Joint Budget Committee
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Speaker 2
0:30
All right, members, grab your seats. Last
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
0:55
chance. Grab your seats. With that, chair sees a quorum. We're going to get started.
Hey, for those in the audience, I appreciate the camaraderie. If you need to go outside to have those conversations, go ahead and take them on outside. Members of the audience, I'm going to start calling you out by names. Let's wrap up the conversations or go outside. For every minute that y'all delay and continue the conversations,
we'll make sure to identify who you are, and we'll add a little time to the Q&A section for y'all today. All right, members, first thing we have is consideration of JBC rules. These are rules that are compiled, or any changes are the result of legislation and then created by staff.
With that, I'd be happy to take any questions on Section B, the rules, and those changes.
Senator Hickey, you're recognized for a question on the rule changes. Yes, sir. Just have not had a chance to
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
2:19
totally look over this. Could staff weigh in if there's any substantial changes in here? I'm
Speaker 12
2:26
trying to look. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Wendy Cartwright, BLR. Senator Hickey, all of the rule changes, all of these revisions are due to acts passed in the 2025 legislative session. So these rules are just being revised to match the legislation that was passed. Thank you, ma'am.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:43
All right. Thank you, members. Do we have any other questions? All right. Seeing no questions, we have a motion to adopt. Senator Brighton has made a motion to adopt. We've got a second by Representative Wooten. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed, motion carries. We're going to move on to the balanced budget presentation, and if you all can make your way forward.
If you'll give us just a second, Secretary, they're going to hand out a copy, and they're
doing that now. members while they're handing it out i just want to make sure we're all on the same
page this will be the presentation by dfa for balanced budget proposal by the governor there is no action we will be taking today there will be no action that we're taking today we'll have until to the start
you know the start of the session to digest this formulate our questions get our understanding and and see if there's an agreement with the legislature on how we move forward But again, we will not be taking any action today. All right, has everybody
received a copy? Looks like we just got a couple more.
Speaker 30
4:24
all right with that you're recognized to present a good morning mr. chairman good morning committee
Speaker 31
4:34
Jim Hudson secretary DFA good morning Jessica Moore
Speaker 33
4:37
DFA budget just real quickly on Jessica Moore you probably have not had a chance to meet her yet she's leading up the budget team at DFA she is well versed in all the numbers and so when I stumble she will help me up here today but she's just a great member of our team I'm just glad to have her at the table with me the letter that you have from the governor summarizes her proposed balanced budget. She does an
exceptional job communicating, you know, her priorities in the budget. I'm not going to read the letter to you. I'm not going to read the RSA to you. I'm going to hit a few high points just so you understand kind of what we're emphasizing in this next budget. Really, when the governor was instructing us to begin building the budget, the proposed budget, you know, three priorities that she was focused on first continuing her emphasis on holding down the the growth in state government to focus on continuing to invest in some of the priorities that she's been you know encouraging
us to invest in especially in education since the beginning of her term as governor and thirdly to focus on continuing to make progress real progress consistent progress in cutting our income taxes and getting us to a place where we're at zero hopefully as soon as we can. Those are the three things that she asked us to look at, and that's how we built the budget. Let me hit for you just kind of the high points of what's in the RSA. First of all, it's a 3% increase year over year.
That's pretty much consistent with the historical average of what RSA increases are. In terms of the one of the larger, I guess, increased amounts would be in EFAs. We're adding $122 million to the EFA line item in the RSA. This fully accounts for the one-time monies that we transferred in FY26. I think when we've been speaking about the EFAs and we've been at the table during the interim period, we've been very clear one-time monies wouldn't make their way into the RSA and
we're following through on that commitment. We have 44,000 students who are benefiting from efas now and we want to make sure that that is adequately funded we have earmarked or recommended we earmark 70 million dollars in a one-time set aside to fund any increase in the growth of efas in fy 27 just as we're doing now if there's any actual usage to the degree that we use that set aside in fy 27 it will be added to the rsa for fy 28 so we're fully accounting for and reflecting
in the budget the cost of that program. In addition to EFAs, we have money set aside for the pay plan, $54 million that will be going to corrections, DPS, and ag. This is to account for the cost of the new pay plan that was implemented last summer. These agencies have received performance funding year to date. They will receive probably a little bit more as we end up the fiscal year. We want to make sure that whatever performance funding that an agency actually receives gets allocated to the RSA for next year so we're fully accounting for that cost. We also have six
million dollars that's going in for new funding for higher education through the productivity formula. We have seven million dollars in new money for the drug tax forces. We have five million dollars in additional money for the DOC Department of Corrections medical contract. This is a part of the existing contract. It is a built-in increase that's already there. We're just funding it. We're also adding six million dollars to the governor's 1033 initiative 1033 refers to luke 1033 it's the parable of the good samaritan that program is focused on government partnering with the faith
community and with community-based non-profits to help arkansans move from a place of dependency to productivity from places where they're on welfare to where they're having a job this is an initiative that we've seen already bear fruit and the governor wants to allocate more resources to it so we can help more Arkansans. We're also adding $5 million to the Inspector General's budget. This additional $5 million will be really to support addressing our SNAP error rate.
For those of you who recall, the one big beautiful bill that was passed last summer, the degree to which we have a SNAP error rate will affect the cost sharing that the state has in the future. So to the extent that we can drive that error rate down, it will benefit the state financially. So the inspector general will take point on this. They'll collaborate with DHS and coming up with a way to reduce our SNAP error rate. And then we're also adding an additional $100 million to Medicaid sustainability. This $100 million will be on top of the $100 million
we've already allocated in a set-aside that can be used just to support the Medicaid trust fund to protect the Arkansans who are most vulnerable. So those are the additions to the RSA going into FY27. But let me just circle back and talk about, you know, tax cuts and the importance of making sure that we're prioritizing tax cuts. All Arkansans, when they approach their household budget, they prioritize their spending. There is some spending that's more important than other spending. Currently in our budget, I think we have just having one category of spending, we're saying
more or less that all spending is of equal importance we know that's not the case so we are reintroducing a concept that we've used historically here at the general assembly which is categories of funding category a funding and category b funding category a funding will represent about 93 on average of a agency's rsa allocation for fy 27 think of it as those recurring monthly expenses like payroll like the light bill like paying rent they get that money
every single month the seven percent that's remaining think of that as more like one-time expenses that can be deferred if we have the money to pay for it
Speaker 38
10:32
so it's a way of prioritizing our budget having a categories and b categories we think when we do this then we have more opportunity to manage the growth of our budget so that we can begin to prioritize cutting taxes. We don't want the tax cut conversation to be an afterthought, that we will cut
taxes if we have enough money to cut taxes. Prioritize how we're allocating the money so that we can cut taxes. That's the approach the governor's had with the budget. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll be happy
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
11:06
to take any questions. All right. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. With that, Representative Rye,
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
11:14
you recognize for a question. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hudson, a question for you, sir. On the decrease in income taxes at one-half of a percent and maybe even looking at 1%,
do you have any figures on that, sir, of how much
Speaker 33
11:30
that will cost? So generally, for each tenth of a percent in reducing income taxes, if you also include the pass-through entity tax, It's about $58 million per tenth of a reduction. So it would be about $250 million for a
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
11:44
half cent or something like that. If you did, you have five tenths cut.
Speaker 51
11:48
Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
11:53
Thank you. All right, Representative Wooten, you're recognized for a question.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
11:57
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hudson, on the balanced budget, isn't that a requirement about the Constitution? It is a requirement that we present a balanced budget, yes, sir. the governor has to do that and you have to
Speaker 56
12:09
approve a balanced budget yes sir all right so one more question
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
12:12
i didn't hear it maybe you said but you used the word education and then you spoke about um the eafs yes sir did you mention public education i didn't mention public education no sir in my
Speaker 33
12:40
money? Through, you know, the public school, you know, trust, the productivity that's there, that's how they're funded, not in the RSA. Not additional money in the RSA. There's
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
12:50
no new money in the RSA. There is new
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
12:55
money in the RSA. But not for public education again we know we have i know what we
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
13:03
have and i know what we have in reserves
but we can't continue to live off our reserves so there's no new money for education for public education sir the adequacy there's no there's no new one would you just answer the question i will not agree how you're phrasing the question no sir i'm
Speaker 48
13:24
sorry i can't agree with that you can't you can't
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
13:27
do what i can't agree with how you're phrasing the
question no sir you can't well Okay, then we're turning our back on public education. Is that correct? No, sir, that is not correct. Well, that's what it sounds like.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can't control how you think
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
13:42
it sounds. Thank you, Mr. Huston. Yes, sir. Thank you. Members, if we
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
13:51
have any other questions, Senator Davis, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does someone have the exact percentage of increase that we increased per pupil funding for schools because every year we have been increasing school funding per pupil and we've been giving historic increases year after year I think it's somewhere around 3.2 percent but do we
have that number exactly because we are increasing this year in fact larger a larger percentage than we've increased in years past we're
Speaker 30
14:19
spending more now than we ever have yes
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
14:22
absolutely yes and And they're getting an increase this year in per-pupil funding, and it's somewhere around 3%. I just wanted somebody to clarify that to make sure that that's not printed in the paper anywhere, that we're not supporting public schools as we're giving them historic increases like we're doing again this
Speaker 33
14:40
year. And the adequacy fund is growing.
We'll actually have more in the adequacy fund at the end of the year than we have right now, so the idea
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
14:51
that we're spending that down is incorrect. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Senator Hickey, you recognize for
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
14:56
a question. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Hudson. Just I want to make sure that I fully understand what you said on the Medicaid trust fund. You know, that's been something that we've all kind of been watching over and understand how big that number is. So we've been spending the Medicaid trust fund down the way that we've talked about that a few years ago was at $600 million.
And if I remember at the last meeting, it's $300 million plus, $390 maybe. So have we, and I think I've been asking this, have we established a floor on how much we're looking to keep in that account? The $100 million that we've got in a set-aside now, are we planning on using that in this fiscal year? And then I heard you say something about another $100 million, I thought, in the next fiscal year also.
Yes, sir. So I want to make sure I fully understand. Are we talking about the same 100 or a
Speaker 76
15:54
different 100? Give me the full specifics, please, sir. It is an additional 100. So
Speaker 33
15:59
we'd have a total of $200 million in set-asides available to go into the Medicaid trust fund in FY27. I do not expect that we'll move any money into that in FY26 in the remainder of the year. I just don't expect that. I do expect at least half of that, perhaps more, will go
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
16:19
Okay. So what you're telling me is that you think, and I apologize, I hate to say this without my numbers, if we were at 390 as of seven months ending or whatever it was, what you're saying is that you think that the 390 is going to be sufficient, but is it our intention to pay all the way down to zero there? Yes, sir. Okay, so how much more in this fiscal year do we think we're actually going to spend out of the Medicaid trust fund,
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
16:46
or do you know? I believe Secretary Mann, when she was at the table at the last ALC,
Speaker 33
16:51
gave a range of a number of $150 to $200, if I recall that correctly.
I think that's probably still within the range of what we're in the year. And I think anything that gets below
Speaker 36
17:03
$200 on a sustained basis, we ought to look at injecting capital at that point. Okay, one
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
17:11
last question, and maybe this is a question for the agency whenever they get down there, and not that she needs to come now, but just to be prepared. So my question is, though, we're not holding anything over or using a timing thing to make sure that we're going to stay at $150 million
and then, you know, come July 2nd, we automatically just immediately need a huge part of this $200 million that we're going to have instead of sides. So that's probably a question for the agency, but I just want to make sure that we're specific there because this Medicaid trust fund, like I say, we're not talking about $3 or
$4 million, which is still big money. We're talking about hundreds, and that's very worrisome to me. Yes,
Speaker 36
17:53
sir. Senator Higgy, the Medicaid trust fund, the first report that I get every single week
Speaker 33
17:58
is what's the balance of the Medicaid trust fund. So it is something we watch. Secretary Mann and I have a close working relationship. We talk about that often. I think we're on the same page. I can assure everybody we're not using extraordinary measures to stretch, you know, payments. We're not holding invoices. We're paying things as they come to us, and they disperse on a weekly basis. We model that out,
Speaker 36
18:24
and the last thing that we want to have is some liquidity issue with Medicaid trust.
