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March 18, 2026 ·1:30 PM ·Room A, MAC ·42:17
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 6:30
members welcome thank you for being here today I wish all of you would have been on time i've been sitting here waiting to start this meeting but i see we're all here now it's very good um all right do we have any words from our co-chair all good all right we will go ahead and jump
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Speaker 5 7:11
right into item b thank you madam chair
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Chair Unverified 7:14
item b is on page three this is a review item from the department of parks heritage and tourism the department is asking to surrender three administrative coordinator positions at grade sgs04 in return for one park superintendent three at sgs09 one maintenance supervisor expert at sgs06 and one park manager at sgs11 these three positions will be utilized at the blanchard springs state park the expected cost of the three positions once filled is roughly 264 000 that includes match this is paid by special revenues from conservation tax funding since this is a three for three swap there is no increase in and the total number of positions at the agency opm has recommended the requested swap are there any questions on this item all right
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 7:58
seeing no questions do i have a motion for review a motion in a second second any discussion all those in favor please say aye all opposed no motion carries item c madam chair both
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Speaker 5 8:17
items uh c and d require a motion to approve these are approval items item c beginning
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Chair Unverified 8:22
on page nine is a request from the department of commerce and the department of veterans affairs to approve special compensation and recruitment incentive plans the department of commerce is requesting approval of their plan to provide lump sum bonus awards up to five thousand dollars for employees in the classifications listed on pages 11 and 12 that have successfully completed major milestones in transitioning the current unemployment insurance computer programs away from the old mainframe system to the new cloud-based structure. There are several titles of employees from the Office of State Technology that are also included in the list based on their participation and contributions to the project. The estimated cost of these bonuses will be roughly $105,000. The Department of Veterans Affairs on page 13 is requesting approval of their plan to provide special compensation recruiting bonuses to certified nursing assistants working at the Fayetteville and North Little Rock state veterans homes. The bonuses would be paid to all current and new CNAs taking a position with the agency. Each employee would receive a $2,000 bonus. New employees would receive partial payment upon their hiring and the remaining portion upon their one-year anniversary. The cost of the department is estimated to be about a hundred thousand dollars madam chair that is on mc all
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 9:43
right uh senator dotson you are recognized for a question
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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 9:46
in just a second you are oh thank you madam chair um tony you might be able to answer this uh or or k i'm not sure but um Are these extra expenses part of this fiscal year, one-time only bonuses, and are they within the current budget?
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Speaker 18 10:21
Yes, sir. Kay Barnhill, OPM. These are one-time payments,
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Speaker 19 10:24
and they will be within this fiscal year, and they're one-time. They're not continuing, they're not built into the base, and the agency has to have the funding to be able to award them. Okay,
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Senator Jim Dotson Unverified 10:35
so it's all within their current funding model. Yes, sir. Thank you.
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 10:43
All right. Any other questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion for approval? A motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. Motion carries. Item
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Speaker 5 10:58
D. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Item D
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Chair Unverified 11:01
on page 17 is a request from the Department of Health to approve the reinstatement of a position that was previously frozen due to Act 796. Approval of the request will allow the department's state medical board to utilize the listed fiscal support manager. This request is required by Arkansas Code 215226. The position will be responsible for oversight of the licensing section manager and the credentialing section manager. Because this position is already authorized in the appropriation bill, the agency is not growing the total number of positions. The estimated cost of filling the position is to be about $70,000 in salary with an additional $28,000 in match.
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 11:38
- Are there any questions on item D? All right, seeing none, do I have a motion for approval? Have a motion, do I have a second? Second, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. All opposed, no. Item D carries, or the ayes have it, sorry. Madam Chairman,
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Chair Unverified 11:58
items E through K are reports that require no action. However, there is one reduction in force. This is provided by the Department of Commerce, the Division of Workforce Services for the elimination of 26 employees. The letters from the department referenced 27 employees. However, it has been related to us that one of the employees has already been put into another position. Commerce has also added that none of the employees will receive severance due to a lack of necessary funding. The positions eliminated come from the Division workforce services or excuse me services for the blind as well as employment and training division
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 12:36
and I'll get you in just one second representative Bentley and I I would like to go ahead and call secretary Hugh McDonald up to talk about item e I've been getting some questions I know in my district and I think it would be good for us to hear what's going on with that and representative Bentley do you have a question for the secretary? Okay, okay, perfect. All right. Great. If you would please
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Speaker 29 13:02
introduce yourself for the record. Good afternoon. Hugh McDonald, Secretary of Commerce and
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Speaker 31 13:13
my colleague. Cody Waits, Executive
