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Speaker 2
6:30
Good morning folks. Thanks for being here and I see a quorum and with
Speaker 3
6:47
that we're going to get started. Mr. Chairman, item B are communications. These items B1 through B5 require no action. They're reports to the committee. Items B1A and B1B are quarterly reports from state agencies and higher
Speaker 4
6:59
education institutions for the second quarter of FY20.
Average number of state employees for this quarter was 30,628. Average number of employees
Speaker 3
7:08
for higher ed institutions for the second quarter was 29,146. I'll take any questions about that report, Mr. Chairman. Representative
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
7:22
total number of increase of employees in this quarter but that's on here no sir uh no sir the it's not
Speaker 10
7:32
an increase in employees actually what we've
Speaker 4
7:36
what we've shown is uh the last month of the quarter showed three uh 30,581 so the number i gave you just a second ago was an average that's what we're supposed to report is an average But if you compare the last month of quarter two, which is $30,581, to the last month of quarter one, it was $30,675. So we actually dropped by
Speaker 3
7:58
not quite 100 employees from last month of the first quarter to the last month of the second quarter. Okay. Mr.
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
8:05
Chairman, can I get or can the staff provide me with those numbers on what agency that was dropped from?
Speaker 4
8:13
Could I get that? Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, sir. I'll get with you after the meeting. Part of it is in the report, in the data, in the detail of that report, but I can get you the actual monthly reports if you would like to look at those so you can look at
Speaker 20
8:29
each agency month to month. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 3
8:43
Members, are there any additional questions? Okay, if not, we'll continue on. Mr. Chairman, item B2 and B3 on pages 14 through 19. These are reports from the Department of
Higher Education and the Office of Personnel Management detailing the use of director's discretion, labor market adjustments, special entry rates for exceptionally well-qualified candidates, and the use of existing administration grids as reviewed by this committee and authorized in Arkansas Code 215201 through 215225, and then again in 215-1410 to 1411. These are the the codes that pertain to each of the state agencies and then to the departments of higher ed institutions. Members, I'll give
Representative Mark Lowery
Unverified
9:29
And Representative Lowry, I believe you have a question. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have some questions. Generally speaking, related to b3 uh i know we don't have anything on here specific to uh director's discretion reports but i just first wanted to say to miss barnhill that i appreciate the report that was given i believe it was given to all members of the personnel it was requested at the
previous meeting or maybe meeting before that giving us a breakdown of the the historical perspective of director's discretion and so i have a series of questions about that if you're if you're ready or or miss fetcher whoever would be most appropriate to answer those questions you want me
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
10:20
to just go ahead and say what the question is first and then you'll decide whether
Representative Mark Lowery
Unverified
10:25
we'll see if we need help okay well just looking at the an analysis of uh of that report uh it
appears and again it you know it it is labeled as director's discretion and so my my curiosity is that I'm assuming directors do not make these requests under their discretion if they know that it's going to put them over budget or it's going to put them over the number of personnel positions they have yet only two out of every three directors discretion items are approved so i
would like to know what is the criteria that is used in making the one-third denials okay let
Speaker 37
11:12
me preface this by saying that this just uh summarizes the request that actually made it to opm i think the directors have
Speaker 39
11:19
even more requests from inside their departments and some of them don't make it all the way to opm but those that make it to opm here's our primary criteria our first criteria is that this person has taken on the duties of another position that has been eliminated
okay so basically we've managed to cut down the position but we've assigned those duties to another employee and so we're trying to give that employee some compensation for taking on those additional duties the second reason for director's discretion is what we call they can hire on the pay plan up 15% above the minimum and that requires no review by OPM so they also do that the reason for the one in three that may be disapproved is a lot of times directors submit
it to us for really good employees it's almost a performance related request versus meeting that criteria of elimination of positions you've got some employees that have performed at a very high level the director wants to give them increase but that does not meet the criteria of why we actually award that is supposed to be rewarded during
Speaker 31
12:30
the performance evaluation process okay um follow up mr chair go ahead
Representative Mark Lowery
Unverified
12:37
sir thank you um in in looking at it uh an additional deep dive it
seems that some agencies have a higher percentage of success in their request being approved okay than others specifically it seems like most agencies under the umbrella of DFA get a high percentage of their requests approved as opposed to other agencies and again I'm curious when when you say that there's criteria that's used to deny the director's discretion
request are those uh decisions on approval versus disapproval are those done in consultation with the directors in other words is there sometimes presented to them well we can approve one but we can't approve the other which one would you choose is there any is that kind of consultation taking place um
Speaker 39
13:41
generally not generally the director makes that request to us first the consultation
i look at is i may call the agency back and say we can't do these because you haven't eliminated enough positions or uh we don't you know we can't approve one own performance but in some cases there's a group that come in from an agency and some of them may have been due to the elimination position and some of them may be due to other reasons but it's not a process we don't try to do this as a labor market process we've got another avenue to address what we call labor market issues but um i mean i'm not going to say i haven't ever consulted with somebody and said
you know we can you know we can't do all of yours you know you need to tell me what your top priority is
Representative Mark Lowery
Unverified
14:26
in some case well and that the reason i ask that question is because it concerns me if if it this process is being used to appease an employee, you know, to say, well, I'm going to put you in for this, but there's kind of a wink and a nod with OPM that, you know, OPM, we want you to be the bad guy.
Speaker 39
14:48
guy. Well, I think that does occur sometimes. I mean, not so
much since we've transformed. These secretaries look at it very carefully. So before it gets to a secretary that's gone through maybe an agency director's review and some other review internal to that organization i think it used to be we'll see what happens you know get over to opm and we'll see what happens but
Representative Mark Lowery
Unverified
15:11
i don't find that so much with our new organization yeah well and that can be disconcerting if there's that discretion especially when uh at least in some anecdotal situations that i'm aware of explanation was not given to the employee whose director's discretion
was not approved was not improved there's no there there's absolutely no explanation there's no uh here are the criteria and it only met two of the three or or
Speaker 49
15:37
whatever right and um we generally will tell people that
Speaker 39
15:43
the departments that we work with why something was not approved we don't hold back on why things weren't approved so i don't know how that message is then relayed back to see we're not
Speaker 55
15:54
we're not given very much detail either i mean there's so many things in here that
Representative Mark Lowery
Unverified
16:00
we have review authority over for instance if a agency head wants to
turn back two positions to be able to create another one right it's pro forma that we approve it but at least we have review authority right we don't seem to have any review authority over discretion director's discretion decision making and yeah yeah this is a report we
Speaker 48
16:19
provide to y'all right is there a reason
Representative Mark Lowery
Unverified
16:22
we do not have that kind of maybe tony can answer that why we do not have any review authority over that particular aspect well when when the class
Speaker 3
16:34
and comp bill was written the the latest iteration of it um that was that
Speaker 6
16:39
was the request to have this type of authority provided to the agency directors, now the secretaries, to be able to have some
Speaker 3
16:48
discretion. And the committee at the time, personnel committee, and then JBC, because this was during a session, reviewed that, looked at it, and approved that. So that's why it is, now that's not saying it couldn't be changed through a session, through a code change,
Speaker 6
17:05
but that's why it's done that way, is because the authority is provided in code to the agency directors okay
Speaker 37
17:13
may i add representative lowry when the law
Speaker 39
17:15
was written and this law was just passed in 2017 that actually recognized director's discretion part of the reason we left it that way is because department secretaries or directors did not have any ability to restructure within their organization without having to come over here and sometimes that was six weeks to eight weeks later so that's why we set that very definite criteria of you know the elimination
position or you know at the hiring rate so we could do that and we that's why we look at them so carefully because you have delegated this authority to us and we try very hard to make sure we're doing this in a
Speaker 31
17:53
consistent fashion i i know i've gone on i just have one last question go ahead thank
Representative Mark Lowery