Speaker 82
18:29
That's just not going to be something we're
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
18:36
going to allow to happen. Thank you, Mr. President. Yes, sir. All right, thank you. I'm going to try to make sure we
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
18:43
go to members first, but I'm going to
mess that up, I think. All right, Representative Collins, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Secretary, I'm just trying to make sure I understand this right. So the $70 million is being set aside from fiscal 26 surplus that's projected for the EFAs, and that's in addition to the $122 million in fiscal 27.
That's what we're talking about there as far as the separate line
Speaker 33
19:05
item for the $70 million? The $70 million is a contingency that would come from surplus. It is accounted for, though, in the RSA. We have sufficient RSA projected for FY27 to fully fund that amount. It is really there for the growth in EFAs, more organic growth than anything else that will be occurring in FY27. We don't know what the exact number is going to be. we think that's an adequate number, but we'll have that number there to fund that growth on a
one-time, one-year basis. And then, as I said, just as we're doing now, whatever we actually use for EFAs in FY27 will get built into the RSA for FY28. Okay. And
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
19:49
so this, if used, $192 million is in addition to what? What is the number that would be added to form a total that we're
Speaker 33
20:00
spending on the efas so we're adding the 122 to the rsa
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
20:06
allocation for fy26 that would bring the rsa
allocation for efas for fy27 to roughly 309 million dollars am i right on that number yeah okay and then
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
20:17
the 70 would take it to 380 or 379 million if it's full used got it thank you all right uh senator tucker i
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
20:26
think you were on and off so you're recognized for question secretary those
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
20:35
were really my exact questions that representative collins just asked i was
wondering what the total number was for efas and i guess uh you mentioned that the
70 million will be in rsa but is it is it still one-time money though or is
Speaker 33
20:53
it's it's it's a set-aside okay my point is that in terms of the cash flow that we'll generate through the forecast revenues coming in are more than sufficient to cover what's
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
21:04
actually in the RSA plus the one-time set-asides both for EFA's and for Medicaid okay all right
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
21:09
it's 309 in the budget plus the 70 million in
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
21:12
the one yes sir okay that right thank you all right Senator Irvin you're for a
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
21:24
question or not hold on thank you thank you mr. chair so I just wanted to do a little bit deeper deeper dive you said that we were actually going to have more funds in the adequacy account on page 5 of what you submitted to us under the educational adequacy fund there's different taxes obviously that through legislative action we have directed towards that fund and so I'm just
curious, do you see a correlation? Which of those taxes have we seen more of an increase in? And I'm just curious if there's a correlation between us cutting income taxes, generating more income into people's pockets, which has increased our revenue and sales tax, which is part of the educational, the adequacy fund. Is there, I'm just looking for where we're seeing growth in that as relates to these legislative direction of these taxes or if it's corporate franchise taxes or if it's really
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
22:19
that sales tax it's sales tax ma'am okay our estimate for adequacy for fy 27 we're estimating to distribute roughly 500 million
dollars for fy 27 to the adequacy fund Okay. So in my mind,
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
22:39
we're on the right track on tax policy because we're cutting income taxes, which is putting money back in people's pockets, and they're spending more money, which then we're seeing on the flip side of increased revenue through sales taxes, which a portion of this goes directly to the Educational Adequacy Fund.
and by law and by court order we must provide adequate education period that's not a subjective approach that's a that's that's a very objective uh form of law that we have to provide sales taxes are generally speaking a much more
Speaker 30
23:17
predictable and consistent source of revenue that we have modeled out over time corporate income taxes there's much more volatility in that. Okay. So again, the funding for this is way more skewed toward funding from sales tax.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
23:33
Perfect. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks. All right. Thank you.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
23:40
Our last question, Reps. Nevrya, you're recognized. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hudson, the last couple of months we've been going over this. I just kind of wondered, you know, the situation with the federal in 2028 actually is going to change their amount that they're sending us and we're going to have to come up with more money on on our level do you happen to have a figure sir for that of how much that's going to cost i know it's out there just a little
bit but what will that cost us for for which
Speaker 30
24:07
program are you referring to representative right i'm redicate i'm medicaid well on the medicaid side of things actually beginning this october the federal reimbursement rate is going to increase so the amount of
Speaker 33
24:17
federal funds that we get will go up. So it'll be a little bit better situation for us in terms of our income side of things next fiscal year than what it is this fiscal year. That's part of what we're modeling in in terms of looking at our adequacy of the Medicaid trust fund. Yes sir Mr. Hudson but what
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
24:34
I was wondering sir you know like the 70-30 and some are 80-20 that is it was mentioned in the last couple of months that that actually our part will go up in that. I believe
Speaker 113
24:46
you're referring to SNAP. That's right. Yes, sir.
Speaker 33
24:51
So the amount of administrative expenses that we pay for SNAP go from 50-50 share to we're paying 75% of the share. We think the cost for that, and you can ask the DHS folks who are at the table in a couple of days, the cost for us in FY27 on that increase is about
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
25:07
$18 million, I believe. How much, sir? $18. $18 million additional expense. Okay. Thank you, mr hudson thanks mr chairman all right thank you members and thank you for your presentation members i'd encourage if you've got questions you've got a little more time to digest uh and we've got you know a little bit of time before we get into the session make sure you meet with governor's staff and try to get those questions answered and make sure you have a good general understanding of what's being proposed so that we can efficiently take care of it when we get into session uh with that uh dr warden you're recognized for a presentation
Speaker 119
25:44
Or overview, I should say. Good morning, all. Ken Warden, Commissioner of Arkansas Division of Higher Education.
Nick Fuller with the Division of Higher Education. Thank you all for the opportunity to speak this morning. We're pleased to say that overall institutions of higher education across the state were 2.61% more productive than last year. That's good news for us. We need more Arkansans taking advantage of the opportunities we have in higher ed and educating our workforce and seeing more opportunities for themselves in our state. We saw exceptional growth, particularly in concurrent credit over the past year.
Our budget recommendation reflects the statutory required productivity funding formula. It was received and approved by our coordinating board in October, and we are happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the budget. All right, thank you. Members, we have any questions.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
27:03
All right, Senator Tucker, you're recognized for a question. Thank
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
27:11
you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, gentlemen. I just noticed that UA Little Rock is getting about $1.5 million less than the year before.
Speaker 119
27:17
I'm just curious about that. So the recommendation is based on overall productivity. Nick, would
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
27:30
you like to give more details? Yes, sir. And if you look on the, I think it's attachment E, there should be a handout of that productivity index. For UA Little Rock, they were down in productivity. For the year, they were down 5.96%. So with that reduction, they lost 2% of their funding due to that productivity decline.
So that million dollars is that 2% reduction. Okay. And that would
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
27:59
be the same for the other institutions like UCA, for example?
Nick Fuller
Unverified
28:02
Yes, they're all based on how much their productivity either increased or decreased. All right.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
28:08
Thank you. All right, Representative Richmond, you're recognized
Chair
Unverified
28:12
for question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm over here to your right, way
Representative Marcus E. Richmond
Unverified
28:15
over here. Just a request in that I don't know if you're running low on ink or paper or whatever, but can you make this with a little more size to it next time
so I don't have to use my phone magnifying glass to actually see what the heck it is I'm looking at? Representative, that's going
Speaker 137
28:42
to be on? No. Can you all work on the font a little bit?
Representative Marcus E. Richmond
Unverified
28:45
Yes, sir. We're happy to address this concern. It makes me
Speaker 138
28:48
think that you're trying to hide something in this.
Speaker 139
28:51
We'll invest in legal-sized paper. I appreciate the concern. I have it myself.
Speaker 142
28:59
All right, Representative McCullough. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could you guys
Representative Tippi McCullough
Unverified
29:04
explain the formula to me about the low productivity that you were mentioning when asked about UALR
Speaker 119
29:13
and other schools? So our productivity funding formula. I was going to say, how long do you have? All day. I'll try
Speaker 147
29:22
to be brief. So we have a productivity formula, and what it does is it measures certificates and degrees that institutions produce.
And there are multipliers for two-year and four-year in different ways due to their mission, And there are some things where they get points for underserved folks and different things, for lack of a better word, brownie points for different things that they do along the way. And that results in an index. And the index is measured year over year, and it's based on a three-year rolling average. So the past three years were compared to the three years before that, and they are compared to themselves to see if they produce more or less certificates.
and then based on their index, certificates of degrees, based on their index with those multipliers. And so as the three years that we, if they went down, the three years that we measured most recently, their index number was lower than the three years before. And there are a guardrail of two, up or down 2% in the base of the formula. So that's very, in a very simple fashion, the way that we get to the number. All right, thank you. All
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
30:28
right, thank you. Representative Wooten, you're recognized for a question.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
30:32
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Wharton, on the budget,
you have a total of 6.5 on the last page and 93 million in the 93,000 in the B category. A is 6.595, and then you have 93 in the category B.
So does that mean that you're going to receive A and we're hoping that B is funded? Yes, sir. I think
Speaker 150
31:27
that's going to be a result of this process over the next month in this session on how
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
31:33
we get to the Revenue Stabilization Act. Let's say because of the war in Iran and other things that we have an economic slump and we only fund aid.
So actually you're receiving less money, $300 million, less money. Is that correct?
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
31:53
Yes, sir. I believe that would be anyone on the RSA that has money in category B, so it wouldn't be
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
32:01
specific to the institutions. Say that again. I believe anyone
Speaker 153
32:05
with the funding in Category B would fall under that, not just our
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
32:10
institutions. If we're not able to fund Category B, we would not get that funding.
So you had to fund B to get an adequate amount of what you're budgeting for. Is that
Speaker 155
32:26
correct? I don't know the adequate would be the word for it. It would be to meet
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
32:31
the full recommendation of the productivity form. To get the full recommendation that you have, you'd have to fund A and B. Yes, sir. And how much of an increase is that for higher education? It is
a 2% increase. A 2%. Yes, sir. We are restricted on those recommendations for productivity.
We'd only request 2%. Okay. Is that new money, or is that money that's being shifted around within the reserve funds? There is a portion
of that that is new money. That is the $6 million that Secretary Hudson mentioned earlier that's included in the budget. And then the rest of it comes from money reallocated.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
33:12
Thank you. All right, thank you. Representative Richardson, you're recognized for a question. Nope. Now you are.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
33:22
I just not wanted to let that recognize you. There we
Speaker 160
33:30
go. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Wharton, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Just a quick question on what Representative McCollum had asked a little bit ago around the specifics of this formula that you have. You spoke about brownie point types of influencers. What kinds of things are they, and what kind of percentage points are we talking about that would potentially influence?
