House Education Committee
Video
Transcript
Bills discussed (14)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
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SB583
· 3 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “SB583”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB2032
· 2 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “HB2032”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1310
· 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “on 1310, if you all remember House Bill 1310, I brought here about consolidated buildings, school buildi…”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1507
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1507”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1590
· 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “…ive Westerman has requested a special order of business for House Bill 1590 for Tuesday, March 26th. No, for Thursday, March 28th. Excu…”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1629
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1629”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1690
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1690”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB17
· 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “House Bill 17. You are recognized when you're ready to proceed with House”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1782
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1782”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1945
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1945”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB140
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB140”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB332
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB332”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB456
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB456”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB457
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB457”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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If you want a cup of coffee, please avail yourself. Hal Honeycutt, you okay? All right. Members, the presentation that we had Tuesday, Mr. C.T., Thomas, that will be the last presentation that we have. Because of the volume of bills that have been assigned to this committee, we're going to have to really kind of dig in and get down to business. And so be prepared for some lengthy agendas.
And with that being said, we are immediately going to go into our agenda. Before we do that, we need to get a couple of special order of businesses taken care of. Representative Westerman has requested a special order of business for House Bill 1590 for Tuesday, March 26th. No, for Thursday, March 28th. Excuse me. For Thursday, March 28th. And I will entertain a motion in that regard.
Representative Ratliff, do a motion that we set that special order of business for Mr. Westerman, and we will do that for March 28th. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay. And we have another special order of business for Tuesday, March 26th. Representative Malone wishes that we place 2106 as a special order. I will entertain a motion to that effect, Representative Ratliff. So we will go ahead and set that for 2106 for Tuesday, March 26th.
If you do, members of the committee, if you need a special order on an issue, please let us know. And real quick, Mark, since we have so many bills that have been filed, could you just give us just a brief little update on the procedure in terms of the fiscal impacts and the timing? So, folks, a little refresher because, you know, the fiscal impacts require a little bit of time. So we want to make sure that we get everybody scheduled, but your fiscal impact has to be added into the equation.
Speaker 4
2:20
So Mark. Mr. Chairman, thank you, sir. What happens is, members, every time that you amend a substantive amendment into a bill, it requires a brand-new fiscal impact. If you're just adding sponsors, it does not. But any substantive amendment, I mean, as small as striking an A and adding a B requires a new impact under the House rules. So just be mindful that as you amend it or you amend the shale bill, what will happen is it will go depending on fiscal impact and not come straight to the regular agenda.
If you have a bill that you amend that's on the regular agenda, it will have to go back to pending a fiscal impact, get the impact back, wait the three days, then come back onto the regular agenda. And with that, Mr. Chairman, that's all
I have. Now, we're not going to suspend the rules, even though we can. We're not going to do that. There's a procedure that's in place, and we're going to follow that when it comes to the fiscal impact. So just be mindful of that. Communicate with Mark, because we want to make sure time is running out, and we want
to make sure if you do have a building that's important that it's heard here.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
3:30
Representative Hobbs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a quick question. When you say three days, is that three days from when it's submitted for a fiscal impact
or three days after the fiscal impact
Speaker 15
3:40
is received? The statute, ma'am, says three days. We assume that to be three calendar days, counting the day that you get the impact back. So three days after the impact statement is
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
3:49
received. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Thank you,
Mr. Chair. So that's just something, you know, as we maybe have three more weeks, you know,
I'll just communicate with Mark so we get your bill heard and we get it out of our committee and through the House floor. With that, we're going to jump into the agenda. Representative Ferguson, thank you for being here, ma'am, and we
Representative Deborah Ferguson
Unverified
4:14
are going to recognize you for House Bill 2032. You are recognized. Received, ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee. The University of Arkansas Medical School Admissions asked me to run this for them. time, their national credentialing committee has the recommendation that four of the people
on the admission board be faculty, and that's not in their present language. So that's all this bill does. It clarifies the faculty status of members on the University of Arkansas Medical Admission Board. Thank you
for that, Representative Ferguson. Do we have any questions from the committee? If
not, do we have anyone in the audience who wishes to speak for or against the bill? Seeing none, the Chair will entertain a motion.
Representative Edwards, do pass. All in favor? Aye.
All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you much, Representative Ferguson. Thank
you, Committee. Representative Douglas, you are recognized to present Bill 1945 if you're ready, ma'am.
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
5:38
Representative Douglas, you are recognized, ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee, we
Speaker 35
6:03
have a bill today that will require that public schools report the enrollment
enrollment of students who are in active military on their enrollment form. You can see the different branches. We don't want it to just say military in a check box. We want it to actually give us which branch of the military they're in. And I'm going to let Mrs. Shaw, who's here with me today as a liaison from the military, to explain what this is going to do
Speaker 37
6:37
for those students. You're recognized, ma'am. Thank you. Terry Shaw, and I am a member of the Arkansas Military Child Education Coalition.
There are about 200 of us across the state. What we've discovered is that we have no numerical, factual, actual data that we can use. So in any district, if you, for example, in one of your school districts wanted to apply for a grant for a new science program from JCPenney, well, what would make the difference between your grant and someone's from Tennessee? So having the ability to know the exact amount of students that are in your district, you
can write in that grant that there are 232 military in your district that you are serving that are military dependents whose parents deploy. But that makes us different from any other grant. So we want data and numbers. Within the state, we are not able to even connect how many National Guard we have that are children that are in our public schools. So what we're asking for is just numbers and data.
MR. Thank you very much, ma'am. Have any
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
8:01
questions? Representative Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You said deploy. I guess my question is, are we going to cover someone, whether they're going to Title X status, regardless of where they are? I mean, I don't want to leave. As I'm sure you know, we have many military families and soldiers and airmen that get here stateside, but they're still in the active status.
Speaker 37
8:25
Can you expand upon that, please? Yes, sir. If they go Title X, which means that they are now on active duty, they count as far as impact aid is concerned and as far as other grants are concerned. The member fills out the form when the person goes through pre-deployment, and then the school can count that person in the guard.
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
8:52
Okay. And then on Title 32 AGR, would that cover that as well?
I'm not familiar with that, sir. I'm sorry. But I support the bill. I just want to make sure I understand, though, when we say we're actually talking about activation regardless whether there's deployment or not. I mean, you can be activated and serve here in Little Rock, Arkansas, and
Speaker 37
9:16
you will still. Yes, sir. Thank you. And may I add that if they are part-time guard, they can still be counted in a district's numbers because at any point in time, that person could deploy.
Thank you very much, Representative Douglas and Ms. Shaw. Do we have any other questions from the committee? If not, anyone in the audience wish to speak for or against this bill? Seeing none, Representative Edwards, you have a motion, sir? We have a do, pass motion. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Representative Douglas. Thank you, committee. Thank you. Representative Linderman.
Representative Linderman has three bills, I believe, that he is going to be
presenting today. With your permission, Representative Linderman, after this bill, we're going to entertain Representative Links, and then we will go back to your bills, if that's
okay with you, sir. Not a problem at all, sir. Thank you. Representative Linderman, you're
recognized. Which bill would you like for me to present first? You just call the shot, my friend. Okay. Let's do Senate Bill 583, and I'm going to ask, if I would, the Department of Education to come up here with me.
Senate Bill 583 deals with the Master Principle Program, and it simply is an amendment to the bills. It is repealing some obsolete language and clarifying a master of principles program that deal with high-needs schools. And so I'm going to defer to the State Department of Education. This is a bill that was carried
at their request. Thank you. Mark White, staff attorney for the department.
Speaker 59
11:05
Representative Litterman put it exactly right. We are doing a couple things
Speaker 61
11:08
in this bill. Number one, we are cleaning up some obsolete language that defines what a high-need public school is for purposes of the bonuses that are paid to master principals. We're also providing clarification that if a master principal takes over a high-need school and turns it around, they won't lose their bonus. Right now, under the current law, if they succeed in turning that school around, they lose their bonus, and so they lose their incentive to keep that school performing. So we want to take away that perverse incentive that's in the current law.
And then finally, we have some language. We do have one master principal who's currently receiving bonuses, and we have some language just to ensure that we don't inadvertently damage or take away that individual's bonuses. And with that,
Speaker 62
11:48
I'll be happy to answer any questions. Madam Chair, you have a question,
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
11:57
ma'am. I was trying to get Mr. Chair to ask the question. Would you clarify, Mark, how they lose their bonuses? Just remind me. The way the statute
Speaker 59
12:06
is worded right now, they're eligible for that
Speaker 61
12:08
bonus as long as their school is still in school improvement.
And so if they turn that school around and it starts to perform and it's no longer in school improvement, they're no longer eligible for the bonus under the current law.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
12:22
So we actually have a negative incentive going on. Yes, ma'am.
Representative Leonard, do you have anything to add? No, sir. This very minimal impact on the State Treasury, only
for a very few people that would receive this, and certainly would appreciate a good vote. I
do believe we have one more question.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
12:43
Representative Hobbs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm sorry, it took me a little bit to find the bill. But I'm not even sure what page it's on, but it refers to the bonus of $25,000 for every school year for no more than five years. Is that five-year cap still in place? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. We're not changing
Speaker 16
13:00
that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very
much, gentlemen. We have any other questions from the committee? Seeing none, is there anyone from the audience who wishes to speak for or against the bill? If not, Chair, we'll entertain a motion.
Motion do pass. Representative Linderman has a motion do pass. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very, very much. Gentlemen. Representative Link?
House Bill 17. You are recognized when you're ready to proceed with House
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
13:31
Bill 1782. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee for hearing the bill today. 1782, when we were working
on 1310, if you all remember House Bill 1310, I brought here about consolidated buildings, school buildings, and making it easier for schools to dispose of those buildings,
whether it's through sale or lease or donation or use. we found a little flaw in the existing code when we got
Speaker 79
13:57
to the Senate end. Rep. Link, I beg your pardon. We have been going
very fast. Okay. And I just want the members to have an opportunity to make sure you have the bill on your tablets. I beg your pardon, Rep. Link. No, there's no problem. We
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
14:11
are going awful fast. It's that time of year, isn't it? And
that's on me, members. If we are going too fast, please just let us know.
We'll slow down. But we want to make sure you have the information. The tablets sometimes do not cooperate. Does everybody have the information? 1782 is the bill
Speaker 86
14:30
number, yes, sir. Thank you, Representative Link. Okay. I'll slow
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
14:35
down a little, too. I'm in a hurry to get to other committees, as everyone else is. Okay. When we passed
1310 and we got to the Senate end, we found a little flaw in the existing code, or at least it was determined to be an existing code. So instead of trying to amend that and come back and go through all the processes,
this bill, 1782, is written toward the existing code that exists. It deals with the Arkansas Code 621-108 concerning the donation of property. What we said before, not this body, but before it had been said, the school district shall be required to compensate the entity for real property if it was donated to them. So what that said, it has said for a number of years,
if the property were donated to an entity, the school has that first refusal to get the property back, but it didn't say for free. So if the school were to donate a property, say, to a not-for-profit, Rotary Club or whatever, that Rotary Club then turns around and decides to sell that, they could charge the school to purchase that property back that was donated to them. That's how the code had been for all this time, and that was found. So what we're saying is if a school district donates property and that property is then made available, whether it's for sale or whatever,
the school has the first refusal for it to be donated back to them. Brings up another little problem that I want you all to be aware of. If an entity, we'll use, again, Rotary Club is not for profit, puts a new roof on the thing for $80,000, it also says the school will bring that back for that same price, a donation. So a rotary just loses that $80,000 or whatever they put in any roof. There's nothing in here that says a school has to make them full on that.
