City, County & Local Affairs Committee- House
Video
Transcript
1 document
Bills discussed (7)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
HB1727
· 2 mentions in transcript, agenda
Matched: “…ked to him and he's probably not going to run his bill. But House Bill 1727, Representative Johnson, you are recognized to present your…”
|
TO REQUIRE THE DIVISION OF CORRECTION AND THE DIVISION OF COMMUNITY CORRECTION TO REIMBURSE A … | L. Johnson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die Adjournment |
|
HB1022
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…IN THE COUNTY JAIL. DEFERRED BILLS Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1022 Maddox TO REPEAL THE LAW REGARDING THE OVERSIGHT OF RETAIL…”
|
TO REPEAL THE LAW REGARDING THE OVERSIGHT OF RETAIL WATER PROVIDERS. | Maddox | Died in House Committee at Sine Die Adjournment |
|
HB1048
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…THE LAW REGARDING THE OVERSIGHT OF RETAIL WATER PROVIDERS. HB1048 Long TO AMEND THE POWERS OF A COUNTY QUORUM COURT. HB1114 M…”
|
TO AMEND THE POWERS OF A COUNTY QUORUM COURT. | Long | Died in House Committee at Sine Die Adjournment |
|
HB1114
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…. HB1048 Long TO AMEND THE POWERS OF A COUNTY QUORUM COURT. HB1114 Maddox TO ALLOW TAX REVENUE CREDITED TO THE ADVERTISING AND…”
|
TO ALLOW TAX REVENUE CREDITED TO THE ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION COMMISSION TO BE USED FOR … | Maddox | Died in House Committee at Sine Die Adjournment |
|
HB1399
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…FOR EMPLOYING A STAFF MEMBER TO DEVELOP THE CITY'S ECONOMY. HB1399 Cavenaugh TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING PUBLICATION REQUIREMEN…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW REGARDING PUBLICATION REQUIREMENTS FOR COUNTIES AND MUNICIPALITIES; TO AMEND THE LAW … | Cavenaugh | Died in House Committee at Sine Die Adjournment |
|
HB1528
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…alby Rep. Wayne Long REGULAR AGENDA Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1528 B. McKenzie TO REQUIRE A BALLOT MEASURE BEFORE A FIRE PROTE…”
|
TO REQUIRE A BALLOT MEASURE BEFORE A FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT CAN BE CREATED; AND TO … | B. McKenzie | Died in House Committee at Sine Die Adjournment |
|
HB1608
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TRICT MATCH THE VALUE AS DETERMINED BY THE COUNTY ASSESSOR. HB1608 S. Meeks TO ESTABLISH THE PUBLIC ENTITY STREETLIGHT SYSTEM…”
|
TO ESTABLISH THE PUBLIC ENTITY STREETLIGHT SYSTEM INVESTMENT ACT; AND TO REDUCE PUBLIC ENTITY STREET … | S. Meeks | Died in House Committee at Sine Die Adjournment |
Machine transcript
May contain errors. Verify important quotations against the official video.
About transcript accuracy
- Source
- Whisper
- Model
- ggml-large-v3-turbo.bin RTX5060
- Processing date
- October 6, 2026
Chair
Unverified
0:00
Anybody like to sign up for or against any of the bills this afternoon, please sign up. Let me get started. Representative McKenzie, his bill 1528, he's not going to run the bill. Meeks, I just talked to him and he's probably not going to run his bill. But House Bill 1727, Representative Johnson, you are recognized to present your bill. Identify yourself with the record and you may proceed.
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
0:30
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee, Lee Johnson, State Representative, District 47. Members, you know, I truly appreciate the governor's efforts to try to offload our prison system and backload that we have in the county jails. You know, her efforts to build a new prison, this bill that we put forward is a great idea and it's going to help a lot. I think our county jails are overburdened to the tune of around 2,300 prisoners right now that we're holding in our county jails. something has to be done for that and one of the solutions is to create more space for these
prisons to go to but that's not going to happen overnight there's going to be some time before that is rolled out and we're able to do this for our local county jails that are having to house these convicted felons who need a place to go it's a financial burden on our counties for these prisoners to be housed in these county jails we do reimburse that and i'm grateful for that i know our counties are grateful that that reimbursement has changed over time and is up now to about $40 a day. But the fact is that does not cover the cost of housing these prisoners.