Speaker 139
33:56
So they're a multiplier, and it's based on statutory requirements for institutions who address
Speaker 147
34:02
under-academically prepared students and underserved populations. But it's in the law that we follow those and work those into the formula. And it's been
Speaker 151
34:12
the same since 2017, I think. There are also multipliers for high-demand
Nick Fuller
Unverified
34:19
field degrees and STEM degrees as well that are incentivized. So offering more of
Speaker 160
34:25
these degree types or having more students participate in those degree types
and making progress will help their overall multiplier. Yes, that's right. Great. Also, I noticed that my alma mater, Arkansas Tech, got a nice bump this year. So that's good news. So I appreciate you being here. Thank you,
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
34:45
sir. All right, thank you. Representative Collins, recognized for a
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
34:50
question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So my understanding is that following the Arkansas Access Act, there was something in
that bill saying that we would revisit the productivity formula. And I also understand that there's a group working on that that's been formed.
Can you tell me the composition of that group and specifically with all of these UAs that we have here, how many representatives from the UA system are in that
Speaker 119
35:17
group? So I don't have the list in front of me. The list is comprised of presidents and chancellors and of the representative institutions that represent both systems and the independents that are publicly funded or all
Speaker 147
35:32
the publicly funded institutions. You're talking about the return on investment metric that we put into the productivity formula last session.
That metric does not apply to this formula. It will be applied in the coming year because when you change how people are remunerated, they tend to adapt to the activity that is reinforced or rewarded in the formula. So we didn't feel it was, you know, we can't change or shouldn't change horses in midstream and when people are behaving a certain way based on something and then change their funding. So we have gone through the process.
we're not all the way through to embed a metric that says that if an institution is offering a degree and that degree does not show demonstrable return on investment by wage growth, then the taxpayers of Arkansas won't consider that degree in the formula, which is part and parcel of what we want to do to guarantee that students that engage in higher education are as close as we can guarantee to have more opportunity than they had before they came to our campuses does that
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
36:47
make sense sir it makes some sense I appreciate that I guess what
I'm getting at though is you've got a group and you can you know maybe it's the ROI aspect of the formula not overall but the point still stands you've got a lot of different UAs all over the state you've got UA Fayetteville you've got two years you've got four years and all kinds of rural versus urban areas different needs i i feel like you might want to have more representation from the ua system in that group if it's just the one system president is at that table getting this formula together
you know i i don't know how they can manage all of those different uas with different interests and different incentives and represent them all as fully as they need to yes sir
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
37:31
and there are are some CFOs and some data people that are on that committee as well from the different
Nick Fuller
Unverified
37:37
institutions. I think there are 11 or 12 on the whole committee that are reviewing, and there may be three or four that are from the U.A. system, from the various either two-year or four-year or the system. All the different aspects are covered, making sure we're reaching
every type of college or institution that we may
Speaker 119
37:56
have. We did our best to make sure it's a representative sample, and to my knowledge, the U.A. system is appreciative of the representation and how they're being represented through that process now. I have no doubt.
Speaker 91
38:08
Thank you. Thank you. All right, Representative McCullough. Thank
Representative Tippi McCullough
Unverified
38:13
you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a few questions about the two-year colleges specifically, because we do have a wide range, like all of our colleges, of size, number of students, buildings to
maintain, new buildings that are needed to be built. Is there a specific way that you divide those up to, as far as state funding goes, that small ones get a certain amount, large ones get a certain amount? Can you kind of tell me a little bit about that? There's not a specific on the
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
38:43
dollar amount, but within the funding formula, there is an adjustment on the two-year side for what we call
Nick Fuller
Unverified
38:49
diseconomies of scale to account for those larger institutions compared to the smaller size of the two-year campuses.
So there is an adjustment made to their point totals in
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
39:00
that index based on that. There's
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
39:04
a tier system for that. Okay, thank you.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
39:08
All right, thank you. Representative Wooten, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Warden, it's been in the news recently that the University of Fayetteville is putting $14 million into the athletic fund. Is that correct? And where is that in the budget?
we would not have the information on that that funding yet as they don't have to submit their athletic budgets to us until later in the year but the the school is here you
mean they're spending 14 million dollars and it's not in it's not in the budget or it would be in their budget yes
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
39:46
but i would i would have to let the institution are they here yes they are here could they come forward
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
39:52
mr. chairman that they will when we get to them in the agenda all right thank
you all right next up represent representative Garner you recognize for
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
40:02
question thank you mr. chair and I'll be quick with this one there
are three things on the on the spreadsheet that have changed in percentage by 50% and one at 150% could you just go through those three real quickly and and tell us why the summary of institutions of higher ed so the school of math and
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
40:31
science and then representative which section are you on okay we're on oh sorry yeah we're on d
right now okay we kind of moved over into an e but sorry yeah i thought
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
40:44
your idea we'll come back thank you perfect
all right members do we have any other questions all right seeing none thank you all um
yeah all right members we're going to move on to e we'll take these
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
41:02
one at a time e1 yes all right item e1 is a a letter to you all requesting personnel changes for the institutions there is an attachment to this letter there are nine
institutions requesting changes. Of the 40,018 currently authorized positions, the total change you'll see behind is an increase of 17 for all institutions. We're just requesting your approval of this request to be included in the budget bill drafts. All right, thank you. Members, do we have any questions on
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
41:30
E1? Seeing no questions, do we need a motion to adopt? We've got a motion to adopt. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed
Speaker 163
41:44
motion carries e2 e2 is a letter requesting some special language inclusion
for north arkansas college this is to
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
41:50
account for them joining the university of arkansas system some some very similar language we did when east arkansas college was brought into the system
Nick Fuller
Unverified
41:56
we're just requesting this to be included in their bill all right thank you members we have any questions on
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
42:03
e2 seeing no questions i'm going to represent or i'm going to recognize Senator Bryant for a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, make
Speaker 82
42:09
a motion to adopt a letter and update North Arkansas College's name in the bill drafting. All right, thank you. Members, we've got a motion. We've
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
42:18
got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. All those
in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.
It's going to take us to F. Ms. Rice.
Speaker 189
42:35
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Henry Rice, BLR. So if you'll please look at the document entitled Summary of Institutions of Higher Ed, which would be on your desk. It's a summary of appropriations that we hope will assist you in your decision-making today. So you'll be looking at and making a decision on the appropriations for Treasury, cash, and other appropriations that are in your binders.
So there are three parts to this summary. the first part you'll see that's going to be state treasury appropriations which are paid from the revenue stabilization fund educational excellence and workforce 2000 fund so if you read from left to right it's going to show the institution or the fund it shows the page the appropriation appears on in the manuals and then the authorized appropriations that they currently have for this fiscal year and then the arkansas higher education coordinating board recommendations that's a heck b in the manual for fiscal year 2027 and the following columns they show the change in
dollar amount for the next fiscal year as well as the percent change from the current authorized appropriation levels the far right column has asterisks in it and one asterisk will show that there's a line item change two asterisks will show there's an addition or deletion of a line item three asterisks indicate the addition or deletion of a new appropriation section which we do not have this go around and on the first page it totals the four-year institutions at the bottom on the second page of your handout it's going to total the two-year institutions in the same format
and these are also the treasury fund appropriation summaries and on the third page is the beginning of the cash appropriation summaries these are the ones that are paid from their tuition and fees sales and federal funds it also has the same format on the very last page we have what we call other appropriations on this handout it's going to include tobacco funding special revenues from court filings that go to the university of arkansas and ual ualr law schools and breast cancer research funds among others mr chairman that's all i have on this summary all right thank
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
44:33
you representative garner you're recognized for your question thank you members you have a budget manual that's going to refer to the pages here um as you're kind of going through so be able to you can kind of cross reference they've given us summaries i should have said that earlier and you can use these summaries then to go back to your budget manual and get a little bit of a deeper dive if that's what you'd like to see but you're
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
44:52
recognized for your question great thank you I just will repeat the question there are several institutions that have 50% or more do it 50% and one at 150% if you'll just explain why the change could you point out specifically which one
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
45:08
through these one by one so the first one is 53.79% at the u of
Speaker 194
45:13
a school of mathematics science and the arts we're on page 74 in the manual that's a 54 percent increase it's almost 7 million and speaking to ua system it was an error in their fiscal year 2026 request that's the current fiscal year the carry forward funds that they intended to use there was not adequate appropriation for that so that has since been corrected in peer for this fiscal year and it's also for the construction of a maintenance building and woodshop and
construction of alumni hall and charter field project great
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
45:44
that's a that's perfect and then the next one is looks
like South Arkansas College 55.56% on page 4. And 287 in the manual if that's easier. Okay
Speaker 194
46:20
we're on page 287 as you
said that's about 12.2 million 55.6 percent increase so this increase that's going to provide for the ongoing construction of SAC's first residence hall and a multi-functional baseball stadium and also the college is renovating and constructing an industrial chemical lab for training lithium industry employees and future employees in that field and operating expenses have expanded that's because of the to furnish purchases and supplies related primarily to the new facilities great awesome thank you and the last one
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
46:54
One is SAU Tech at 150%. All righty. We
Speaker 194
46:59
are on page 295. It's $20.7 million appropriation increase, which is a 149% increase. And that's going to provide for recently awarded federal funds. That's $15 million to construct the Aerospace Defense Manufacturing Center of Excellence, and $5 million is to provide educational equipment to the center. Great. Nice to hear about those things. Thank you very
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
47:21
much. you mr. chair all right thank you members
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
47:24
uh representative Wooten i think you had a question
for U of A Fayetteville and i think representative McKenzie did too if he's here if someone can grab him i think all right representative Wooten if you can hit your mic all right you recognize if we can have someone from the U of A Fayetteville i think or U of A system one of the two come up up for a question from representative Wooten Senator Tucker's
Speaker 44
47:54
yours on the same on all right because I
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
48:03
think yours is while they're making their way I'm
going to recognize representative Tucker I'll come back to you representative Wooten Mr. Chairman all right Senator Tucker you're recognized thank you mr.
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
48:14
Yeah, mine will be quick. It's just a follow-up on Representative Garner. Henry,
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
48:22
I just had questions about two other institutions, ASU Mountain Home and ASU Newport. Henry.
Senator Tucker, can you repeat your question, please? Yes, sir. Same questions that Senator Garner was asking. I just
was curious about two other institutions. Those were ASU Mountain Home and ASU Newport with big
Speaker 194
48:57
increases. Just curious what's going on there. Absolutely. Excuse me. We're on page 197. This is ASU Mountain Home. It's an increase of $10 million or 60.1% increase, and that's going to provide for federal funds awarded in 2024 to support the expansion of the ASU Mountain Home
health care education facility and enhance technology to develop the medical workforce. And for Newport, we're on page 213. That's an increase of 16 million or approximately 45 percent. And that's for also recently awarded federal funds to construct a health science center on
Speaker 189
49:28
campus with a focus on improving maternal and mental health outcomes. MR. Excellent. All right. Thank you. Thank
Speaker 25
49:37
you, Henry. MR. Thanks, Senator. for you too you're recognized for a
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
49:43
question thank you mr. chair my question
concerns the funding or the appropriation request for you of a at pine bluff the 1890 extension program appears to be a decrease a change projected or recommended of six point twenty five percent and I want to know is that what is that based on did you get information from the university
concerning matching funds that they will need to match the federal appropriation. Thank you, Senator Flowers. My
Speaker 194
50:32
understanding in talking to the ADHE staff is that the appropriation has been
Speaker 208
50:37
reduced to align with expenditures. They're going to have the same funding in the RSA. This is just going to match their appropriation levels more adequately or
accurately, I should say, to their funding
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
50:55
level? Well, would that meet the requirements for the federal match? So this
Speaker 208
51:02
is their state treasury, so it should not be affected by the
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
51:08
federal match? No, but the university or the state needs to come up with
a percentage to match the federal. So I don't understand how they arrived at recommending a decrease for the next fiscal year.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
51:27
If I understand things correctly, they weren't spending the full appropriation, so this is a decrease in the appropriation. It does not decrease the amount of actual spend they've historically had. And then it may be we need to circle back up because I know we've kind of bounced back and forth. I was trying to finish up with Henry before we moved on to the U of A, We may need to bring someone up from DFA or from UA Pine Bluff to get more specific. But, again, my understanding is there is not a change in how much they're spending.