And that's an issue. It's been discussed. I want you to know the negative part of this, but the positive part is we're not putting our schools in a situation where they donate a property in good faith, think they're going to get it back because this entity decides to sell it and ends up having to pay a couple hundred thousand dollars to someone to get the property back. So there still is an issue here,
but I think it's a better fix than what we had. Thank you, Representative
Link. Do we have any questions from the committee, Representative Lowry? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Speaker 94
16:57
If I read subpart two of section one correctly, the language that's put in there leaves it open-ended
Speaker 95
17:02
that the school district could compensate the entity, correct? Yes, sir. They sure can. But where it was worded before, shall not, they just absolutely shall not.
Speaker 97
17:12
So if they were in good faith, wanted to pay
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
17:15
that organization for that new roof that's put on there, it could be done. Okay. But it does leave this where the school could leave that other organization hanging. And so that's a risk they're going to have to take.
If they're going to take that building and go put a bunch of improvements in it, knowing they're going to try to sell it later. Now, if they're going to make improvements knowing they're going to use it, which is what the school is intending, then everything is fine. But if they go and try to sell the thing for a profit or even to get there at the mercy of the
Speaker 95
17:47
school to reimburse them for that or not. So the change then works it so that if the school district wants to act in good faith with their community. We're leaving
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
17:55
it to where the school can act in good faith instead of the community act in good faith.
Okay. We're putting the risk back onto the community, not the
Speaker 108
18:08
school. Thank you, Representative Lowry.
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
18:13
Representative Carnine, do you have a question, sir? Thank you,
Mr. Chair. Representative Lane, has this removed some of the concern that we've talked about regarding legal, you might say, entanglements regarding donations of property, obviously some of it
But regarding, and I understand the rationale, but have you with this change removed some of the concern about the legal? So in other words, if you're shaking your head, I'm gathering then that school districts potentially could be in a situation where they're going to have to expend considerable dollars to defend themselves if they in fact do donate property. Is that correct? I can't tell you if they would
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
19:01
have to expend any money or considerable money or no money.
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
19:05
I don't know. Okay. Well, I'm just trying to clarify. As you well know, I've had some concern regarding additional costs rather than it appears to me that there could be a way through this with leases rather than donations of the full property. Have you explored that? Yes, sir. And, again, I think what you're trying to do is the right thing. And I'm just trying to be sure we don't cause more.
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
19:33
And going back, and I appreciate that, and I understand your concern.
It almost sounds like we're headed back into debating 1310 again instead of this one. But, no, this does not clear up
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
19:51
that concern from 1310. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Carnot. Representative Viviano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Representative Link, is there any timeframes associated with once that entity decides they're going to sell it or dispose of the asset, is there a timeframe associated with which the school district must act?
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
20:16
No. This doesn't specify a timeframe. Okay. okay um i guess that i mean they have the first the first chance of
refusal yeah but usually the first part of refusal you have a time frame associated with that that right um let me let me look here
in the other code i don't think it does i don't think there's it's this the first that's been brought
up and no i don't see anything about that i don't know and perhaps in real law is you're
or not, and I'm not an attorney, there might be someone to tell us if there is some sort of law about
refusal if that is an existing law somewhere. Representative
Link, there is somebody. Okay. And he's standing on deck. Good. But we're going to get
to him. I assume there would be. We're going to get to him. The keen legal mind will be
here shortly. Okay. But Representative B, continue your questioning, please, sir. And I'm in favor of what you're trying to do. Yes, sir. My concern
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
21:13
is that we don't, some school district that I have in a legal battle because certain conditions weren't met they want to get the property back but they didn't
act and then that entity went ahead and either sold it or disposed
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
21:25
of it and that's that's a fair concern and I'm getting used to having friends
Speaker 3
21:30
sit by me down here representative you have
Speaker 71
21:34
anything to add no thank you mr. chairman thank
you sir representative Cozart okay do we have any other questions
from the committee okay mr. Richardson you're recognized sir thank you Scott Richardson with the
Speaker 128
21:54
Attorney General's office we appreciate what representative link is trying to do it and in the manner in which he's doing it I mean we've he understands we have a disagreement with him and we're still friends so I just want to express my appreciation to him two problems here one a continued problem from his other bill of donation our office has opinions uh over several years expressing the uh the opinion that a school
district is restricted by the constitution it cannot donate property it must have used that property for school purposes this bill adds a second concern which would be you would essentially allow school district to take private property without compensation which is a taking clause problem and as represent link pointed out you know if a private entity takes that building and it makes
improvements upon the building then this law essentially says the the school district can take that back without compensating that entity for the improvements whatever changes they have made to that building and I as I understand the problem that's trying to be addressed is there are a number of school buildings that are they're lying unused that that may be in more of a state of disorder than just a roof so you might have an entity that has to
make quite a bit of improvements to a building, and this bill would allow the school district to essentially donate it for the private entity to rehabilitate the building, and then the school district, if that entity decides to sell it, can pull it back without compensation, which will be a problem for that owner and a problem under the Constitution. Thank you, Mr. Richardson.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
23:55
Madam Bus Chair. well i thought that i understood that but what you're saying essentially is there's no way in
this piece of legislation that allows this the private entity that bought it bought the building to say put conditions on the right of refusal for the school is that i mean is that i mean i could ask that to either the bill sponsor or to you mr richardson yeah that's the
Speaker 128
24:18
way i understand it if school district doesn't want to pay for the building they don't have to pay for it period now the they could choose to pay for it it's not required that they do that but they could refuse to pay for it demand that the property be returned to them and then then you're going to have a
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
24:38
problem if the property were made available they can't just go out and demand it be returned to them but if that entity made the property available for sale i want to make sure i'm right it then yes they could demand it be
Speaker 128
24:48
given to them yes yes my apologies once it's made available for sale then the school district has the option to secure the return of
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
25:03
the property. Thank you. Thank you Madam Vice Chair. Representative Biviano. Again I would pose my question about time frame if there is no specified time frame they make it available for sale and won't have to be defined that the school has
Speaker 128
25:12
to act within a certain time? I'm not aware of that restriction but I can see a compounding effect of the problem for the school district if they're allowed to exercise that right after a sale has, you know, late in
Speaker 95
25:34
the negotiations for a sale to another entity. Okay. Thank you. Representative Lowry. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Isn't it true that this, the right of first refusal does not lock the private entity into
having to contract with the school district, correct? I mean, could they not refuse the school district's offer? If the school district says, we don't want to pay for your $50,000 in improvements, the private entity could say, okay, we're going to
Speaker 128
26:01
the second group. Now, the way I understand this bill, if the entity doesn't want to accept that loss, then their only option is to take the
Speaker 95
26:12
property off the market. But in typical bidding situations or real estate transactions,
Speaker 149
26:17
right of first refusal does not mean it locks them into being the buyer,
Speaker 128
26:24
does it? That may be typical, but under this bill, the way I understand it, and Representative Lincoln can correct me if I'm wrong, the school district has the option to say once that property is offered for sale, we're going to take that property back and we're not going to pay for it. And then the only option for the private entity would be to say, okay, we're not
Speaker 149
26:44
going to sell it. Well, then that does become a public takings, right, of private property?
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
26:49
Now, let me make sure. Let me see if we're, I think maybe we're seeing a different question out of the same person here. I think what
Representative Lowry is saying is the school doesn't have to take, I mean, right of first refusal, yes, The school could refuse to take it back, say, even though it's free, we don't want it, go ahead and sell it. And then the entity could go ahead and sell it because the school has refused it and said, no, we don't want it. Even if it's free, we don't want it. That's true. But
Speaker 128
27:19
if the school district decides to exercise the right of first refusal,
the only option I see out of that for the entity is to withdraw it from sale unless I'm missing something. Really? They can't
Speaker 127
27:32
sell it? Well, it says it says if the school district donates real property
Speaker 98
27:36
really have discussed this a bunch we The school district shall
Speaker 127
27:41
have the right of first refusal to reacquire the real property if the entity decides to sell or otherwise
Speaker 128
27:46
dispose of the real property and Then it says the school district is not required to compensate the entity for the real property or any improvements
required under this section. So I'm not seeing another option out for the private entity other than withdrawing it from the market or whatever. I don't read it that way, but
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
28:06
that's not the intent, but I don't read it that way. But anyway. Okay. I'm sorry. No,
go ahead, Representative Lane. This isn't a passionate bill of mine that
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
28:18
I'm really jumping up and down wanting this committee to pass. It is an agreement I
made with the Senate that I would run this bill and give this option.
I'm okay whichever way this committee sees it. Basically, the risk lies either in the community entity that takes it from the school that they may make improvements and then it go back to the school, or the risk lies with the school that they have to compensate for improvements if they
bring the building back with the
right of first refusal. Well, there seems to be a little
– there is a lack of clarity in terms of the AG's view of this and the sponsor's view of this.
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
29:08
Yes, sir. I think continuing our debate may be the best way to say that. Representative Kozart. Representative Link, don't you believe that
Speaker 163
29:19
there probably should be a clause in there for a sunset on that right of refusal? Yes, sir. I think that's a good thing.
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
29:25
I just kind of thought right of refusal there was, you know, you either had to take it or not take it. But from what I'm hearing from your questions is that you all feel like that a school could just sit there and not say yes or no for years.
Speaker 166
29:38
I think there needs to be a sunset, and I believe that would probably be the answer to this in that contract.
It would have to be in that contract, though, each one. Yes, sir. Representative Link, would you be amenable if we just kind of took this down and maybe got some clarity or maybe got it fixed a little bit? I'm going to let you call the
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
29:59
shot on this. I'm proud to pull it down, and I may or may not be back. Okay. Thank
you. Well, with your permission, Representative Link, that's what we're going to do.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, committee. Thank you, Representative Link, very, very much. Senator Irvin, our favorite senator, you are recognized to present Senate Bill 140. You
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
30:37
may proceed when you're ready. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate those comments.
a little sister of five older brothers, I was always told I was their favorite sister from all five of my brothers. I was their only sister, but their favorite, so thank you. Senate Bill 140 is one of my favorite, it's my favorite bill of the session, to be quite honest with you, and it came about after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, and on that day, my daughter who's 18 came home along with my other four children came home and said mom I don't know
what to do if that happened at my school what would I do where would I go how would we how would I protect myself or how would I protect my little brothers and my sister and we just we don't know what to do and then I had discussions with friends of mine who are teachers and then I had the wonderful occasion to meet with Dr. Cheryl May with the criminal justice institute and with many of the sheriffs that I work with in Stone County and in Cleburne County as well as Office of Emergency Management
at Glenn Crimes who's with Stone County. So we started to discuss this and we felt very strongly that there needed to be professional training for our law enforcement agencies as well as our schools to be able to prepare themselves and respond to an event such as what has happened in Connecticut but it's also happened twice in Arkansas at Westside and at Stamps. And so what this bill does is the Safe School Initiative Act is it requires that these drills be performed on campus. It also allows for training through the Criminal Justice Institute,
which is through the University of Arkansas systems. It gives our schools the flexibility on how they want to run those drills. It takes out one of the tornado drills, which we do legislate and require, and replaces it with one of these drills. I worked with the Department of Ed. I've worked with Richard Abernathy and with Tony Prothrow and Mike and however many, there's so many folks that worked on this bill with me, and I'm just so very grateful for the cooperative spirit and everybody who just had the passion for our teachers and the passion for our kids
and the flexibility for our schools to be able to do it the way they needed to do it. And I'm just, I'm really excited about this bill, and I'll answer any questions. It also layers in a layer of technology. As you know, after 9-11 occurred, the federal government gave grant funding for there to be one radio system, and that was a lot of what happened at 9-11 was you didn't have first responders and firemen and police officers weren't able to communicate with one another because they were not connected.
And so that federal grant resulted in Arkansas having the AWIN system, And so this permissively allows for those schools to have radio technology that would be directly connected to the Department of Emergency Management if we decide to fund that. And I think that's important. And those radios are actually radios that can be, if the person that has the radio is shot, it immediately notifies Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. So it's great technology.