And it continues to be a burden on our county system. And for counties that are strapped for financial issues to have to carry this burden that's not completely subsidized is a problem. We do have a system through our legislative audit for determining the average cost per day in the state to house a prisoner in a county jail. Right now, that cost is around $58 a day. That's a process I'm told that has been in place for over a decade where we do an audit process of sampling 15 different counties, looking at the cost and averaging that cost.
So my bill is very simple. All the bill does is it would require the state of Arkansas to reimburse each county the full amount, not just the $40, but the full amount based on that audit of the cost of housing these prisoners that really are needing to be housed in
a state penitentiary system. And I'd be happy to try to answer any questions on
Chair
Unverified
2:42
that bill. Okay. Representative Dalby, you're recognized. Thank
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
2:45
you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Representative Johnson, for bringing this bill.
I think any of us, I think all of us hear from our county folks on a regular basis. Have you had a physical impact statement done on this, or do you have any idea what the additional cost, either to the state or even to the counties? I mean, can you kind of, you know, talk about that
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
3:07
a little bit, please? No, it's a good question. I mean, certainly any time we look
at the budget and making choices, we're making decisions about where we spend money. and I know those are difficult decisions to make. Certainly, if we increased from where we are now to closer to the $58 amount per day,
that would definitely be a burden on the system. As far as the exact cost,
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
3:30
I don't have exact dollar amounts right now for that. Follow-up? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm kind of concerned when I read the bill and it talked about the actual housing cost, would that not vary from county to county? maybe even from city to city, it may be more expensive to house an inmate in a metropolitan area as opposed to another county that maybe is not, so I mean, how are you going to figure that
out, or is it just going to be a flat $58 or what? If you could kind of just dwell down a little bit on
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
4:07
that, I'd appreciate it. Yeah, I think that's a good question. I mean, when I started this process, My thought was to try to fully reimburse the counties. And I did not realize that there was a process when I started this of trying to assess that value. I think the point's valid that each
county is going to have a different cost. It's possible that a better way to approach this would be to look into that audit process and see if we could get a more accurate accounting for each county.
I mean, the intent of the bill would be to reimburse each county their actual costs, not costs based on an average. I do think there's some challenges in collecting that data, and that might be something we
Chair
Unverified
4:49
could do through legislative audit. Representative Richardson, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the bill as well.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
4:57
Northwest Arkansas, we have a big challenge with that. So I did a little rough numbers just based on $40 versus $58, which is what, you know, 33, or excuse me, we're building a 3,000 jail, but, 3,000 bed jail, but there's only about 2,300 currently that are extra, as I heard you say, correct?