Unverified
17:59
you very much the in in looking again at the report that was given to us and we appreciate you've given us the data it does also seem to bear out that there is a higher percentage of
approval for directors discretion requests at the higher levels of the pay scale and not the lower levels and that's that's disconcerting to me because we take so much pride in our boots on the ground employees the ones that are most interacting with our constituents and taking care of our constituents requests of why we're we're not doing more especially if a director recognizes that that that lower lower level or lower pay scale employee is deserving of the
director's discretion request and yet uh there's a much lower approval rate is there any explanation what we do what we
Speaker 44
18:57
can do to maybe change that yeah i don't
Speaker 39
19:02
the intent is not to reward your higher level employees looking flipping through this report we got a lot of grade four six and sevens which are kind of our mid-range of the pay plan here um so we did quite a few for those particular grade levels. I think sometimes what happens when they eliminate a position,
they say, we're going to give it to your manager to take over, and that may be why you have some of the higher graded positions, but there's no intent to make this an instrument for our highest paid positions. The intent is to do exactly like you said, to reward employees who take on additional duties at any
Speaker 28
19:38
level with an organization. All right. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And the chair
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
19:46
recognizes my co-chair, Representative Wooten. mr barnhill did it did i understand correctly that you may be used as the bad guy to turn
somebody down for a raise is that is that you're you're telling me that we have uh 250 300 000 employees who have to come to you no i don't think no i
Speaker 64
20:07
just thinking that that's just kind of historically the role
Speaker 39
20:11
of OPM. People have said, well, we'll send it on over and see what happens. I don't
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
20:18
think that's a proper role for you to be playing. I mean, if they don't have the gumption to stand up and tell an employee you're not getting a raise, they don't need
to be in that job. I wouldn't argue with that. Is that not, that's putting you in
Speaker 40
20:37
a very awkward position. It has before, but like I said, Things have improved tremendously, and I think with the new organization
Speaker 39
20:44
and with the secretaries, they take a very rigid look at this and take it very seriously. So I have not noticed that at all since we—
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
20:51
Gosh, I didn't know that was—when I was out there, I didn't know that that was an option to get you all to say no
and keep me from being the bad guy. I just think that needs to be looked at very closely, and we guard against that. Right. Thank
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
21:17
you, Mr. Chairman. Are there any other questions? Yes, sir. Go ahead. Thank you. Okay, based on what you said a while ago, is the only reason that OPM would deny a request from a director is because it falls outside of the criteria like the 15% that you mentioned a while ago?
Speaker 39
21:35
Yes. Okay. The director's discretion increases to current employees are limited to 10%. When an agency hires a new employee to a position, a director can go up to 15% above the entry level of that position. Not 15% above the employee salary, but 15% above the entry level of the position.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
21:58
Okay, let me rephrase my question. The only reason you would turn down a request is because it falls outside of the policy that directs whether or not that director can do that
or not you you don't interject do you interject your views as opm or and that's what i'm trying to get down
Speaker 39
22:22
to no we don't interject our views we just review the request to make sure we're that we're comfortable with it at that point it meets
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
22:31
some criteria okay and do we i don't remember seeing it maybe it's there and i just forgot it in the stack but do we get in our regular monthly reports a list of those that you have said no to
Speaker 39
22:43
no sir we only submit those that have been approved i'm sorry we only submit to you those director discretion that have been approved we do not submit the ones that were disapproved So how difficult
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
22:56
would it be for you to bring that every month so we could look at it and then question you as far as why?
Speaker 37
23:02
I mean, we keep a record. That's why we were able to provide this report, so it's not difficult. We just have
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
23:09
not done that previously. Okay. Mr. Chair, could we
consider adding that to the list of what we get?
Absolutely. All right. Thank you. Thank you,
Speaker 2
23:24
Mr. Chair. and are there any additional questions if not then we'll move
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
23:32
on well I'm sorry go ahead central yeah I just want to get a clarification to feel comfortable about so if somebody has not somebody was not granted the higher salary or whatever and is that still just public record I just want to be comfortable with the
personnel part of this like the report you would just ask
about from from Senator Hammer uh-huh is that just public information there are no
Speaker 40
24:01
personnel issues with that no ma'am it most of that information is is
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
24:11
FOI okay all right All right. Thank you. And the chair recognizes Senator Hemmer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Got
one other one. Kay, what if an employee has been given additional duties that are not directly related to the elimination of another job,
and they're just given extra duties? is that considered in what consideration do you give to the director as far as whether to accept that request or not sometimes
Speaker 39
24:41
that is the fact that sometimes additional duties are awarded but they have to be delineated as to what those duties are and we have to see where they were being performed or were not previously expected of a particular position
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
24:56
okay so the report that if the chairs allow
you're going to start providing to us then if we see that there's an
individual we could ask you the specifics of why OPM turned that down and you should be able to provide that to us.
Speaker 39
25:14
Yes sir and let me be very clear about the additional duty statement. Every job description in state government has an ending sentence that states performs additional duties as assigned so when we say uh additional duties it's not just like doing some extra for a day or two or doing some it's when there's some something substantive that they can reflect such
as a piece of legislation that required a new uh review of a process or something along those lines that's what we look at when we actually are reviewing this but it's not like just well you had to answer the phone that day or something like this it has to be something that can be delineated and you can see where it was not previously performed or had been performed by someone else sure and not to
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
25:59
call anybody's actions into question here but i think as a legislator i would rather deal with it on a monthly basis so i could question you individually then for
it to pile up and then we have to do a deeper dive because um as other duties assigned has a lot of latitude that a lesser employee could be dumped on by a higher ranking employee and there wouldn't be a whole lot that they could do about it. I know we got to achieve balance here but I'd rather be transparent and have that information on a regular basis where we could question as we go along. Thank you. Thank you. And Senator Hammer I'm
Speaker 93
26:38
going to take that your your thoughts under
Speaker 28
26:43
consideration and I'm going to talk with you after after the meeting today thank you any
Speaker 3
26:54
other questions okay moving on Mr. Chairman item B4 is a report from the Department of Higher Ed that details institutions request for new provisional positions provisional positions are created using other monies which may include grants donations or other unanticipated funds these are temporary positions that are authorized under Arkansas Code 663.305. Each institution has provided a number
of these for several different general purposes. There are 46 new provisional positions approved by DHE, 42 positions at three of the four-year institutions and four positions at two of the two-year institutions. This leaves the institutions with 2,999 available for the fiscal year. And again, these are temporary positions generally based in grant money that the institutions are receiving. Mr. Chairman, I'll take any questions on that report.
Speaker 4
27:48
questions? Seeing none, I'll move on. Mr. Chairman, item B5 is a quarterly caseload and vacancy Report for Parole Probation Officers at the Department of Correction Division of Community
Speaker 3
28:11
Correction. The report identifies 30 vacant parole officer positions as of the end of December and shows the average caseload at 92 cases per officer. That's the average across the different
areas. The highest caseload is in Area 10 at 106 cases per officer. The lowest caseload is in Area 13 at 79 cases per officer. And Mr. Chairman, I'll take any questions if there are any. Senator Elliott. Senator Elliott.
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
28:57
Well, I thought somebody was coming to the... Okay. I was just giving somebody a turn. I wasn't asleep, Mr. Chair.
Although I could easily be asleep. All right. Great. Is
Speaker 107
29:17
it okay to proceed? Introduce yourself, please. Elizabeth
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
29:21
Taylor, Deputy Director, Probation Parole. Thank you. Taylor, did
you say? Yes. Okay. Ms. Taylor, I'm just wondering, we did add some parole officer positions in the last budget round of whatever it was here sometime back.
Yes. So, are these 30 vacancies in any way informed by
the new positions we added, or is there something else behind the 30 vacancies? Actually, as of February 16th, we're down to 21 vacancies.
