City, County & Local Affairs Committee - Senate

And first up for a take on house bill eleven ninety six I believed to be Senator Gilmore and represent or would give anyone in our call to the table interdite yourself to be recognized receive your bill. Thank you Mister senator Ben Gilmore senate district one process and thank you for giving us the opportunity to to go first. I can Underwood a state representative in district sixteen in Northwest Arkansas. For the Jimmy recognized perceive your bill thank you and I'll let my co sponsored here jump in here in just a second but basically the bill is I think affirming we all believe that work is honorable and that those who can work should work and so bill's pretty simple it just says that we show petition the fed that's how it to impose a work requirement on able bodied working age adults who receiving public housing assistance I think we've we've listened to a lot of different concerns from different people on this bill we actually made an amendment on this end that would change the original one of the original. Exemptions in here was for a dependent child that was for you four months old we change that to five so now if you have a child that's a five years of age you're up to five years major exempted from this requirement but we we tried to work through a lot of the different processes on this make sure that we are you know being mindful of all the different issues that that folks may be dealing with and trying to come up with a good policy so at the end the day the goal is to certainly in an emphasize incentivize those who can work to work after receiving some sort of assistance and be public housing assistance so with that I don't know if my co sponsor has anything to add yeah and only all at is I believe this is a pretty reasonable requirements if you meet the work requirement which means you're an able bodied individual any receiving public housing benefits to meet the requirement it's only a part time requirements you have to work twenty hours a week volunteer twenty hours a week or be participate in some sort of workfare program of that think Senator Clark covered everything else thank you all right members or any questions from committee. I see no questions would you have somebody signed up we speak against this Bruche hours. Okay great the committee will enrich yourself because you're with to be recognized procedure marks. Thanks everyone my name's burning showers on the senior policy analyst for Arkansas advocates for children and families thank you Mr chair and members of this committee for the opportunity to speak today I'm here to explain why we oppose work requirements I know it sounds like a good a good idea to probably most members of this committee of what this country in this state have experimented with work requirements for a long time and I just think that we should learn the lessons that have like come up over the years. So. Our first big experiment with welfare reform in the nineties obviously there was a big push to implement work requirements on public assistance programs and at that time we conducted something called the national evaluation of welfare to work studies it was a large national multi site study to see what works and moving people from welfare to work and long story short the results are not impressive at all within a span of five years there's no difference in employment or income between people subjected to work requirements in those that are. and we don't actually even need to look that far back in Arkansas you know our states experiment with Medicaid work requirements had even worse results because we're asking DHS to do more with less and didn't invest anything into outreach or administrative functions ultimately all that we did was a legally kick people off of the program without any improvement in their employment. in this legislation is actually I think likely to be even worse than that so like with work requirements on Medicaid we did a good job of trying to make it easy for staff to administer so we tried to piggyback off of existing work requirements and programs that have statutory requirements like snap so if you were meeting the snap work requirement you were exempted from the Medicaid work requirement where is this legislation actually requires whether or not you're meeting work requirements and other programs it makes a public housing staff create screening processes in employability plans whether or not you're meeting work requirements on other programs which to me just for creates redundancy in red tape for literally no reason and ultimately that is why we oppose work requirements they create more people work for like your cracks in the public to hassle with but there's no evidence that they actually reduce poverty get people to work or improve their employment outcomes then that's it I happy to answer any questions if there are any right thinking the showers Senator Solomon transfer questions. Is are you speaking on behalf of the organization yes Sir and what authorize you to do that do you there's a board vote card is a group of how does it decide you're going to oppose or support we we have a committee that does approves those things okay and you have a document like that the voter support this bill or oppose the bill I don't have a document that says that is specifically you've got you're not telling me that your board authorizes you to speak against the authorized me the discretion to take that stance I mean if you want me to ask them specifically how they feel we could do that I'm asking specifically if you're authorized by the author I am a hundred percent authorized. So if you're a hundred percent authorized and you would have documentation from a board meeting are your executive director authorizing you to do this yes okay we'll send that picture I'd ask for that yeah you senator showers if you can send that to to staff the decision is a