It's a change in appropriation, which they were not meeting. And so they just lowered their appropriation to get closer to the actual spend. But we
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
52:06
can have someone come up from the UAPB. But I want to also ask about the appropriations, if
any, recommended for UA Fedville's 1890 extension program. out. I don't see that in your Exhibit F. And I think these are just the
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
52:23
changes that are going to be
listed here. But I will pivot. Do you want to try that? Henry, do you want
to punt it back over to U of A? And we'll start with U of A Fayetteville. All right. And I think this is a great
segue for you all to introduce yourself. And then Senator Flowers, if you can restate your question. Representative Wooten, I appreciate you being patient. I'm going to
Speaker 225
52:47
get to you just as soon as she's done. Good
Speaker 226
52:49
morning, everyone. I'm Charles Robinson, the Chancellor of the University of Arkansas. I've got some of my colleagues here who will introduce
Speaker 228
52:57
themselves. Good morning. I'm Anne Bordelon. I'm the Executive Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration.
Speaker 230
53:02
Craig Tegas, Senior Associate AD and CFL for the Athletic Department. Randy Maginelli, Government Relations, University of Arkansas.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
53:12
All right. So some of this will be, I think, for some of you all at the table. She had
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
53:20
a question about the land grant, and if it was, I'll let you restate it, Senator. Yes, I'm concerned about, and I'm inquiring about the 1890 extension program at UAPB. It appears to have a recommended change, a decrease to 6.25% for the next fiscal year.
And I want to know, is it just based on what UAPB spent in the 1890 program? Or is it a requirement that the state match federal funding with a certain percentage?
And does this meet that requirement? Senator Flowers, the University
Speaker 225
53:59
of Arkansas Fayetteville and the budgets for University of Arkansas Pine Bluff are different budgets. So I'm not aware of the issue for the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff.
Speaker 226
54:13
I think they have representatives here who could address your question because I'm not aware of this funding issue. Well, it's an
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
54:22
AHECB recommendation for the change to reduce it. So, Mr. Chair, is there somebody from
that particular board? Yes, but let's go ahead and, like I said, I kind
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
54:35
of let you jump ahead of Representative Wooten, and so if you don't mind, I'll circle back after we finish with U of A Fayetteville.
I thought you had another question related to
the 1890 with the U of A. Is that Fayetteville?
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
54:52
Well, I want to know if University of Arkansas at Fayetteville got an increase. Did it stay at the same level as this past fiscal year? We
Speaker 225
55:09
will have to get back with you. We're not aware of the change, so we'll have to get back with you, Senator Flowers.
Speaker 226
55:18
But you acknowledge you do have an 1890 extension program. The extension program, I believe, is the Division of Agriculture, that it's not with
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
55:32
the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Well, the designation comes to
Speaker 226
55:37
the university. So I don't I'll just have to study that I'm sorry that I'm not prepared to address your question
Speaker 225
55:43
But I'll make sure we we address your question. We'll get back
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
55:46
with you. I'd like that not So that I'm able to compare what is going on with this man two different
1890 programs. Yes, ma'am. We'll get back
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
55:58
with you. Thank you All right. Thank you. All right representative Wooten you
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
56:03
are recognized for a question. Thank you. Mr. Chairman Chancellor Robinson, your budget, is the $14 million that is going to be transferred
Speaker 253
56:14
to the athletic department, is it in the budget?
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
56:20
Well, I'm not aware of $14 million. A board passed a resolution requiring the university to waive the campus transfer,
which was 3% of athletics budget, plus provide athletics with an additional $6 million in additional revenue. Now, that 3% of the athletic budget, it's a growing amount. So next year we're projecting that will be $5 million or so. Now the $6 million is prescribed in the resolution. And so for FY27, we will submit a budget that addresses and facilitates the board's resolution.
So I have given the president of the system options on how we might be able to do that and I will learn from the president and the board how they want us to facilitate that transfer of funds. The campus transfer now, that's waived. So I had already waived that. So that was something that previous chancellors had set up with previous ADs,
and that was coming in on an annual basis. That's waived. The resolution requires us to waive it. We've waived it, but the $6 million is the additional amount that the resolution mentions that we've given the president options on how we might facilitate
Speaker 226
57:56
that particular portion of the resolution, and that will show up in our FY27 budget. Well, the
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
58:04
impression has been left by the Board of Trustees and others
that this is the first time that money has been transferred from the university to the athletic department. It's truly in reverse. I mean, for years and years, it's been bragged about in the sports pages about the amount of money that $5 million or $6 million is given to the
university. Is that true? Well, it's true that we've never transferred money to the athletic program in a way that we are being asked to do in this resolution.
Now, how all this plays out depends on how the board and the president address our recommendations based on the resolution. But it's true that this is a historical change. We have never been asked to do this. We've never done this. But the board has spoken, and as chancellor, I have my orders, and we're going to carry it out according to how the board wants us to. Well, where is
the $6 million going to come from?
Well, that's great. Let me rephrase that question, if I may, Mr. Chairman. When was the last time the university got an increase from state revenue from funding from us,
Speaker 253
59:35
appropriations? I believe that was last year. It's in this current fiscal
Speaker 228
59:42
year. Outside of the productivity funding, there's not been a change in the
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
59:48
appropriation. There's not been a change. Okay. So where is the $6 million going to come from?
Speaker 226
59:54
Well, you know, we've grown a lot. And some of the resources, I mean, some of the resources that we're being asked to send to athletics,
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:00:05
we will absorb in our budget to the best of our ability because we don't want to tax our students any more than we already, unfortunately, have to in order to just meet the needs of our growth. But there will be a portion of this, depending on how much the board settles on
in terms of the amount of money that will come from the student body. And that's inevitable. I've shared that with the president of the system. The amount in which we have to charge the students will depend on whether or not this
Speaker 226
1:00:41
is a strict $6 million that we transfer or if it's something other than that, if it's
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:00:49
less than that. So no one really
Speaker 258
1:00:53
knows an answer. Well, I mean, at this
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:00:55
time, I know what the resolution says,
and so I'm prepared to transfer the $6 million and to subsequently absorb a portion of that in our growth so the students don't have to pay, but there will be a portion of this that the
students will have to pay. So in order to be competitive in the football program and with the new coach and all the assistance, additional assistance that he's hired. We're going to put that on the back of the students.
Well, as you know, I'm on the record of saying that I didn't think we needed to do this right now. It is true that the competitive landscape is very challenging and very different, but it was my determination that the athletic budget had what it needed for FY27. They're raising money, they're doing lots of things to really grow their budget to meet the revenue share challenge so that we can be competitive. But the board has spoken, and I will follow my orders that the board has given me to the best of my ability.
But any way we go about
it, some of it's going to wind up on the back of student body or an increase in their fees for athletics. It appears that that's the case. And in that, they have to give $20 million in the athletic department to the players. Is that correct? There are players, not
Speaker 226
1:02:31
every player, not most in the revenue
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:02:34
sports that are receiving revenue share, and we have to do it to compete with other schools,
and we want to be competitive, and we have been doing that. And, yes, so there will be this dynamic where our students are going to pick up some of the operational costs of athletics, but the revenue share, actually the athletic department had fully funded their revenue share. So that's not, this money is not needed to do that for FY27. It will be
Speaker 225
1:03:09
used for other things, I'm sure, to support the athletic program.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:03:16
Mr. Chairman, that's all I have. I just admonish the university to move cautiously in this, you know, Because I do not feel, in my personal opinion, that we can be competitive year after year after year in the SEC. Yes, sir. And I'm an old football coach. But I'm worried about the program up there. And I think you share those
Speaker 254
1:03:44
thoughts. I believe we need to be responsible in all of our budgeting
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:03:50
So we are not taxing our students in ways that interfere with affordability and access. And so, of course, the chancellor is going to be cautious. And so I appreciate that. But I want us to be competitive. And I believe, you know, we had a real bad football season, but this is not going to be the norm for us. I think we'll definitely get better. I have a lot of confidence in Coach Silverfield and his team. And I believe that we will be competitive in football, and we're very competitive in baseball, very competitive in basketball.
So we've got work to do, but I think
Chair
Unverified
1:04:28
we will get better. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your patience. Thank you. Representative McKenzie, you recognize for a
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
1:04:34
question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just a few questions on the subject. And I'd like to mark the moment for history that Representative Wooten and I are aligned similarly on a concept like this. So I have a few quick rapid questions. Am I correct in assuming that from what your website tells me, that the cost of admittance, or sorry, the cost of attending school is around $31,000
once we account for tuition, fees, room and board, meal plans, et cetera?
Speaker 225
1:05:01
Yeah, it's in that range, yes, sir. And
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
1:05:05
I think I have a general understanding of what we're asking for here. The $4.5 million transfer that you've waived, and there's been some historical precedent to waive, Tell me more about that. Why is it required from a bond repayment perspective? Is it just a gift, or is there some statutory or board direction that makes that transfer occur on an annual basis?
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:05:30
The transfer was established by former Chancellor Dave Gerhardt and former Athletic Director Jeff Long. And they transferred the money because the SEC revenue was flowing really well, and it was a way to demonstrate that athletics was contributing to the academic side of the house. And the decision was made by that leadership to fund a bond of Champions Hall with a portion of that transfer, $2.6 million roughly.
Any money in addition to that was being invested in research because we're R1 and we're trying to get better in our research. So we were investing in that so we could become better at that. So that's where the transfer was. That's where it originated. But with the revenue share that came to all of the Power 4, I made the decision to defer that amount. Because if you look at projections from the SEC, this revenue share, the universities were going to have a hard time managing revenue share without some additional support.
So we had already made that decision because we want a competitive athletic program, competitive football program, and basketball in all of our programs. So this resolution, again, comes in addition to that. So the transfer was born a previous management. We used it for the bond and research. But when we had to move away from it, we understood that. That was something that operationally we needed to do.
We were going to defer it and then see where we were in two or three years. And if athletics became more, if the budget became better, operational budget, then we'd consider what we could do with that transfer to reinvest it in the academic
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
1:07:32
side. The bond, has it been entirely repaid? Were we on the schedule with that? No,
Speaker 226
1:07:39
the bond hasn't been entirely repaid. I'm not sure where we are on the schedule.
Speaker 228
1:07:45
I don't recall where we are on the schedule off the top of my head, but for the foreseeable future, we have identified a way to pay that from internal funds because we do have debt that is falling off of our debt service schedule. So because of those reductions, we're able to offset it. But the original
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
1:08:03
intention, that bond has not been settled. And then just this is not trying to be cute, but we're still investing in research at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, correct? Yes, we are still investing in research. So the two impetuses for that transfer still exist in our needs in Fayetteville today.