Speaker 112
29:51
these all right but are any of those do we have some of the new
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
29:58
ones though that we've never filled is all I'm trying to get at we created them after a lot of uh stern and drum and all
that yes to answer your question yes you filled all no
Speaker 116
30:16
not all of them we're down to a total of 21. Um, I wouldn't be able to tell you if those 30 were,
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
30:28
or not. Okay. Now that you're down to 21 and I, and which is that's, that's progress. Um,
do we know, and we try to capture this every time. Do we know what the issues are still? Cause we never seem to
be able to just get ourselves on strong footing and keep going forward here. We've got the extra positions. What's the holdup do
Speaker 116
30:52
you think? I believe our director said last time he was here he's never seen it below 17 and vacant positions and as long as he can remember and I can't remember ever being below that also. 21 is actually pretty good. Well I
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
31:11
take your point on what you're saying but when we got the new 30 positions the ratio was still out was outlandish at that
point and we've gotten the new ones and the ratio was down I guess depending on you know where you are too as well so what I'm getting at if we were to say we add 20 more even right now are we learning more and more as people come and go why it is if we need the 17 what's the hold up for being able to fill them is what I'm
Speaker 121
31:49
trying to get to well I will tell you this caseloads increase
Speaker 116
31:52
but we are doing actually a very good job on moving low-risk offenders to medium and annual supervision and we also have an in-touch app that the offenders can use on their smartphones that we can move offenders to to report on and that is why our numbers are 92 to 1 which is I believe what they were last month. Now you're right on the edge of telling me that these are positions
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
32:17
you don't need. That is not what you mean. No, I'm never going to say that.
Okay. Anything else you can tell me about? We've got these positions. We could use them. We could fill them, but we're not able to. That's all I'm trying to get to. And I see
your director over there who maybe wants to help out, too, if that's okay, Mr. Chair. I will take the answers
Speaker 126
32:49
from anybody. Yeah, that's Wendy. Yeah, she's going to step in here. Yeah. Good morning.
Speaker 129
32:57
Wendy Kelley, I'm Secretary for the Department. Thank you. I just wanted to add, Senator Elliott, that Mr. Bradshaw and his staff are trying diligently to fill all of these positions.
It's not that they don't need them. And I believe back in the summer the caseloads were at 106 per officer, so 92 is much better. but they still have positions where they are trying to fill the vacancies particularly in area one they've had a hard time i don't know if it's reflected on here but there's so much competition in that part of the state that we're looking at um doing an i forget what you call that a differential geographical differential so that we can pay a little bit more to fill some of those
positions where the population is really exploding and last thing
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
33:42
i'll let this go mr chair i think maybe this will be the last thing so do we know that
the differential is the thing that's going to make the difference to stack those words
Speaker 129
33:55
it has worked in the past for the division of correction when we've added differentials at areas where they were hard to fill and so i believe that it will at the time that we first discussed it with director bradshaw who's out today or he would be here he wanted to wait and let things level out with the new
positions, but I do see the emails that he's sending out and Ms. Taylor can verify that they are working diligently to fill all of these positions and they are needed. They have some caseload areas where they're higher than others, but in Pulaski County and in the northwest part of the state, the population continues to grow as we are able to release more people from prison and they're in the re-entry centers there's just a more of a need to have those officers supervise them in the community well i i just
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
34:46
want to be clear that i'm trying to get information so
that we as legislators are able to do our job like i'll just wait for
Speaker 129
35:04
a second here okay i'm sorry um mr graves who is my chief of staff okay is reminding me that um community corrections did a differential in area eight and it did make
Speaker 141
35:13
a difference in them being able to keep those staffing levels up and that is the central arkansas area so what we're looking at
now is a differential for the northwest corner of
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
35:23
the state well when somebody you don't have to do But now, can somebody give me information on what kind of difference did it make?
Because that's something that makes sense to me. You don't have to do it right now. You can just, because everybody, other people have questions too, I'm sure. But when we say it made a difference, I want to know, because I know one of the things I keep hearing from parole officers is that it's working conditions as much as anything else that they leave. And I want to be sure that we just don't assume that money is the issue.
I think it will help because they don't get paid enough. But I think we're maybe missing something when we assume that is the reason, because I keep hearing something far beyond that from the officers themselves.
Speaker 142
36:06
Yes, ma'am. We'll get you the information on
Speaker 127
36:09
the date that the differential went into effect and the
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
36:11
vacancies before and after. All right. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker 93
36:14
Chair. And thank you. Thank you. And the chair recognizes
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
36:19
Senator Hammer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Madam Secretary, can you refresh my memory? Do you do exit interviews of individuals that leave employment and seek jobs elsewhere? Yes, sir, we do. Are those
a matter of public record or that part of their personnel file that can't be reviewed by, say, us
Speaker 129
36:38
as legislators? We have sent those to individual legislators that have requested
Speaker 28
36:42
them in the past. Okay, very good. Thank you. You're welcome. And the
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
36:50
chair recognizes Representative Fielding. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Would the chair, would you mind if my question is concerning on B4? Would the chair allow me to go back and ask a question about B4?
Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. On B4, Tony, all those employees that you were saying that was temporary employees? Yes, sir. Are any of those employees
Speaker 146
37:17
turned over to full-time employees? It's possible that
Speaker 4
37:21
they can. It depends on the institution. It depends on the employee. Generally, the position. Would they be in
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
37:29
the quarter report up and down? I'm sorry. Will they be in the quarter report that
shows whether there's an increase or decrease?
Speaker 3
37:39
Yes, sir. If they slide them out of a provisional position and put them into a regular position at the institution, then yes
Speaker 4
37:46
their their number of employees would go up in in the quarterly employment report yes you
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
37:54
differently how would they be identified in a report if i look at report and i know this employee came from the
Speaker 4
38:00
we had on the quarterly report there is a for institutions there is a a regular position then the employees in regular positions and then there's the number of provisional positions and the employees in provisional positions so you would
see if one left left the provisional and went to went to a regular you the next month you would see a difference a negative you know when you'd see a drop by one in the provisional and an increase by
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
38:27
one in the in the regular position number of employees so in some of these positions it's got uh toll remaining
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
38:36
you're oh i'm sorry no this from 2019 to 20, I'm looking at one that's got 244 total number of positions remaining. Okay, so
Speaker 3
38:44
in code, right now, each institution has a number of these provisional positions that they're assigned. They have, whether it's 100 or 500, depends on the institution. UAMS and UAF have a lot more than maybe SAU or UAM might have, okay? And so when they access these, then they take them off of what's available. So let's say they start out with 500 and they use 100, so you have 400 still available. And that's what that's telling you, is that they've accessed a certain number and this is how many they have left. Okay.
