members,
Speaker 39
37:49
seeing no questions and without objection, those items will stand as reviewed.
Speaker 4
38:02
So item G is, as I said, we received a request from a legislator to take a look at the contracts that were listed in F1. So item G is those contracts. Most of these contracts that are being reported by OSP are contracts where there's $0 being added to the contract, but the way the contract provided by OSP looked, it was kind of confusing. we had some questions also the terms of the contracts were not updated on the report that
we were seeing but those are the contracts that have been provided meeting that new criteria for no material change all right members any questions all right seeing none those items will
Speaker 61
38:50
stand as reviewed and Kathy where were we at with the
Speaker 45
38:57
that's it all right members we are adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order - Comments from Chairs
C. Methods of Finance
D. Discretionary Grants
E. Services Contracts for Legislative Review
F. Reports and Communications
G. Contract Amendment - Renewals/Extensions with No Material Change - Member Requested for Discussion
H. Other Business
I. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — ALC - REVIEW, Oct 15, 2019 | Agenda | 2 | Official source ↗ |
| B1 Land Purchase Agreement Disclosure | Exhibit | 9 needs OCR | Official source ↗ |
| C MOFs | Exhibit | 2 | Official source ↗ |
| D Grants | Exhibit | 6 | Official source ↗ |
| E Contracts | Exhibit | 20 | Official source ↗ |
| F Reports and Communications | Exhibit | 31 | Official source ↗ |
| G Contract Amendment RenewalsExtensions with No Material Change Member Requested for Discussion | Exhibit | 9 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Speaker 2
Speaker 3
Speaker 4
Speaker 6
Representative Jim Dotson
Unverified
Speaker 10
Speaker 12
Speaker 15
Cam Patterson
Unverified
Speaker 20
Speaker 21
Speaker 27
Chair
Unverified
Representative Jack Fortner
Unverified
Speaker 33
Speaker 35
Speaker 39
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
Speaker 49
Lee Watson
Unverified
Speaker 38
Speaker 69
Speaker 68
Speaker 80
Speaker 91
Speaker 61
Speaker 45