Absolutely. Okay. I do want to just note the serendipity of what the percentage increase or the dollar value increase that is being requested for Fayetteville this year is roughly $7 million. And we now have a $6 million bogey that the institution has to account for to help subsidize athletics. I don't know if that's probably a productivity model that gets us to that number or if there's a raw increase that came in, request of an increase that came in prior to this board direction. That just seems a bit odd. And the process here, albeit not a member of the budget committee,
us to review and analyze these requests based on their merit and the value that they're going to have for our taxpayers. And I do want to know, just because this is not a well-known secret, I mean, this has been published, where are we with the recommendations to the board for what that looks like? And we've heard a lot about this will land on the students. I've read in periodicals that we can't do some form of an athletic fee because that would affect the athletic department's procurement exemption so um a what is what is it you've identified
and not i don't need to know the granular details or any of us do but more than it's going to fall on the students and then um i'll
Speaker 258
1:09:34
let you answer that first and i've got to follow up well we
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:09:39
have submitted uh three proposals to the president of the system and the president's system will take these proposals back to the board of trustees for various ways in which we could meet the terms of the resolution one of those ways i know is a full six million because that's what the resolution
prescribes and then we will determine based on what the board says what impact that will have on our on our students relative to covering the costs that the new cost that the university is picking
Speaker 226
1:10:11
up because of the resolution. Am I answering your question? You are, yeah. So, and do have we,
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
1:10:17
has the thought exercise, the back of the envelope math been done to amorize that across whatever, 34,000 students? And that inclusive of the 6 million that you're talking about, and then the 5 million you're
going to have to make up for in operational
Speaker 258
1:10:33
expenses regardless? I think it's best for me to wait until I know exactly what,
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:10:39
I mean, we have some general ideas of what each proposal would cost relative to the students uh but i don't want to get out ahead of the board because what if they decide they don't want to do it and you know that's me probably being a bit more hopeful than i should be but but still uh i think the board has a right to make decisions that they think are best to help the universities operate.
It's all right if we disagree. I mean, that's the American way. We disagree. But at the same time, I know that the board has the authority, and I will execute their authority to the best of my ability. So I understand the desire to know, But I don't want to get ahead of the deliberations of the board. They may think about this differently. I don't know. I'm not involved in those deliberations. So, I mean, am I answering?
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
1:11:38
No, you are. And I appreciate it. And I do respect your
responsibility as a fiduciary of the institution to do what your board, your independent commission, is telling you to do. I just can't fathom a scenario in which one extra dollar that a kid is going to have to go to Sallie Mae to go get 6.5% secured against a 15-year note, that makes sense in the grand scheme of their needs of the institution. So just like Representative Wooden, I appreciate the information you provided today, but again, I would also admonish
you to think hard about the state of Arkansas
and what our students are bringing to the university.
Speaker 258
1:12:15
Yeah, we have, and that's why we're covering some of this with our growth
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:12:21
in our existing budget so that it doesn't fall fully on the student body. Yes, sir. Because we're sensitive to access, particularly for Arkansans, and we don't want to raise tuition and fees $1 more than we have to. And that's every year we try to do the math to keep those as minimal as we possibly can and still operate in ways that help our students and our faculty be successful.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:12:49
all right thank you uh members before i get to senator hill uh representative garner's got a question that she's
going to ask each institution i think you guys have received a notice with a packet or a packet of maybe five questions i think some of those were unanswered i've been trying to contemplate how we're going to do that in a expeditious way so that we're able to move through my understanding it's going to be some type of yes or no question so what i'm going to do is does everyone have section f or access to section f in the audience again i'm just trying
to figure out how we're going to go through this so amongst yourselves in the audience while we wrap up y'all aren't done unfortunately uh while y'all wrap up uh with the i think we've got two more questions for fayetteville if you could be forming a line in which you will come through and identify yourself and respond yes or no in
the order that is on this. So if you can pull up Section F, so Arkansas State University Jonesboro, you're up first.
Second is going to be Arkansas
Tech. We'll skip to Henderson. Then we're to SAU. Then we're to the U of
A system. Then we're U of A Fayetteville. Then Fort Smith. Then Little Rock. If you can
Speaker 283
1:14:09
pull that and start forming your line, you'll help me speed things up. oh i thought you were saying you want them to come forward okay all right we're going to come
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:14:21
back to her then i think instead of doing that i'm i'm misunderstood i was pretty sure
that's what we discussed but she's going to ask the
question and then y'all are going to respond back to her now i think we've pivoted so all right Yeah, in the interest of time. All right, Senator Hill, you're recognized for a
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:14:42
question. You have Fayetteville. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chancellor, I'm over here. Okay. I appreciate the stand that you have taken on this issue as far as the athletic side of it goes. My biggest issue with this, mine's going to be more of a comment, is I'm for winning too. But my winning is a little different evidently than the University of Arkansas.
My winning is in education and not athletics. I feel like these students are paying enough money already. I feel like we're going to try to put a burden, regardless of how we sugarcoat this, the student is going to pay for this. The end user always pays for an increase, no matter what you do. If you go to a convenience store or anything else, the end user pays for it. These students are going to end up paying any way we look at it. So we're going to look at putting a burden on a single mother who's trying to go to school, working two jobs, and trying to go to school either part-time or full-time.
or the first-generation student who's trying to go to school to change the economic value of their life. We're going to look to put them more in debt while they're trying to get student loans or whatever they're trying to do. I commend you for the stance you've taken on this and just want to say thank you, and I hope the University of Arkansas's Board of Directors will look at the students winning and not just the athletic department. So thank you, and I appreciate your stance on this. Thank you. All right, thank
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:16:02
you. Senator Hester, can I ask for a question?
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
1:16:06
Thank you, Chancellor Robinson. I think you do a remarkable job at the University of Arkansas. I think I've watched you over a very long time deal with very difficult situations and find solutions. I know that we're going to work it out this time because I have every confidence in you and your leadership at the U of A. Thank you for the difficult work you do. We are in this position not because of your choice or the board's choice, but this was a lawsuit settlement over in NIL with the NCAA is that correct that's what put us in this spot yes sir so there's a there's a lawsuit settlement thanks trial lawyers put us in a bad
spot again now we got to find some money and we either choose to take it all out of the athletic budget which is which is already underfunded compared to a lot of our competition and you've been charged with figuring this out so do you know where where does the university of arkansas rank amongst our other sec schools on tuition we're in the
Speaker 226
1:17:05
uh there's 16 schools we're in the bottom quartile and tuition you know where we want to be
Speaker 225
1:17:11
now you know down by in the bottom
uh because you know we don't want to charge students more than we have to
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
1:17:18
but yes that's right yeah i knew the answer to that that's why i asked you're doing a great job we're doing a great job we're where we want to be we're trying to do our best to add to add value there um what have the other schools in the sec we're not the only people that are dealing with this with this shortfall based off this settlement what are the
Speaker 226
1:17:40
other sec schools doing to my knowledge schools are charging students to some extent not all of
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:17:46
them I mean some choose to address it
through fundraising and getting support from the private sector, raising ticket prices, foundation prices, so that you can pay to sit in a more privileged seating. So there are a variety of ways. We have right now a student athletic pass that students can opt into, but it's not required. And a number of schools have those student athletic passes as well, and it generates revenue. but but it is common to have a student athletic fee it's not I mean we're we're in rarefied air
not having one and I you know for me it was a point of pride but and I think for the university for most of its history it's been a point of pride but I do understand the concern about the current state of things and as I've said to board members if there was a time when I thought that the university needed a student athletic fee, I would ask for it. I just didn't think that we needed it now. But I understand that there are growing needs for athletic programs
Speaker 291
1:19:01
and the power for to be competitive in this new
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
1:19:05
environment. I wouldn't expect you to know this. Do you know if any other states have chosen to give an increase from general revenue to their schools to help with
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:19:19
these shortfalls? Are you aware of that? No, I'm not aware of general revenue going to schools to offset revenue share.
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
1:19:27
I've not seen that. We have a tremendous amount of athletes that go to school, which are students as well.
I think there's a huge value to recruit these type of elite, competitive, hardworking people to our state that I believe they add a lot of value. When schools are winning athletically, every area of the school wins. The engineering department, the English department, every area of schools win when they win athletically. I think there's no accident that the University of Alabama has a significant increase in national merit scholars.
since they've become a winner in football. But has there been a consideration at all that, you know, the value of Texas students coming to Arkansas, and we have this discussion all the time, and I love that the Texas students choose to come here, but there's value in it on the dollar-wise. No question. Is there any consideration? Was part of any of your proposals? And if you can't talk about it, I don't want you to. I'm not looking to give you any hot water. I appreciate that. Making out-of-state students cover this. I already feel like I'm in hot water. You are. That's the nature of your job, right?
I get it. I get it. Maybe out-of-state students covering this, not as much as in-state students. You know, again, I mean,
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:20:43
we've looked at every option. I mean, we charge out-of-state students on an annual basis more. I mean, if we raise tuition and fees, we raise it more for them. And we should because the state supports the University of Arkansas for Arkansans. So I don't have a problem with that. But to differentiate on how you do something like this, I think, is disruptive.
We want students to come from all over to the University of Arkansas. We want competitive programs. We are thriving from an enrollment standpoint. We turn away students on an annual basis. I have 35,000 applications that are coming for the fall 26. I don't have room. I mean, this is like the baby Jesus. I don't have any more room in the end. So that's a good story to tell.
And my sensitivity around costs is tied to all of this, and particularly for Arkansans. So I get it. I want us to be competitive. We will be competitive. The board has spoken. We're going to follow the board's edict on this. But I think we all want the same thing, a competitive program that helps the university continue to be attractive to students who want to come here and get their education at the University of Arkansas.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:22:10
Thank you. I'm done. I know you're going to work it out. I have confidence in you. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. That was the last question. Thank you all very much. All right. No, I've got two more popped up there. All right. Sorry, y'all went off and then
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:22:28
came back. All right. Senator Hill, you're recognized for a question. Sorry. That was helpful. I guess my question to this is, I know we did a state tax exempt as far as student athletes in Arkansas. Have you done any calculations to see if the state income tax was put on the NIL money,
what that revenue that would bring back, if the state could give to the University
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:22:48
of Arkansas? No, sir. I have not done that calculation. I don't – I have not. No, sir. Thank you. That's kind of a loaded
Speaker 299
1:22:55
question. Yeah, it is. I mean, that's for you all
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:22:57
to figure that out. I just want to make a statement that we did give a state tax cut to the athletes at the University of Arkansas that we were told by
legislators that this would make us a winning program throughout the state. And evidently that hasn't happened yet, so hopefully that will in the future. But just kind of wondering if that tax was
in there, where we'd fall at on that.
Thank you for your time. As I said a while ago,
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:23:24
I think you're doing one heck of a job. Thank you, sir. All right, thank you. Representative Shepard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and appreciate Senator Hill pointing out a piece of legislation that I sponsored. Did not make any guarantees of a winning program, but this discussion is exactly why we considered and why we passed the exemption, which only applies to money paid by the
institution to student-athletes. Wouldn't you agree, Chancellor? Yes. Yes, sir. And in order to be competitive under the house settlement, you can spend the percentage, a certain percentage of your athletic revenue. Do you know what the percentage is? Maybe your colleague there could. Yeah, currently under
Speaker 305
1:24:07
the house settlement, this current fiscal year is $20.5 million that can be shared with our student athletes. We're currently spending $18 and $2.5 million in new scholarships as required by the SEC.
So there's a mandate with them. that'll increase 4% annually for the next three years. And then it recalculates on a basis of the power five conference. So they take all the schools within the power five and it's 22% of selected categories on our NCA survey. And that's how they recalculate it. And then it'll start a new cycle and it'll do 4% increase over time. During a 10 year window, the plaintiffs also have two look in windows to do that recalculation of 22%. It's part of the reason that we need to remain nimble
flexible as we go forward because we don't know when those plaintiffs will make that call to action of that recalculation and basis so that's that's how it gets to it next year is 21.32 and it'll continue a follow-up
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:25:04
to that in the scc uh do most schools pay the maximum that they can under the house settlement yes i'm
Speaker 305
1:25:12
not aware of one school that's not we're fully committed to stay you know at the maximum if we you know it was necessary if funding be available all that stuff
is important from a competitive standpoint everyone's taking a competitive you know determining their competitive positioning within college athletics and how they're doing all that stuff so
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:25:32
yes and wouldn't you agree that this that exemption is really more about the institution than the student athlete because what this exemption does is it actually stretches the institution's money farther because when you're competing for a student athlete You're not having to gross up that amount to compete with other states, and wouldn't you agree it would be great if we eliminated the income tax, which we are working on and continue to reduce and are going to do more in this session, but wouldn't you agree that this actually is saving the institution money or is stretching the institution's dollars farther than you otherwise would be and is actually helping to try to reduce the impact of the House settlement on the institution?