Yes. So rough numbers, we're looking at about, there's a comma there, $63 million a year annually. um so my question if if if there is a question does that sound about right 63 million dollars it certainly could be it certainly could
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
5:33
be and i guess the thing is is that we're incurring the cost somewhere right
so right now the cost is being incurred at the county level um and somebody's paying that bill um it would be shifting the cost from the county back to the state which arguably is the right place for that cost to
be incurred because these are prisoners that should be taken
under the ward of the state and not the counties and the only reason the counties are
Scott Richardson
Unverified
6:06
being asked to hold them is because there is no space. Which I guess where I was trying to go with my question and didn't get to. Obviously you feel like it's unfair for us to pass that cost back to each county versus the state having to take care of
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
6:20
that bill. Yes, I think that's an unfair process. I think it's
unfair to ask the counties to house these prisoners that are really not appropriate for the county jails even when you look at the nature of the crimes they've committed you know the
most of our county jails are not set up to take care of violent criminals for a long period of time and some of these prisoners are difficult to care for at the
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
6:48
county level. Representative Kavanaugh. Thank you Mr. Chair. Last session I ran a bill very similar to this. I had a bill very similar. I ran into several issues. One of the issues was
that some counties will look at what actually makes it their actual cost is a little different, so we have to make sure, and I support it because I think the state needs to be paying for their prisoners, not the counties, but we ran into the issue that we needed to look at what the actual cost was. We had to define what actual cost was because otherwise somebody could actually be making a little money off of the I want to make them whole I don't want to make them to make money on it the other issue is we have those prisoners that should be in state prison but we also have
the prisoners that are waiting to go to trial that's another whole group of people that we have to work on so has your bill even thought about those issues about how we have to address those those concerns I would
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
7:44
say that right now the way I have the bill drafted it doesn't address those concerns. I think
those are valid concerns. It sounds like there are two issues there. One would be trying to parse out maybe a better way through this legislative audit process of getting a more accurate and consistent accounting from each county of what the actual cost is, because I agree with you. I think you
want to make sure there's an accurate accounting of the cost and not an opportunity for people to inflate that in some way. Not that they would intentionally, but you know, you want to hold people accountable. And then I have not thought about how you would parse out those that are waiting for prison beds versus waiting for trial. That certainly seems like that cost might want to be different depending on that population of patients. Follow up, Mr. Chair. Yes. Yeah,
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
8:29
because that was one of the things we struggled with, and I think that's how we ended up raising the rate to $41 because we were trying
to get through that process. But it's an ongoing issue that we face, and at some point, and this is just my take on it after looking at the audits and I mean we you know they have to report what their cost is and everything so there's that that's already in in they do but it's so much cheaper for them to stay in a county jail than it is to go to to prison and and sometimes I think maybe we're not motivated on the state side to pick them up as quick because it's a little bit cheaper on the state budget and I don't that's not necessarily fair for the counties don't you
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
9:10
I agree. I think that's
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
9:23
fair comments. Representative Rye, you're recognized.
Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Johnson, thank you for being here on this issue. The last year, Representative Johnson, that I was in office down in Poinsett County, it cost us $350,000 on top of the regular bills.
In other words, we had to pay that much out of the county general just to keep this thing going. It just about broke our county. So anything that we could come up with, like Representative Fran was speaking about, that would be fair and at real price, it would probably be the right thing to do. Yeah, I mean, I think
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
10:06
certainly everyone knows it's an ongoing issue, and I think it's a healthy discussion we're having. I mean, there's some good points that have been raised here today. Some of these things, I think, probably need a little more work, and I'll see what I can do to work on that.
Chair
Unverified
10:22
Okay, Representative Dalby, you're recognized. Thank you,
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
10:25
Mr. Chair. Representative Johnson, I think that there's been a lot of good issues raised, and I think you've presented us with a good bill to consider, but would you consider maybe pulling your bill down in light of the just recently filed criminal, well, I'm not sure what the Safe Arkansas bill or whatever, is the Criminal Justice Act, because there may be some things in there that you might be able to piggyback on in the interim.
Would you consider maybe doing that so that you can bring us back a bill that is even stronger and better for all parties concerned? Not that it's not good now, but just make it even a little tighter and better. I
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
11:04
understand that, and I appreciate that. And I did start this process before I was able to see the governor's new
bill unfold. So I appreciate the comments and questions of the committee. And with the permission of the chair, I'll go ahead and pull this bill down, and I'll try to work on it
some and see if there's an opportunity to bring it back in the future in a little more detailed way.
Speaker 33
11:24
Okay. Thank you, committee. All right. We appreciate
Speaker 35
11:28
it. All right. it seems we have an era here we don't okay alright
Speaker 37
11:38
we have no other bills before us I do not expect to meet Monday but that excuse me just a second
Speaker 35
11:59
as usual staff has corrected me we probably will meet Monday we have
Speaker 37
12:09
at least one bill maybe a couple more and I'll be notifying you tomorrow sometime late you know what bills will hear and we are adjourned
Agenda
No agenda available.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — CITY, COUNTY & LOCAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE- HOUSE, Mar 29, 2023 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Chair
Unverified
Representative Lee Johnson
Unverified
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
Scott Richardson
Unverified
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Speaker 33
Speaker 35
Speaker 37