Advanced Communications and Information Technology - Joint

Collins forget everyone to star settle in we'll get going here just a minute. All right ladies and gentlemen we're going to go ahead and get started on. Good Monday morning to everyone and welcome to the joint committee on advanced communication information technology this is our first meeting since the pandemic and so it's good to good to be back in to continue our discussions on technology we're gonna dive right in first thing we need is a. Approval. Got a motion and a second from anybody a second all favor approving the minutes please say aye any opposed all right we'll consider those approved first on the agenda this morning We're gonna talk about broadband mapping one of the challenges with that is a state is to get a good picture of where we're at shall be Johnson over at the geographic information office has been working on a project to help us with that so And a few German would just to have a seat there at the end of the table introduce yourself to the committee and then you may proceed. Good morning I'm us shall be Johnson I serve as the state geographic information officer in the GIS office for part of the department of transformation insured services. My name is Steven ports on chief legal counsel for the Arkansas department of commerce and I'm also the executive broadband manager for ADC I oversee the rule connect program. So we'll just dive right in and see what we've done we did this in partnership with the broadband office in their team one of the things that they had always wanted to do is be able to gather information from constituents our cans is out there in the all the corners of the state and so we work with them to identifying an application and that was originally designed in the state of Wyoming and so we took their application design and mimics what they had done and have worked with our team and colleagues over it commerce and they've essentially replicated what Wyoming did but put in Arkansas spin on it. So here is the broadband Arkansas dot gov website and you'll see in the lower right hand corner of the green button that says test broadband speed so if you want you know inform your constituents or others you can share the broadband the Arkansas log of website with them and then just tell him to follow the green button. In button then launches into a speed test and so it allows someone out there in the in Arkansas to conduct a speed test and what they do is they'll run you know gather that information from their connection and then it'll allow them to launch into a quick survey and once they launch into this survey it grabs a bunch of information I'll try to illustrate that really quickly. So this is this should be and and then our. Always the danger of that live demonstration. What I was gonna shall use the screen with the questions all just reading through its eleven short questions and it asks the user what's the what's our address trick trust to locate where they're at and then it plugs in the up speed in the download speed and then it asks the other questions it asked him who is our internet provider what type of internet do they have so for example DSL or wireless or what the other options. the speed that this promise to bother provider and then it provides a a range of options that you know says basically how how much do you A purchaser what what's your purchase price so there's like a range of less than forty dollars above forty dollars like Senator. Then would we also ask a question would you be willing to pay more and then questions that are related to house satisfied you are with your provider and then questions that are related to what you use internet for at home and so those of the examples answers would range from video sharing to student education to business at home the X. center and then we ask how many devices are connected at your home so for example mobile television tablets a laptop six center and then how often do you use the internet home once we've gathered all of that information Dan it's the that survey result once it's submitted is thrown into the dashboard that you can see now that's on the screen and the that allows within All of you and others to explore that information and and be able to see where you have fast speeds and slow speeds and and then and provides also information about who the provider is and the Metric subsidize the UPS the average up speed the average down speed and so forth. And this is been running for about. A month. I'm a little little little Marcus been running for a little more than a month and we built the slides on Friday and so we had to six hundred and ninety three responses as of Friday and the you can see I'll count if you let your ride drift towards the north central part of the state that Searcy county and the county seat is Marshall so you can see that there's obviously been some out reach done in Searcy county and so there's a good number of test from Searcy county where folks have gotten on and furnish their test results so with that all of stop and let Mr porch provide some additional information. Thank you Mr chairman members we use this particular information to find out exactly what what the service is like in a given area unfortunately we have a some eyes peas that over state of their territory on the on there and say that the actually serving area where we're getting constant complaints about the service not being waited what they say it is this is a tool that we can we can use to find out exactly what's going on in that area we're also looking at other tools as well as to give us a well rounded view Google is one of them we're working on the contractual issues with that to try to find out exactly what are the proper speeds because according to our program we deem and area under served if they serve less than twenty five three ninety five percent of the time so when you get a random check up there and you see that it's below that and you get a number of them showing that it's below that then for us we will then call that income and eyes P. and say Hey we've got in the information that you're not serving it twenty five three can you can you provide us some data to show that that is not the case or maybe an advertisement to show is that that's not exactly what's going on. Once we get that we we will evaluate that but some some don't give us that information possibly for obvious reasons and then we'll as the program passes tech review then we fund it but this is a good choice good tool for us to use to find out exactly what's in the area and what I've done is I've told local county judges as well as mayors. And eyes peas who wants to pose a challenge to the income and eyes B. to please give with the local official see if they can go there and run and and tell their constituency to run as many of these tests this possible the more tests we have the better we are to understand exactly what we're dealing with and then we'll follow our artists some of like to give us their own tests but we prefer the use ours because if the to do the speed test and do the survey because they need to do the survey in order for that information to get to us then we're looking at what are the this is and then we can act on that. But it's a great tool to use and we've been using as you can see with a lot of the dots up there there's a lot of people posing challenges and this is just one way that we try to deal with that challenge. Yeah I know one of the challenges that we've been dealing with the state is a lot of the maps that we get or incomplete or not concise and this is the really the state's first attempt to try to quantify what is really happening across our state so this should be a very valuable tool going forward Representative love your first up on questions or. Thank you Mr chair first of all thank you all for the work that you're doing I do have a couple of questions in regards to the net now. If this information well I'm not pass I'm not going to phrase it like that. The how are you all getting the information out again because. I'm do you will have an outreach campaign actively going or you just did is this like a word of mouth. Well any time I have the opportunity to a speaking engagement any time that any of my staff does that we we disseminate that information out to many people as we can will use letters we will use of course our website anytime we receive a call we get people to use that in and tell the constituency to use that so we can get the information and the data so we know what we're dealing with in the area and we and it's valuable because we don't get many challenges at this point but we do get challenges when those challenges come. Then we tell them to go ahead and use that device so we'll know exactly what's going on in that area. I'm I'm just thinking about them portents of collecting this information if we had some sort of an advertising campaign to actually go out to citizen right do not think they would be more engaged T. to utilize this too because it isn't the importance of it so that that's where I was in my thought process on that of the second thing is In regards to the map it now now do the providers are the providers provide you also with the mapping that they hand for or are they they not provide you that information. Yes Sir they they have to provide is that information we need to see what your foot print is and and based on that foot print if they make the challenge. I want to know from constituency in that foot print what the speed is so the I make it a point to kind of let them know that that's the area we want to look and see if you're actually getting that service in and to find random people come up loaded so we'll know exactly what those speeches and do it more than once at different times so we can record those times as well action in the mountains okay so my last question of the because we have the issue M. S. these the a missing grants the the due diligence grants how is that working with this project right here. As far as their due diligence grants I apologize but I'm not familiar with their due diligence so do you have any thoughts about the worldwide the program rely on the program okay okay well basically in areas that don't qualify for whatever reason they're gone they can use the rule like the to gold and try to draw down federal funds it's a good program that we can work hand in hand with in order to try to reach that digital divide across all the rules Arkansas because that program also targets rule areas okay set but I are there I guess are they providing you with the same information I guess. Because if you if you try to get a complete picture of what's out there mmhm I would just I guess it was sent to reason or my reason and I how I'm thinking about it is that they can that they would get that information that they get in the in the real ID programs to you so that you could have a complete map. I believe you're asking that information what we share it with rule ideas that vice versa I mean because you're trying to come I guess unless some misunderstanding you're trying to get a complete picture of what's out there right what we're trying if there's a challenge we're trying to make sure that the area we don't over building that that's the that's the goal of it so we're just focusing on that area hopefully we can get the greater picture of of the entire state yeah and so that's what I'm saying is that I guess the information that they get from the rule hi dean should be also given to your agency or your organization so that you all can have a complete. Assessment and are my missing something but not more I we work we very well with us senator Irvin that's our program we work in tandem with the this information right here can be seen by them very easily we don't hide it or or keep it and if you they wanted any of the data that we have dealing with this information we don't mind providing that over to will connect since we've been working very well along with the senator Irvin senator English representing mixes and yourself. We want to get as much information out there and share as much information as possible so we can go ahead and and