It's something that we already have the infrastructure for through the AWIN program, and I think it's a smart thing. And I can answer any questions. Again, I think it's just a great common-sense solution to the problems that we unfortunately have in our world today. And it's just being about talking about being prepared and how we run drills and how we train our teachers how to respond, and it's very simple. So I appreciate any questions. Thank you very much, Representative Irvin.
Representative Linderman, you have a question. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Irvin, I am very much in favor of this legislation, as you and I have had many questions about this, and I certainly want to applaud all the efforts and work you put into this. My pad is not cooperating with me, and it will not tell me what the fiscal impact
is. I'm sorry. What is the fiscal impact either to the school or to
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
34:54
the state treasury? Right now, there is none.
Here's the fiscal impact statement. It's not specified, so it's just there's nothing affected. There's a separate appropriation. If we chose to do this, there's a separate appropriation bill. So this is just a substantive bill, substantive language, and it requires us if it's funded. So there is an appropriation bill that will go through budget for the training. And it's about that is separate from this bill. Again, it's about $691,000 and some change.
Okay. All right. Thank you, Senator. Thank you,
Speaker 181
35:42
the proper time, please. Thank you, Representative Linderman. Representative Dale. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Senator, on page 4, section 5, not being familiar with legal terms,
what's the do not codify temporary language?
What does that mean? Okay, because of all the different
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
36:07
things that we're asking our schools to do in this next school year, and that was requested by our teachers and those folks that work within our teachers and our administration, but they're going to have to respond to new teacher evaluations and those kinds of things, and so we put that in there so that it would start not this year but next year because there's a lot of transitions, a lot of things that our schools are actually
going to have to do this year, and so it starts it next year, in 2014, not 2013, and that's what that section does. Thank you. Thank you, Representative
Speaker 108
36:42
Dale. Representative Hobbs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
36:46
Irvin. I see that the funding for this is to come from the Criminal Justice Institute. Can you tell
me why it was determined to come from there rather than general revenue? you? Well, it would
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
37:00
go through – it's an appropriation for – we do have a separate
appropriation bill for Criminal Justice Institute. They actually have been doing this since 2000, and they can come and share the information with you personally. I know that they're here. Lawrence is here. But they basically received a grant after 9-11 to begin this and to be able to respond in this way, there's a $500,000 federal grant that's actually going away. And so it would be up to us then to decide if we want to continue these programs and continue this training.
They're funded through the University of Arkansas systems, and Melissa Rust and I, we worked with this. And then we added an additional, I guess, $291,500 basically for the training that would go for the schools and the administrators. And they would do their training at the educational cooperatives. So the idea is that we save money by sending groups of folks to the educational cooperatives and we train the trainers, and then they go back to their schools. And that was a way that we could save money. But because of what's happening at the federal level, they're losing that $500,000.
And so that's a separate appropriation bill, separate and apart from this. But it's something that I think it's worthwhile training our teachers and our students how how to respond is something I think is worth spending
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
38:20
money on as a state legislature. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank
Speaker 108
38:24
you, Representative Hobbs. Representative Lowry? Does anybody else
have a question for Senator Irvin? Does anyone in the audience wish to speak for or against the bill? Are
Dr. Kimbrell and are the bad guys okay with this?
Are we good on this? Okay. All right. Good
deal. If we don't have anyone who wants to speak for or against the bill, what's the will of the committee? Representative Linderman has a due pass motion. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much, Senator Urban, for being here today. We
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
39:02
appreciate you. Thank you very much. And I have a
letter from a teacher that I didn't read, but it's just beautiful and very moving. And so on behalf of all my
teachers, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Representative Linderman, if you would proceed to the end of the table.
And if you'll tell us which bill you want to run, we'll give the committee a moment
to go ahead and pull it up on the tablets. I'm going to run Senate Bill 456, and I would like to invite the Department of Ed to join me at the table, please. Again, this was a bill that was brought to me by the Department of Education. Senator Elliott is the sponsor on the Senate end, and this is simply to amend current Arkansas licensure laws.
And with that, I will ask the department to go ahead and further explain the
Speaker 61
40:01
bill. Mark White, Staff Attorney for the Department of Education. We have several changes in here, a lot of housekeeping and a few substantive changes. And I'll just kind of run through the primary things. Number one, we're clarifying that out-of-state applicants for licensure who come in by reciprocity and have less than three years teaching experience will need to pass our basic skills test, Praxis 1, or show that they've passed a similar test.
And this is consistent with our other rules, and it's not a significant change. We want to provide some clarification there. We want to make the same clarification for Teach for America candidates. They must pass that basic skills test or a similar test. And Teach for Americans told us they have no problem with this, and that's already being done, is my understanding. We're making some changes to the provisional professional teaching license. This is a nontraditional license which used the legislature created in the last session, and we're making some revisions to it to clean up a couple of typos that were in the bill from last time
and also to adjust it to our current practice. We're going to require these individuals, they'll have to take the basic skills test, Praxis I, to get the license. And then we're going to reduce the number of training hours they're required to have from 30 to 24. And that 24 hours will match up with some existing training that we're already doing. And then the current law requires them to take the Praxis II assessment for pedagogy before they get the license. And what we're going to do in this bill is postpone that where they don't have to take that until the end of their three-year provisional term.
Excuse me. And then once they reach the end of that three-year provisional term, the current law allows them to convert that to a standard license, which is equivalent to any other teaching license. And we want to change the criteria for that. Right now the statute says they have to undergo a summative evaluation and a performance assessment. And what we want to do is we want to replace that with, number one, they had to have a proficient or better evaluation under their teacher evaluation, a new test system. And secondly, they need to be recommended by their superintendent.
And on balance, we think this will be a little bit simpler method for the candidates to go through to get their standard license. And in addition to that, we have just some housekeeping items. We're updating references to some organizations. They're mentioned in the statute. We're changing the name of the methods of teaching and reading course to make it a little more consistent with Common Core. We're providing clarification on the time in which the Professional Licensure Standards Board has to begin and complete its investigations. We're taking out some obsolete language about substitute teachers
and then also taking out some obsolete language that talks about initial licensure, which we no longer have as a set-aside category. And with that, we'll be happy to answer any questions. Dr. Cushman, do you have anything
Speaker 108
42:51
to add, ma'am? Madam Vice Chair. Forgive me, because I
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
42:58
know I should know this, but I thought during the interim we were talking about the fact that the praxis might go away. That's the praxis three. Just the praxis three.
Okay. Not the praxis two. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Representative Hobbs,
do you have a question, ma'am? Representative – excuse me, Douglas, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Speaker 35
43:25
You've consulted with the Teach for America program, and they are on board with this? Because this will bump up their? Yes, ma'am. It's my understanding
Speaker 59
43:34
they are okay with that requirement of Praxis 1. I believe that is already being done right now. Okay.
Speaker 198
43:40
So what are you changing about the way that they can come into a school?
Speaker 61
43:45
Oh, for Teach for America? Their licensure, yes. It will be no change. The only change will be that we're clarifying in the statute that in order to get that license from us, they have to pass that test first. Okay. And we think that's required by current law. We just want to make it clear, so there's no question
Speaker 108
44:03
about it. Okay. Thank you very much. Do we have any other questions from
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
44:07
the committee? Representative Hopps. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I've read through this rather quickly, but what about the new program that was just approved this year,
the Arkansas Teacher Corps? I believe the same
Speaker 68
44:21
requirement would apply to them. And I'll say that because there's existing law which basically says
Speaker 61
44:26
that any teacher coming to the state has to pass that basic skills test, whether they start here or they're coming from out of state, anyone has to pass that basic skills. And one advantage of this language in this bill is that we'll allow some other alternatives. So, for example, if you have someone who's working on a master's degree and they've passed the GRE, we
Speaker 62
44:45
would count that in place of the Praxis 1.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. do we have any other questions
Speaker 198
44:57
from the committee representative douglas we were discussing accepting military transfers into our state licensure how will that change that process it shouldn't have any change on it shouldn't be the same as
Speaker 205
45:07
it is now okay thank you any other questions if
not do we have anyone in the audience who wishes to speak for or against the bill
If not, the chair will entertain a motion. Representative Curnine has to do pass a motion. All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Representative Linderbund, thank you very, very much, sir. And you are now
recognized to Senate Bill 457. This is your third and final bill. You have
permission to proceed. Thank you, sir. This bill governs background checks and the ability to do background checks and the fees that are charged for those.
This, again, was another Department of Education bill that was brought to me, and there is no fiscal impact on the Treasury. I will defer to the Department of Education and let them
Speaker 61
46:03
explain the specifics. Thank you, Representative Linderman. There are four primary changes that we're making in this bill, as well as some housekeeping. First of all, under current law, when someone receives a teaching license, they undergo a criminal background check and also a child maltreatment registry check when they get their license initially and then any time they change jobs.
For any new employee, there must be a background check for a new employee of a school district. What we're doing in this bill is requiring a criminal background check and child maltreatment registry check at every renewal, which would be every five years. And the reason is we are seeing more and more cases where someone has had a teaching license for several years, they get a criminal conviction or they get a true report on the child maltreatment registry, and we don't know about it because no check is done. And they may be in the same district, continue working there, and it just happens to pop
up when they change jobs. And that's when we get noticed. So our hope is that by requiring these background checks at every renewal, we will catch these situations earlier and avoid any harm to any children. Now, there is a cost associated with this, and so to help make up the cost of that for the teachers who are doing the renewal, we're reducing the renewal fee by $25. So that's not as big of a hit for those teachers who have to go through that background check.
Secondly, we're also going to require background checks for students who are wanting to become teachers and enter teacher preparation programs at a college or university. And this will not affect their ability to enroll in the program. We just want to give them the opportunity that if they have a disqualifying conviction, they can go ahead and come to the state board and ask for a waiver. And that way they can know going into their program whether or not they'll be able to work as a teacher. Right now we have situations where a student, they have a conviction, it's been expunged or sealed,
they think that they're all right, they go through a two- or three-year or four-year program, get a degree and they discover they can't get a license because they have that disqualifying conviction so we're hoping we can help these students avoid that and know on the front end whether or not they can work number three we're adjusting the list of disqualifying convictions to add some other convictions some are new some have been in there and just are relevant to to teachers and others working with children and those convictions which will
now be disqualifying include video voyeurism, domestic battering in the first or second degree, felony violation of a protective order, prostitution and sexual solicitation, stalking, and failure to notify by a mandated reporter in the first degree. In the final substantive change, under current law, the State Board of Education can grant a waiver to a licensed individual who wants to work in school district but they have a disqualifying conviction there is not a similar waiver provision
for a non-licensed person like a custodian a bus driver a cafeteria worker who has a disqualifying conviction so what we do in this bill is we give the local school board the ability to grant that waiver if they choose it has to be a public session all the records are public so that the public is fully aware of what's going on but if a local school board has a situation where they think someone is an appropriate candidate, they would be able to grant a waiver and go ahead and employ that individual with this change. And in addition to that, we have just some housekeeping
items. And with that, I'll be happy to answer
Speaker 71
49:40
any questions. Dr. Cushman, do you have anything
to add, ma'am? No, sir. Okay. Representative Linderman, do we have any
Speaker 95
49:48
questions from the committee? Representative Lowry? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the last page, lines two through four says the rule should not require an institution of higher education to bar a student from enrollment due to a disqualifying criminal conviction if they are seeking a degree in teacher education
why would we not want to bar them at that
Speaker 149
50:12
point rather than continuing to educate them for a job that they're not going to be able to hold two
Speaker 59
50:18
reasons we had for that number one we didn't want to be dictating that the colleges and universities who they could or could not
Speaker 61
50:24
admit to their programs. But secondly, we could envision you may have a situation where someone wants to work in a private school or work in some other setting where a teacher license isn't necessarily required, but they still want to have that educational licensure.