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
39:16
So in a report, I can see those who came out of this pool
who went into the full-time pool. You're not
Speaker 3
39:23
going to see the individual person, like you're not going to know that it was John Smith, but you'll see the count decreased by one and increased by one. If you're looking at an institution from month A to month B, yes, you would see a difference, you know, but you've got to also remember that in that institutions and agencies are hiring and letting people go all the time. And the provisionals are going to be the same way. Provisional, if an institution has an employee that is doing research and maybe they leave the
institution prior to the end of the grant to go somewhere else or do something else, that they would drop out but maybe they get somebody else to come in and fill that position in that interim so and that may happen within the same month so you may not even see a drop in a gain you may it may you know show 100 employees in month a and then show 100 employees in month b even though you had a person leave and another person come on because we're we're just looking at the totals we're actually looking at the changing we're just kind of catching the totals
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
40:29
we're trying to accomplish. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll give
Speaker 157
40:34
it to Tony afterward. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Moving back
Speaker 159
40:47
to Bravo 5, Representative Scott. Can you hear me? Okay. Area 2 and Area 10 that still have
Speaker 160
40:54
above the 92. what areas is that? Area two is going to be Hot Springs, Benton, Malvern, Sheridan,
Arkadelphia. Yeah that's ten and then two is going to be your Mountain Home, Harrison, Melbourne, up in that area. So I have a follow-up? Go ahead. Okay
Speaker 164
41:18
is there anything being done to kind of look at extra efforts to get that caseload down? I know we're you're struggling trying to find staff but particularly those two areas
Speaker 116
41:28
that yeah we we regularly look at our caseloads and move people around when people leave we'll look to
see if we need to replace that officer in that in that area or move it to a different area area 10 has been exploding okay is there
Speaker 164
41:46
a goal like within the year like say July or September that we can look to see that these numbers are where the other numbers are caseload wise is there something we can do yes okay okay representative scott are you finished
Speaker 28
42:12
thank you and the chair recognizes representative tasha
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
42:24
thank you mr. chair madam secretary senator elliott may have addressed this in her question i had a little trouble hearing back here so i just want to make sure for clarification how many vacancies do we currently have in as in our probation and parole officers 21 21 and i think the question was asked i couldn't i couldn't hear the answer
are those 21 is that part of the 30 that we authorize additional hires for that agency that is of our total repeat that
Speaker 129
43:03
we don't have that answer for you but i think most of those were filled uh that i think the vacancies they have now are where somebody has left after they've been in the position because at the end of december we had 30 vacancies and now we have 21 and i think those
are new vacancies that have opened up since that time
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
43:22
okay thank you mr chair follow up go ahead sir with the vacancies as they exist now and i think you said 21 what does that put the span of control at as far as the number of parolees that each probation and parole officer has to supervised. Where do we
Speaker 160
43:42
stand as of today? Well, the average is
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
43:44
92. So that's the average. So what would, if we, when we get the 21 additional officers hired, what would be our, what would
be our span of control at that time for these
Speaker 175
43:58
probation officers? Well, I, I, I couldn't
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
44:01
tell you. Could you tell me this? What is our target? Where do we want, where do we want to be as far is the number of parolees that probation officers supervise. Can
Speaker 178
44:21
you tell me that? Okay. Actually, best practice nationwide is 60.
Say that again. I'm sorry. 60. 60? 60 is best practice.
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
44:35
That's what we would like to be. I got you. So that's what I was curious about. where will we be? Could you get me that information? I'd like to know where we will be when we get the additional 21 vacancies filled. What will then be the number of parolees that each of our probation and parole officers will be responsible for supervising? And I want to see how close we are to that target. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate
Speaker 94
44:58
it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The chair. Thank you, Dwight. I'd like to see that information too that's
Speaker 128
45:07
good that's a good question yes sir we'll send it to you um
Speaker 129
45:10
as mr bradshaw said when he was here before he's never seen the vacancies under 17 yes you know and as we release more people from prison there the case numbers grow for that so it's always going to be somewhat fluid but we will give you a number if all positions were filled and the caseload was what it is right now I understand. Thank you. Yes, sir.
Speaker 28
45:30
And the chair recognizes Senator Chesterfield. Thank you,
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
45:34
Mr. Chair. And I don't want to belabor the point, but I'm concerned because as we look at this caseload, and we're talking about the Harrison area, and we're talking about the Bryant, what were the areas, the area names? Was it Benton, Garland County, Hot Springs? was it those were the areas where you had the most area two and ten
Speaker 129
46:00
were the areas that were two and ten they were harrison and
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
46:05
give me give me the give me the names hot springs and that's in one area and what's the other area okay in the numbers uh-huh the names
Speaker 116
46:21
of the places okay so area two is going to be mountain home okay harrison melbourne uh mountain home mountain view so that's where you
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
46:27
have the highest caseload or is that where you think you'll need the differential no the differential would
Speaker 116
46:40
differential they're not there it would be in area one which is going to be fayetteville and rogers it's going to be benton and matt and uh
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
46:49
washington county but is the caseload above in those areas in in those two areas it's above 92 okay but you don't need anybody else over there that's what I'm not understanding if the caseload is higher in those areas it would seem to me that you would need more persons there and yet you are
telling me that you need them in northwest Arkansas instead of straight up north and down in Garland County I don't I don't understand that we
Speaker 142
47:19
don't currently have any vacancies in area two but your caseload is higher yes ma'am and we have
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
47:25
one in area 10 well why don't you need more people if the caseload is higher what
Speaker 129
47:33
that doesn't make sense to me what they've been attempting to do is move positions so if you have a place where there is a low caseload and somebody leaves for whatever reason then instead of advertising it there they're
moving it to where they have the higher caseload so they will be doing that for those areas where they have high caseloads and sometimes you have a specialty court officer in that area and say if there's not 40 people is that the right number that's right 40 people 40 people in drug court or whatever the specialty court is then they give them part of a regular caseload in order to even it out and i get lost
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
48:11
in numbers and i'm not trying to be confusing but no sense to me and I mean, but what I'm trying to understand is if our ideal is 60 and you got 92 and then
you got higher in these two areas, but you don't need anybody else, that doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 129
48:32
Again, the numbers change a lot because people get released or they come back. And the areas, the only area that they have a differential right now is area eight, which is central Arkansas. That's the only place where they're paying more.
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
48:46
I get the fact. Y'all keep going back to money. I'm talking about people. If my caseload is higher in Harrison than it is someplace else, why am I not moving more people to Harrison than I am someplace else?
That is what would make sense to me to reduce the
Speaker 129
49:04
caseload. And we are moving people. I'm sorry that I'm not being
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
49:08
clear, Senator. Thank you. That's about as clear as mud, but
Speaker 160
49:14
I won't belabor the point. thank you okay so one of the things our agency
Speaker 116
49:19
does is not all offenders are counted the same because they have different risk assessments okay so those that are maximum supervision we spend much more time with and those that are on medium or say minimum supervision or annual so sometimes when the numbers
look like we have more in a particular area we don't necessarily need more staff half because the supervision is quite a bit lower. Thank you. And the chair
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
49:46
recognizes Senator Hamer. Thank you. Would you refresh my memory? When somebody's discharged, I've
heard the term population explosion two or three times in the discussion. When somebody is discharged, are they free to move to another part of the state or they got to stay in close proximity to where they were discharged from?
Speaker 160
50:04
They can move anywhere. They're totally off of supervision. They can
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
50:08
move out of state. Okay, so when you talk about population explosion, are you talking about the number of people that, like Northwest Arkansas, population is exploding, or is it the population of the inmates is exploding because what we've done has released them back out, and that is contributing to the load?
Speaker 116
50:26
Actually, it's both. In Area 1, it's the actual population of the state that is exploding. In Area 10, it's the population of offenders that are being placed on probation and the ones coming out of the penitentiary.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
50:40
So it would seem to me it might be a little bit hard for you guys to have predictors because, I mean, it's a fluid population that once they get out, they could live somewhere one week and they could move to another. How much movement is there among those that's attributing to you having to figure out where to have the right people in the right place? Well, we look at
Speaker 116
51:03
it on a monthly basis. And every time someone leaves the agency, we look to see if we need to put that person back in that office or if
Speaker 160
51:12
we need to move it to a different location.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
51:15
So if we get into pay differential, it may be good for today, but three or four months or a year down the road, it could be different because the population that's being discharged from prison are fluid and they're moving all around. So I'm wondering about, you know, I don't want to get to where we are in a unfair positioning of the differential because that population moves around a lot. Should we just look at pay differential across the board to everybody, or how soon will it
be that we're having to do that because of the shifting
Speaker 129
51:56
of the people? I think that's part of the reason Director Bradshaw wanted to wait on a pay differential for the Area 1, was he wanted to see what was going to happen with the population
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
52:08
and the staff that's up there. To see if they stay up there, if they gravitate back
Speaker 129
52:13
to some other part of the state or out of the state altogether. Yes, but they are monitoring it and making decisions every time there's an open position as to where it should go, and there is, in some areas, the officers are more likely to
get someone moved to annual supervision, which is less time-intensive, so those count differently when you're looking at where do you need positions. There's a different report that they look at that gives the points for the offenders that are on max, medium, and annual supervision. but it is something that they look at and those reports come out every day for mr bradshaw and his staff to look at all right
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
52:49
and that pay differential is assigned to the area not to the person in the area so maybe i'm living in northwest arkansas and i want to move to central
arkansas they may actually lose money by i'm talking about the employee okay the officer would lose money by moving so once they get to where they are there's no motive for them to relocate to anywhere part of the state if they're going to lose that pay differential because they move out. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. Okay. All right.