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:26:17
Yes, I do think it helps us, particularly when we're recruiting against institutions that don't have a state income tax. That's something they can present to the agents of these student-athletes and say, here, you can come here and you'll make this X amount, but you don't have an income tax. So, yes, it helps us to be on more of a level playing field with students from those states. Mr. Chairman,
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:26:47
yes sir i'll take silence as acceptance and and maybe uh vice chancellor uh massinelli i know he's retiring and is very pleased to be here at the table today but could could you speak to the that athletics it's it's much larger than just the competitiveness on the field it's much larger than wins and losses I think Senator Hester spoke to this just could you talk about the impact of
having a successful program and what it does in regard to fundraising for the institution the applicant pool for the institution the sales tax revenue which goes largely to an area of state far away from where I live but the but and not just to and also the just the value of our institutions to the alumni and the fan base across the state if could you speak to that because i think that sometimes nobody likes to be in this position and we have uh every time we ran an nil
bill we've all said like we would prefer not to have to be in this position but unfortunately because of litigation and other things everybody's trying to make the best of this situation but there is also economic value to the institution at the state and the region at large but so just to make sure representative you're
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:28:08
advocating that Fayetteville pay a portion of its sales tax revenue and maybe that be what supplements i'm bad i think that's a wonderful idea hey and just real quick for everyone i know you're going to answer that question but i i want
to go back because i know we've we we have wandered around all morning and i'm trying to give latitude but i want to just talk real quickly about what it is that we're here to do And what we're here to do is allow BLR to draft appropriations so we can have even bigger discussions than this when we get into session. And so just kind of keep that in mind. This is not the end of the road. This isn't your last chance to ask questions. And another thing I would really, really strongly encourage you to do is reach out to the institution or the agencies or whoever else
and ask your questions. It's not always necessary that what we do is in the public. Sometimes it's needed and helpful, And sometimes if you just have a general question about something, reach out and pick up a phone and make a phone call. And specifically on what we're talking about here, again, I think it's a good discussion. I think it's good for the board and the U of A system to know kind of what members' thoughts are on it. And I think it's good to have it in the public. But we will not adopt anything today that will change this situation for the U of A.
Okay, when we pass through appropriation, if you were wanting to make a change, you would have to adopt special language. And just keep in mind, when you do that, it's probably subject to Amendment 33, and ultimately still the will of the university system. So, again, I just want to, I know we're going down a road. It just seems like we're, I keep having more people pop into the queue. Let's try to find an end to
this discussion and let these good folks, let someone else take the table. I think, again, Senator Flowers has got UAPB.
If y'all can be on deck, that would be great. But with that, I'll let
Speaker 259
1:30:02
you answer your question. Sorry to interrupt you. Oh, no, no. Thank you. I
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:30:08
just want to say that there's nobody more interested in a successful athletic program than the chancellor of the University of Arkansas. I want our athletic programs, every single one of them, to be annual national champions. and we will do everything we can to support them to the best of our ability because they help everything, much as Representative Shepard has pointed out.
There's nothing that suffers when athletics is doing well. You even treat us nicer when the Razorbacks win. And I was worried after that Florida game because I thought, man, that's not what we needed coming here. So, yes, we all want success. And I appreciate all the comments and all the interest in the University of Arkansas because I know it comes from the right place. We're trying to support this state, support state institutions, and make sure that we're doing the right thing for our students.
So thank you, and yes, go Hogs. I mean, that's a way
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:31:12
to wrap that up, in my opinion.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:31:16
Wooden, you're recognized for final question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You just had two volunteers, Senator Hester and Representative Shepard. Do you have anyone stepping forward with $50 million that's happened at SMU?
Speaker 225
1:31:38
I'm not aware of that. I'm always hopeful, but I'm not aware. Those two might be willing to
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:31:43
give $50 million. I appreciate that. We take it for
Speaker 244
1:31:48
sure. Thank you. All right, thank you, and I appreciate
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:31:54
the time, and glad to wrap that up with Fayetteville chunking in its share of sales tax revenue to help support the U of A system, which is greatly benefiting from good men and women. All right, with that, I'm going to recognize Senator Flowers,
and then hopefully we've had someone from University of Arkansas Pine Bluff. Okay.
Okay, if you could just recognize yourself, and then Senator Flowers, you're recognized
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:32:25
for your question. Thank you. I think our new chancellor is coming up.
Speaker 311
1:32:42
Anthony Graham, Chancellor at the University of Arkansas
Speaker 313
1:32:47
Pine Bluff. Janet Boyles, Chief of Staff
Speaker 153
1:32:51
at UAPB. Nick Fuller from the Division of Higher Ed.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:32:57
I'll be representing the Higher Ed Coordinating Board. My question, and Chancellor, you might be able to answer this. I know you're new to the university. We have this 1890 extension program, and the funding for it, as I understand it,
is the state is required to match some of
the federal appropriation or funding. So in the past, UAPB has not received all of the state match portion. We've been trying to correct that and get the match that is required from the state for receiving these federal funds.
Can you talk about, because on this summary, it has 1890 Extension Program at UAPV authorized and recommended to receive a decrease
of 6.25%. And when you look
at our budget manual, Now, the appropriation for 2526 was $6,396,701.
The recommendation now from the AHECB is $5,997,200. So what is required for this next fiscal year, if you know? Yes, ma'am. So the
federal match and the state match, there is a requirement that should
Speaker 311
1:34:45
be a one-to-one match. I do want to commend the state of Arkansas. There are states in the South that have not lived up to that match.
So I do commend the state of Arkansas for committing to moving that direction. With respect to your question about the specifics of this exact match, I'm actually going to pass to
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:35:09
Mr. Fuller here. Yes, ma'am. And I will say, as Senator Disbank mentioned earlier, that $6.3 million
Nick Fuller
Unverified
1:35:14
was on the appropriation only, not the funding side of that. That was in anticipation of a potential increase on the federal portion. That did not materialize. We did allocate $5.8 million in RSA for the match last year, and the new recommendation for the $5.9 million is bringing that
Speaker 322
1:35:32
appropriation level back in line with the more accurate funding level.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:35:36
Well, do we know exactly what the one-to-one match is going to be required? I don't know that we know the
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:35:47
specific for the full. I think it's on a calendar year basis when we receive that. So we're still projecting out the need as we do a fiscal year budget. I will say, you know, this past year we added $2 million in RSA to that
Nick Fuller
Unverified
1:36:02
fund to make sure that the state is providing ongoing support to meet that match,
and that's helped us not have to request a waiver over the past few years to meet the match of that 1890 grant, which
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:36:19
that. So we did meet the match this past year? Yes, ma'am. And we believe we'll meet the match for the next fiscal year? Yes, ma'am. Will there be any other additional funding appropriated just in the event that
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:36:40
The recommendation that $5.9 million is a percentage increase over the current funding allocation, that is $5.8 million,
Nick Fuller
Unverified
1:36:46
and I believe $5.8 is, again, in the balanced budget that was presented to you this morning. So there could be the potential, if the match amount is raised, that appropriation is available to add funding. But additional funding is
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:37:03
not being allocated above the 5.8. Okay. You know, that's my district. I'm from Pine Bluff, and I'm quite concerned about keeping that extension program.
We do good work. Good research
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:37:16
is performed. And I will add on that, we
Nick Fuller
Unverified
1:37:19
do have $2 million that's put in a set-aside in a holding account in
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:37:26
the event that that goes up, that we can release funds to help make sure that match is met. Okay, thank you. And Chancellor Robinson from UA Fayetteville mentioned that their division of agriculture at the university is managing, I guess, or controlling their extension program, their matching funds.
I don't see that anywhere in the manual. It doesn't say.
Nick Fuller
Unverified
1:37:49
Yes, ma'am. Their portion and what they
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:37:52
do for their land grant management, it's not 1890. It's a separate land grant that they receive. But that is just mixed into their dedicated budget. We just have it
Nick Fuller
Unverified
1:38:01
separate to make sure that we have it specified how much we're allocating to the 1890 grant at UAPB. For the Division of Agriculture, theirs is mixed in with their operating budget on the state side. When was that done?
many years before I was here. I do not know. That's been an ongoing thing. Well,
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:38:22
many years before you were here. How many years have you
Nick Fuller
Unverified
1:38:25
been here? I've been in this role for almost 10 years. But I would have to research and tell you when that was combined into one operating. But we did pull out the amount for the 1890 land grant for UAPB. We separated that this past year to make sure that we're fully supporting that on a state level and make sure that the funding goes to meet that match requirement.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:38:46
Well, thank you for that. But in your research of the history of this change of management at the Fayetteville, I'd like to know in the budget, present budget of Fayetteville, how can we figure out what their portion of
the land grant match is? And that will be within
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:39:12
the Division of Agriculture, Because the Division of Agriculture is a subsection of what was the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville rolls into the system.
Nick Fuller
Unverified
1:39:24
So that's why the Division of Agriculture will have that piece. It will not
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:39:31
be in the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville's budget at any point. But it will be UA Division of Agriculture. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:39:41
hierarchy of the university, though? Yes, it is part of the University
of Arkansas system. Okay. Well, Mr. Chair, at the appropriate time, I guess when the UA Division of Agriculture comes up here, we'll be able to find out from them how much they're projected to be required to have for their land-grant match at the Fayetteville campus.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:40:03
Are you wanting to do that, Senator, before we vote to have recommendations for the appropriations, or are you wanting to
bring them forward when we actually go through their actual appropriation in the physical session? Well,
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:40:15
if someone's here from that Division of Agriculture at U of A, if they can come to the table and say so. All right. If we
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:40:24
have someone from the Division of Ag, can you make your way forward? And before
we do that, I've got Representative Garner is going to make a statement, make a request.
I think you're all already aware of the request. And if you could, I guess staff will get that out to them and make sure you
Speaker 82
1:40:41
respond back to staff with the question with that. Representative Garner, you're recognized. Well, there you go. Thank you,
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:40:51
Mr. Chair, and I apologize for the confusion. First of all, I just want to thank all of the agencies across the board, but especially the higher ed folks that are here that have sent back information on questions that I sent out to y'all
so that we could have this robust discussion during budget session. But there was some confusion, I think, on the last question in that series. And I just wanted to clarify a little bit about why it's not the same as question two. And for colleagues, I'll be glad to send those questions out, as well as the responses from the higher institutions, all of the institutions, the agency institutions, if you're interested.
But the last question was, if a public employee or public official with disciplinary appointing or budgetary authority over your department puts pressure on any public employee to violate a protected First Amendment right of another employee, how does your department proceed? Many of you answered that question just by explaining your general grievance policy. So I'm taking this opportunity to clarify a little bit about what kind of answers I was seeking.
Basically, I want to make sure that steps are being taken to ensure that employment decisions remain independent of political pressure. So I've got a hypothetical scenario. Imagine that you hire somebody in your department who is an atheist and has made publicly available statements to the effect that God does not exist. The news breaks, and my Christian values are offended. So I give you a call, and I pressure you to discipline or terminate that employee.