Now, certainly the colleges and universities, they are free to include that as an admission requirement on their own. We don't want to stop them from doing that. We
Speaker 95
50:49
just didn't want to mandate that they do that. Well, should there not be some notice to the student that they are eventually going to be barred from their profession, that they're being educated for them, and should there not
Speaker 68
51:00
be a requirement? Well, and that's the purpose of this, is that they will know up front. Because
Speaker 61
51:05
right now, if they have a conviction that's expunged or sealed,
they may not realize that even an expunged or sealed conviction will still prevent them from getting a license. And so right now you have these individuals, they go through these programs, and then they find out, I can't get a license. So they come back to the state board and have to ask for a waiver. And we just want to move that whole process before they begin their teacher
Speaker 95
51:31
education program rather than at the end of it. Follow-up, please. So there is a notification from the higher education institution. So there is a notice from the higher education institution to the student that this record has come up,
and it is going to inhibit your ability to be a teacher? Well, right now it's
Speaker 59
51:48
a notice from us when they apply for their license and they get a notice from us that, hey, you had this disqualifying conviction on your record. Under this bill, it would be the same process, just the timing would be different, that it would be when they begin their program rather than at the end of the program.
Speaker 95
52:04
So the notice would come from the department? Yes, sir. While they're in their higher education course? Yes, sir.
Speaker 61
52:09
And I'll mention in response to the other question, Representative Linder makes a good point.
They may also want to work in another state that may not have the same list of disqualifying convictions. And so we just don't want to prevent them
Speaker 35
52:28
from doing that. Okay. Thank you, Representative Larry. Representative Douglas. I think the cost is about $100 right now to get a renewal. Is that correct? And a lot of school districts elect to pay that for the teachers. Yes, ma'am. You're going to lower your
Speaker 198
52:44
fee to $75, and then what will be tacked on every five years to cover this criminal background check?
Speaker 59
52:50
Right now, the total cost for the criminal background check and the child maltreatment register check is
Speaker 218
52:56
$51. So it'll be about a $25 net difference. Okay. That's very reasonable. Thanks. Thank
Speaker 198
53:01
you, Representative Douglas. Do we have any other questions
from the committee? If not, do we have anyone in the audience who wishes to speak for or against this bill? Seeing none, the chair will entertain a motion. Representative Lowry has to do pass a motion. All in favor?
All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Representative Linderman. Representative Hobbs, if you would be so kind as to make your way to the end of the table, And when you are prepared, ma'am, you are recognized to present House Bill 1690. Thank you, Mr. Chair,
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
53:46
and thank you, committee members. Mr. Chair, I also want to thank you for helping me to make a point on this bill.
You know, I don't know about you, but when we were frantically trying to look for the bill numbers, And in case you haven't found it yet, this is Bill 1690. If you need a moment to pull it up on your pads.
But since we are skipping around the agenda, you know, when we first came in, I was frantically trying to
find the bill so I could read it to be prepared.
And this bill will simply, and I know when he said, let's just take a moment, give you time to find it. And this is what I want our students to be able to do when they come to school. You know, we don't know what they've left at home, you know, whether they were late getting to the bus stop or parents were arguing or couldn't find shoes, couldn't find their homework or whatever. And so they rush into the classroom and then they're supposed to just, you know, be ready for the school day. This bill would just allow that one minute of silence where there's nothing else going
on in the world except just that one minute of quiet time to give them time to calm down, collect their thoughts, get ready for the
school day. And that's what the bill
Representative Jody Dickinson
Unverified
55:23
does. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Representative Dickinson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Hobbs, you sent that bill to me to look at, and I told you I really needed
to talk to you about it, and I don't think we ever got around to that conversation, but I taught school back in the cave days when we did that thing with the sustained silent reading, and I don't know if anyone else in here remembers that or not, but I do, and it turned into one of the most problematic times of the day to try to make students be
silent, and I think it was like, I can't even remember how much time we were required to do that, but if it was like 15 minutes, it was 15 minutes of browbeating and hard looks and stuff, you know, to try to make them stink on target. I don't know. I love the concept,
and I think it would be wonderful if everybody would just smooth out and do that, but I don't want to add another thing to any teacher to have to work on discipline on. When you're asking for the silence, are you, is it going to be asking absolute, total, be still, silent, and is she going to have, or he going to have to stand up as a guard to do that?
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
57:10
Well, my hope is that, you know, as we know,
with any discipline, I mean, as children get used to something, they respond to it better. And I could give you an example of, you know, children that may be coming in my own family that might be very demanding about something. And I say, no, this is the way you need to ask it. And at first, there may be resistance, but about the third time when they need something, they ask for it properly.
So I think this will be good training. And I'm not asking for 15 minutes, but one minute. And I think, you know, and we're not saying, you know, if a teacher doesn't keep everyone quiet, because, as we know, sometimes it is a big challenge. But I do think the effort needs to be there. And, again, just that discipline, self-discipline of the children knowing I need to be quiet for one minute. And, again, in teaching, you know, different classes at my church or whatever, Wednesday night classes,
you know, I would, if people kept talking, I said, we're going to sit here for one minute. And maybe someone talks and says, okay, the minute starts over. and as you do that then the kids what I saw was they reacted quicker and settled down and then they were ready to learn and so I think it was a very positive experience again and I understand about the mandate because when someone asked me about this I thought you know another mandate but you know one minute and when I talked to my daughter
who teaches first grade now she said I'd love it if my kids would be silent for one minute so again I think that discipline and knowing that consistency of every day for one minute to be quiet, I really think it will have a positive effect
on the overall school environment. One more follow-up, please.
Representative Jody Dickinson
Unverified
59:14
Yes, ma'am. Do you think that since you're only involving one minute, that if the teacher deems that
that would be a really good thing to do, do you think that she could not on her own go ahead and say this is what we're going to do children this is the way it's going to be every day rather than mandating and putting another law on our
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
59:35
teachers right I hear what you're saying and I mean some teachers do that but I believe every student should
be offered that same opportunity okay and again one minute I mean you know by time I mean it doesn't one minute goes
pretty quickly thank you representative Dickinson
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
59:59
representative Karnon thank you mr. chair representative Hobbs again let's go back on this and you know one of the things that obviously when we talked about it that I certainly do not disagree with your basics of what you want to do but I just get more and more concerned that we mandate so many things that it may be common sense but at the same time I just
really hesitate to do that one more thing to our schools and in fact I've tried to stay silent on some things out of respect for everybody but I just think for all of us we need to rethink about how many times we mandate what we do or don't do. So I say that, and I know I should say then, don't you agree? Well, actually, I wish you would
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:00:51
have been silent for one more minute, Mr. Carnot.
And again... I understand that, and I do believe
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:01:11
this will offer them that
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:01:21
support, because whereas Because teachers now may feel like they don't have that one minute.
I think that at least, again, in my experience, if you can get children targeted in the right direction, that saves time in the long run. So I think it's a one
minute that will be invested and probably pay off dividends. Representative Carnahan, do you have
Speaker 108
1:01:46
anything else to add? Representative Armstrong, do you have a question, sir? Will this
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:01:53
be mandatory? It is. One minute of silence. But like I told people, it's not like there's going
to be a, you know, task force coming
and saying, are you allowing this one minute? But for parents that, and community members that feel like this is important for our children, that then they can say, you know, this is the law, and then
leave it up to the teachers, but at least let the teachers know it is the law if this bill passes. Thank you,
Speaker 91
1:02:20
Representative. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Representative Armstrong. Representative Viviano. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. motion at the proper time. Do we have any other
Representative Gary Deffenbaugh
Unverified
1:02:32
questions from the committee? Representative Deffenbaugh. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Hobbs, I'm sure you've talked to your sister.
She teaches. And would she agree that this is a good bill? You know what?
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:02:45
Actually, I did not talk to my sister. I talked to my daughter. So I don't know. I think she would probably echo my daughter's thoughts if you can get them to
Representative Gary Deffenbaugh
Unverified
1:02:57
be quiet for one minute it's a good thing well has she has she ever pointed out to you that you probably waste five
Speaker 246
1:03:03
to ten minutes per period before you really get started so we could spare one I don't know that she
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:03:09
has but that has been my experience in
teaching thank you thank you thank you representative Deffenbaugh any other questions from the committee seeing none we do have several people who want to speak for the bill does anyone wish to speak against the
Speaker 202
1:03:25
bill if not mr. Michael Cox if you are
available sir and mr. Cox when you make your way to the end of the table sir you are recognized to speak for the bill mr. Cox if you would go in at the end of the table there and representative
Hobbs will get you set up. Mr. Cox, we're glad that you're here today and you
Speaker 248
1:03:56
are recognized to speak for the bill, sir. Thank you. My bride is last year's teacher of the year for sixth grade and I've talked to her and she said that would be a wonderful thing to have a minute to, for lack a better way of putting it get my ducks in a row and um and have a chance and i think a lot of us
do the same thing whenever we get to work whether we have our coffee or whatever the thing thing is that we do to get ready for the day and that's what i believe this bill will do for the kids and for the teachers also thank you thank you very much mr cox we
Speaker 108
1:04:38
appreciate you do we have anyone who wishes to speak against the bill we do have mr. rich nagel
who wishes to speak for the bill mr. nagel when you're ready you're recognized to speak for the bill
Speaker 250
1:05:03
thank you mr. chairman rich nagel with the arkansas education association like to begin by saying that House Bill 1690 is not a school prayer bill. The bill requires the observance of a one-minute period of silence at the beginning of each school day. During this time, a student may, without interfering or distracting with another student, engage in silent reflection, prayer, or engage in a silent activity. Silent activities may include things such as reading,
drawing, doing other class work, as long as it doesn't interfere with others. I'm pleased to answer any questions that the committee might have. Thank you very much, Mr. Nagel. Do we have any questions
for Mr. Nagel? If not, do we have anyone else who wishes to speak against the bill? We do have
someone else signed up for the bill. That is Mr. James Maddox. Mr. Maddox, if you're available. Mr.
Maddox, we appreciate you being here, sir.
Speaker 252
1:06:20
You are recognized to speak for the bill. It is an honor to be here before this chamber. My daughter was here two weeks ago with Team Pact and really enjoyed. just watching government work. I think for my daughter and for my sister, who is a teacher in Hot Springs, I've talked to them both, and they both think that this would be a great thing for our schools and for our children. And so I'm in favor of it. Thank you, Mr. Maddox.
We have any questions for Mr. Maddox? Seeing none, do we have anyone else who wishes to speak for or against the bill? If not, what is the pleasure of the committee? Representative Biviano A motion do pass Representative Biviano has a do pass motion All in favor All opposed Motion passes Thank you very much Representative Haas Thank you Mr. Chair Okay at this time we are going to represent We are going to recognize our distinguished Vice Chair And ma'am you are When you're ready If you'd be so kind to head in the table
And then you'll be recognized for a Senate bill House bill Okay 1629. You're recognized, Madam Vice-Chair. Thank you. I might need just a moment.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:07:55
Yes, ma'am. Some of you that were here last time, and I realize our committee is made up of a lot of people who weren't here last time,
But we ran – I came to the end of the table with Senator Gilbert Baker to propose changing the formula used to calculate who would be the recipient of the Governor's Distinguished Scholarship. This is a pretty exclusive club to be in, to be a recipient of the Governor's Distinguished Scholarship. It does require an ACT of 32 and other factors that come into play like GPA, school activities, community activities, rank in class.
One of the things, though, we found is that over the years, the formula has been very difficult for homeschoolers to meet because of the rank in class issue. That had a point value attached to it, and essentially there was no rank in class for a homeschooler. And so they started out then at a 10-point deficit. And all this bill does, so we're not trying to change the formula,
but all this bill does is put the responsibility with the Department of Higher Ed that they will ensure that the language here on line 32 through 35, they will ensure that the weight assigned to each individual criteria under this subdivision does not place a homeschool, public school, or private school student at a disadvantage. We're just trying to create a level playing field for all students heading off to college.
If you wonder if this might be an issue, We had a homeschooler that was a National Merit Scholarship winner that did not qualify for the Governor's Distinguished. So obviously they were of exceptional ability, and yet that student was not eligible. And that was just last year, and I'm sure there have been others. So we're just trying to create it. And I pulled this bill down, and we amended it with more input from the Department of Higher Ed.