Speaker 28
53:24
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah. And the chair recognizes my co-chair, Representative Wooten.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
53:28
madam secretary i want to be sure
i understand i want to pursue representatives toff's line of questioning when we approved the 30 positions the caseload was 106 per that's what i recall it being
Speaker 128
53:53
back in the summer i don't know if miss taylor remembers what it was during the
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
53:59
session. Okay, but we approved 30 additional employees. Yes, sir.
Now the average is 92. Yes, sir. All right. Based on that, the national
Speaker 129
54:14
average is 60. Well, no, I didn't say that was the national. That's the best practice. That's what experts in the area say it should
Speaker 141
54:21
be. I don't know that there are, I don't know how many
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
54:26
states meet that. So what experts are we calling on to come up with some number like that?
Who gave you that number or where did that number come from? National Correctional Authorities or? Right,
Speaker 191
54:43
the National Institute of Corrections is one of them, but it's also with the. So, so following
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
54:50
that, we would need 30 additional ones to achieve the 60. Is that correct? 30 additional in addition to the 30 that you've gotten approved?
Speaker 129
55:10
Representative, at this point, we don't know that answer because the number changes every day, the number of people on supervision changes and they get released. some point we're
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
55:18
going to have to get a number because every meeting this comes up for discussion yes sir and you either you either don't have enough or you need more so we we need to we need an understanding about what is a number that we're shooting for yes sir
what is your goal and we are going to send it we
Speaker 129
55:38
can send it um to mr robinson to send out to all of you if you'd like
what it would be if all the positions were filled what and the current caseload stayed the same current number of people under supervision stay the same what would that
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
55:51
number be i realize that that that number is a given point in time on that given day yes sir how much would that deviate how many are you letting out
Speaker 128
56:03
we let out around 800 a year is that right 10 i'm
Speaker 129
56:10
it's just it's people come in we bring in sometimes we bring in 60 in one day and
at certain times of the month we may be letting out 60 it's you it just depends on who's eligible for release but i'm i apologize that the numbers are so fluid but they are and it depends on what the parole board does whether they are approving people that come up for release there's just a whole lot of
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
56:38
moving parts to monitor couldn't you can't you take
a five-year average and come up with an average release and and and then a step because what i'm what i'm trying to get to is
this this is occupying a lot of this committee's time at every meeting and so somewhere we've got to achieve a point to where the committee is satisfied and you're satisfied that we're adequately meeting the responsibility that we have to oversee these parolees and we're not doing that. Are we? I think so. You think that
92 parolees is an adequate number? I think we are doing an outstanding job with
Speaker 116
57:27
what we have. I'm sorry, I didn't understand you. I think we are
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
57:37
doing an outstanding job with what we have. But
that's not my question. What would it take to do, what would it take to adequately supervise the number of today that's out there?
Speaker 222
58:21
i think you understand what he's saying
Hang tight, we're calculating. All right.
Speaker 129
58:54
i'm sorry i was an english major we will get you that number but i can't make it work out
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
59:09
right now with my calculator all right i i hope you understand where i'm where
what i'm on yes sir i do because like i said this keeps coming before the committee and and and you know So the differentials and all of that and the number of officers, parole officers you had in the district, I could care less.
That's your call until it runs amok, and then it becomes our worry. So we need to know a number so this is not continually coming up before our committee. Yes, sir.
Thank you, Madam Secretary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes,
Speaker 159
59:54
sir. And Representative Scott. One more quick question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm concerned about the quality of monitoring that's being done with the parolees, I mean, the probation officers and the people that are
Speaker 164
1:00:05
supervising them. Like, what does an actual visit look like? Like, how, what's the length of time that somebody is actually spending with someone that has this amount on their caseload? And I also want to do a ride-along if that's possible. And I think somebody
Speaker 161
1:00:20
might want to go with me. yes absolutely um but
Speaker 164
1:00:23
I'm can someone tell me what I think we're just checking a box if somebody has like a hundred caseloads and I and I also want to figure out if there's a way that we can get to looking at offenders that are more high risk like how does someone look at somebody that's more high
risk and you monitor in on them that they might need more help and more services when you have a hundred on your caseload
Speaker 159
1:00:47
um is there anything you can tell me like is it like six minutes that a visit might be per caseload a month like does somebody really know like what the actual visit is like how long you're spending
Speaker 230
1:00:58
with that person so we do assessments on the individuals when they come out to determine whether or
Speaker 116
1:01:04
not they have drug problems mental health problems family problems just and then we determine what kind of services they need based on their risk
based on that it determines whether or not what type of supervision that they're going to be on whether a low risk supervision or on a higher level of supervision so based on their risk assessment is going to determine how long their visits are going to be visits are going to be the the you know are you still living at the same place have you been arrested have you gone to any of the programming that you had to go to do you have any documentation that your officer
needs to have? Did you get married? Have you moved? That kind of information. And then based on their level of supervision, officers go out and do checks on them, whether it's at their employer or at their jobs. I'm sorry, at their jobs or at their homes. And then, of course, drug testing is in there. So, I mean, there's a whole litany of things that go on based on the level of supervision that they're on.
Speaker 159
1:02:17
Okay, I can follow up offline to get just more
Speaker 157
1:02:22
information. Thank you, Representative Scott. Representative Mariah. Yes, sir. Thank
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:02:28
you, Mr. Chairman. You know, all along we've listened to Mr. Hammer about transparency. We're all held accountable for what we do here. Representative Fielding was asking a while ago about, you know, numbers and names and you have temporary workers that go over to being
full-time and all this and that, but it just looks like to me that how do you know who is doing things right unless you actually have a name that you can put on someone instead of a number, you know, you hear numbers, but you're not hearing names of who is going from part-time to full-time workers you know all we see is just numbers we can provide different reports if
Speaker 128
1:03:22
you would like we provide monthly to the board of corrections
Speaker 129
1:03:27
a report that tells them how many vacancies we have how many people were terminated how many people retired and what the bottom line number is those are all in our monthly reports that are available on our websites as well so we can give you something different in terms of we would still be giving you numbers not the individual's name but we can tell you like we would have been able if I had that we could answer the question that Senator Elliott started out with which is of those 21 are those the new positions we gave you and you never filled them or are those part of where
Speaker 128
1:03:57
you've had people live so we will be better prepared next time and we can submit it differently if you would like as well
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:04:08
go ahead sir okay uh well i just feel like that that what he what representative field is looking for he wants to know who is actually doing the job right and i believe that
he wants to know who is going from temporary workers to full-time and who are they
Speaker 129
1:04:27
okay well we don't have anybody that's going from temporary workers to full-time
in the department we we don't um because if you hire somebody to be an officer at community corrections you're going to have to send them through training school i mean they're going to be a certified law enforcement officer at the end of that training so you you can't hire a temporary person to do that but that was a different report i believe that
Speaker 3
1:04:58
representative fielding was asking about. Representative Rahe, Representative Fielding, the temporary employees were at institutions of higher education. And this is, these positions, all these parole probation
officers are full-time positions that they've got appropriated to them in their appropriation bills. So it's a totally separate discussion, just to
Speaker 6
1:05:13
make sure we're on the same page. Yes, sir. Go ahead, sir. Yes, sir.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:05:19
But what I'm saying is that may be true, but who are they? That's what we need to know. You want to know the names of
Speaker 128
1:05:29
all of our staff? That's right. Okay. We can get that to you. You're welcome.