attacked this the right way okay so I'll I would just say and then we need to get that information from the rule whatever information that they have when they're doing the real ID the system is that they have we need to get that information to. Okay I think it would only bolster Our view of what's what's what is out there I would say. ET given consent yes Sir I I it's a I was just reminded myself as part of that program one of one of the I think one of the application requirements is that one the do that build out that the maps that are over a resulting from that particular program that those are furnish back to the GIS office section okay okay I should remember that it should just take me while I'm I don't think I've had enough coffee yet today okay let's give him some coffee if. All right thank you on thank you Mr chair thank you Representative eaves our necks or. Thank you I want to kind of go back to what you mentioned earlier an area that you consider under served you said twenty five three four ninety five percent ninety five percent of the time you have you have some we've run across some eyes peas internet service providers that's that's a all our infrastructure service twenty five three well that may be round three or four o'clock in the morning when the use is way way down that's not consistent across the board so we want them to be able to have that consistently around the board at least ninety five percent of the time so if an I. S. P. is advertising they provide fifty or a hundred or whatever makes service is there any. Is there any incentive for them to slow it down at certain times of the day. Know what what happens is it's the use when you have a lot of people using the service at a time it reduces the speed. And what we're trying to do is make sure that you have something to compensate the the use particularly during the pandemic so we want them and what we're also offering and that's a great this is a great time to mention it is we will also fund projects that would increase what you currently have so if you want to improve the system you have they they can meet the needs of that community then you can apply for grants and give a grant to increase your speeds so that be increasing their capacity me more equipment on the backend that's correct okay thank you. Under a Representative it would be like a you know going into the back office that they've got a pipeline that can handle a hundred mags and point two people are using it obviously each individual concert that would have fifty each but if you get twenty people trying to share that hundred mag pipeline then obviously the best beat anybody's gonna gets five so the only way you solve that is they've got increase that back and that's kind of situations referred to all right think Representative in it you're next. Hello of thank you share I have a question I think I'd have the primary school to in my constituents and from within his plea area my question is can you walk us through once you find out that I. S. P. is not serving the twenty five three how do you go about finding another person to service that community. The competitive part of it were. What we do we don't pick dies P. for them on our website we have a list of all the eyes peas that are interested in and in this program and deploying to we can leave them there to do that my advice is if you have an incumbent eyes P. there that's already providing in the quickest thing to do particular and the time constraint we have we cares act funds is to see if they will increase their infrastructure and meet that threshold so if if someone's not doing it they can go to our website and there's. A number of eyes fees that are willing to listen to you and if they can help help they'll do it they're in the business of making money so it's never been a been a problem for them to get on a website look and see what who's doing what and then take it from there now the common eyes B. is course going to be upset about that and we've gotten some calls what where they were upset about it but when we call them and they don't respond this is what happens. Thank you. Senator hammer you're next Thank Mister you said so it made me wonder as far as what they advertise and what they're actually able to deliver on what they advertise are you running take cases that you think that there's false advertising that they are providing they're saying they can provide something that reality they can't or what your god lunch around that. Well again that's what this speed test is for you know. I look at the advertisement is bowstring you know we can do this but you know the the proof is in the details and one the details we get out as if we have people in an area running this particular program running this test the let us know whether or not they're actually doing with the supposed to be doing if they're not then we go and talk to them and see and see what the issue is and what can they provide us to do that. The army do you have any tools in the toolbox now that you can. Find them or take something away from them because they advertise that they could deliver and they can't. No we don't have any authority the FCC would have to deal with them if they're dealing with any kind of a at legal tactics or to speak but based on the information that I've seen those FCC maps our way a. Our aligned with the reality particularly asked as to Arkansas so we're trying our best to get every tool available to try to figure that out for a sales and in use like this method as well as a Google of the find out what the real speeds are and we understand that your backbone may be twenty five twenty five three as a minimal but. Because of the volume of people you just didn't build your infrastructure A nuff to accommodate them so now you have lag and latency and people are not able to get the service thing the art thank you Mr. Representative brown. Thank you Mr chair gentleman I am I thought that I would go out to your website and see if I can find this information that you're talking about but I'm at the G. I. S. Arkansas G. I. S. office website not can't find anything about broadband even need to be at broadband Arkansas dot gov and at broadband Arkansas that give the if you'll scroll down the green button is for participants can take the speed test and then below there is a another I con that will take you to this dashboard and it's called broadband survey map I believe. And that'll allow you to drill into the information that shown on the spring right now thank you yes ma'am. I apologize represented I should being clear about the website that this information was well I try to track which put on the screen there and I can't and it's so thank you. Although on my and my co chair did recommend that may be over at the GIS site that you know I know this is a new program that maybe at some of the other state websites that we link to that that might help help of drops more traffic over there yes Sir we're on an awesome all Representative Cavenaugh Europe. Thank you Mr chair my question is we keep talking about incumbent provider if we have one provider in one area that's not doing what they advertise are not expanding out into real Arkansas why can we not have another provider whether it makes the income that matter not does competition not help the situation. I think competition does help help the situation and we have a awarded grants to areas where the incumbent has been. I think it's it's a good thing to have but we're trying to make sure that we spread it evenly across the state as much as possible. But if we come across it in income and eyes P. they just they they think they're in their sweet spot. And they're and they're. I'm going to use this language holding the people hostage in a broadband way by not expanding or doing something to their own system to make sure better service is provided. Then I would say to that mayor for that county judge depending where they are. To reach out to us we will show you where on a website where the eyes peas that are interested in doing with that one is not doing. And hopefully get you a application and a program did you find it get you deployed thought Mr chair. If you look at the map in my district it's what. So that tell you mais pay my income and ice pay providers really are doing their job. And so when we talk about income but I. S. P. providers for me and my district really doesn't mean anything when a low providers when the providers and want to step up in investing rule Arkansas because that's what we are we're rule Arkansas. And we need those providers. And that that and and those unfortunately we all understand that the business decision as these people might that is not the most profitable area for them to go into and we've seen over the years as all take the federal dollars and they'll invested in areas that they already exist in and roll Arkansas rural America for that part is left out hanging in the wind this pandemic is shown is that we can't be that anymore. Someone we have incumbent providers who fail to do what is needed and required we need to worry about them I need to worry about themselves. I need to consider their business plan and decide if they want to be a part of it but we should not be given them the opportunity to get the money when they want to invest. In the first place that's my opinion don't you agree. Well I I understand and and it's it out of the spirit of fairness is that is the reason why we give them a call. We don't tell them that that that you know well look if you upgrade your system we just asking for your information are you covering this area. And they can either respond torsion not but they know if they don't then they're going to have some competition in there and I agree with you competition is healthy. Senator health. Thank you thank you Mr chair I'd like to get you out to email us if you would not only this committee but all the legislative bodies that link to get to this survey and still by stay up how to get there so that we can get that out to the public and get that information back to you all because I think this will be a great tool but only what represented was saying just while ago I don't think you have to look into just rule Arkansas all to find some major issues as for the broadband goes I'm two miles from the eleventh largest city in Arkansas all and my daughter has to go to town to take her college classes online. It just freezes up and shut down and so it's not just a a rule problem that we're having it's all is a broadband problem in the state of Arkansas totally. Thank you. and if you all want to send that link to Mr Gillam here then he can he can send out from there let's see Representative rye you're up next or. Yes Sir thank you Mr chairman guys looking at that may help up there you say Jones for all he's got an area but then like what Representative Cavenaugh saying you're going all the way over to almost. Almost Mountain Home and I've had some calls for Marjorie during this for damage that the kids could not get on they had to go up to the parking lot and and mark free and they they could do it from the home and also in river crest over next to the Mississippi River. They're not getting any anything over there so I noticed is there in northeast Arkansas but if you're looking county and the the sales central area southwest issue we sales. West area there's a big gap there I just wonder if there's something you're going to try to close it shall be. Well a lot of that is just a function of the folks in in the state I haven't been home are aware of this site yet and as we've mentioned earlier it's only been running for a relatively short period of time and so for example that treatment area marked tree you're not seeing a lot of tests there because no one from that area is taken the test yet and then you know that south southwest south central area that you see a big gap that's that washed all national forced so you're going to you're going to continue to see limited test from that area just because there's not many folks that live in that particular area. Well follows please. Yes Sir she agreed that the reason the biggest reason I'm asking this is because we think