And Director Broadway is here, and he can come to the table if anybody wants him to. We think we've worked all these things out. I'm happy to take any questions. Senator, if you would make your way to the end
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:10:39
time now, all these 5Ks. Thank you for being
here, Senator. Do you have anything to add before we take questions, sir?
Speaker 258
1:10:49
No, Representative Clemmer summed it up perfectly. Okay. Do we
Speaker 108
1:10:52
have any questions from the committee? Representative Deffenbaugh. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Gary Deffenbaugh
Unverified
1:10:56
Representative Clemmer, I might have missed it. You probably said it. What are the qualifications now? A 32 on the ACT, is that what you said? I mean, just there's a formula, but
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:11:07
the qualifier is a 32. Right. I mean, that's... 32 and a 3.5. And a 3.5. So you're not going to be considered if you don't have a 32 or a 3.5. Okay. So what did you say?
Representative Gary Deffenbaugh
Unverified
1:11:21
Then what other criteria are you... Oh, the
Speaker 258
1:11:25
additional criteria, the formula. Why don't you give it the formula? I'll explain that, Representative. And to Representative Clemers, I was talking about a student a moment ago. The student was eligible but was not funded because she was, I think it was she, I can't remember. Do you remember? I don't know. But we had 413 qualify last year for 300 slots. And so because of the ranking class mainly being the issue, she was below 300 when we rank them, and that's the key.
The eligibility to be eligible is a 32 and a 3.5, or if you're a national merit finalist, with Representative Shepard's Bill now, national Hispanic finalist, there's an African-American program, if you're one of those, that takes the place of your grade point. I'm looking at Harold. If your grade point is not a 3.5, but you're a national merit finalist, it makes you eligible. And then we rank all of those students who apply who meet eligibility based upon a criteria.
Out of 100 points, essentially to say it, 45% is based on your ACT score, 35% is based on your high school GPA, 10% on ranking class, and 10% as Representative Klemmer talked about on community activities,
Representative Gary Deffenbaugh
Unverified
1:12:58
leadership. More question? And so just out of curiosity, how were we leaving all homeschoolers out of that process?
Speaker 258
1:13:07
No, sir. From time to time, you would fund one or two. There was a year. I don't know what the feet bounce back is. I think last year, if I remember correctly, Representative, we didn't have as many students last year apply. there were homeschool students year before that I think there were about 13 I remember correctly and only a couple in what we what we had to start doing once we in years past when the program was created we never had enough eligible
to fill all 300 slots so it's really only became an issue the last two years because we started having more students qualify like I said we had 413 last year for 300 slots so we would make the offer to the first 300 about 60 or 70 of those are going out of state no matter what we do and so as they would turn it down then we would go to the next in line and they would turn it down and go to next in line until eventually you fill 300 slots
and so you would still have some students and because of their the way they ranked because is that 10% of that score is rank in class, and a homeschool student obviously doesn't have a rank in class, it would obviously impact them. So what we would have to do in working with Representative Clemmer on this bill, we would probably, and it's going to take some work to kind of run the numbers and see a way to make that formula work to where there's not a disadvantage.
And that would probably mean taking that ranking class down to a certain level where maybe it's not ten points. It may be five points or three points. But it's going to have to take kind of us being able to sit down and work through the way the formula works and see how those students fall to see what would be
Speaker 259
1:15:03
the fairest way to assign the point schedule. Thank you, Representative Deffenbaugh. Do
we have any other questions from the committee? Seeing none, do we have anyone in the audience who wishes to speak for or against the bill?
With that, Representative Carnot, do you have a motion, sir? We have a motion to do pass. All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Thank you, Senator. Okay, at this time, Representative Linderman, we're going to give you one more shot at the plate here.
Speaker 175
1:15:43
Senate Bill 332. You are recognized, sir. This
bill is going to be controversial. There's no question about that.
You will hear testimony both for and against this bill. For those of you that were in the legislature last year, you were worn out, I'm sure, by e-mails, by phone calls, by text messages from teachers that were protesting the extreme expense that had become associated with the cost of insurance. I don't think anyone could have projected or believed that the cost of insurance would go up like it did. In 2003 in the
funding matrix a figure of a hundred and thirty-one dollars was included that the school district must compensate for the cost of teacher insurance since that time we have increased the minimum foundation funding about two percent per year but that never changed according to my calculations based on if that same percentage had been given to the cost of
teacher insurance, the schools would be required to refund about $160 this year. Due to the tremendous amount of input that we had by teachers, the stories that we heard that where there were other school employees that actually had to pay the school district to work there after they got paid their insurance, only about half the people in the school
school district are teachers, we have a lot of cooks, custodians, bus drivers, teachers aides that make barely above minimum wage and the funding or the cost of insurance made it prohibitive for them to have that. This is a way that we looked at and we tried to make a small increase or to give some help. This would require the school districts, and many schools are doing this now.
Not all, but many of them are doing this now. They're paying $150 or more. This bill does two things. It requires that beginning in January 1 of 2014, the school district's contribution rate would be mandated at $150. The school that I taught at for 30 years in Brooklyn, that's what they're paying now. It would also mandate that whatever our percentage of minimum foundation funding, and I'll set in with the Adequacy Committee and we proposed from 1.75, I believe, to 2.5.
So whatever we propose, whatever that increase is in the minimum foundation funding, the local school district would be responsible for adding that to their contribution rate of the teacher insurance. You will hear administrators say that it is an unfunded mandate, and in a sense, that is true. The other side of that coin is we have increased the funding approximately 2 percent every year since 2003 when this was first implemented.
I heard hundreds of, or read hundreds of emails. There was a great deal of testimony. We had teachers. We had other school officials that gave us heart-rending stories. We had some that were mad. We had some that feel like that we need to be paying all of it. We feel like that there are a lot of people that think this is not enough, but we feel like it is a step in the right direction. And with that, I will try to answer any questions that I might have.
One other thing, Senator Key told me that he has working on some appropriation to go directly to the Employee Benefits Division right now that would help to offset the cost of
insurance. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Linderman, for your presentation. Do we
Speaker 108
1:20:00
committee? Representative Hobbs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:20:08
Representative Linderman, I see that there are already 100 public schools entities that contribute the 150 or more. That is correct. Can you tell me how they've been able to, I mean, when you were listening to testimony, because I know the subcommittee met several different times, when you heard testimony, did any of them share with you how they managed to pay that much while others
say they cannot? Okay. When we look at that, there is not, I think, about 60 percent of the employees in the school system
actually take the health insurance. School districts traditionally operate with about a 10 percent carryover. And that means that there is some money that they do keep, and we don't all of us want to go out zero out our checkbook at the end of the month. We don't want to do that. There is some money that is there. And this will no doubt be offset by some other things. There may be some extracurricular activities that are cut.
There may be some places where some teachers may not get as large a raise. And the local school districts, it depends on the local school district how they do that. They do present budgets. Some of them have the personnel policy committees to be a very active part in that budgetary process. Some of them have board members or other school employees that are a very active part in that budgeting process.
But for the most part, it is monies that the school district has, and they use that as part of their teacher compensation. Okay, and
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:21:53
so could NSLA money funds be used to offset this? NSLA money, I do
not believe, can be used for this. I'm going to look in the corner.
Speaker 272
1:22:04
Okay, there you go. I'm getting some heads shaking. I
Speaker 273
1:22:07
see the head shaking over there. We'll
get confirmation momentarily on that. We have any other questions from the committee?
Speaker 35
1:22:15
Thank you, ma'am. Representative Douglas, you have a question? Would you clarify
Speaker 198
1:22:24
for me if schools are receiving money for insurance that they
are not putting on insurance? Okay. That's one of those places that's kind of a
gray area. Teachers, the money is put in there, and it is on a per-pupil basis. A school district that has 17 pupils per employee gets the same amount, or gets that amount of money.
A school district that has 21 students per employee is going to get a little different pool of money. So the funding matrix, I've got to hear that term a lot, let me tell you. It is an extremely complex document. There is monies that come from so many different sources that are funded into schools, and in almost all those cases, there are strings that are attached.
So to be able to tell you I can answer all your questions, no, ma'am, I cannot. The school districts are given about $6,200, I believe, by the state per student. And, again, this money is considered part of their compensation package for the teachers. When you look at what the state requires as far as a minimum salary for teachers, most of the schools in our state now go above that minimum.
and this is simply one part of that compensation package. So if I could ask a
Speaker 198
1:24:09
follow-up? Yes, ma'am. So I'm really not right. I'm not sure I'm clear yet. Would there be funds that are given to schools that they're not using for insurance that we could mandate that all funds that come to the school district, earmarked for insurance, would go to insurance, and would that make a difference in, would that be a source of funding for this unfunded mandate?
Okay, I'm going to try to clarify your question. There are some schools, and we had a list, and I did not bring it with me today, but we have a list of all the schools, the amount of money that they are given for insurance. Some schools did not spend all that. One that was brought to our mind was in South Arkansas. saw there was a large paper mill that provided all the health insurance for their employees and their families. So if a teacher had a spouse that worked at the paper mill, they didn't take teacher insurance.
So they had a low percentage of teachers that actually participated in the teacher insurance program. So therefore, some of those schools did have a positive balance. They did not have to turn that back. didn't have to do that I mean it was their money on the other hand there are some places where the school district is the primary employer in the in the area or in the district so they had a relatively high percentage of teachers that did participate and I said teachers school employees that participated in
the insurance program so in their case they have and some of them will run somewhat of a deficit on this and again it's part of the teacher compensation package or the employee compensation package if you look at this nineteen dollars a month is is what we are proposing for an increase times 12 we're talking just a little over two hundred dollars a year increase beginning in the
2015 year, if we pass this at the $150 number, they would be required to increase that an additional $3, so that would be an additional $36 per employee. So there is money that is there. It depends on where they put it. schools have certain programs that they fund, and we do have a minimum compensation requirement
for the teachers as far as salaries, and most of our school districts
Speaker 35
1:26:50
do exceed that. So what, how many schools are spending less? Do you know out of
the, what, 250? Again, I'm going to say that there was, if memory serves me correctly, it was a little less than 100. It was about a third that did not spend all their money.
Speaker 35
1:27:10
So those 100 schools might have a way to fund this that is already presented to them as insurance money
if they just redirected it to insurance
Speaker 221
1:27:20
and out of things that were not insurance. That's correct.
There are some that are getting money. I have a good friend that's a superintendent. He's actually in Representative Wren's district, and he contacted me this morning, and he said, if this passes, it's going to cost my district about $15,000. He was really kind. He's a good friend of mine and Mr. Ratliff's both, and he said, but I understand why you need to do this, and you all do what you need to.
And so he realizes that there are problems and that that will be part of the compensation package. Secondly, there may be some teachers that
will get a little less raise, ultimately. Thank you. Thank you, Representative
Speaker 108
1:28:03
Douglas. Do we have any other questions from the committee? Representative Ratliff? What
Speaker 281
1:28:11
percent of teachers in the state have this insurance? Slightly over 60 percent. Thank you.
Do we have any other questions? Dr. Kimbrell and company if you would be so kind to come to the end of the table I think there's been some questions that have been asked and if you could just kind of I particularly am interested in the NSLA funding Representative Douglas Douglas, you had a question in terms of how many school districts, and if you could just re-ask that to Dr. Kimbrell.
Speaker 283
1:29:01
I apologize. I was called out in the
Speaker 35
1:29:09
colleagues. I understand, sir. Representative Douglas. Yes, we were just wondering if you could clarify if there are around the 100 of the school districts that are receiving insurance money through the funding, matrix funding. that are not using all of their money for insurance. Could that possibly be a source of funds for this unfunded mandate?