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
1:05:38
And Senator Elliott. Mr. Chair, I just wanted to just
bring a little bit of clarification to that 60 number, because Representative Tosh and I and the chairs of judiciary served on the group from the CSG, Council of State Government, and the Pew Institute, and we spent several months studying specifically overcrowding, and they made three major recommendations for us, and we kind of did
what we normally do. These are the three things that will make the most difference, and we finally browbeat them down to if you only do just one, though, and they kept saying you should do three, But got them browbeaten down to do just one. What could make the most difference? And the answer we got out of that study is to decrease the parole-parole ratios. That would help more than anything else is what they said, if you're going to do one thing. And 60 came out of that as well.
So, because when we, and you're so right, we beat this to death at every meeting. And so what I want to assure everybody is it's not just because we're just talking about it. We have experts who tell us that we need to do this and that this is the thing that matters. And so at some point, I was hoping we could look at the whole thing about the parole and find out if somebody indeed is going to get a differential, say, to move to Mountain Pine or wherever.
Are they going to go? Is there something else? and it seems the only thing we're applying is a differential. That's what's concerning to me because I want to be helpful to this process and I don't want to keep on discussing it every time, but we've got to do more than what we're doing. It may not be anybody's fault, but together we ought to be able to find a solution. And so we're not just, I just want to assure Representative Wooden, we're not just making, that was a result of a long months of study. But it wasn't just legislators, there were people from all across the industry, so to speak.
Speaker 241
1:07:59
And Representative Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This 60 number sounds to me like it's
Speaker 242
1:08:07
a bit arbitrary if what you said earlier was that some parolees need more supervision than others. So depending on who's working in what area and what level of supervision the various parolees need,
At 60 is kind of, let's say, an officer could basically spend as much time with two people who need less supervision as they would with one who needs lots of supervision. Is that kind of what you're saying? So that 60 number could be kind of fluid. So I don't know how you're going to depict that in your ideal numbers.
Speaker 128
1:08:59
when we submit the report that's been requested if we filled all 21 positions we'll also give you
Speaker 129
1:09:12
the information that we monitor every day that has the points based on supervision levels and we'll try to make it as transparent as possible so that you see what we're seeing and what we're looking at but you're correct in that 60 that's just like if you're in a specialty court if you're
an officer in a specialty court we don't want you to have more than 40 okay because those people are being drug tested usually weekly sometimes more often and there's more services that are being provided and you're trying to make sure that they're going to those services and getting that treatment that they need so 40 is the number we look for there but the 60 number is what Ms. Taylor was saying across the country they say 60 is the best practice but for us for specialty courts we've determined that 40 is the best practice so but when we give you that number
and see how close we get to 60 on average we'll also give you those supervision levels and and how we make that up in terms of points what we consider so we wouldn't give Elizabeth wouldn't get 60 max people and me get 60 minimum people that absolutely would not be fair nor would we be doing what you pay us to do, but how we work those numbers out,
Speaker 128
1:10:26
but we'll try to get that all in the report that we'll
Speaker 142
1:10:29
provide through Mr. Robinson. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. And Senator Elliott, I just
Speaker 129
1:10:35
wanted to say that we just did another survey of our staff to find out why they
do stay, how they feel about things. We don't
Speaker 142
1:10:41
have the results of it yet, but we did an anonymous survey and that will be available soon. Thank you. And members, seeing no
Speaker 28
1:10:48
additional questions, I'm going to move us on, and Madam Secretary, I
Speaker 2
1:10:51
appreciate you and your staff being here today. We ask a lot of hard questions, and I appreciate the hard work that you all do. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Hammer. Can I make a
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:11:03
request to the Chair? Yes, sir. One of the things
I was going to want to ask, and maybe Kay can pull together before the next meeting,
we're talking about the employees and all that stuff, but part of this was driven by the idea that it was going to save money and improve the ability to account for those that are released. I'd like to get a snapshot of how much it has saved the department by the transition away from the old model to the new model up to now because if we are saving significant money, I think that'd be something to throw in the discussion about could we come up with more differential pay as a result of the savings because that was part of the discussion when we voted for that
is that it would help increase the efficiency of tracking the population of those released, but also the financial cost and opening up the beds to the prison. So if we could work offline to get that back at the next
Speaker 3
1:11:59
meeting, please. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Mr. Chairman, we're on to item C. Item C is both the report and request that requires action from committee. The Department of Higher Education is reporting the labor market rates, shift differentials, and certification differentials for review and renewal as they have been these have already
been through committee over the past year and they're asking for continuation of these so these are items and approvals that the agency or the higher ed has approved have been through have been reported to this committee or been reviewed by this committee previously and just need to be reviewed for the remaining of the fiscal year. And members, do you have
Speaker 94
1:12:40
any questions? Seeing none, we'll move on.
I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a
Speaker 3
1:13:06
second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? and it passes. All right, Mr. Chairman, item D is a request for two central growth pool positions at ASU Mountain Home. The institution is requesting one director of fiscal affairs to be responsible for accounting and human resources at the institution. These duties currently fall under the vice chancellor of operations who will take on different duties
due to reorganization at the institution, as well as the implementation of a new ERP system. They're also requesting a director of student retention who will be responsible working to retain students and increase academic success in order to meet the goals of the performance-based funding model. Representative Scott. Okay, approved. Is
Speaker 94
1:13:46
there a second? Second. Okay. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? And it passes. Mr. Chairman, item E
Speaker 3
1:13:59
is a request from North Arkansas College.
for education differential up to two percent for employees in the classifications listed on pages 55 and 56. Language will allow employees to receive salary increase after achieving additional education from an accredited institution or program that is directly related to their job duties and the classification is not or excuse me in the job duties is not a minimum qualification of the position. The code provides up to 10 percent but the institution is only requesting up to two percent.
Speaker 94
1:14:30
Members, do I have any questions on this? No questions. Do I have a motion? I have a motion.
Do I have a second? I have a second. All
Speaker 3
1:14:45
in favor? Aye. Any opposed? And it passes. Mr. Chairman, item F has been pulled at the request of Department of Higher Education, so we'll just skip on over F and go on to G. Item G is a second language differential for employees at the University of arkansas fayetteville who utilized spanish to communicate with students staff and visitors as part of their job duties there are five employees listed that would receive differential pay at this time four of them would receive 10 percent differential based on their fluency test
and one person would receive five percent based on their fluency level mr chairman if i'll take any questions
Speaker 94
1:15:15
and members do i have any questions i see no questions i have a motion do i have a second. I have a second. All in favor? Any
Speaker 3
1:15:30
opposed? And it passes. Mr. Chairman, item H. Item H is a request from the University of Central Arkansas to hire an exceptionally well-qualified applicant at a grade of C115 for a skilled tradesman classification. The applicant has 22 years
of maintenance and operations experience as well as electrician, high-pressure boiler, CDL, and contractor licenses. UCA is requesting to pay $45,000, which is above the midpoint of the grade, which requires review by committee. Members, are there any questions? And do
Speaker 94
1:15:58
I have a motion? I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a second. All in favor? Any opposed? And it passes.