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 13:18
Director, Workforce Connections. If you would just give us a little bit of information
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 13:23
about what's going on and and why we landed here sure bottom line with both of the riffs is as you may recall we did a realignment a couple of years ago streamlining some operations and for for employment and training we really ultimately determined that we had number one In the Wagner-Peyser area, it's a federal funding for workforce training support, and it's always been a very lean funding, and we've always had a difficulty in terms of I guess it's always been cross-subsidized by other funds. And with the realignment, we realized that it was cross-subsidized in a pretty significant way, and we also found out that we just had too many people that supported not enough work. So from that perspective, that's where the 10 FTEs happened. And Division of Services for the Blind, a lot of it is just performance-based, failure to manage operational costs based on available funds and had to take some pretty quick action from that perspective.
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 14:39
um can you speak at all specifically to communications that um you or your department have had with the feds
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 14:50
on this yes yes i certainly can in fact uh i was on the phone uh just this morning uh with my chief of staff and uh to the uh on the phone with a uh the acting head of rsa in washington and uh you know in his words um these are his words um but dsb he said has been mismanaged uh for a long time and we should have taken action you know a long time ago so um yeah we've had a number of communications with rsa uh mr waits is having them routinely to reestablish the funding. We still don't have the funding yet, which is why, you know, 51, 56 DSB employees are still on furlough.
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 15:47
All right. Thank you. Senator Love, you're recognized. Thank
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 15:51
you, Madam Chair. So, help me understand this. So, the Division Services for the Blind, did the funding just go away or are we just we're just cutting the division I mean walk me through that did they cut the funding or no or do we
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 16:10
still have the funding let me and and let me read you some language that came directly from the from the federal RSA which is very clear we received this communication February 25th it said DSB received notice from rehabilitation services this is the Office of Special Education and Rehab Services in the U.S. Department of Education that RSA has been designated, has designated DSB as a high-risk grantee. A pretty significant, pretty long letter and a few additional excerpts I'll read to you. I then took this letter that we got from RSA and I communicated it to the entire DSB board because we were not we had no idea whether or not the DSB board was aware of this but the letter goes on to say this notice recounts DSB's excessive spending and administrative costs and drawdown patterns that correlate to dwindling carryover amounts which which resulted in DSB obligating or expending all of its award funds. The data makes clear that DSB has fiscal data that projected the financial difficulties it has encountered. However, DSB did not take steps necessary to continue to operate the programs in accordance with the assurances made for receipt of federal funds. Lack of fiscal planning and oversight raises serious questions as to DSB's ability to effectively manage and administer the VR program. They go on to say that it's not a current year fiscal problem, but it dates back to at least 2020. The number of participants increased by 18% from 20 to 24, while the total expenditures for VR purchased services increased by 78%. Instead, the DSB also did not communicate to RSA of any fiscal planning, cost containment measures or strategies implemented by DSB to mitigate the effect that a lack of fiscal resources would have on VR programs. So we really had to take immediate action with the RIF to effectively get the train back on the tracks. And we're still not there yet because we've yet to get the funding from RSA in Washington, we're communicating with them we're attempting to communicate with the DSB board chair here in Arkansas to get the right leader in place the new leader in place in DSB that will bring a new fresh perspective on how to run the division okay so so are you
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 19:06
saying that the the people that you all are laying off, will they be able to, once you kind of, that's right, you're saying that this reduction of force is just going to be a permanent,
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Speaker 47 19:21
this is, it will be, it will be
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 19:25
permanent, yes. Okay, let me ask you this, just based on, just based on, because here's what I'm hearing in my community when we, when we talk about reductions in forces, they usually fall on African Americans. i'm just this is what i'm going to ask you do we look at the percentage of of african-americans that you're cutting in i mean i
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Speaker 48 19:47
just want to i want to you didn't look
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 19:51
at that no i mean it's it's uh it we don't look at that from a person it was performance based from our perspective mr weights might be able to get into the detail on that but um i couldn't tell you um you know what the 17 employees, you know, what race any of them are. Okay, so
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 20:11
I'm just going to tell you, Secretary McDonald, when I hear, when I look at, and I'm pretty sure that you may have heard some of this, you may not have, but when we begin to look at the reduction in forces and when they fall heavily on, you know, when they say, hey, you know, the reduction in forces at the federal level, And we look at the African-American community and most of it is hidden there. And then you look at it. It's not to say that I'm not I'm not concerned with any other race. I'm just saying when it's disproportionately affecting African-Americans, then we have to be at least aware or cognizant of how it of how it may appear. I understand. And so that's what that's the only reason I asked that question. And then lastly, when do you see you appointing or getting someone new in there and the services getting back up and going? Yes. Or are the
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 21:11