You weren't here for the discussion. Yes,
Speaker 284
1:29:38
ma'am. I heard part of it when... In other
Speaker 286
1:29:48
matrix is... It's a little more complicated because you have to actually go back to the entire history
Speaker 288
1:29:54
of how insurance was paid back in the 90s when the state paid it. And all that was rolled in to meet the federal range ratio. But
Speaker 35
1:30:08
a school should have a cost for their insurance and an amount of money that they get from the state.
Yes, ma'am. We should be able to determine if some of them are under and some of them are over. And Mr. Linderman was suggesting that there are around a third of the school districts, a hundred schools somewhere in there, that are having money left over at the end of the year or end of the month or I
Speaker 289
1:30:36
don't know what it's based on that could have gone to insurance that they're spending in other
Speaker 288
1:30:43
places. So they may be spending, they're paying because they may not have the number of teachers participating.
That's correct. So they're using it maybe for transportation costs. They may be using it because their salary costs are more because of where their schools are and competing for teachers, things of that nature. Football stadiums? Could be, yes, whatever the local district decides. because what we have is a funding model, not an expenditure model. So the question is, could they use those dollars? Yes, ma'am, they could, but there's nothing in the law or in the matrix
that requires that they use those dollars for
Speaker 203
1:31:26
that. Would that be something that we should mandate, that insurance money
Speaker 35
1:31:32
dedicated from the state be used for insurance? No, ma'am, because there's not any insurance
Speaker 293
1:31:37
money dedicated for insurance in the funding model at all. Then is there a problem
Speaker 35
1:31:44
with us taking it out of the funding model and using a different model? When you do
Speaker 288
1:31:53
that, then you're taking money out of a funding model
and beginning to go down a track of saying this becomes an expenditure model. And when you do that, then you're actually going to say, okay, every district is going to expend the same number of dollars for each expenditure in the matrix. And to be honest with you, it won't work because every
Speaker 285
1:32:14
district is so unique across the state. But would you agree that there
Speaker 35
1:32:21
may be money out there that is coming to the schools for insurance that is not being spent for insurance?
Speaker 288
1:32:30
You could say that. You could say the same thing for salaries. You could say it for transportation, technology, staff, any
Speaker 286
1:32:38
of those components that's in the matrix, you could say the exact same thing for it. Okay. Okay.
Thank you very much. Dr. Kimbrell. Yes, sir. You know, this is – I hear more about the insurance than anything else. As someone who has a child in school, who is acquainted with and friends with teachers,
So can you give me just kind of a who, what, when, and where? I am a teacher, and I go to work for XYZ School District. As a part of my compensation, I am going to receive health insurance from the district. It is the district's responsibility to
Speaker 297
1:33:21
pay a portion of that? Yes, sir. The district is required, if I choose
Speaker 288
1:33:26
to participate, the district will pay for up to or has to pay $131 towards the plan that I choose.
Speaker 71
1:33:35
What I keep on hearing, and just, you know, please, you
know, correct me and enlighten me, is that it's terribly expensive. It is. If you choose the higher plan. Exactly. And if you do not have a spouse who has health insurance that you can be a part of that plan, if you have to rely totally on the district plan, it's a burden. Why is that? And you may not be able to answer that specifically, but why is it so high for these teachers to insure themselves and their families?
Speaker 288
1:34:17
person to answer this question. And from what I understand, and
Speaker 286
1:34:23
we look at this, we have such low participation
Speaker 288
1:34:33
rates. And we have a population that uses the insurance of those that participate. There's a high participation or use rate. and that use rate causes our premiums to continue to escalate and it just it can't keep pace
and everybody wants to talk about the state cost of insurance versus the teacher cost and ever I think everybody's had to explain Jason's explained the difference before in state government, every position pays no matter whether that position is filled or not. That's not the case in public education. If I have 600 employees in my school district, I may only have 200 that choose to participate. I don't pay for 600 positions. In our agency, we have 300 positions.
We have 230 filled. I still pay for 600 positions each month. So there's stability in that plan.
Speaker 64
1:35:34
Mr. Lee, go ahead and, sir, make yourself comfortable. And Dr. Kimbrell, before you
get away, and this is for my benefit, hopefully for the benefit of the committee as well, and there's a lot of teachers on this committee, a lot of educational folks, are there any ideas out there? Is there anything that is being talked about in your shop, any sort of policy discussions
in-state government that could offer some substantive real relief and maybe change this paradigm? You know, you hear
Speaker 285
1:36:14
ideas about mandatory participation being one. You know,
Speaker 288
1:36:20
you're talking about the, and I think the discussion is you're offering insurance and the insurance that's offered to the employee and the employee
only is not a very high cost option. But when you get into employee spouse, employee family, then it does get to be a very high cost. So you're really talking about the high cost. And believe me, I've been there. You know, it is a very high cost. The only option that I've heard that may have some bearing would be finding a way to create greater participation. And we've tried different ways.
I mean, we've heard the term death spiral before, you know, that the system was in a death spiral. And I think that's when we kicked in, I believe, Jason, the $15 million that time, $35
Speaker 286
1:37:21
million, that got kicked in to stop that spiral. But, again, we didn't see
enough participation, and that participation fell off again. I certainly don't want to get this debate off track, and I don't want to dive into other areas, but has your bunch, do you foresee with the advent of the Affordable Health Care
Speaker 288
1:37:46
But honestly, Mr. Chair, we have not had that discussion. We have not had that discussion with Mr. Lee at this time. And
this might be something for Ms. Maury and her bunch as well, if they have any ideas. And I think they're going to come and speak here momentarily. But this is just something that is a very, very big issue when you get out into the state amongst, you know, the boots on the ground, as Representative Douglas likes to say. You know, our teachers who are in the classroom, and this insurance thing is really, it's eating into their take-home pay.
And it's very important and something I think that we need to focus on as we move forward. Dr. Kimberl, as always, thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank
Representative Gary Deffenbaugh
Unverified
1:38:32
you very, very much. Representative Deppenboe, you have a question. Thank you again, Mr. Chair. Dr. Kimberl, we, you know, I often don't want this. Mr. Hudson gave me a figure of there are 35,000 teachers in the state. And if Representative Linderman said 60% participate, well, that would be about 21,000.
And then we say we have low participation rate. That's a heck of a group, though, isn't it? I mean, you know what I'm getting at? I mean, I guarantee in my – there's a lot of businesses in my area that pay much less insurance on a much smaller group. uh... i'm wondering why we were not considered that twenty twenty one thousand why they're not considered a group and you think it has
Speaker 293
1:39:15
some bad parakeets uh... i'd probably have to defer that to mister because i think it
Speaker 288
1:39:20
takes it's not just teachers because i think the number of other
employees that are part of that at because there's a lot a lot of other non-licensed people
Speaker 304
1:39:35
Lee, please jump in. Jason Lee, Executive Director for Employee Benefits Division. There are approximately 70,000 individuals eligible for the health insurance on the public school employee side. We have approximately 47,000 covered active employees. The rest have chosen to be uninsured or insured elsewhere.
We don't really know. We just know that they're not on our plan. So the buying power is there. One of our specified duties is to use the state and public school programs and the buying power to get the rates as low as possible, but the size of the group doesn't necessarily control the cost to insurance. It's the illness burden of the insured individuals. It's the claims and experience and the aging population. that controls the cost of health insurance, you know, significantly more than the size of the population itself.
Okay, thanks a lot. Jason, anecdotally, what I hear a lot is from teachers is, well, why aren't our benefits as good as state employees? Why can't we have
insurance like they have? Could you expound on that a little bit, please? The benefit package
Speaker 304
1:40:55
between state employees and public school employees is exactly the same. They are both plans are offered, the gold, the silver, and the bronze plan. They cover the exact same number of services, the exact same co-pays.
The health plans are governed by the state and public school life and health insurance board, and one of the duties of that board was to achieve parity, And that is achieved on the plan design level, but it cannot, under current funding scenarios, ever be achieved on the financial side. They are funded through two completely different and distinct philosophies on how the funds are given to the trust funds.
Both of these plans are fully self-insured, and the memberships are able to come and go into the plan every year during open enrollment. So from a benefit design perspective, they are exactly the same. The cost is where the difference
is. So state employees, their benefit package is less in terms of cost than teachers. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. Okay. Well, have you talked about or heard of any sort of idea out there where we can maybe increase the size of the pool?
I'm not an insurance person, okay? I mean, I rely on big brain guys like you to help me. But how can we get these teachers, can we get them into a state employee pool? Can we create some system to where we have more people involved where the liability is spread out and hopefully the
Speaker 304
1:42:38
cost would be less? The liability between the two groups has already reached a point where each individual group is a critical mass among themselves.
If we were to blend from a rating perspective, the state employee population and the public school group, you would see no noticeable difference in the cost of insurance because a 47-year-old employee for the state and a 47-year-old employee for the school district look the same. They are the same relative health status between the two. They go to the doctor the same. So the core cost of insurance between the two groups, we could put the $150,000 in the same bucket,
and the cost of insurance overall would not go down because the groups are very
Speaker 310
1:43:26
large individually, but one is not noticeably healthier than the other. Well, if I charged you
to fix this problem and I gave you 30 days to do it, I said,
this is the deal, Jason. Teachers are getting hammered, and we need you to fix it, and you've got a month.
Speaker 304
1:43:52
What would you do? I'd ask for a lot of money. We're looking at it. That is, and I
Speaker 309
1:44:05
certainly don't mean to be flippant, sir, and I've got jokes from the audience, or laughs
Speaker 304
1:44:11
from the audience. That is the core difference between these two groups. The $390 per budgeted position provides
Speaker 310
1:44:17
more than three times the level of employer funding that the $131 per enrolled member does for that.
Speaker 304
1:44:24
We are able to provide employer contribution that carries over to state retirees that we can't on the public school side. There is contribution on the state employee side that is different for each plan option and the tier. so we're able to contribute more money to the family tier than we are to the employee only. State law dictates that the 131, or whatever amount the employer school district says, is fixed per person per month.
So even the school district, if they had the extra money and wanted to contribute more to the family tier, it would be against state law. They have to fix that rate per person. That creates different buying decisions within the two different pools. We see a significant difference in the illness burden of the spouses that come on the health plans because you're able to afford the spouse of a state employee significantly easier
than adding a spouse to a public school group. So the illness burden at the employee level, a state employee and a school employee, is very close to the same. The illness burden, and by that I mean the combination of claims and diagnoses and everything that goes into what a person looks like from a health status, the illness burden of a public school spouse and a state spouse looks dramatically different because we are an insurer
Speaker 310
1:45:55
of last resort for public school spouses.
If they've got another option,
they've gone. So it sounds like what you're essentially saying is we need a revenue stream somewhere if we want to drastically provide a benefit that doesn't eat into people's take-home pay. And if we're going to
Speaker 309
1:46:18
continue to benchmark the cost of the public school plan and the cost to the cost of the public or state employee plan on a cost level, yes.
Jason, thank you very, very much. I appreciate that, and I think the committee appreciates it as well. Dr. Kimbrell, as always, thank you, sir. Before you get away, Representative Douglas, do you
Speaker 35
1:46:42
have a question? Yes. For Mr. Lee, this summer in the interim study, you mentioned the fact that the state employees are mandated to be on their cafeteria plan. Yes. And you estimated that if we had all the teachers mandated to be on the cafeteria plan, that would be a source of revenue.
Did you put a pencil to those figures and figure out how that would compensate us or
Speaker 304
1:47:09
add to the pot? We would estimate that the employer FICA savings on the cafeteria plan would
Speaker 198
1:47:15
be approximately $8 million. Okay. It's still not enough to fix the problem, but a
Speaker 304
1:47:24
start, maybe? And we receive that funding because we expense to the state agencies what they would have paid in payroll taxes.