Speaker 3
1:16:15
Mr. Chairman, item I is a request from the Department of Correction, Division of Community Correction. They're requesting three classifications for positions already approved by peer as a miscellaneous federal grant. The classifications are ADC DCC advisor at a grade GS05 and a substance abuse leader at a GS06. This is for the medication assisted treatment services as provided by the opioid response grant and these are
Speaker 6
1:16:39
temporary in nature as well since there are miscellaneous federal grant positions.
Speaker 2
1:16:46
Members, are there any questions? If not, do I have a motion?
Speaker 80
1:17:04
I have a motion. And I have a second. All in favor? Any opposed? You all
Speaker 3
1:17:12
have your word there for a second. and that passes all right mr chairman item j is a request from the public defender commission they're requesting two positions from the opm growth pool one system specialist and one public
defender program coordinator the addition of these two positions will significantly help the agency as they are currently without two employees who are on long-term leave for health reasons also the agency was given parent council program during the last session but received no administrative positions or support for the program. They believe that filling these two positions will allow them to cover for the employees on leave and better support their agency in the parent council program. Motion. Are
Speaker 94
1:17:47
there any questions? If not, I have a motion and a second. Seeing no questions, all in
Speaker 248
1:17:54
favor? Aye. Any opposed? And it passes.
Speaker 3
1:17:59
Mr. Chairman, item K is a request from
the Department of Veterans Affairs. They're requesting to surrender a public information coordinator at a GS07 in return for a public information manager at a grade GS09. The request stems from the implementation of the Blue Water Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019, which could create additional benefits for Arkansas veterans and surviving spouses. This will consist of a statewide media campaign, and the agency needs to be able to attract and maintain an employee with the skills necessary to oversee the program and the media
Speaker 28
1:18:29
campaign. Members, I'm going to say something here. When the federal government, the VA, passed
Speaker 2
1:18:34
the Blue Water Act that we're talking about,
it added a substantial amount of workload to both federal and state level. So that's, I'm assuming, the reason for this. Are there any
Speaker 94
1:18:43
questions? I've got a question. And we have one question from Senator. What
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:18:49
is the difference between a coordinator and a manager? Mr. Chairman, in this particular
Speaker 3
1:18:56
case, it's the job duties. They feel like they need the grade nine over the grade seven in order to pay to attract someone. I was questioning what is
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:19:08
the difference between a public information coordinator and a manager. Go ahead Kay. Can you answer that? Yes sir. Generally
Speaker 39
1:19:16
a coordinator is somebody that responds to the request a manager has employees working underneath them that they're
Speaker 40
1:19:25
having to lead. Manager. Yes. Yes sir. All
Speaker 265
1:19:31
right, sorry. Senator Hemmer. Okay, go ahead.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:19:36
I noticed, is this federally funded or has this got state funding in it?
Speaker 39
1:19:44
Mr. Booth is here from the department. They can answer, I think, specific questions. Colonel Todd, I didn't see. And
Speaker 94
1:19:59
if you will, please introduce yourselves. Good afternoon, legislators.
Speaker 269
1:20:05
Nate Todd, Secretary of the Salt Department of Veterans Affairs. Mr. Booth is our Chief of Staff and Chief Financial Officer. Good to see you, Colonel. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 271
1:20:15
This is state-funded. We have a great opportunity. As Senator Wallace has said, the federal government has increased the benefit to the veterans, not only in Blue Water, but aid to families and aid in assistance. This communication manager will coordinate our message to the 214,000 veterans in our state. Many of them are eligible not only for Blue Water, but aid in attendance, those Korean and World War II veterans.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:20:50
And don't anybody take my questions in the room as not being pro-vet. I am all the way I'm just trying to get my mind around one thing because one thing I hear from the county level is that the county judges are having to make up funds out of their program in order to support their what they call county resource individual and and so I'm just wondering how how is it not being done now that we've got to create this position and what did the Blue Water Navy veterans Vietnam Veterans Act do that is going to increase the
workload to that county level or help
Speaker 271
1:21:25
them at the county level? We've done a couple of things. The proficiency of the County Veterans Services Office, we've increased their training on an annual basis. The communication manager would be expected to assist in communicating to those veterans in those areas to get them to the County Veterans Services Officers. We need a statewide communication plan to ensure that our veterans receive all the benefits that they're eligible for. In this case, that communication manager
would be in support of those county veteran services officers. There are different needs in different parts of the state. So the communication in South Arkansas is towards that Vietnam veteran. Up in Northwest Arkansas, we have a lot of veterans that are from the Gulf War. So a communication manager being able to craft those messages is important to us. And do you already
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:22:15
have it in your funds? Because I noticed that you know the manager is going to provide the expertise qualifications necessary to execute a critical statewide media campaign so do you already have the funds for that media campaign
in your budget or is this person going to be put into a position and not have any money to do their job in order
Speaker 271
1:22:39
to facilitate that campaign we have some efficiencies in our budget at one time we had nine district veteran services offices now we have seven and we did that because of the increased training that we've done to the county veteran service offices so senator we have the funding i'm not sure if there's a different funding line for advertising and marketing but we have funding
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:23:03
i'd like to get a detailed report of how you're going to pull that off if you don't mind we'd love to and i'm all about getting the
message out don't i'm just trying to get understanding because what I hear from the county you know resource officers and here we are putting a person in this position and you know I want to just make sure that if we're going to put somebody a job they've got the money in the budget to do what they're supposed to do as far as the advertising and let's get together and you can show me how that that's going to work okay. Thank you Senator. Thank you. And Senator
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
1:23:35
Chesterfield. Thank you Mr. Chair. I'm very familiar with one of the
court the persons that's in charge of a county and what was astonishing to me is there were people from the Vietnam War who had not gotten the benefits that they deserved and so to me it seems we need to do a better job of making available information this person had been around for I don't know how many years and finally got his benefits finally got the back pay that here's he deserved after all of those years so I see us needing to be able to coordinate this information across the state. I know Danny was there when we heard about it in Prescott.
That amazed me, and we have got to make sure that our veterans know what's available and make sure that we are coordinating services. I just think the difference between a manager and a coordinator probably is a greater pay more than anything else, but I do believe that it's needed because we don't have the communication that we need, and we still have people falling through the cracks. I agree. So I'd appreciate a good vote
Speaker 80
1:24:40
on this motion. And Representative Brown.
Speaker 28
1:24:43
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Representative Rye, you'll be
Speaker 242
1:24:54
next. We're going to do Representative Brown now. Secretary Todd, it's my understanding or my experience, actually, that a lot of our Vietnam veterans are getting quite old. And the Blue Water veterans were denied the benefits associated with Agent Orange and other things because they weren't on the land. So this is, a lot of these people may not be tied into the Internet
or have access to all this media, social media, that would alert them to this, their eligibility. They may not be able to travel as well. And personally speaking, I believe this position is desperately needed to reach out to these people and their families who may then be eligible for benefits themselves when that veteran passes. Yes, Representative Brown. Thank you, Secretary Todd. And Representative Rye.
Speaker 157
1:25:48
Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:25:50
all, y'all are doing a great job. But, you know, Terry in Poinsett County, up until about a month or two ago, he was handling Poinsett and Craighead. And a lot of people from Mississippi County were going over there, you know, to him. And he had a tremendous load over there, and he handled it. But, you know, when it come time for him to, you know, receive any kind of compensation,
Hey, he had a hard time even making minimum wage down there. So I don't know what it's going to take, but we need some help in this line right here because these guys are doing a whole lot of work. And, I mean, it's affecting our veterans big time, and he was taking care of a lot of folks. And I just hope we can get this straightened out. Thank you, Reverend
Speaker 280
1:26:42
Rob. We'll share with you that I was in Jonesboro last week. We do have a Veteran Service Officer for Creighton County.
However, our County Veteran Service Officers, they are working hard. Members, I don't see any
Speaker 2
1:26:59
additional questions, and I have a motion. Do I have a second? I have a second. And all in favor, say aye.