I strongly imply that if you don't, I will hold your budget funding. from the entire department. What do you do next? Is there a policy in place that allows you to do the right thing without fear of political retaliation? And is there a policy in place in your department that empowers you as a whistleblower such that you can report my outside political pressure to someone? I guess the main thing is that I'm trying to make sure
that and this is the yes or no question that you can send in your answer to staff and they will get to me so we can we can look at all of the data together can you assure this committee that employment decisions within your agency are based on qualifications and performance and not on whether an employee's lawful viewpoints align with those of individual legislators so if you will take that question and answer that question I think in the in the interest
of time and expediency if you will send that to staff they can send it back to me and I'll send it out to anyone who's interested and we'll take this information gather it together and talk about all of the First Amendment rights issues during budget season thank you very
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:44:15
much all right thank you representative recommend going back grabbing the video get your full question and if you can send that in staff that
would be uh helpful all right thank you uh we are at back to senator flowers we've got a question yes
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:44:32
good morning gentlemen i don't know if they've
Speaker 334
1:44:35
identified themselves dq fields vice president university of arkansas division of
Speaker 336
1:44:46
agriculture matt brown division of agriculture jeff waver director of government
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:44:50
affairs for the uva division of agriculture okay my question concerns the land grant funding
Speaker 314
1:44:54
matching funding with the fed appropriating so much to the university
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:45:00
in years past I mean when it was set up I think it was
maybe earlier around the time of the 1890 grant that land grant that UAPB or AMNN received but where how do you i'm trying to figure out what is the match that you get from the state for these federal
funds okay well thank you for the
Speaker 337
1:45:30
clarifying question first i want to say that the division of agriculture our budget is mutually exclusive from the university of arkansas at
Fayetteville. So we have, for our federal match, we received Smith-Lever federal funding for extension. Last year, that federal funding was $6.2 million in federal funding that the state did match.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:45:55
Okay. So it seems like it's close to what the
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff receives for their land grant match?
Speaker 337
1:46:05
Yeah, for their 1890 match, yes. Okay. And
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:46:09
so the Division of Agriculture
at UA expends that money for research? That portion
Speaker 337
1:46:19
is for extension and outreach. Extension and outreach? So hatch funding is for research, but Smith-Lever funding is
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:46:29
for extension and outreach. Is that those two funding entities that you just mentioned, Smithville and the other, is that the whole land grant that UA Fayetteville receives?
Speaker 337
1:46:45
So, no, as I mentioned, Smith-Lever is strictly for the extension portion. Hatch funding covers our research component from the federal government. So that portion was $3.4, $3.5 million for
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:47:02
research. And in our budget manual, how will we distinguish where you have those funds? I didn't see where that's
delineated or labeled. In Schedule F on page
Speaker 342
1:47:16
one, where it says Division of Agriculture,
that's our total state appropriation, but these matching funds are included in
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:47:26
those totals. So in our budget manual, and when you all will appear before us later, I suppose, you all will
spell out what's for Smithfield, what's for the other? Yes. To total the six? Yes. Okay, that will be in our manual.
Speaker 342
1:47:49
But I don't see that. It's never going to be separately in the manual
because it's all included in the one appropriation we've discussed. Senator,
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:47:59
we'll get that to you. I'd like to know that. I mean, how would we know that it's being used for those purposes if it's not in your lines for your budget? We can provide details for you. Well, I
appreciate that. When you all come back to us, you'll have that? I'll get it to you
Speaker 348
1:48:18
before then. Okay. Yeah, they're going to have it to you before then. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:48:24
All right, members, that wraps up, I think, the discussion we've had on higher education or at least the questions. With that,
Speaker 86
1:48:29
I'm going to recognize Senator Bryant for a motion.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:48:34
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you. Institutions of Higher Education, I'd make a motion that the Arkansas Higher Education's Coordinating Board's recommendation for all institutions. All right, thank you, members. We've
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:48:42
got a motion. Do we have a second? We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Members,
This brings us to the Department of Correction. I'm assuming we're about to have an exodus, folks. Thank you all for being here today. And
I kind of am disappointed we didn't do the cattle call, but maybe next time. All right, members, while
they're leaving, if I can have your attention, because I just want to make sure we're utilizing time the best we can on how we move forward.
we're going to be working out of your JBC manual that you've got right here. Obviously, we're kicking things off with Department of Corrections. Director Wallace will be here to help answer questions. Secretary Wallace will be here to help answer questions. And, of course, we've got Mr. Coleman on our team over here to kind of give some brief outlines. Here is how I would like this to work so we don't get ourselves stuck in mud, kind of like we did. higher edge a little bit different. There is a number of different entities. There's only one
Department of Corrections that's going to be here to answer questions. So what
I want us to do is work through this list. If you have questions on what's on this list, when we work through it, ask them. We will be asking for exec rec, legislative rec, whatever it may be at the conclusion of that by section. So for instance, we'll first dispose of the letter, which is G1, and then we'll move to the corrections department. And I'll be asking for a motion that we adopt
executive rec for pages four through eight. Okay. Then we'll move on to the next. But if you can, limit your question to what's in that section. And if you've got questions about things that are outside of what's in that section hold them into the end and we will stay here as long as y'all want to with the department of corrections to answer questions that are not related to what's what we're considering today in their appropriations does that make sense to everyone or does anyone have any questions on that again we're going to work through this by section keep your questions
comments limited to that section we'll move forward if there are questions outside of that And so to answer one question that I think is coming, there is nothing about what we're going to discuss today that has to do with capital expenditures unless it's regular maintenance type items. So there is no prison funding. There is none of those items are in any of these appropriations that we're discussing today. So if you've got questions about the construction of the prison for Secretary Wallace, we're going to take those up at the end as we kind of work through this.
This is for the current operations of the
Department of Corrections and moving through to adopt appropriations for later on. With that, Senator Hill, you're recognized for a question. Would you state
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:51:52
which one we're starting on, what page we are on, because I could not
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:51:56
hear you. Okay. Yeah, we're going to
be on Section G, Department of Corrections. We'll have Secretary Wallace come forward. She's going to, I think, make some brief remarks, unless she doesn't want to, which is perfectly fine. then we're going to start things off with g1 which is a response to legislation that was filed
in the moving of positions and then we're going to work through this again so it's a little bit quieter in here now then we're going to take things by section on what you have in front of you so we'll first dispose of the corrections department pages four through eight we'll take questions we'll have comments we'll work through that and then we'll move on through if you have questions that are not related to that section hold those until the appropriate section you're on or if it's not related to anything we'll take those up at the end and i promise we will be
here as long as we need to to
answer questions i just want to make sure we're flowing through the process the best we can with that secretary wallace you
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:52:55
are recognized thank you mr chairman committee members lindsey wallace secretary for the arkansas department of corrections i had not prepared any remarks so i will yield to questions for you all if there are any or if there's anything specifically you want me to address all
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:53:11
right perfect uh members we're going to move to g1 so can we have a quick okay you're going to
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:53:17
do that okay you're recognized for an
Speaker 357
1:53:20
explanation on g1 yes sir k barnhill with office personnel management g1 is a transfer of 51 positions from Department of Corrections to the to the Secretary's office at the Department of Corrections. This is to activate the recidivism program that will be put in place. These are 50 correctional corporals and one corrections deputy director that will manage that program. The cost is estimated to be approximately four million dollars.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:53:54
All right, thank you members. Do we have any questions on G1? All right, seeing no questions, Senator Bryant, you're recognized for a motion.
Speaker 82
1:54:09
This is the motion we adopt G1 letter. Members, we've got a
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:54:14
motion to adopt G1. Do we have a second? We have a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. All right, members, that's going to take us to the Corrections Department.
We're going to be working in the Budget Manual, pages 4 through 8, and you're recognized for a brief presentation. Thank
Dalton Coleman
Unverified
1:54:32
you, Mr. Chair. My name is Dalton Coleman. I'm BLR Fiscal Staff. If you'll flip all the way to page 2 of your Budget Manuals with me, we'll start our look at the Department of Corrections Division of Administration and Chared Services. So just some brief totals for this division. Fiscal Year 26 authorized amount is just under $209 million, dollars and the fiscal year 27 recommendation is just under 217 million dollars that is an eight
million dollar increase if we look at page four with me we'll start looking at where those changes come from this will be a common theme throughout this presentation mr. chair you're going to hear me say act 723 of 2025 several times and that's because it moved a lot of things around the department of correction this is the first one so this appropriation previously existed in the division of correction has now moved to the division of administration and shared services it's not a new appropriation but it's for $170,000 for
the sex offender assessment our next change is on page 8 of your manuals so there's a couple of little differences here one is the positional difference and that's from the transfer in of those sex offender assessment positions and then the main difference is the medical contracts line item on the bottom of that table on page 8. There's about a $6 million increase in that line item, and that's for anticipated increases in contract costs. Mr. Chairman, that concludes all the change levels for
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:55:59
administration and shared services. All right, thank you. Members, do we have any questions on pages 4 through 8 of your budget manual and recommendations? All right, seeing none, what's the will of the committee? All right,
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:56:20
Senator Flowers, you're recognized for a question on item any item that's four through eight thank you and thank you for being here on the medical contracts uh it appears the actual was 139 um for this fiscal year and has the contract the medical
contract for the department increase so that it makes sense of the legislative agency request and the executive recommendation do y'all have a have you renewed a
contract medical contract chad brown cfo department of corrections
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:57:03
uh senator this is the medical contract that was discussed a couple of years ago. The initial contract, the initial period of this contract
is two years. This will be coming up for the third year renewal coming up in September. So we're working towards that coming up in September. This is just our standard medical contract for the Department of Corrections for
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:57:26
our MA population. But, and so you anticipate an increase in the
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:57:30
contract? Yes, ma'am. So this contract's a little weird because we had to do a three-month extension so it doesn't line up with the fiscal years but basically the contract gradually increases over the 10-year period so yes we agree with this increase this should cover
it and then we'll we'll continue to bring this back before
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:57:52
this body every year for renewal well you know I'll just mention that from time to
time I get letters and calls from relatives of those inmates that require medical care. And sometimes, most of the time, it's a complaint that their relative in the corrections
system is not getting proper medical
care. Who is the contract with? And is that the vendor that you, are you going to renegotiate with that vendor, or is it going to be offered out and opened up for other vendors to? No, ma'am. The current vendor that we
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:58:35
have a contract with, the company name is Wellpath. We went through the RFP process. It was a long, arduous process, but once we completed it, Wellpath was the lowest vendor. That's who we chose. We've been in business with them for a long time with the state.
When it comes to renegotiation, that's something I'm going to discuss with Secretary Wallace probably in the next month to see how
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:58:59
we want to go about that. Well, are you aware that there are complaints? And what is the process of addressing complaints for relatives outside the system that have relatives in the system? Senator Dexter Payne, Director for the
Speaker 369
1:59:13
Division of Creation. We have a process in place that they can contact our medical department at central office
Speaker 370
1:59:21
if they have complaints. If the inmate has direct complaints, he can file a grievance, a medical grievance, and we will answer that grievance for him. So we've got those avenues. I've
Speaker 371
1:59:32
got an assistant medical administrator right now who will also answer those questions
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
1:59:38
for him. Okay. Well, I'd like to kind of, I think it would be helpful to the whole body to know how many complaints you all are fielding in the course of a year and how many have been resolved,
how many have been found not to
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:00:00
be valid at all. Okay. Yes, ma'am. I
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
2:00:02
can get those numbers to you. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chair. That was perfect, Senator Flowers. Senator
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
2:00:08
Dees, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Quick question
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
2:00:11
over here on when I look at page six, I believe it is, on county jail reimbursements. Just seeing a flat budget, it looks like, on the recommendation. I just constantly hear of of budgets related to county jails and state inmates and and costs not covering those housing of those inmates.