that we're gonna be okay during this but damn making we're going the right direction but if if by chance we had to do a lot of work for our children from their homes. All your you could really be run into a specially you know we were checking out the educational TV in Conway and they actually wore magazine over and that area of the people from the eastern part the state actually we're having to go through Memphis with educational TV which is not revel it you know at all to what we have over here and I just wonder if there's something we can do to make sure they get everything straight there. I think that's just the out out of reach and creating the awareness that this tools out there for our Kansans to you join in and participate and missed forges offices pro actively working on that and I think you know membership could share this information as well go a long ways towards getting more responses into the. Representative Vaught your up next. Thank you Mr chair I'm going to kind of piggy back on what you were just talking about. Because you said that that it's probably the out reach and people not knowing about the test will I will tell you from that southwest corner it will not be the fact that they're not taking the test because they don't know about it it's because they don't have the service. I mean I've myself personally and I'm a state rep and I have called about wind string time and time again and how bad it is in my area for those of us that that's the only service that we have available and they definitely do not do twenty five three for us that actually even get that service there's multitudes of people in that area that have no service at all none they can't even go to the school basically because they don't have the funds to go to the school to log on to the schools service to be able to do their homework because it's a very rule poor area so I kind of want to piggyback off the forty say and I mean what are we going to do for those areas in which there is no service at all and we're expecting kids to do how mark knows fame ways might have one vehicle on dad's taking it to work or moms taking it to work and they cannot get on at all I'm I spent three days trying to pull up in a male. Myself where I live three days to pull up an email to get it to open at so there's definitely a big service problem in my area for those that actually have internet but for those that don't admit it causes even more of a problem at of Representative rye was pointing out so I don't know I mean I I'll post the link for people to do the task but I don't know what we're gonna do for those that don't have the service at all thank you Mr chair. Is there a of course I guess this is almost I don't know how this would work but is there a way through the system where citizen can type in their address and just put No service available so you know that there's an area that just has no service whatsoever well I'm option you you could but not if you can't get to it period and I didn't think to mention this earlier but I should have you could if you have a smartphone or smart device any of those kind of devices can also connect to this and so you could run the you could run the test using a smartphone or smart device and tests that the wireless level of course that wouldn't be the wire line level but you can definitely test the wireless level and and submitted to us that way as well. Our. Senator hammer. Thank you Mr chair with regards to the test and as you get the information was sunset time that you had on it as to your rights okay we've got everybody hears it three months or how long is it. We don't set the set a time on it we what we want to do is we want to continue to get that data the more data we get particularly if it's from the same household ID at different times that history is going to be important to us on what we're going to do in the future we don't right now we don't have a closing window four program as long as we got funds in it and there's a viable reasonable up plan they could be submitted to us we're going to find that and we're going to use the information that we get off of that I hope I'm answering your question you are which leads to the request one ask is and and I think their estimates out there as far as what it would cost to get broadband and you'll get statewide coverage but how will this play a role in determining what we as legislators need to know is a dollar figure that if we want to make it a priority items farmers placing money toward getting broadband throughout the state how is this going to help you arrive or contribute to that conversation. What it can let you know the areas that are truly on to survive broadband and then we can. We have some good people Dr nations Smith is one of them they can do the economics of it and see what what exactly we need to be able to cover those areas so this will help okay so would you be able to how often could you put that out so that we could maybe use that to determine what are the priority areas if we wanted to you know by region or do a geography approach to where the money I to be placed based on maybe the response that you're getting from people is he able to are you all able to put that out monthly to give us kind of a real time picture of what the cost is based on the response to the survey you're getting. That's something we would have to evaluate and if we can circle back around with you I can let you know how will be able to accomplish that okay I just say that be helpful if you got a highly concentrated area where people really and take into consideration what Representative audit saying over there you know people have to have a way in order to get that information to you if they've got away three days to get it up there so that kinda needs to be addressed but if you know if there are areas that are showing more interesting getting it than others I think when it comes to apply where the money needs to go we want to get the low hanging fruit first that's just a observation suggestion but we need something that gives us a sense of direction where that is if you could you know maybe put this out on a monthly basis it. Maybe that's a consideration chair we get a monthly report every time we meet we get a report but I'll just throw that out there thank you. Johnson I will look into that and of. Just to go back to the represent I can't see your tag but Vaught Vaught on. Representative all if. I'm very sympathetic to that situation you're talking about what we can do is if you have and eyes P. that wants to go out there and they're supposed to be in in common out there if you can have some of your constituency write us a letter. And let us know that we don't have service at a and I think that letter will be strong proof that they don't have service because many people don't write those and if they can put that with any ice B. application that we see it I am going to repeat that and we're we're going to react to it and that's for anybody that that has that situation because we really want to get this out. Yeah and I think part of the success to this is trying to get as many our cans is is possible to visit here and and no I I'm and when we go to the website we look at that map that's real time correct me that's based on yeah if if yes Sir if someone took the survey in the last fifteen minutes it would have updated of course this is just a slide so it is not the most accurate and up to date information but if you went to the website and looked at it live it'll tell us every time the and I think it updates on about five minutes cycle and it'll tell you the the the newest information that the new tests have come in awesome awesome all right any other questions for on this topic. All right saying none thank you gentleman I will transition straight into item ET Mister Moore and then of course Mr porch. On the broadband managers report colleagues the broadband managers report is exhibit ET it came out in the middle of the summer all of you should have gotten a copy of it then but there's a copy on your desk as well so Mister Moore will you get settled entities yourself for the record and then the you may proceed Sir. My name is Clint more I'm with the Arkansas department of commerce so doctor Smith does not here today to present the the report but I'll share that with you it's a pretty dense report about sixty pages so we're gonna hit the high points and feel free to ask questions on those I think when we talk about broadband it's really important right now with the pandemic obviously it's opened a lot of eyes to the to the poor coverage we have across the state and when I think about broadband I look at it in terms of an interstate highway it's electricity it's clean water it's something that we vitally need in today's economy today's world in our Kansans need it now more than ever I think we're to very good spot as far as the amount of momentum in the energy that we have in going towards broadband right now during not experience with this it's probably deny minded and all time high from the legislatures input from the governor's office and put as well as then activist organizations in provider so we're moving in a very good direction still have a lot of work to go the main topic that the broadband office has been working on right now is the Arkansas rural connect initiative Mr porch here is going to talk about that I believe in a minute so I'll leave most of that up to him but we've done a very good job from an office standpoint of getting applications in evaluating those quickly getting those to our partners at UAMS the engineers kind of the technical group to evaluate those in within you know a few days we're getting those application scored evaluated in back to the ice P. in the locality if there's any issues with those applications we highlight those issues and say we need clarification on X. Y. Z. and then they're able to resubmit so we're trying to be as flexible with with the localities in with the eyes peas as we can because we really want to expand the broadband foot print now more than ever it's very important broadband now dot com last year. ranked Arkansas's fiftieth in terms of connectivity policy competition exciter we're currently now it forty first but there's like a cabbie ought to that because of the act one ninety eight and nine nine nine I believe that was passed in twenty nineteen were both broadband focus both regulatory focused and broadband now dot com dean does is being policy friendly to broadband so that's really what moved us up we are still fiftieth in terms of connectivity now I I think that with the Arkansas real connect program the ID program exciter you're going to see us move up however it takes time to deploy this infrastructure and so I think it'll be interesting in six months to a year to see where we rank fan and I don't think our ranking will be based solely on a policy friendly environment that because our connective itty is actually increasing and moving in the right direction. based on our data we show seventy nine percent of our Kansans have twenty five three can activity now that is sourced from the FCC amend is Mr porches mentioned earlier those FCC maps and data they're typically over statements of coverage it based on a let me of reasons that we won't go into but that's where they rank US now the that is still as I said that still fiftieth out of fifty with states by I assume that that number's not corrected but it's best we have when you look at broadband across the country rural states typically do worse from a competition perspective from a population density perspective in a can activity perspective it's more difficult and it's more costly to serve those areas and when you actually analyze that when you get into it you see that Arkansas is not the only one that struggles with this states like Mississippi states like West Virginia Wyoming Montana exciter it states that are very population not dance typically struggle with broadband connective itty. the the report goes into a pretty good detail as far as on federal broadband programs I want to mention a couple of those because I think they're very important how Arkansas's going to