Speaker 245
1:27:07
Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Colonel Todd. Pass it. Walls. All right Mr.
Speaker 23
1:27:14
Chairman we have one more item that is not on the agenda which will I guess
Speaker 3
1:27:22
become item L and we're going to pass out a document this is a request that came to us this morning and I think there was some missed communication at the executive level which is why we're getting this so late but this is a request from the Northwest Technical Institute and they are requesting to surrender the technical institute director position that they currently have which is a gs14 and get in return a northwest technical institute director
at an se01 so the grade increases the salary range would increase um and i think this in and miss barnhill may be able to explain this a little better than me but i think it's got something to do with the retirement of the current director and finding a new director to replace that person. Do we need to suspend the rules? Yes,
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
1:28:20
do that now and then go to K or? Let's go ahead and do it now. I move to suspend the rules to put this on the agenda for today. And do
Speaker 94
1:28:31
I have a second? Thank you. Okay. I have a motion and a second. All in favor
Speaker 13
1:28:38
say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. I
Speaker 39
1:28:50
think Ms. Barnhill can explain the request better. I think the situation here is
Speaker 40
1:28:54
Dr. Blake Robinson, who's been the long-term director of the Northwest Technical Institute, is retiring. In the process of trying to recruit his replacement, they have come across the fact that we may not have graded this position high enough to meet the demands. You compare it with presidents of the community colleges
and other organizations up in the northwest Arkansas area, and this is truly a salary issue is what we're trying to address at this point. Do I
Speaker 28
1:29:21
have any questions? I have Senator Hammer. Go ahead, sir. So you've already got somebody in
Speaker 40
1:29:28
mind to hire for the position? No, sir. I think the board is actively recruiting at this point in time,
Speaker 37
1:29:34
but they felt they needed to have a salary high enough to attract some applicants. Have
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:29:38
they tried to attract at the salary level they have now?
Speaker 40
1:29:43
I think they may have. I'm not from the department. I need somebody.
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
1:29:53
Greg. From what I understand, Mr. Chair, that the salary that is currently there is on the same level as perhaps a high school assistant principal. And in order to attract someone to the level that they need, they need to have a higher salary because this is a much more demanding position,
although being a high school vice principal is demanding enough, I can assure you. But we do need to have a salary that will attract individuals to compete with other colleges and universities around the state and to make this a competitive process if I'm not speaking out
Speaker 189
1:30:32
of school. Thank you, Senator Chesterfield. Go ahead, sir.
Nick Fuller
Unverified
1:30:41
Nick Fuller, I'm the Deputy Director at the Division of Higher Education. And in speaking with the Institute and the board,
I don't believe that they have reached out trying to find anyone at the current salary. They were trying to make this request and get the
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:30:59
higher level before reaching out and going forward on the search. okay so if we approve this request give me the comparison what the salary is now what the salary range is now and
Speaker 40
1:31:12
what it would be if we approve it just clarify that for me okay the current salary range is 86 887 up to 125 986 so most likely
they would be having to hire at the lower end of the scale at seo one you're talking about a great it's 108,110 up to 147,200 dollars. So we're going to go we're trading in one on the top
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:31:35
and I'm just wondering why you wouldn't keep the 86,887 at the bottom other than the pay grade legally doesn't allow that to happen. Is that right? Yes sir. Okay and what what
is what is the position currently paying right now what's he what's he making
Speaker 40
1:31:58
right now it's around 92 000 he's been there how long he's been there probably 20 years a long time 10 years i know he's been there at least 10 i think he he raised to the
Speaker 42
1:32:13
ranks he came from underneath and was promoted to the you know but y'all haven't
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:32:19
actively tried to recruit anybody at the current salary level and
that and what i'm getting at you're asking for 108 to to 110 the current top
is 125 986 so you've got about 17 i don't know what my math is there you got you got that gap there that you could attract somebody without having to change anything currently am i right
Speaker 40
1:32:42
or wrong in that right i think what the the department has recognized is that you've got Northwest Arkansas Community College, which is I think $175,000 to $200,000 and a lot of similar presidents of those community colleges around the area. So if they're going to get someone with a background and the PhD, I think that they're requiring
they felt that they needed to be able to pay at least $108,000. Okay, Winsley leaving.
Speaker 89
1:33:04
His retirement is set for the end of the fiscal year, June 30th. Okay. Alright. Members, do
Speaker 20
1:33:12
I have any additional questions? I have a motion. Do I have
Speaker 94
1:33:22
a second? I have a second. All in favor say aye.
Speaker 2
1:33:31
Any opposed? Thank you. Folks, thanks for being here today and we are adjourned. You
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Communications
C. Request from the Division of Higher Education for continuation of labor market rates (LMR’s) and differentials for FY20. The requested rates and differentials are the following: (Dr. Maria Markham, Director)
D. Request from Division of Higher Education-Arkansas State University- Mountain Home (ASUHM) to establish two (2) non-classified positions from the Higher Education Central Pool authorized by Act 763 of 2019, ACA §21-5-1415. (Dr. Maria Markham, Director)
E. Request from Division of Higher Education-North Arkansas College (NAC) to provide differential pay for employees who will complete degrees while employed with the institution. The differential pay request is based upon ACA §21-5-1412. (Dr. Maria Markham, Director)
F. Request from Division of Higher Education-Southeast Arkansas College (SEAC) to provide shift differential pay for employees who will work the second shift. The differential pay request is based upon ACA §21-5-1411. (Dr. Maria Markham)
G. Request from Division of Higher Education-University of Arkansas at Fayetteville (UAF) to provide the second language plan differential to determine and provide differential pay for several employees who have demonstrated proficiency in a second language. The differential pay request is based upon ACA §21-5-221. (Dr. Maria Markham, Director)
H. Request from the Division of Higher Education-University of Central Arkansas (UCA) for establishment of a special entry rate of $45,000, which is above the midpoint of grade C115, for an exceptionally well qualified applicant for the classification Skilled Tradesman, S031C. (Dr. Maria Markham, Director)
I. Request from the Arkansas Department of Corrections, Division of Community Corrections for the establishment of three (3) Miscellaneous Federal Grant positions for the Medication Assisted Treatment Services through the State Opioid Response Grant. (Wendy Kelley, Secretary)
J. Request from the Arkansas Public Defender Commission to establish two (2) positions from the OPM growth pool established by Ark. Code Ann. §21-5-225(b). (Gregg Parrish, Director)
K. Request from Department of Veterans Affairs (ADVA) to establish one (1) position from the OPM surrender pool established by Ark. Code Ann. §21-5-225(a)(1). (Col. Nathaniel Todd, Secretary)
L. Other Business
M. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Speaker 2
Speaker 3
Speaker 4
Speaker 6
Representative David Fielding
Unverified
Speaker 10
Speaker 20
Representative Mark Lowery
Unverified
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 37
Speaker 39
Speaker 31
Speaker 49
Speaker 55
Speaker 48
Speaker 44
Speaker 28
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
Speaker 64
Speaker 40
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
Senator Joyce Elliott
Unverified
Speaker 93
Speaker 107
Speaker 112
Speaker 116
Speaker 117
Speaker 121
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Speaker 129
Speaker 141
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Speaker 127
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Speaker 153
Speaker 157
Speaker 159
Speaker 160
Speaker 164
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
Speaker 175
Speaker 178
Speaker 94
Speaker 128
Senator Linda Chesterfield
Unverified
Speaker 191
Speaker 214
Speaker 100
Speaker 222
Speaker 161
Speaker 230
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Speaker 80
Speaker 241
Speaker 242
Speaker 248
Speaker 265
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Speaker 271
Speaker 280
Speaker 245
Speaker 23
Speaker 281
Speaker 13
Speaker 189
Nick Fuller
Unverified
Speaker 42
Speaker 89