commitment to the committee thank you Sir. All right members or the inner questions from shows the committee. Are seen in the shower thank you for being here you'll see Sir appreciate you all that. All right that's that's all we have to signed up to speak for against this bill so Senator Gilmore represent on we're gonna come back and close your bill. Your bill thank you members and again I appreciate your consideration of time on this just again very simply this is doing nothing more than Haskin those who are able to work to find some sort of work that would be a part time for three volunteer if they're receiving so you know public housing assistance which you know there there's been some talk about you know these these things don't work or they don't get approved I would point out that just yesterday our governor petitions the federal government to add a requirement on Medicaid this sort of falls hand in hand with that in addition we've seen things requirements like this out of Texas that have have worked to encourage incentivize those who are able to go to work and that certainly is the goal here and so this is not illegal as was to testify to earlier this is something that is very much allowable under both federal rule and now we're just asking that the state petition the federal government to allow us to implement this here and then if that's not approved by the fed the we would do that every twenty four months so with that I'll allow my house co chair to to respond yeah and I understand that currently family spent about one half two and a half years on waiting lists for public housing and serve our implementing this work requirement I believe this allows us to keep these resources for those who truly need these resources with that I thought had at a job at a closed circles closer bill members with a motion for committee got a much Senator Ricky circumcenter Bryant all in favor please say aye. Those regulations under your bill passes thank you committee. All right next up would represent a fight in representive I believe you're going to be running house bill ten thirty one in thirteen oh eight. So members are going to start with ten house bill ten thirty one. And I will move to thirteen oh eight and then represent a fight if you'll just sit down introduce yourself there be recognized perceive your bill. Shares of will start with ten thirty one. I have a ten thirty one it's pretty simple bill last session we passed a bill that the required cities to a misspent of St fund revenue for other purposes and in that we required that they take ten percent of their general revenue. To pay this back in this payment program well it was pointed out to me last year that the General Revenue they also have things like that ACT eight thirty three money grants and stuff like that and they're restricted funds also and so we have redefined general revenue for the purpose of paying back misspent money is what it basically amounts to and that's all we've done and also we remove some obsolete language from two thousand and seven. I'll be glad to answer any questions all right members or any questions from committee. R. C. nine as three by sign up to speak for against this whole scene by signed up to speak on this bill so with that represent a fight you're recognized culture bill. I am close for a bill all right members we have a motion for committee. Got a motion sensor Hammer second Senator Solomon all in favor please press please say aye. Posed congratulations represent fight your bill passes. All right next we'll to thirteen oh eight okay thirteen oh eight the temporary sales tax goes off June thirtieth of this year and the permanent have sent to all sales tax takes over and thirteen oh eight this allows us cities and counties to do bonding with the half cent sales tax and all we're doing here is just replacing language ninety one Amendment ninety one's going away and minimum one one is taking his place and throughout that's all we do. Now we have an emergency fund an emergency clause on and the reason we have an emergency clause is that cities and counties when they get ready to bond something they have to have a three reading. but to do the bonding then it has to go to the voters and it's got to be within seventy days of the election and so there's only two elections well actually there's three I guess there's August and November and in the spring election so if they do it they don't have enough time unless we do emergency clause to get one on in the fall if they wanted to and it would be next year next by and with increasing prices in construction everything it could be detrimental to the. Be happy to answer any questions our members you for an explanation of the bill or the questions from the committee. Okay Senator Rapert you're recognized for a question. Five Is this go back to the bill the axe you were talking about the we had some concern that in the cities would. Overrated the putting so to say we're going to bond. More than the. Really needed to safely is there is there any concerns anything in this I understand it's going out to vote you know I don't see any concerns there and I I'll be honest with you to my knowledge there was only one to use the bonding process under the temporary and is usually bigger the larger cities or counties would probably be the ones who would do some bonding you know that have significant amount of money coming yes okay thank you thank you senator rice all right members or any other questions. See non I'll see about it signed up to speak for against this bill so with that represented by you're recognized close your bill I am close to all right we're gonna motion do pass or center I second Senator Solomon all in favor please say aye. Most resolution representative bill passes thank you Mr. All right there is there anybody here to run it or bills. All right. I don't see any single purpose come to come before this committee we are adjourned.