close the digital divide the Arkansas real connect program is one piece of the overall comprehensive strategy it's an important piece but I think just as an important of a piece is the federal programs the most read upcoming the newest one and the one that's upcoming that'll have probably the biggest impact on Arkansas is called the R. Dolph art auction or D. O. F. that's going to allocate sixteen billion dollars across the country over a ten year time period that auction is coming up in October the end of October and we should see those results on where providers in Arkansas one territory in their subsidy for that probably a month or two months after the auction so early winter that'll be a very big critical auction for Arkansas there was an auction similar smaller scale but similar process a couple years ago Arkansas did quite well with and that is a state the electric coop some wireless companies received about fifty million or fifty two million dollars total and that was on it a two million dollar budget so if you multiply that out to this new sixteen billion dollar budget could be hundreds of millions of dollars coming to the state very critical and very important the next program is the USDA programs they have those in the farm bill as well as a program called to reconnect there were two winners and reconnect that brought in I believe between land grants and loans in combination of those I think about eight million dollars give or take so that was very good for the state as well and then at another upcoming program for cellular service specifically will be in twenty twenty one which is a five G. auction it'll be set up similarly to this already after yard off auction. but it'll be based on cell phone service not the wire line or fixed internet that FCC kind of differentiates those to you and and treats those to separately so that's another great opportunity for Arkansas to obtain federal dollars to help on our cellular and and mobile side also want to mention the role broadband ID program which is really targeted to pursuing those federal programs I believe that's a two million dollar budget overall and up to seventy five thousand dollars in grants can be given to localities or providers to do their due diligence studies get their ducks in a row so to speak to per to apply for these federal programs that are out there I'm so that's a very good piece to pursuing federal programs and helping those smaller companies that might not have the budget to pursue those programs on their own due to application expenses or difficulty to apply the very difficult programs to get at times and so this will allow them to offset and defray some of those cost And then lastly I just want to reiterate the point that I feel like we are in a really good spot is a state we stop a lot you know a long way to go in terms of closing the digital divide but what we have now that we haven't had in the last couple years as we have state funds going to this to help feeling gaps we have a program set aside to pursue federal programs that we haven't had we have our partners with at UAMS helping us with the technical aspect and then it shall be mentioned we have this mapping aspect as well so I really feel strongly about the direction we're moving as a state in terms of broadband still ways to go but definitely now in a better spot than we were two years ago when we started in this space thank you. We we are definitely playing catch up as a state nine I agree we've of this is the most momentum we've seen on this and and and my ten year two questions I have for your real quick you mention the FCC puts us at you know seventy nine percent for twenty five three obviously I agree it's way overstated do you have any guesstimate about what the real number is I think we'll see that better once we get the mapping done and once we have more data points collected so the FCC with the one served all served at the census block one little bit you know if if one household does get twenty five three than that entire census block is claim this twenty five three well census blocks and roll Arkansas are are pretty big they're not like it a city since the spot by any means so I think it would be really difficult if you'd like Representative makes we can try to dig into that and get you a more accurate accurate number okay and and and like I does need to be actor I'm just kind of ball parking you know we talk and thirty three percent fifty percent I hate to speculate without better information in front of me Senate bill will dig into that and try to get you something saying okay the other question I have is you mentioned on the art off program it's ten year program can you give us so that the a little more details on that is that the question or the know the concern is enough and a provider gets a grant do they have ten years to get in our cans and serve because obviously we want our people served a lot quicker than ten years yeah I believe it's actually a five or seven year bill that time when it one of those two I don't remember the funding is just actually over ten years but I believe it is a five year build out window they have so still not as quickly as the Arkansas rural connect program that is having them deploy you know by the end of the year or whatever that new cares ACT deadline extension not be so it is definitely a longer deployment time but one thing I think you'll see from the art off program that will be good is based on who I'm anticipating protests I'm anticipating a participating in the program from world. Telephone companies large telecoms electric coop six cetera I think you'll see a lot of really high quality service and the art off really pushes for that if you give five or gigabit speeds with low latency that subsidy amount can be larger to you and it puts you I wake up in terms of the bidding auction though fund your subsidy amount can be greater based on your high quality service here so I think while it will build a longer deployment time line I think you'll see some really high speeds come to rural Arkansas which is where the art off targets it's not based on cities and towns of dense population it really is trying to get out to those rural pockets in rural areas I thank you culture. Do you think that's there were some these local providers are waiting on this these funds rather than than go through the state funds I think so and I think it early on in the process there was a data collection from the state level to provide evidence to the federal government five where you work applying are providing for state funds that and so those areas were going to be taken out of the auction area so we get the state we're having it a difficult time of deciding do we want to fund this area from art off or do we want to fund this with state funds and I think the providers were in the same boat do we think it's a better deal for us to provide apply for our dolphin try to get those or do we think it's a better deal for us to go through this state route so I think there's definitely some of that senator Johnson of people trying to get in there lane a little bit and go for that now we've received further clarifications from the FCC that's kinda helped us navigate those waters a little bit more but I think it is difficult for providers to choose what they should go for an and what they should so some of the some of those ones that don't seem to be building out right now may be waiting on these these applications rather than try to piece by piece Miller absolutely I think that's a hundred percent correct thank you. Absent love. Thank you Mr chair so in the most simplistic terms just tell me and I option what actually occurs. So similarly to if you go auction to any estate auction or anything like that where you're betting on the price that you pay they do it the opposite way of its backwards so there they tried to knock it down instead of it and normal auction the heist Pross wins the FCC is trying to bump it down to where the lowest subsidy amount will win if that makes sense. And if not I can I can try again you try again okay all right then the Lewisville city amount in providing internet service absolutely correct so provider X. provider rock providers the all not be interested in a census block group that's up for that up for bid and then they all the FCC will based on the. technology they're all providing try to put them on an equal playing field if that makes sense and then the FCC trusted to drill down to the lowest price so there's several rounds to the auction so maybe in round. Five you know at seventy five dollars or you know made that out but that might win but dean they not got around six and nine not say well now it's at sixty and then fifty and then so on and so forth to where once they've cleared that budget overall that person that gets the lowest with the technology factored in well when that area so it's almost at all it's the opposite of what you think of in a normal auction it's kind of backwards of that okay so and so then that brings me to my next question is. How much do we know how much an average twenty five three plant costs in our cans and. Costing for them I would I think fifty dollars is probably the best guess and I'm sure it's give or take I'm sure I've seen some hot near a hundred and I've seen some cheaper down there it it thirty five or forty from what they've applied for for the state program as far as they shared their service tiers of will provide service tier one two three and twenty five three will be one of those and they was the process so stated I think fifty dollars I don't know Mr porch you. It really varies it's hard to nail down to one. It depends on the area but but I think the the average that I've seen on it it's been about eighty nine to ninety nine dollars is lower and if if if I Macy's add something to that. I have a circulated to a letter with the county judges and with the mayors of the state letting them know that if you apply to this program that it is Katie to negotiate the cost up for this deployment because they can't do it without you were the the project will be incomplete if the local mayor or the county judge doesn't sign off on it and plus we have a slide that if there is an agreement that have so have it more financially available to give us that also with their application so I'm letting people know that you can do this on the front and with them. but I'm my thought is that somewhere is a suicide it just to get broadband that they'll go ahead and bill just sign and say just give us broadband. But. I hope they would do that I'll I'll make this note is not dead it doesn't matter what we put in the ground if the Senate seventy five hundred dollars I would even to the my self that that would be too much. for internet service anyone people I have to pay for food water gas whatever. A hundred dollars on me in and now you can't think the internet is a luxury anymore it's a necessity it's like electricity in if we're talking about a hundred dollars their dishes away a to much and it doesn't matter what we put in the ground what technology we create. That's going to be out of reach for a the average cans and and I mean and I'm not a Houston average or cans is gonna be out of reach for a lot of people in so if we can do something about that I mean that will be that would be the the next that would be the next discussion with the high cost fund because I mean that's a high cost. So we need to begin to look if you are not aware of the high cost fund we need to begin to look at that because. Internet is just that a central. Thank you. Representative Cavenaugh thank you Mr chair. When we're looking at getting money to these providers are we taking into consideration not just as deployment that they're going to be able to do but once is deployed did somebody the upkeep of this equipment so that they can continue to provide this service because that one thing I don't want to do is to give it to a provider where they're using the funds to roll out the service and then they don't have the viability the ability to keep the equipment going and so we're back to square one is that part of what we're looking at is that they actually