services continuing as we speak now? The services are not continuing because the funding has not been provided by the RSA because we do not have an interim leader. The governor has named an interim leader, and we're trying to get the DSP board to agree with that. They recommended the DSB board, actually recommended an internal person with DSB. And while I don't have a lot of history in the details of DSB, I do have a lot of history of fixing broken organizations. And we have to bring somebody in from the outside with a new perspective to fix this organization. And that's our recommendation, and the governor agrees with it. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair, I may get back
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 21:56
in the queue for a few more questions, but thank you.
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 22:01
That sounds good. I mean, what I heard you say, Secretary McDonald, when you read that letter is not that you guys just did a riff and let go of 17 employees. It's that after repeated warning, repeatedly being told, do not spend money you don't have, do not spend down your funds. They continued to spend down funds, and they basically did this to themselves by forcing the issue much quicker because they didn't heed warning. They continued to spend money they should not have been spending, and that led to a rift.
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 22:33
Is that a correct understanding? Over-obligated funds they were expecting to get in the future when the federal funds didn't happen, they were way over-obligated. Yes,
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 22:43
thank you. I just wanted to help make that clarification. That's what I understood. Senator love no one else is in the cube so you can hop
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 22:51
back in if you'd like all right and just just a few more so Is the DSB board? Who is the DSP board or who is this division run by like? Why why is it that we are we're? Now catching this and we didn't catch it two years ago or four years ago Like what what was what like who is in control of
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 23:14
this runaway train? It's a good question and it's something we need to fix Um, is,
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 23:19
well, I guess I'm saying is, is the, the DSV board, is that part and parcel? Is that, is that governor's appointees? Is that like, I'm just trying to get this. Yeah. Cause this is part of workforce, isn't it? Yes. It's part of the workforce connections. Okay. So, so then who, who was, who was over this director
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 23:44
that, that is run away that had this runaway spending? Well, this has been an ongoing conversation that this DSB is, the board is independent and we have some disagreement about how independent that board is. And we can, there is, per statute, the position of the DSB director reports to the Secretary of Commerce. And I've delegated that to Mr. Waits. But there is, on the other hand, the statute also says DSB board shall appoint the DSB director upon a subject to the approval of the governor. So there's an inherent problem there, and we're seeing the results of it right now.
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 24:51
And so even though this letter is now coming to light, we've had previous communications with the director of this division, and they just continue to overspend and people
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 25:11
continue to? It came mostly very much to light to our fiscal operations in November of last year when we realized that they were over-obligating funds. The instructions at that time were to de-obligate as much funds as you could, and none of that happened. So we wound up furloughing a second time, and the employees are still furloughed today. How much of this was communicated to the DSB board, I can't tell you. Okay, so we still have
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 25:52
employees furloughed. We still have employees furloughed, 56. Out of this whole division, it's 56 employees out of the entire division? there's there's i believe
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 26:03
there's five how many employees are not of the
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Speaker 61 26:05
oib group yeah there's five employees that are part of the older individuals
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Speaker 63 26:10
with blind group that are still currently employed and working because their grant funds were not over obligated so the way that they come from the federal level there's a there's a bigger bucket of funds that comes in and there's a smaller piece specific to the older individuals of blind so there's five individuals that are still employed and working and then there's 56 that
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 26:32
have been furloughed okay and So out of the 56, we have just five that are just kind of in operation. And then the reduction of force for this division is – can you tell me how many that is? 17. 17. Yeah. So then you'll have the remainder coming back on to work once we get the funding back in. All 56 – I mean,
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 26:56
if we got the funds today, all 56 would come back. 17 would be released uh march 31st the 17 that are on the riff list okay all right thank you thank you
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 27:13
thank you senator love um so i think it sounds like maybe one way to ask that question is not who are they accountable to but who do they believe they are accountable to and it sounds like i'm hearing they believe they're independent possibly and not really don't really answer to anyone but themselves that they're sort of standalone they pick the director and then they can do what they want is
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 27:35
that that is correct they recommend their their director to the governor um and then
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 27:41
i'm i'm curious do you have any examples of some of the spending that they've been doing to over obligate those
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 27:50
funds oh i don't have i don't have the specifics in front of me, but we can certainly get
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 27:56
that if you'd like. Okay, yes, that would be great. We can circle back around to that. Senator Mark Johnson, you're recognized for a question.
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Senator Mark Johnson Unverified 28:04
Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to ask a question, even though I'm not a member of the subcommittee. Mr. Secretary, Mr. Weitz, thank you for presenting this. This is a follow-up on Senator Love's question earlier. Would it be possible for y'all to provide the committee or just me the committee might want to know it too if the racial composition of the entire universe of employees there and then the breakout of the rift just to ensure that nothing untoward or unfair is being done that I know that that has probably has nothing to do with any of their the racial composition or seniority or I don't know what that is but if you could just provide us with that data so we can uh clear our minds that there's nothing untoward going on we'd be happy to senator and i appreciate senator love asking that question i appreciate you providing thank you thank you madam