That's the portion of the FICA tax that we collect. We don't take it from the employee. They get to see that
Speaker 315
1:47:37
savings, but we get the employer FICA. And did we
Speaker 289
1:47:41
find out that some of the schools are taking that savings from the FICA and not putting it back into
Speaker 309
1:47:47
the insurance pool? I don't know if that was a finding. It may
Speaker 304
1:47:51
be an assumption if they're currently funding at the 131. Obviously, they're not expensing that money for, you know, for payroll match, but we don't know where it goes. Thank you.
Thank you, Representative Douglas. Jason, we might have stumbled onto something here, and we do have some questions, so if you don't mind
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:48:12
just hanging out for a moment. Representative Hopps. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just two quick questions, please. I know at one time the human resource person from my school district said that part of the reason the cost of insurance was so much is because the state had mandated the coverage at maybe a higher level than some other insurances. Do you know if that's accurate or not?
I don't believe that's true. And maybe it was true then
Speaker 304
1:48:37
and maybe not now. It may have been something a lot further back, but the annual open enrollment applies to both groups. employees can come and go at their
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:48:48
at their choosing now i'm talking about the mandates about what the
Speaker 304
1:48:54
insurance will pay for some years ago there was a little difference in the plan design between the public school group and the state employee group and 2006 2007 2008 something
along those lines we were able to achieve parity between the plans
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:49:11
okay that helps and another One thing I've been told is
that though the teachers may pay more in insurance premiums, that the teacher retirement is a better plan than state employees' retirement. Is that accurate? I have heard
Speaker 320
1:49:24
that as well, but I don't deal with the retirement portion of it, so I don't
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
1:49:30
know for sure. Okay. And one other short one, if I may real fast. I know someone mentioned about participation on the health care exchanges.
If school district employees choose to go that route, where their premiums are being supplemented, I know there's a penalty of $3,000 on the employer for each employee that participates in the exchange. Would that apply to the school districts? It would apply
Speaker 304
1:49:57
to the school districts if the employee was not offered an affordable option that provided at least minimum essential coverage and actuarially valued at 60 percent. Based on the information from our actuary, the bronze plan is benchmarked to be a 60%
value plan. The premium assessed for an employee only this year is $10. So we believe the $10 will hit the 9.8% of W-2 wages. We should have a plan option that will exempt the school districts from being liable for the taxes. Now, given that if an employee decides to go to the exchange, purchase an individual policy, they would not receive any tax benefit for it because they would have been offered an employer plan that met that criteria.
Speaker 322
1:50:44
Okay. So it does meet the criteria. Yes, it does.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Rep. Hobbs. And, Jason, that's another thing that I kind of hear anecdotally is that the teachers want state employee insurance. The state employees want the teacher retirement. That's, you know, kind of, you know, that's just, you know, what I have heard, and I think that's kind of out there a little bit so do we have any other questions from the committee Jason thank you so much excellent presentation and answering
our questions we have several people who have signed up to speak for and against the bill and we are going to start with dr. Abernathy if you are available sir you are going you are recognized to speak against the bill and And one thing, Representative Linderman, it's getting close to noon. Let's go about 20 more minutes, and then if we need to, we'll take this back up first thing Tuesday, if that's okay with you, sir.
Perfectly okay with me. Okay, very well. With that, Dr. Abernathy,
Speaker 324
1:51:56
you're recognized to speak against the bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The health insurance is a huge problem, and we have known this has been coming for several years, and it's not something that has slipped up on the policymakers. And I'll go back to 2008 at the adequacy study. One of the recommendations coming from that committee was that the state put $63 million more towards health insurance.
And for whatever reason, the money never was there. And, of course, now I think Jason Lee may have said, but bottom line, it would take about $80 million. So the problem is big, and it's getting larger. So we are not down here saying that we don't need funding for health insurance. As a matter of fact, you probably received several e-mails from some people that we started up earlier about health insurance back in October and November. So we're very concerned with health insurance. A bigger concern of ours is the legislature approving an unfunded mandate.
This would be the first time since the Supreme Court ruling on Lakeview that if the legislature approves it, you can put your finger on it and say this is absolutely, no questions asked, an unfunded mandate on schools. And we hope that we don't go there. Let me tell you a little bit from the school district side on health insurance and policy decision-making that is made. Any benefits, salary increases or whatever, has to go through the PPC and then, of course, ultimately the board.
When those decisions come down, they debate, in many cases, where those funds are going to be placed, whether it's going to be health insurance, salary, or some other benefit. And those decisions are based off of those laws, those requirements, et cetera. We have districts who over the years have decided to place more money in health insurance, and they've increased their rate over the years from $131 to whatever, over $200. But bottom line, those are decisions that those districts and those employees had made. And I'll give you an example.
Cabot, for example. Cabot is paying $131 per employee on health insurance. But through their policy decision-making, through their PPC, through the discussion, they have developed another benefit package. I'm not sure what all is in that benefit package. It may include dental, vision. I mean, I don't know what's in there. But that benefit package comes about $438,000 for the Cabot School District that they have decided to choose to buy for their employees.
Now, a lot of districts don't want to put their money in health insurance because you've already heard that not all their employees receive health insurance. And so they want a benefit, typically, that everyone participates in. And so through the decision, they don't put it in health insurance, but they may put it in other benefits, or they may put it in some other place. They may put it in salaries. I'll give you another example. And you will probably receive, I was actually hoping to go after Rich because he has this information, and it lists all the schools and what they're paying.
But if you look at the Fayetteville School District, Fayetteville School District pays $131 per employee. Springdale pays $152. So through the years, they have made different decisions. Well, because of some of those decisions they made when you look over on the average teacher salary, Fayetteville is $57,261. Springdale average salary is $55,068. dollars. So the average salary in Fayetteville is higher even though they're paying less on
insurance. But again, folks, that's decisions that they have made. And there is some question about when you buy the COLA. You're going to hear about the COLA and the increase in COLA approximately 2% every year. And I've heard Richard Wilson say that when they look at average teacher salary, they pull the 131 out and then determine the average teacher salary and where that needs to be. And then they put the 131 back in. So there's questions whether 131 has ever had a COLA applied to that. And so that is an issue. You've heard Jason Lee talk about the cost
of the plans being the same. Let's make sure that we get that. The expense of the plans for the employees is basically the same when you look at the cost of implementing it. The cost for state employees to take out health insurance and school employees to take out health insurance is not the same. But a reason when it comes down to it's money. When you look at school employees, we are given $112 per ADM because we're funding on a per student basis. And so as mentioned, if you have a high participation rate in your district, you may be spending more. If you have a low participation
rate in the district, you may be spending less. You don't really have any influence over that whatever because each employee decides whether or not they want health insurance. As the federal health care legislation comes down there will be at some point an auto enroll period and they will automatically be enrolled which will be an unfunded mandate but it won't be on you it'll be on the feds so that's a different story but if you look at the amount of money that schools are putting in compared to the amount of money that the state is putting in the schools are currently spending 21 million dollars more on health insurance than states providing so the schools are doing their
part. When you look at the state employee contribution, the state employees or the state funding per budgeted position is $390 per budgeted position. Now you just heard Dr. Kimbrell said they are funded on per budgeted position and they may have $600 and only have $300 there so therefore he's sending more money. And when you're looking at the actual cost per our funding per participant it's over four hundred and forty six
dollars per participant and again that's been policy decisions that's made over the years how it got there that that's a different story but that's that's huge when you look at state our school employees at 131 so over the years those decisions have been made at this level the school has made the decision based off of what the law was a requirement was and through working with their ppc their teachers their board etc and they made those decisions and then to go back and make it something retroactive it is absolutely an unfunded mandate and i would encourage you not
to pass unfunded mandates and steer away from the lakeview court decision and that's about what it is we talked about solutions um we recommended back in the fall on the adequacy committee that One, from this point forward on the 131, you do apply the COLA to that 131 and apply that to districts, and that's the second part of the bill. We absolutely support that. It's moving the 131 to 150 that is done funding mandate, and that's the part of the bill that we oppose.
We also had some other suggestions trying to capture the growth in the URT. And I understand that Senator Key may have ran that bill this morning and actually capture that, and not to send that money to schools, because if you send the money to schools, then it kind of gets lost. But we encourage them to send that directly to the department and then over to EBD for health insurance. We encourage that. We even suggested that you pull out the $112 from the matrix and not send that money to schools, just send it directly to EBD.
Now, we would have some winners and losers on that, but the conversation immediately switches to how much money the state's providing for health insurance that's that's the bottom line the schools are doing their part and I would I'd really really encourage you not to hear or not to pass unfunded mandate one more thing and I know you're going to hear that there's plenty of money out there states have all these big balances and it's just it means nothing well You know, $166,000 to the Cabot School District is not really something just to laugh at.
When you look at Fayetteville and the amount of money they're going to have to put in. When it's prorated out by a district, you still have issues, because I know some of these districts who are paying $131 also have high transportation costs, and they're going to have to spend those monies in other areas. You've heard it before, but again, please don't pass. an unfunded mandate
thank you very much dr abernathy we have miss shelley branscom who is here to speak for the bill miss branscom
miss branscom we uh appreciate you being here very very much we're under a little bit of a time crunch here so if you wouldn't mind just summarizing uh your uh thoughts for
Speaker 326
2:00:51
the bill yes sir i will speak fast i appreciate everybody allowing me to to be here. I have been in contact with thousands of school employees over the last few months. Back in November, when the subcommittee met, I brought, like, a 10-foot banner with petitions
on it. And since time and space are of the essence, I took a picture of it this time. And you'll find that on the front page of my handout here. And I just wanted to very briefly read what it says. I'm a teacher at Rural Special School in Fox, by the way, which is in southwestern Stone County. It's a teeny-tiny little school about two hours away. We, the 5,756 undersigned employees of the Arkansas public schools respectfully request that the
legislative and governing bodies, committees, and individuals charged with the decision-making process with regards to the public school employee health insurance, please reevaluate and improve the current system of funding and setting of premium amounts. Our costs have increased so much that many of us can no longer afford to insure our families and or spouses. It goes on to say down at the bottom, this should not be put on the local districts to decide how much they can contribute to our insurance. We should have access to the same plans and pay the same premiums as all other state employees, and we also believe
that none of these changes should be made at the expense of funding for services intended for the children we serve. I've heard a lot about the unfunded mandates, and I've been kind of chastised by a lot of people for being in support of this bill, but I support this bill because I appreciate that something is being done, and if there is funding going into the matrix, I'm not really sure how it makes its way to my paycheck, but a little increase would be helpful.
The next few pages are quotes that I have received from teachers. I'm sorry, was I too loud? I've received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from teachers, and they're not complaining because they can't take their vacation or they can't get that new car. What I'm getting is it's a sense of grief. It's fear. They're terrified. They cannot afford these premiums. And I'm not going to read all of them because there's about four pages worth of them, but
if you would please read them, I would sure appreciate it because it will give you a better idea of the human cost of what is happening to people as they try to make these – pay these premiums. They're just – it's unbearable. If you'll skip forward with me there, I have a chart here, and I hope you'll forgive me for placing the comparison here between what public school employees pay, what other state employees pay, and forgive me what the Arkansas House of Representatives and Senators also
pay for these coverages. And it's pretty clear that school employees are carrying the major burden here. And I know you already know all the figures, and you've had a lot of discussion about where funding and things will come from. So in addition to thanking you for bringing this up, on the last page I have some suggestions for action, and one of them I've heard discussed already. I can't do the math on this because I'm an art teacher, okay?
But it seems to me like there has to be a way to combine all of us just for the purposes of health insurance. You should be able to put us all together with that many thousands of people. There's got to be a way to bring the rates down so that people are not paying more for their health insurance than they are for their house payment. They're not getting second jobs on the weekends. They're not filing bankruptcy. I had to do that back in the 90s because my spouse had to have surgery.