have a plan that is viable that they can keep and continued upgrade as as technology goes because we're all talking about twenty five three but in reality we need a lot better so. Representative Cavanaugh twenty five three for us is a floor not a ceiling if somebody wants to get out there and submit this a plan that that covers five G. or more than that then by all means if it's a viable plan we're going to fund that we understand the technology changes one of the things that we do and I review process is we look to see if the company's financially sound the list sound the company is the more problems they may have and in maintaining things so we try our best to make sure that the company's financially sound we do a financial review of on them and we. That's our vetting process we send it over to take review and we asked them is this a good program what is it viable will it work does it have sustainability and they let us know that information once we have that then we feel comfortable we we can't know everything what we think that if they're financially solid in that they've been doing this business for a little while that give us the confidence that you have they're going to maintain what we give them and if I may add one thing Representative Cavenaugh that's but I think Mr portrait on it there we have an in the application of sustainability piece so they're supposed to give us their projections and what they believe that their market penetration will be how many customers they think they'll get by this date or and and that date so we we are making sure that we're not going to once we cover the build out cost that this project is it going to be something that you know fails in a year to because they didn't have enough consumers in that area or enough market penetration etcetera so that's definitely something that we look at thank you. I have no more questions Mr Borchard you have anything further on the ark program FOR I think you are covered a lot of it but I will I would like to add just a few more things to it of. We know that we have a limitation of December thirty of with these carriers act funds that we have at present we we have award letters out totaling thirty three million sixty seven thousand seven hundred seventy seven dollars and eighty four cents we also have a little over ten million dollars in in projects that we cannot deployed it because the deployment date is beyond the December thirty so if they ever extend that will be immediately capable of deploying all that money as well we also have other projects currently now that are still under tech review that may be able to deploy within this shrinking timeline I do understand that the time line that would and we're dealing with is very short but there's things that we can do upgrade this current systems that you have or be able to deploy to a smaller area we. Every person counts if you can get get something out there I want to encourage the eyes peas the mayor's the county judges to really take the initiative we're helping everyone we can we get a project we just a look at it and say no give it back we let you know what's going wrong with it what you need and to get that back to us so we can evaluated again. We also took the effort in and of a supplemental emergency Arkansas rule connect rule it's we did this to make it easier because now we have electric cooperatives in their subsidiaries and anyone capable of deploying broadband now can apply so we've lifted up the Beria's there with their before you don't have to have a population of five hundred because that's now flexible you can meet some really rule there is may have two hundred maybe three hundred if you got a nice P. the that want to deploy to that population center they can do that now if you got an ice B. there's been in business for awhile and they don't have five hundred retail customers we understand why that so because there may not be five hundred people in their community so they'll never reach that by this supplemental rule that was passed by the executive committee now that's flexible so we have we have the funds we have just this limited time but we still can do something for those communities that really need it and so I would I would respectfully ask any any one of you get what your local mayors get what your county judges give us those projects so we can review them and get these people served right now based on of the number of applications that we have out there we have approx if everything goes like it should and it should because we're watching it very closely there's a approximately forty thousand people they'll be served by the grants that we have out there now so we're we're we're working and we're calling for it but we can't do it without you so if you get the word out there give us something that is viable or give us something that we can even work with we'll make sure that that if if it has any life in it. We'll see what we can do to fund. House of Representative Lynch Europe Sir. Your muted there go ahead teacher green button. Yeah I agree but just a mute button so. Are you ready now our of can you hear me I can feel the same party. Okay so I'll small town that that filed an application and It was locked because the the I. S. P. that serves at districts that they were providing adequate service. And so on is anyone Arkansas and so they put together spread sheet they actually can this their citizens but get a spreadsheet with the download speeds and and added several testimonies that you could ask for. How does that review process once a day I space as well I've got this area and it blocks the grant how does that challenge work. Once we get the information now we have something that we can go on we can approach the income and eyes P. and we asked them we don't give them my time in perpetuity we give you three days if you would be and the reason we do that is because we have limited time to spend these funds so we need you to provide us something within three days to get us information showing that you're truly covering this thing and we need to be convinced of it and we may call you a mess and ask them about the information you know can we rely on this if it's something beyond our ability to understand and any needs a more technical look at it and if it comes out that they don't meet that three third day or maybe the fourth day and we sent that because when I don't we don't have time to follow up which with you once we once we've asked for. Come said Thursday you don't have it in that pro the project is ready to go. We're sending that award letter. And you can call us and some have. St well we needed more time well that's all the time to give you so how would we check on the status of that grant application is there a is there a contact point in your group that thank you provide us feedback on where that that challenge was stand. We'll move will follow up with you on that Clinton doctor Smith Nicolas all those are those are the ones a part of our team that that helps with this everybody has their role in it to make sure that things are done we're trying our best to get it out time because the more time you have the better off and in deploying so we we were going to check in that I am familiar with that program that project actually so I see you may you may hear some soon okay I'll just leave it as I'd be real nice if we had a point of contact for for questions around the the grant application status and it that will save a lot of. Phone calls it it would be the point of contact will will be Clint and they'll be doctor doctor Smith but anyone here can also contact me I know several of you have my cell number I I am available to listen to what ever you have I could even After this If you you can get my cell number. Thank. How many I many projects that we awarded so far you said thirty three million how many toll projects is a twenty four twenty four mile that's that's excellent excellent all right any other last comments for the committee because I have no more questions. I appreciate you how we can use the money the because right now the only thing that's going to slow us down is the lack of momentum which is due to the funding. What we get the proper funding. We can get five or whatever else other community needs we can get it to all so if that's something that you all are considered I love I'll meet with anyone anywhere except a dark alley and and and we can we can get this thing taken care of awesome thank you gentlemen thank you for your efforts on behalf of the citizens its it's or work what we're saying that the evidence thank you. next we have miss Jones that's going to give us an update on the I. S. and what they've been. What they've been up to over the last couple months during the pandemic. Answers August settled if you would just senators yourselves of committee an annual recognized. Good morning Jessica Jones a service the state chief technology officer as well as the director of the division of information systems. And I'm Josh medium that she's chief data officer for the state of Arkansas. Good morning thank you Mr chair some here to talk to you about that the eyes activities and what we've been doing in the last several months since I was here in front of you you just to kind of mention and just as a refresher ideias we are a the engine that keeps all the public systems functioning twenty four seven three hundred sixty five days a week a year percent out of course we secure we managing we protected the state network and within that Senate where we have approximately fifteen hundred over fifteen hundred websites public websites that provide public services to our constituents in and that's that network we have approximate six hundred fifty thousand users the ice is a because recovery agency we did not receive general revenue and our services range from network connectivity email data center hosting storage disaster recovery unified communications at center. So the agent that I prepare free today I'm gonna talk about some of the nation does that we're currently working on some of the projects that we've completed so far we'll touch of course on cyber security and then we'll close with Mister McGee who will talk to you about some of the efforts in regards to data. So one of the initiatives that we had to value going on is that K. through twelve broadband upgrade as you where are where we completed the first broadband upgrade to the Arkansas public the state computer networks that what we call the asking network and we are when the first top grade we are great at the the network to provide two hundred kilobits per second per user to the students and today because of that the man for more bandwidth from the school districts we in collaboration with the department of education we are operating the broadband to one megabit per second per you Sir we just started this this project and you know Bob grading the broadband we're going to be able to provide enough bandwidth to make digital learning a reality in every school and every day. We have about two hundred seventy two two two hundred seventy eight school districts between school districts charter schools and educational service coops that will be upgraded. The next one is the data center team session effort you've heard me talking about this before this effort consist on consolidated and optimizing the IT infrastructure across the executive branch and also utilizing Oklahoma's that a center as our disaster recovery site I too they were working with the systems integrator which just recently completed the discovery phase so what that man they the looked across all the I I team FOR structure across executive branch and on that they had done a fight over a thousand applications and close to three thousand servers that were map to to business applications. I'm just wrestling the last couple weeks they met with each department to the data validation I was a one on one meeting between the system integrator and the departments to ensure that all servers and applications were accounted for to make sure that they understood and we understand we're of some of the critical applications the information regarding disaster recovery