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 28:59
chair thank you senator johnson uh senator love i will recognize you again for a question thank you
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 29:09
thank you madam chair for your indulgence um and thank you uh senator johnson for that um because now i did not want to imply anything that nefarious so i didn't no i understand okay um but secondly also we talked about statutorily now statutorily means that the legislature gave the board permission to i guess operate in the way they're operating. I mean, is that, am I, am I incorrect with that assertion? Yeah. Like statutorily, like, like this, they're operating within the statute. The thing about it is, is that the statute is in conflict with what the executive is saying. Is that, is that what you're, is that what you're telling me? Yeah. So statutorily, who are they supposed to answer to? I believe
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 30:05
they think they answer to the governor I mean I'll just read you I mean I'm not a lawyer but it says the the board shall employ a commissioner subject to the approval of the governor qualified by experience to administer and implement the policies and directives of the board the commissioner of the board of the division of this DSP shall report to the secretary of the Department of commerce so okay yeah so it you can see it's a potentially a potential problem okay yeah all right it's not potential it's actual thank you and were they
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 30:50
moved under commerce during transformation weren't they at the Department of Health or DHS,
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Hugh Mcdonald Unverified 30:55
DHS. Yeah. And so in the
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 30:58
last, when did we do that? In 2019, they were moved under commerce. And so, you know, I think there's a, you know, some differences of opinions on, on who answers to you. And I, and I think that's typical with something like transformation. I don't think this is a standalone situation where, um, there's maybe disagreement on who answers to whom. But thank you for clarifying that and answering our questions. I don't see anyone else in the queue. So thank you very much. Okay, and all we've got a few other reports. If anyone, these do not need to be approved. But if anybody has any questions or anything like that, I'm happy to take questions on those. All right. Oh, Senator Scott, you're recognized. Thank
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Senator Jamie Scott Unverified 31:50
you, Madam Chair. I'm sorry, I don't have a question. My apologies.
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 31:56
Okay, no problem. Representative Ladyman, you're recognized. Thank you,
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Representative Jack Ladyman Unverified 32:01
Madam Chair. I've got a question. I'm not sure. I was looking through this report on the quarterly reports. I think it's I,
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Speaker 81 32:12
E-H-I, quarterly employment report. okay what is your question uh well I was
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Representative Jack Ladyman Unverified 32:26
given time to look it up here but sure there's two reports here and I'm not clear on what they really are but um the first one talks about the quarterly report second quarter 2026 well that's the last one I guess representative ladyman the two reports
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Speaker 83 32:49
are the first quarter and the second quarter uh it's the
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Chair Unverified 32:53
same report that did not get reported yet for the first quarter and we had to get it fixed so we had the first quarter coming late second quarter was ready so we've put both of them in there what the quarterly employment report is is that tells you the number of state employees the number of positions they have that kind of information it is an average for the three months of those quarters so the numbers you see in there for each agency when you look at the individual agencies those are averages for that agency for that quarter if so is that for three months
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Representative Jack Ladyman Unverified 33:25
or one month that number that number is for
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Chair Unverified 33:29
three months three months it makes it so it's so what you're seeing there is six months worth of data the first quarter and the second quarter okay
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Speaker 5 33:37
okay well um and it's for both uh state agencies departments and
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Representative Jack Ladyman Unverified 33:47
higher education yeah i was just looking at the uh the overtime because we had a discussion this morning and yesterday about dd um and there's a shortage of labor and and people working overtime so i was looking at that and uh it looks like we 3.6 3.4 million was the total for overtime for that quarter 1.7 million of that was dhs um and 1.1 million of it was the department of correction 0.6 million was department of transportation so those three departments accounted for almost all of the overtime is there anybody looking to see why we're spending so much time on overtime in these three areas with the department of transportation i understand but
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 34:47
the other two all right I believe um Kay Barnhill if you would answer
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Speaker 21 34:56
that for us that'd be great thank you yes ma'am yes we are looking
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Speaker 19 35:01
at overtime expenditures Department of Correction has historically always had the most overtime because of their need to keep the facility 24-7 um DDS and other institutional um places also are the second in line with the most overtime at that particular point in time we are looking at some potential changes in our time and leave practices that might help us do better workforce planning to make sure that say if somebody called in sick and they weren't going to come into the ship we might be able to go down to another list of somebody who hadn't worked 40 hours already and bring them in to work but that's in the that's in the future that's not going on right
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Representative Jack Ladyman Unverified 35:42