I had to file bankruptcy because we couldn't pour to pay our bills anymore with just one income and the higher insurance. So if you could combine all of us, if you can find a way, find the people with the big brains to put us all together in the same funds, that would be great. I don't see that happening in this session, but maybe it's something to think about and to shoot for. I would also ask that since the new rates have gone into effect already and people are struggling, they're suffering, and they're hurting really badly, if there's any possible
way that you can find an infusion of emergency funds to help people right now, the ones who are paying $1,100 a month for their family insurance, if there's any way to give them a little shot in the arm and a little bit of hope that they're not going to have to keep doing this forever. That would be great. Another thing would be to set firm guidelines, ensuring that there is adequate and vigorous competition among health insurance providers. I haven't heard anybody talk about that yet. But if there's competition, that's the American way.
There's competition among health insurance providers, then maybe these rates will come down to where it's not necessary that they have to pay such high rates. MS. Yes, sir. MS. Yes, sir.
MS. I hate to interrupt you. MS. Yes, sir. MS. And thank you so much for being here today, but we have to move on. MS. Okay. MS. And once again, thank you for being here. We appreciate your input very, very much, and please just thank you very much. We appreciate your time. MS. Thank you for letting me ramble. MS. Mr. Harder, you should speak up against the bill for the School Board Association.
Association, and Mr. Harder, please be brief. Mr.
Speaker 331
2:06:50
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Committee. And I will be as brief as
Speaker 332
2:06:56
I can. I thank Representative Letterman for a very honest presentation on the bill. The issue is not the need for help on health insurance. In my opinion, the issue for you as a committee and the legislature is how do you approach
this from a responsible policy-making perspective? And to get there, it's really important to go back on how we got here. First, health insurance is not a separate line item in the matrix. In the original derivation of the $5,400 on the matrix, it was based on an average teacher salary which included a 70 percent participation rate by employees in the insurance pool at
131, and that was worked into how we got to the average teacher salary to begin with. In 2005, the legislature, much to its credit, put $35 million into health insurance. But in the subsequent Lakeview decision, the Supreme Court ruled that health insurance was not part of adequacy. You got no credit for having put $35 million into it, and that was part of why the court
didn't let go. So as you approach this, you need to keep in mind how important health insurance is because it's not part of adequacy. That's what the court's ruling was. In 2011, there was an attempt to pull out transportation funding from the matrix and do a very similar situation so that the two percent increase or the average cost of living
increase would be added to a separate transportation categorical, but that was strongly opposed by the governor, and it was voted down, and it was voted down because it was not part of adequacy. So that applies to this as well, and the disparity on transportation from one district to another goes from $100 per student to $1,000 per student, so it's also a very big problem.
Dr. Kimbrell talked about it, but this is a funding matrix and not a staffing matrix, And if you pull this out, it really does begin the walk down the change in how you look at the matrix. And I would love to talk longer, but that's all the time
I'll take. Mr. Harder, thank you very much. We appreciate you. Mr. Nagel, you are recognized, and the egg timer is running.
Speaker 250
2:10:14
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be brief. We've worked a long time on this bill. I don't think it does clearly after hearing Jason Lee's comments. It certainly doesn't do what the program needs. This is a modest increase. We believe it's an affordable increase, and we think it's necessary, and I'd be happy
to answer any questions. MR. Now that's the way to do it right there. Thank you, Mr. Nagel, very much. Chairman
Speaker 336
2:11:08
Abernathy, you're recognized, sir. MR. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I talk
Speaker 339
2:11:14
slow, do I get more time? Just two or three points. It's all been, I've heard it all, the discussion.
And I'm sorry, Representative, well, I can't, Charlotte is not here. Because we're looking at funding state as a whole, and that's what we have to look at, not individual school districts. And when we look at funding state as a whole on insurance, were spending $21 million more. The school districts are spending $21 million more. And she mentioned, could we freeze that and make sure that all of it is spent out there?
Well, that would be great if the state would fund this $21 million that they're spending that's not funded out there through this. So that would be great. But this falls more harshly on rural areas than it does a city for two reasons. There's more transportation costs that has to be taken from the matrix out of that budget. Number two, there's less likely, less opportunity for a school teacher to have a spouse that's working somewhere else and has insurance in the rural areas.
So they're more likely to both of them be on this insurance plan. Those schools have to provide that for each of them. and you see that only 60% of the teachers belong in, but if you look at that in the rural areas, there will be a higher percentage of those out there. But the matrix is a revenue-funding model, and when you start off to mandate anything, be careful because in some areas,
and I use transportation, you mandate it to be spent like that. Well, then where's the rest of the money from that district? You'd have to fund that more for them to pay for that item. But if you let them move it back and forth, they can do that. So the 131, again, has not been inflated since the beginning. So you see what the problem is. It's money, and the source of the money right now that you have a chance for is over there, the 25 mills that's coming in,
and there's more money coming in than is in the balanced budget. It would take just over $5 million to fund what we're talking about here, and I know the senator has a $10 million bill. Y'all need to help him collect that money over there and send it to the Department of Education, and that would almost double what this would do for teachers. But heaven knows school people need help with their insurance. It's gone up 20% this year, so they need help.
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
2:14:31
you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate that very much. Representative Cornyn. Before we let Chairman Abernathy away from the table, I want to clarify something that you just said, and very quickly. Senator Key has that bill. In fact, if that bill does, in fact, and is, in fact, much, it's pinpointed to be sent for health insurance,
and if it's amount that we're talking about you said 10 million almost potentially could be there you fought this battle before as i remember what my question i guess is is right now we've got this bill setting here wanting to mandate it's going to be okay no no no on the other hand we've got senator key's bill which says it's going he's going to actually potentially put the money there but it's not a mandate is that correct
Speaker 339
2:15:30
that's correct it would go to the
department of education line item and directly to ebd so that only 60 percent of these teachers that's using the insurance would receive the full amount of that money lowering the cost of their insurance and then you don't get into this teachers forty percent of these teachers that don't use it they don't want more money spent for insurance they want it in salary for sure and that's what they should do but this would be the direct and it goes to the Department of Education that's what we did with the
fifteen million in 07 and it lowers the premium cost thank you for
clarifying that appreciate it thank you Representative Carnine thank you Mr. chairman uh... we have anyone else who wishes before this israel if not do we have a motion from the committee motion to pass mister chair we have a motion to pass represent linderman all in favor all those motion passes thank you very much represent linderman okay we have coming through who got our hands up
Speaker 346
2:16:40
mark call roll Representative Hobbs? Yes. Representative
Speaker 4
2:16:55
Carnine? No. Representative Dale? No. Representative Hopper? Yes. Representative Dickinson? No. Representative Edwards? Yes. Representative Viviano? No. Representative Catlett? Representative Catlett? No.
Representative Linderman. Yes. Representative Deffenbaugh. No. Representative Edwards. I'm sorry, Representative E. Banks. No. Representative Lampkin. No. Representative Ratliff. Yes. Representative Cozart. No. Representative Douglas. Representative Douglas. Representative Lowry.
Representative Lowry, Representative Armstrong, Representative Talley,
Speaker 346
2:17:49
Representative Clemmer, Mr. Chairman, do you want to vote? Yes.
votes for it, Mr. Chairman. Motion passes. Thank you, Representative Linderman. First, before we go, Representative Hammer has something that we want to get on the board.
Give him a chance to explain it. And if we don't have enough time, which we're probably not, it'll be the first thing that we
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:18:33
take up Tuesday. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I will be very brief, and you call time at your discretion, if
Speaker 7
2:18:38
that's right. Representative Hammer, I'm going to give you five
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:18:42
minutes. That's all I need. Okay. Thanks, sir. Thank you. If you have the bill up on your screen, we're talking about House Bill 1507, which is school choice bill. I came before you with the grandfather school choice bill, and basically what that did was
build a safety net in the event we came out of the session without anything decided. This is the second piece of the puzzle that helps address how to move forward from here, and I want to give a brief explanation, so if you want to take a look at it between now and Tuesday, you could. Page 9, and actually what this bill does, it incorporates the grandfather language that was passed out of here, but it also... Now, Representative Hammer, there is an
amendment. My apologies. So let's go ahead and
Speaker 311
2:19:23
talk about the amendment first, if we could, sir.
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:19:26
Sure. What this amendment does is straighten out some terminology that was in the first bill that was inadvertently put in there, and it helped clarify, and this addresses the court issue. So it's a very important amendment, and I would appreciate a
due pass. Do we have any questions
on the amendment? If not, I need a due pass motion. Vice Chair has a due pass motion.
All in favor? All opposed? Okay. The amendment to House Bill 1507 has been adopted.
Speaker 311
2:19:59
Representative Henry, you may proceed. Thank you. My apologies
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:20:02
for running over the amendment. Now, on page 9, lines 6 through 16, what that does is bring together all the definitions and establishes definitions for non-resident district, parent, resident district, and transfer student just to bring clarity to who we're talking about and what place they fit in. And then beginning at line 18 on page 9 and going down to line 36, there are seven items that are listed as far as criteria for choosing school choice
or that could be used in the application of the school choice application that's given to the school district. Actually, those seven things are scattered throughout law, so what I did was I brought all seven of them into this bill so that we could have clarity and also easy reference. And if you look over to page 10, the amendment that we just adopted or that you just adopted, which I thank you for, actually is going to replace lines 2 through 10, and that's kind of the meat of the law because it addresses the issue that has us before the court.
And then number 9 and number 10, what number 9 does is helps provide for students who are in a school district that is in academic distress and they have failed the benchmark exam for two consecutive school years, it is an option for them to use that as a reason to school choice out. And then number 10 is just kind of an open language that's actually an existing law, and it's kind of like if you can't get school choice for any of the nine reasons above, then here's your opportunity to try to make a convincing case.
And then the only other thing that's really of substance is that it extends the sign-up, the deadline to July 1st for the student, and it gives the school board until August 1st to make the decision. and it creates a 30-day gap in there so schools can assess whether they have to add teachers or not and put that sort of thing into place. I know that Scott Richardson with the Attorney General's office is here. He may want to speak to the credibility or lack of credibility of what the amendment does
if you'd like to yield the balance of
my time to him for that. Representative Hammer, appreciate that explanation. We are going to take this matter up Tuesday. First thing, you'll be number one on the agenda. And we're going to give you an opportunity to go over your points again. Mr. Richardson, of course, will be available to add anything, and, of course, we'll be taking questions. Thank you. We appreciate you very much. The Chair will entertain a motion to adjourn.
Agenda
HB2032
HB1945
SB583
HB1782
SB140
SB456
SB457
HB1690
HB1629
SB332
HB1507
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Representative James McLean Chair
Unverified
Speaker 4
Representative Debra M. Hobbs
Unverified
Speaker 15
Representative Deborah Ferguson
Unverified
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
Speaker 35
Speaker 37
Representative John Charles Edwards
Unverified
Representative Homer Lenderman Chair
Unverified
Speaker 59
Speaker 61
Speaker 62
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
Speaker 73
Speaker 16
Representative Kelley Linck
Unverified
Speaker 79
Speaker 86
Speaker 94
Speaker 95
Speaker 97
Speaker 108
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
Speaker 3
Speaker 71
Speaker 128
Speaker 149
Speaker 127
Speaker 98
Speaker 163
Speaker 166
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
Speaker 91
Speaker 181
Speaker 198
Speaker 68
Speaker 205
Speaker 218
Representative Jody Dickinson
Unverified
Representative Gary Deffenbaugh
Unverified
Speaker 246
Speaker 202
Speaker 248
Speaker 250
Speaker 252
Speaker 106
Speaker 258
Speaker 259
Speaker 175
Speaker 272
Speaker 273
Speaker 221
Speaker 281
Speaker 283
Speaker 284
Speaker 286
Speaker 288
Speaker 289
Speaker 203
Speaker 293
Speaker 285
Speaker 297
Speaker 282
Speaker 64
Speaker 301
Speaker 304
Speaker 310
Speaker 309
Speaker 315
Speaker 320
Speaker 322
Speaker 324
Speaker 326
Speaker 331
Speaker 332
Speaker 336
Speaker 339
Speaker 346
Speaker 7
Representative Kim Hammer
Unverified
Speaker 311