contact information and also establishing a project processes to gather the the date out as we continue on with this process so right now it's of the systems and the the ball park I guess is that the system integrator we're waiting for for them to provide us with the future recommendation so there for another based on the data that there have they're going to come back to us with a recommendation so that's kinda where we. The next one is a voice over IP this project come about due to the man from our customers and also the need to upgrade some of our legacy phone lines that we have spread across this executive branch so so far we've deployed about sixteen thousand phone lines and we also have migrated some of the Legacy phone lines the replacement thirteen hundred across twenty one that part and Human Services county offices we by doing so we identified approximates approximately approximately six hundred Centrex line so that we're not in use and that brought us about a hundred eighteen thousand dollars in savings by just identified those also we were able to negotiate the pricing for about a hundred fifty analog lines and not produce about two hundred seventy two thousand dollars and cost savings we're still working on the project we have approximately approximately over four thousand lines that needs to be migrated and of course you know with the pan on on our customers to let us know and identify those lines. The next one is the migration to office three sixty five I talked about it I believe awhile back in the picture that you see I just wanted to demonstrate you know where we were at this project is about ninety three percent completed so what you see on your left hand side I believe that's on my left hand side so I think simulation side it's kind of what the environment looks like before so disparity most systems with different storage solutions some of them in secure some others were not so we decided to migrate to office three sixty five to standardize the email system to also provide all the all the functionality such as a collaboration tools and video conferencing again we're about ninety three percent completed we have approximately seven divisions are yet to be migrated now keep in mind that in this project to the permitted of education is not in the scope in this project and the reason for that is because the department of education receives educational pricing and they are migrated to office three sixty five but it's not part of of this numbers that you see you know that I've talked about here in a second now it is important mention that when the pandemic hit if you know migrated to this technology can really and handy we you know we saw a lot of increase in the collaboration between the employees are employees have the tools necessary to do their work and to collaborate we saw about twenty three percent increase in the emails that were sent and received we saw about three hundred eighty percent increase and chapped messages or for our employees and that's through a functionality that comes with office three sixty five a school teams and employees are able to send messages and received we also saw about twenty percent and forty percent increase between one drop and SharePoint meaning are in place now are a locating all those files in the same place and again you know through the pawn them make now at the employees are able. To place a filed in one location and now about five can be edited or change by many at the same time so that takes away the the need of sending emails back and forward when a document is needs to be updated. All right so moving on to some of the projects that we completed again we talked about the K. through twelve broadband operate once we completed that that project we decided to move forward with a great in the connectivity for the executive branch that project brought us about four point a million dollars of savings a year and that was due to the cost of the band with came in a half of the price of that that it was prior and just to kind of give you some examples the department of health they had to make sure of you know three megabits or for a ten megabits circuits across the county offices and they were able to operate all those two of fifteen megabit circuit and they save about thirty thousand dollars a year and also the department of Human Services some other county offices the operator from a ten Meg circuit two hundred Meg of no cost anon increase in the cost so that was a a great project and we operate about five hundred forty two sites. The next project that we completed as the main from a service this project came about of due to our infrastructure and I'll software begin you know at the end of life and you to operate and when we started look in this you know on on with the with the business and mind thinking about you there we invest capital for in by an all the infrastructure and operating on the software versus having a managed service provider that can provide that service for us it made absolute sense to move forward with an MSP one minute service provider we also knew that there's only to customers left in the main frame and those two customers have a road map to get off the month may from within two years so the live for apartment for infrastructures about five years so we knew we do want invest all that capital for you know for something that our customers we're gonna be all for that infrastructure in the next two years so this mainframe if the production mainframe is running here at our data center here in little rock and management service provider of course and the disaster recovery site it's our at the that a center of or making of the mint managed service provider sorry. The next project that we completed its that and point protection and my turn solution of course you know this solution tracks activity and risk on all devices it pretty much what it does it protects of devices from being exploited by malicious actors what we deploy the software we deployed it for over twenty nine thousand and points when arrested and points we talked about servers and devices laptops or our services now this devices are being monitored twenty four seven you know this is also through via a third party vendor in just to kind of give an example in the last month we had about nine hundred sixty six advance that where investigate for possible mount where so this this software is currently run and check in our devices. Then is to put next to projects that all talk about real quick and and it's this a two projects that are internal to the I. S. DIS had been running two critical systems that help A the eyes function one from the IT service management system so this is our ticketing system so if a customer opens opens the ticket with the I. S. or there's an incident is that the system that tracks all that and also the I. T. financial management system so and our legacy system that really helped us with our cost allocation models thanks to systems where legacy systems and of the us for many many years and there was a desperate need to operate those there were not providing with the granules data that we needed that the leadership of the I. as needed and also our employees not providing us with the reporting necessary it was done but it was taking and you know weeks and weeks and weeks so that IT service management solution now a provide us with the civility and with the this'll this station is and this is just an example of what I provided you of a screen shot of you know the system but really what you see is that a bit of the. The ability for us to now look at the data when a more efficient manner and also click on those graphs and and really look at the data more in a granular level and drill down into the data now I the beauty of this is our customers it's this system is that Senate clown it's a software as a service so customers are able to access this system anywhere in and to any device so if a customer they submitted a request for the ayes to whatever could be it could be this to support for you know change in a router now customers are able to track those requests you know on their device they can see who was assigned to the this by the time of completion you to more of a of a customer service really put to customer service should be. Our financial management system it would consist of their legacy consisted of. Many many many many spreadsheets I could not even tell you the number of spreadsheets D. I. S. as a mention were cost recovery agency so we have a very complex cost model and that cost model was based on again on a spreadsheet so every time there was a need to change the rate or a we wanted to see a projection on a right because of new service that we're going to provide it two weeks and weeks for financial team to provide us that information so bring in that in from a financial management system it allows not only the eyes leadership to look at that the financial data again in a more granular level and more friendly user but also it's allowing or managers to really look at the services that they provide and really understand the cost involved that service to make sure that which always keeping track of the call that the costs of the services that we provide. Okay so now I'm gonna talk on cyber security. And of course you know there's a couple initiatives that we are working on and I will because of the nature of the information of this initiative I will not provide any details I'll be happy to provide those on on a one one but I wanna you know will prevent for those of course you know the I is the server security office recites within DIS in a sum mentioned you know one of the mentors responsibilities is to protect the state network and I mentioned that we have about six hundred fifty thousand users on that state network we also play a critical role in coordinated any cyber incidents that happened between the part of the departments and the cyber insurance company as well we manage over a thousand firewalls between the K. through twelve that work in our customers we also created what we call a cyber strike team that is comprised of ideas that from other departments the goal of the servers track team in case if there was ever a cyber attack this team will be help in a to respond to those attacks in this team will be provided with training as well. We also provide server security awareness training to all the state employees and this was things to a home that security grant that we apply for. I am just this past July we had no on that there would he is our chief information security officer he was named our chief information security officer and we're very happy with that and to add to it today we have over four billion logs from different systems and devices that we capture on ours on our system for analysis and alert. And just to kind of give you some averages are we put together some averages of what we see it in regards to cyber security so on a daily basis so what do we see we have about nearly half a million requests for my we're sites that are working to filter solution blocks are far world they block about one quarter billion internal and external network connections and our email is spam filtering solution blocks over three hundred thousand emails so again this is on a daily basis. And on a monthly basis we have about you know ten instances a potentially malicious applications that are being investigated we have about a hundred thirty eight malicious IP addresses that are added to the blacklist and we have three point two billion attempts for malicious IP addresses that I block from entering our state network and approximate twenty four malicious fission attempts that are either reported or block from our service to carry out this. And just to kind of close from from my side I wanted to talk to you about some of the efforts were the eyes has been involved since the pandemic hit as you can imagine the eyes was very critical in helping our partner agencies one of them being DWS we help them Senate not to there are call centers the you are in the pool call center we said about three hundred agents and whenever I said agents I'm meaning that the software and of course in on the network