now but that's what we're looking at doing but you you You just said that Department of Corrections is normally number one and DHS number two. But for this quarter, DHS is $600,000 higher than the Department of Corrections.
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Speaker 19 35:55
Has that changed? I don't have it. Yes, sir. Usually correct. I mean, I'm speaking generally. Usually corrections has the most. I did not catch the change on DHS. Well, that's like the
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Representative Jack Ladyman Unverified 36:10
DHS is 60% higher than Department of Corrections on this quarter. Okay. So, I mean, what's going on there? I think
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Speaker 19 36:22
it's the need, the necessity to provide services at the institutional level is what's going on. And I think also children and family sometimes has a lot of overtime associated with their positions as well. But we know, we've
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Representative Jack Ladyman Unverified 36:36
talked about it. We've had discussions about, you know, they shut down the labor part up at Boonville because they didn't have enough people. I know one superintendent had to come in at midnight and work a shift because they didn't have enough people for direct care. I don't think that's been happening in the past. Yes, well, let me tell you something right now.
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Speaker 19 36:58
All direct care positions at institutions are totally exempt from the hiring freeze process. That means they can hire whenever they need to hire. That includes the CNAs, LPNs, and the RNs. And so they have freedom to hire all the people. After our discussions yesterday that we had, I've gone back to try to look at the practices and where things may be off-kelter, and we're going to work on that. I will tell you that since January 23rd, when the new system went live, we've hired 128 people at DDS. So I think we're making inroads. But we're, I mean, I can promise you we will study it and kick back with
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 37:48
you with more information. All right. Thank you. All right. Senator Love, you're recognized. Kay, just following up on that, when will we have a report in which we can kind of ascertain if, So, as we said, corrections is usually the highest in that category of spending. When will we have a report to say what the pay plan has kind of went into effect? Right. We stated that we were going to be able to hire more people, which should mean that we have some sort of reduction in overtime. overtime so when will we have a report that that we can kind of ascertain if that is what's going on or if we're
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Speaker 19 38:27
getting worse in overtime yes um we can develop that report we already have some signs based on the state turnover rate which has decreased three percent since the pay plan took place i know the department of corrections has hired approximately 700 correctional officers since the pay plan has gone in place so you can see that we can see where it's having positive impact the overtime could be to several reasons but we'll look at that and see okay but shouldn't the
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 38:52
overtime shouldn't i mean with the the increase of new hires shouldn't the overtime also decrease you would think you would think
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Speaker 14 39:00
but we will check into that and i think
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Speaker 19 39:03
it generally has decreased i mean i think maybe when he just pointed out corrections didn't have as much this time i think that is due to the high volume of hires that they have had but we will look into that and look at see you know where the overtime is going what we can do to try to limit that see what we can find out well I'm not I'm not looking for a drastic
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Speaker 104 39:23
increase because I know that that we were shorthanded
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Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified 39:26
right but what I am saying I think we should probably have some sort of reporting data now to to kind of see if that if it's going in the right direction so we'll be happy to provide that all right thank you ma'am thank you madam chair thank you representative
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Representative Ryan A. Rose Unverified 39:43
rose you're recognized thank you madam chair uh representative ladyman just kind of piqued my interest on page 58 so so i understand this correctly the overtime paid is the second quarter that is the amount paid in the second quarter correct yes let me look at this this is this is
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Speaker 19 40:03
tony's report so i'm not as familiar with this let me go find the page just
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Representative Ryan A. Rose Unverified 40:14
says FY26Q2. I was just making sure that I understood correctly. Yes. These are the overtime amounts paid by division under each department. Yes, sir. And then located on this page also is the budgeted vacancies and the unbudgeted vacancies. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Okay. So we can see divisions or departments who have large number of vacancies and may also have a large amount of overtime. Is that correct? Yes. Am I reading that correctly? Okay. And do you see any correlation in that across the divisions and departments that those that are understaffed are having to pay more in overtime? I'm sure that is a
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Speaker 19 41:03
correlation. I haven't had a chance to look at it in great detail but okay i would believe that would
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 41:12
be the case okay all right thank you
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Senator Ricky Hill Chair Unverified 41:15
thank you senator hill you're recognized miss martin i think part of this uh overtime that everyone seems to be harping on with the increase in the salaries that we paid right with the increase in that you could even actually have a decrease in in the hours that people are working but with the increase in the pay, the overtime is still there. So that kind of goes hand in hand. If you increase someone's pay, over time, your dollar amount goes up. So I guess my statement is, let's use practical business common sense on this, that the hours may be less, but with the increased pay, they could be making the overtime there. That is correct. Thank you. All
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Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified 41:57
right. I see no one left in the queue. and seeing that there is no other business to take up this meeting is adjourned thank you
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Agenda