connectivity and and the routers we also implemented a virtual agent will call a chat bot and one of their our unemployment insurance website to help answering some of the most frequently asked questions. With the point about five hundred soft phones for remote workers with deploy laptops for a you know as requested for our system partner agencies we expanded the infrastructure or to allow to handle for the increased volume of all the calls that the department were for certain services was receive in and of course you know we help the department of health backs and not the cause of it and the contact tracing hotline and that was about a hundred and fifty sessions that we set up it will also help the department of education with their covered K. through twelve resource hotline that was about twenty two stations. So with that I will pass it on to Mister McGee. Thank you so I've got it just a few slides here on the efforts of the CEOs office. So over the past few legislative sessions you all of made a concerted effort to push the state towards increasing data sharing and data driven decision making I was appointed in February just before the pandemic cat and I've been very focused on standing up the infrastructure for state longitudinal data system which is the is the focus of the data and transparency panel which was set up by legislation in the last session. The data and transparency panel includes representatives from across state government for most state departments it it is focused on trying to develop a pathway to get to a place we can share data across departments and use those data to improve government services there's a broad consensus on that panel about the need an increasing demand for those services and D. I. S. through the CDOs office is making a lot of headway and setting up the infrastructure necessary to facilitate that data sharing not just facilitate the data sharing but make good on the promise of using those data to improve government. One example of this is our work with DWS and the department of higher education round the economic security report which is mandated through ACT eight fifty two of twenty fifteen this report is supposed to connect at programs of study in higher education to work force outcomes this report has been produced by a group that is outside of state government for many years the CEO's office has been working closely with D. W. S. and higher read to automate large portions of that report and develop improved more interactive interfaces for that report and also provided that report two key stakeholder audiences that don't currently have access for example our providers of higher education currently our whenever they propose a new program or an existing program is evaluated they don't currently have the information to figure out what the work force outcomes are of their complete hers were working diligently to try to get them that information we want to expand this effort not just to be relevant to higher education but also do a better job of providing information to the executive the legislature in key stakeholders about generally the economic outcomes that we're seeing from our government services. Right now we are working to finalize data sharing agreements with DWS and and higher ed we expect that to happen in in relatively short order once we have those data sharing agreements finalized will develop an enhanced yes our so economic security report will move quickly to expand our efforts to incorporate more state agency level data into the state longitudinal data system and then build out our capacity to use those data to inform policy decision making our efforts are kind of focused on three primary aspects of data driven decision making first and foremost is building out the infrastructure so we can share data effectively and those data can be used quickly to inform policy to is building out the state internal data analytics capacity so that we can do more with those that internally and three is to where is necessary connect state agencies and the CEO's office with external subject matter experts so that we get answers to key questions though of the state move forward faster and continuously improve its efforts to serve all Arkansans. All right of Mister of a question that that I had that you brought up during your representation was this the centric phone lines that were no longer or those agencies paying for those lines and just didn't realize they had a. Yes that is correct there are not being used so they were being so they're paying something that they weren't using any idea how often they were doing that. Probably probably a lot longer than. The other will rock any idea it I mean is that going to be. Something we're gonna seek across the state. More much more that are you think we're getting close to finding all that I'm used I'm I'm work we're very close I think we have hot like I said like I mentioned I think we have about maybe four thousand more lines to go so I think we're good. Also well that just saying from your overview looks like you all been busy and got a lot to get things done for the citizens are in the same room so we we appreciate that Representative Cavenaugh Europe first. Thank you Mr chair mine also goes to the phone lines that weren't used and also your broadband services that you know you're able to do some cost savings on as a business person every year we review our phone lines and we review our internet service provider and to make sure that we've using what response to be used and they were not using that had gone that's not just a policy for the state. If you think about how much money we wasted by paying for lines and service not used it used. We're trying to cut expenses all the time how could we not ever implemented a review of our phone lines. I think that's a very good question I thank you some times and I'm just guessing here so I'm not saying that that's exactly what happened I think a lot of times when people move from you know one cubicle to the other one. It just gets miss that's the only thing I can think of. But we are implementing a procedure where this will be reviewed yearly so that we won't have these phone lines again that cost is a hundred and forty eight thousand plus a year we will take that will take your recommendations for sure thank you thank you. The Representative love your Sir. Thank you Mr chair and I'd like to say thank you all for the work that you're doing because I could tell I work for Pulaski County government and we went to the same thing and we had lines that nobody knew that we had so that's good work in thank you for which you the new one just a couple of questions and I don't know if it if But it is the secretary secretary John Sir director John director John okay so director Jones In regards to. May it be fun or this. The make house and let me come back in because I wanted to ask you in about the. The. We ran into some issues with the you are and the P. U. A. as far as is like say for instance my account. Somebody found a claim on my account. And so what I mean house is happening I mean what kind of because I'm thinking cyber security is somewhere in the in regards to somebody found and from this benefits on my account as far as is unemployment insurance so can you speak to that anyway I wanna we doing the kind I To combat against that. I make me do you understand my question because like somebody found a claim form of unemployment benefits what are we doing and to try to prevent that because I was saying Representative Scott had the same thing happened to her in so what are we doing the kind of comment that or is that well who do I need to talk to if it's not yes I believe and this will be for work for services they have I've brought you need and nothing they can speak to that and and that's gonna be next on the agenda actually okay are thank you. But any other questions. Okay represent round. Thank you director in Mr chair now this may not be what you do but I have just been I don't know about my colleagues but I am appalled at the junk mail we receive in our house email accounts selling as thermometers of air conditioners every thing under the sun is there no way to screen that step out I have missed important emails just dealing with you know I got that there and I'll be to late the late the late the late and I can't even get to my you know I then I end up missing a good email. And and I'm I'm assuming this is your work email yes Amend my suggestion would be to talk to your and I'm not sure who that I tease that for well that this latest bureau yeah I I have done that and and that sometimes I send them and sometimes I know and it's a fishing expedition on my email account and I stand ready and and ask them to block it and they probably block that one but then here comes another one is there no way to stop that. I think there's going to be so many I think you like like you mentioned you're still going to get some you can unsubscribe that's one piece but. Thanks so much time every day every time a sit down to do it it really does it it would be a way to provide that list to the ideas that so they can block anything that comes from any of those companies not only just to you but to anybody but but shall be up to them. And then the problem Representative there there's always a a balancing act there was to be make the filter to strange at then you miss good emails as well also trying to find that balances it's a to. Can be challenging Bailey's. Thank you sorry. thank you and Mister McGee if you wouldn't mind grab me after the the meeting is one of his it was you were real quick let's move on thank you both for for being here today for presentation for your work you're doing on behalf of the citizens Mister Hawkins you're next or. Then down to the nitty gritty here. four will get this all wrapped up a lunch time. When you all get settled into senators yourself to the committee and then you're recognized proceed. Sri's charters director division of work for services. Carter auctions chief information officer division of work for services. Thank you so much members of the committee for giving us the opportunity to visit with you today we are going to provide you with an overview. Of the pandemic unemployment assistance program specific to the data incident has was requested so we have that information to present to you today and Carter Hawkins will be providing you with the details so we will begin if that is. acceptable to. Shares thank you. Thank you Mr chair and members of the committee thank you for inviting us here to give an update on the incident that occurred or the potential incident that occurred I do have a some talking points here that I'm going to read through and then we can open it up for any questions that you may have of what happens on may the fifteenth twenty twenty we learned of a potential vulnerability with the P. U. a system that may have allowed an author on authorized individual to view aplica their applicants information. Upon learning of the potential vulnerability we mentally removed all public access to the P. U. a system and began an internal investigation to determine how this occurred and what information may be at risk DWS initiated a comprehensive response plan and hired an independent computer forensic company to conduct an investigation to help determine the cause of the potential incident and to ensure the database and the applicant's personal information or secure. the information that was involved while the other investigation is still ongoing it appears that on authorized individuals may have been able to view the information of other P. U. a applicants that may have applied between may first and may fifteenth. To date we have no evidence or indication that the center information was miss used in connection with this event what's been done since of the department of commerce division work for services is cooperating with the FBI on its investigation into the data security incident. Due to the investigation we are limited in the information we can share at this time uh as a safeguard we arranged for impacted applicants to enrolling credit monitoring and identity protection services at no cost. The service is included twelve months of credit and cyber scam monitoring a one million dollar insurance reimbursement policy and fully managed ID theft recovery services. as of last night we had about two hundred and fifteen almost two hundred sixteen thousand applicants that have applied for P. U. AA and we paid out over eight hundred and seven million dollars in a P. U. a disbursements to the applicant's that have applied and about six million dollars of that has going to child support and so those are the how level updates or statistics on what we paid out the system is working a came back on line around may the twenty second may the twenty first by the twenty first I believe and we started making our first payments on may the twenty second after we it is a full security review and that's the update that I have if you all have any questions would be happy to take those of the the two that I had is Did you all work with the I. S. because obviously they've been involved a lot of farm security hi how what involvement did they have it on all this yes Sir the the yeah we did we go ahead I was also the reason why I'm asking is because you said you out you hired an outside firm I didn't know if there was a reason why we did that first if using inside. So yes Sir the day that we were notified of the potential event or incident we reached out to the I. us to engage the state's cyber security policy as part of the process to engage state cyber security policy we go through the I asked to do that and their team their leadership team was involved with us from that point forward in as far as the independent forensic vendor that we hired it was through the insurance policy they facilitated that an insurance policy paid for it okay and that this FBI given any indication when they might close the case and get back with this with any information no Sir they have not indicated a time line to us okay all Representative Cavenaugh. Thank you Mr chair but now my old programmer hat. Storage to amend the last time yes so whenever I wrote programs we had somebody that quality check them before it went live. Is that not something that was actually done with this process and it was a not something that a QC person. Actually be checking before we make a big program like this available was there no body check in it to make sure that the code didn't have some problems in it that it did allow for something like this yes ma'am what we work checking the code the programmers for checking the code but that's to the extent but I can speak to that right now. Okay. Follow up yeah. With this data breach to the on call potential but is a data breach. Six members of my family by Representative love I've had fraudulent. Claims filed. Are they late. Or they get that information from another source and just using it that's my question so ma'am what we understand is that is not linked and there's no evidence or indication that those are linked because at the time of the potential incident your family members from Mister love Representative loves information was not in the P. U. a system so all other states are experiencing high levels of potential fraud and they're also have run into the same issues and what we understand from other states and talking with peers and and subcommittee experts and the I. us from what we understand. It's from previous data incidents and bridges in the past that included information of individuals and there's malicious factors that are taking that information and using it maliciously and not only in our state but other states to file claims on individuals that are fraudulent claims well I do want to recommend your one of your local offices one all of ours came through they called and said Hey you out and I'll get laid off from your business did you as a no so I you know I was placed in all that they were doing their due diligence and looking not just curious that the two were link and I know what's been happening to a lot of different people so yes ma'am thank you. Thank all Representative Scott you're next. Thank you over here thank you for all your help I know I reached out to miss Childress a lot. Regarding some of these issues at I think my question is was our information by any chance breach last year and if so Where we notify because at first when it initially happened a lot of teachers in my district were experiencing it which made me think that maybe there was a breach and retirement or state information prior to the P. U. a breach you know I was trying to connect the dots myself and so I didn't necessarily think it was the P. U. a breach but I felt like there was a breach of our information through the state at some point and I was just wondering if that did occur why were we not notified even if it was a year prior. Yes ma'am and that's a good question and I I don't know the answer to that question other than as of today there are no indications that any other state systems have been a compromise that would have led to this top of malicious activity I'm not very familiar with previous date incidents in the state I do know there have been some reported in the newspaper as far as the teacher I believe it's a teacher retirement system that I remember so we have reached out to a teacher retirement and we have been in conversations with them about sharing data to to do a match however there's no indication that that's where the the the data has come from thank you. What our Representative love. Thank you Mr chair so are we saying that we don't know where the breaches. A court have we have we not figured out where the where the breach was so or is or. Yes I mean seriously if if my that is been pre seventeen undiplomatic fell on the floor so are we saying we don't know where ET is the yes Sir that's correct there's we have we have weekly conversations with our peer organization and peers in other states that are having the same issue and the speculation is in the cyber security experts that have talked about this in the past on these meetings are that have other states have talked to and that we have talked to the date indicate that the data comes from other or data breaches historical data breaches that have happened in the past a large a nation wide compromises that have occurred not necessarily so she added with the state system or all or work for any data breach specifically that they can point to so yes Sir it's unknown at this time where these folks these malicious factors are buying the date or attaining the data potentially on the the the dark web or something like that but we don't know exactly where it's coming from it's probably multiple sources. And if I may by Representative love in twenty seventeen there was of data incident that involved a hundred and forty million Americans in the United States and that was through a credit bureau so you know if you just take that number and look at the that's half of the United States population and they are you know the information I've read said that that affected almost every adult in the United States so unfortunately we are all at risk so when we receive your report and we receive reports to represent of Cavenaugh and anyone else that that reports of fraud application and claim on them we instruct them to file a police report and then also give them information as to what to do for next steps we suggest that you that you look into the entities that do provide. Protection identity theft protection and that you engage in that because it is so rampant now across the United States not just specifically to Arkansas but across the United States and we're hearing it every week on our calls with other states and we're all taking measures to do what we can to protect protect our systems and also the citizens well I I did I reached out to you all and I want to thank you for how quickly that you off thank you are active and unfortunately there's people out there that are participating in this nefarious activity but thank you all for the help that you all providing gladly thank you an actual director I was going to follow up on that with that I was the Equifax data breach and there've been several large corporations that have had very news where the data breaches so fortunately it's this becoming an issue in our modern society so any other questions. Okay if not thank you both for being here thank you for the update and please as the investigation unfolds anything new comes alive please please keep us posted on that thank you Mr chair thank you committee last on the list for today as Mr Sanders is going to give us a the fee change report this is our regular report that we get. And what you get settled in there to senators yourself this committee and. Bob Sanders general manager information network of Arkansas. Thank you Mr chairman I'll be really brief and discover some of the highlights from the report. Q. two is really busy Friday mostly responding to the Cup in nineteen outbreak in supporting the agencies that we provide services for you'll see the report forty one new services launched in quarter to. Twenty eight of those were supported by fees and thirteen were provided without any fees so that'll to the public at no cost. just a couple on that we provided that were done without fees the governor's covert nineteen information hub so the website that links all the information from different state agencies in one place it as a map we develop that for the governor's office and no cost as was the cares acts during committee website in the common form that they stood up shortly after that. Something else that our team did as a volunteer effort was a application called a our peers which is for peer recovery specialist who work in the state we were with state drug director proclaimed on that application to help that community of folks to help Sir cantons recover from addiction. altogether the services the new services that we develop for our cantons represent twelve counties for cities and to state government departments lots of new services one they were really proud of is the city of little rock we serve but the nation for for them shortly after the pandemic began they've raised about fifteen thousand dollars five to purchase PP with that. The last thing I'll call out in that report that's a little bit unusual from what you've seen and in prior reports is three county tax collector's garland hot spring county in White County have a fee change we very rarely have see changes in these reports you'll notice that those look a little bit unusual they have that collector signature at the bottom. I want to give you some information of what's happening with those so there are three major providers of back and software this offer the tax code is used in the office to manage all of the parcels and things that people pay we don't provide that are nine a we only provide the front end website for tax payments in what those many of those providers are doing is a providing an enhanced version of that software that does a direct real time integration into that back and so what that means is that in the past someone wants to renew their car tax for example even if they pay online they still have to wait a day or two or sometimes more for that to be fully process before they can go into the revenue officer is the car tax with this real time integration that's cut down to minutes and they can do that in real time some of the tax collectors are choosing to fund this new software with fees paid to those third party software providers to approach the on a board about this arrangement earlier this year the approve that approach and as we get new request for this type of fee structure we included in these reports with the signature of the tax collector so this very transparent were all the fees are going to. That concludes my summary. At any questions. Okay saying not from anyone thank you Sir and thank you for your efforts on behalf of the state thank you all right colleagues that's all I have for today thank you for sticking it out and I I want to try to have at least one more meeting before the end of the year so with that we will finish up our business today thank you all for being here. We are turned.