A. Call to Order

6:52

Item for Review:

7:09

B. Request from Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism, Division of Parks for three (3) positions from the OPM Surrender Pool established by Arkansas Code Annotated §21-5-225(a). (Shea Lewis, Secretary)

7:10

Items for Approval:

8:17

C. Request from Department of Commerce and Department of Veterans Affairs for administering special compensation awards. (Hugh McDonald, Secretary of Commerce) (Robert A. Ator II, Secretary of Veterans Affairs)

8:18

D. Request from Arkansas Department of Health, Arkansas State Medical Board to reinstate a position held pursuant to Act 796 of 2021. (Renee Mallory, Secretary)

10:58

Reports:

11:59

E. Reduction in Force Report- Department of Commerce.

12:00

F. Arkansas Community Correction Quarterly Caseload Report.

12:01

G. New March Provisional Report thirteen (13) new positions are approved for four (4) Four-Year Institutions of Higher Education. There are no new positions for Two-Year Institutions of Higher Education. (Department of Education, Division of Higher Education, Dr. Ken Warden)

12:02

H. Quarterly Employment Report- First Quarter FY26 State Agencies and Institutions of Higher Education.

12:02

I. Quarterly Employment Report- Second Quarter FY26 State Agencies and Institutions of Higher Education.

12:03

J. Personnel Actions Report- Office of Personnel Management- Department of Shared Administrative Services. (Leslie Fisken, Secretary)

12:03

K. Special Compensation and Recruitment Incentive Award Report.

12:04

L. Other business

31:30

M. Adjournment

42:03

Speakers

Senator Breanne Davis Chair Unverified
29 segments
Speaker 5
4 segments
Chair Unverified
12 segments
Senator Jim Dotson Unverified
2 segments
Speaker 18
1 segment
Speaker 19
14 segments
Speaker 29
1 segment
Speaker 31
1 segment
Hugh Mcdonald Unverified
40 segments
Senator Fredrick J. Love Unverified
32 segments
Speaker 47
1 segment
Speaker 48
1 segment
Speaker 61
1 segment
Speaker 63
2 segments
Senator Mark Johnson Unverified
2 segments
Senator Jamie Scott Unverified
1 segment
Representative Jack Ladyman Unverified
14 segments
Speaker 81
1 segment
Speaker 83
1 segment
Speaker 21
1 segment
Speaker 14
1 segment
Speaker 104
1 segment
Representative Ryan A. Rose Unverified
6 segments
Senator Ricky Hill Chair Unverified
2 segments