Could you walk me through how we're flat or recommending flat whenever I hear of
Speaker 378
2:00:34
concerns across the state? Sure, I'd be glad to. First, I want to thank Mr. Andy Babbitt
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
2:00:40
behind me. He's been a huge help with this process, and I do call it a process. What we found with county jails, we were, how do I explain this easiest? We were paying invoices from previous fiscal years. So when we send invoices out, the counties are not always diligent sending those invoices back to us for payment. So sometimes some of the counties would be a year late in sending those invoices back.
What we have done to fix that problem, and that's where I bring in Mr. Babbitt and his team, we have been meeting with the Association of Counties, the Sheriff's Department, or the Sheriff's Association, what's that? The Sheriff's Association, and we've gone to their conference. We've talked to all the sheriffs. They are now sending those invoices in a timely manner. So we have, since we have received this increase in funding, we have received zero complaints of not being paid. So if you receive a complaint, please let us know, because we haven't received any.
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
2:01:36
Okay, so I'm not sure if the complaints I heard were around timing of funding, but around total dollars to cover the cost of actually housing those inmates. So maybe if you could speak to that, are we adequately funding our county jails when they do have to house state inmates? Thank you for the question,
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:01:58
Senator. So the amount that is set for the county jail reimbursement is actually set by you all. So we're just a pass through for the funding.
I don't know that all county jails are created equal. I don't know what their expenses are. I know that the Association of Counties does do a report on how much it
Speaker 380
2:02:17
actually costs the counties, but it's $40 a day is what we pay, and that has been the amount since 2022. Before that, in 2020, it was $32. 2015, it was $30, and that's legislatively set, and I think
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:02:31
with the chief fiscal officer of the state's input. So we're just there to pay whatever the set amount is,
So that's kind of up to you all and to the Chief Fiscal Officer
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:02:44
what that amount is. Great. I appreciate that. Thanks. Yes, sir.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:02:48
Thank you. Representative Garnier, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've got a quick follow-up on Senator Flowers'
question. And I know we've talked about this before, but WellPath, is there a mechanism to make sure that everything that they're doing is up-to-date and research-based? and who monitors what they're doing and how they're doing it?
Is there somebody that does that, or do we just assume
Speaker 370
2:03:23
they know what they're talking about? Go ahead, Director. Thanks for the question, Ms. Gardner. Yes, we have a third-party audit company that comes in by the name of MQRS, and they make sure that WellPath is doing the things that they're supposed to be doing. such as answering grievances, seeing the inmates in a timely manner, sending them out when necessary.
So they make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do, along
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:03:50
with my staff. What about the actual care that they're getting? Do we know that they're getting the most up-to-date care? I know we've talked about hepatitis C. Are they getting the most up-to-date care that's research-based or evidence-based? Yes, ma'am, I would think so. Well, who decides that? Does that QRS program look at those kinds of things? Yes, they look at those
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:04:18
They look at the actual health care they're getting and the treatments that they're getting and make sure that they're up-to-date and what most physicians are doing for those particular illnesses. Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. All right,
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:04:37
thank you. Representative Vooten, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And my question has to do with personnel, as usual. Is this shared services, is it for all your institutions that you have?
No, sir. Those are all broken up by division. There are some positions that are specifically tied to shared services, but like Director Payne's security positions
Speaker 380
2:05:01
that work at the institutions, Mr. Cheeks positions that are working out in probation
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:05:07
and parole they're in those individual budgeted areas So you won't see a total amount in the shared services. Okay. What
is What is if if I may mr. Chairman, what is you this is get this out of the way? What is your total employment?
Speaker 380
2:05:25
And everything so our total DOC positions filled as of Tuesday was 315 positions 4950 the great majority of those are in director pains. How many of those are vacant? Vacant total DOC vacancies about 1500. Some of those include unbudgeted.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:05:48
Okay. How many of those are over
Speaker 382
2:05:52
two years old? Can you get that information for me
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:05:57
from your last report and
Okay, my director over human resources here, she's going to get us the information for you. Okay, all right. Thank you.
Speaker 149
2:06:10
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right, thank you. Representative Richardson, you're recognized for a question. Thank
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
2:06:17
you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to follow back up with something that you just said up there. You said that the counties are jails that are, excuse me, you said that you hadn't been receiving invoices. And that's surprising to me because I know there have been jails who've been complaining about funding and not getting money,
so I'm surprised that they're not sending in invoices to get paid. Do you know how many of those actually were not sending in? No, sir. We sent a quarterly
report to the Association of Counties, and they've been sending out emails to the counties that have been late on sending back their invoices. I think right now, if I had to guesstimate a number off the top of my head, I think we're about half a million dollars still hanging out there to be paid from previous fiscal year. Okay, and no idea what parts of the state that's coming from? We do. I
just don't have that in front of me. Okay, thank you.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:07:03
I can provide that to you if I need to. Thank you. All right, thank you. Members, do we have any other questions on pages four through eight? All right, seeing none, I need a motion to adopt an executive rec for the juvenile sex offender assessment, county jail reimbursement, and department of correction. I've got a motion. I've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed, motion carries. We're going to work through the
Dalton Coleman
Unverified
2:07:30
Division of Correction now. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you'll turn to page 10, you'll find the appropriation summary for the Division of Correction.
Luckily, we'll be able to stay on this page for the entirety of the Division presentation because all of these changes within this Division are due to Act 723 of 2025. We have reallocations out, reallocations in. The only reallocation out, we already talked about it, is the ADC sex offender assessment that went to the division of administration and shared services there are three reallocations into the division of correction the first on the inmate care and custody line item so there's an increase of about 43 million dollars there from fiscal year 26 authorized that's due to act 723 relocating
the residential services programs from the division of community correction into the division of correction and that's that's the appropriation that those are housed in the last two are inmate welfare treasury cash and non-tax revenue receipts. And inmate welfare treasury cash increases by about $3 million and non-tax revenue receipts increases by about $1 million. And those are just reallocations from the residence cash treasury appropriation and the Division of Community Correction. The totals for the Division of Correction go from $437 million in fiscal year
26 to $483 million in fiscal year 27. But none of that is new appropriations, all just reallocated due to act 723 uh mr chairman i'm happy to answer any questions members if we have any
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:08:52
questions senator tucker recognized for a question thank
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
2:08:57
you mr chair will you just explain one more time what's being moved from community
correction to corrections yes so the inmate care and custody line item that you see in
Dalton Coleman
Unverified
2:09:07
this division the residential services programs are moving to that that appropriation and then the residence cash treasury is moving to the inmate welfare treasury
cash and non-tax revenue receipts line items on this table and that's um the inmate welfare treasury cash is i believe the appropriation for the commissary uh related things and then the non-tax revenue receipts is their phone service okay the first program you mentioned the
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
2:09:26
resident welfare program uh the residential services program what is that senator let
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
2:09:34
me take this off dalton's plate for him so what we did is we transferred on the uh community correction side of the house which is our program probation mostly side of the house they had some what we call
residential facilities basically secured facilities uh secretary wallace uh wanted to move all secured facilities over to director pain side of the house on adc
Speaker 394
2:09:55
so that's essentially what we did at the tune of about 46 million dollars
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
2:10:00
i guess that is so the community correction facilities for example secretary wallace where we have the intermediate sanction programs those are those were moved from community corrections to the division of corrections yes the
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:10:11
oversight is that with director pain's side of the house now there's no
Speaker 380
2:10:14
change in the programs right this time we just moved the the
facilities there's more resources with cash funds things like that um and you know security is security so we put it with the security side of the house the programming aspect we have a director of programming now that kind of oversees the programming for everything so okay it made more sense to put those there okay
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
2:10:36
so community correction really just consists of parole and probation at
Speaker 380
2:10:40
this point yes sir and they have oversight of the sex offender community notification assessments as well now so we pushed that over that was previously housed with director pain
so sort of management of those services where the sex offender assessments a lot are out in community things like that that's also under the community corrections
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
2:10:59
okay now so what are we going to call the community corrections facilities if they're
Speaker 380
2:11:04
not they're still community correction centers okay just under the oversight of the division
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
2:11:09
of correction okay uh thank you then my other question is about um the the g1 letter that miss barnhill mentioned those are
how many positions are there going to be in the recidivism program established by act 723 so the recidivism
Speaker 380
2:11:24
reduction system actually allowed us to reclassify up to 100 we're starting with 50 i didn't want to take more security positions than at this point that I knew we were going to need the act requires there to be at least one I think re-entry specialist is what the act said at each facility so we're starting with I think there's about 40 positions that we created some of those are in the kind of the oversight aspect of that one is a director of what that recidivism reduction
re-entry system looks like there's some sort of statewide monitoring and then those individual I think 28 28 positions to start off at each facility and then there is some additions of a couple of positions in the it's our quality improvement quality assurance so a program assessment and oversight area that we added to that so I don't I can't remember off the top of head it's 41 or 42 positions that those 50 will create and what
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
2:12:25
how is that going how far are we
Speaker 380
2:12:28
into that process so we are we really need those positions to kick off what that development actually looks like but I think we've already made quite a few strides in in changing sort of the approach to re-entry and our recidivism issues in the state one we just had the future fit graduation which was sort of a new pilot program with workforce development we've partnered with DF and a to come in look at child support obligations sort of those re-entry barriers and we've graduated 18 folks
out of that initially we've got another cohort going now and they start immediately after we finish those beyond that we are also looking at starting a peer recovery academy so that we can have sort of that lived experience with our offenders that are incarcerated that can help us with programming. I think that's twofold for them. That will allow them, if they go through the academy and complete all of their peer groups, will allow them to get a certificate, which benefits them once they get out of incarceration. But then once they get that
certificate, then they can help us with our programming as well. So we can train them to help us present programs to the to the inmate population um in addition to that we have I don't know if you all have been I know some of the ladies in the room have been over there we have a new women's health unit um where we're addressing recidivism with them we're addressing familial connections and sort of that bonding um the protect act required us to create a bonding period with mothers and babies and so that's where we're facilitating that so beyond that we implemented
the Ohio risk assessment tool which is an assessment tool that helps us make sure we get the offenders what they need when they come into us we're working through getting those assessed the recidivism reduction act actually anticipated us not being able to get this into complete fruition until I think the end of this year. So right now we, at the last count that I got at the end of last month, we had about 9,000 assessments remaining for our incarcerated
population. And that'll help us develop any additional programming that this re-entry recidivism reduction system will implement eventually. Those Ohio assessments, you'll be doing those
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
2:14:50
when people enter the system yes and
Speaker 380
2:14:53
and they get reassessed um it requires reassessment periodically throughout their incarceration when a triggering event happens yes sir okay and those positions for
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
2:15:02
the recidivism reduction program can you not fill those until we approve this or how's i think that would be
Speaker 380
2:15:09
helpful we've been working with with k and um and dfna and trying
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:15:14
to work through what that would look like but um we first had to convert the the 50 positions into my area, I guess, so that we could,
Speaker 380
2:15:23
because that was also something that the act required, was that it be created within the office of the secretary. So I don't know
Speaker 390
2:15:29
what all of the specific steps are, but yes, sir.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:15:35
Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. Representative
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:15:41
Beatty. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm over here. I kind of focused on page 11 on the work release. You mentioned it here,
over 500 inmates in the program. Do you have the average number of inmates that participate in the work release program and a
Speaker 370
2:16:10
breakout between those centers? Representative Bayer, there's
Speaker 369
2:16:13
probably close to 800 that participate at any given time. It fluctuates at the facilities, depends on the jobs that are available.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:16:21
Well, I think that's kind of where I was going with my question. In your document that's prepared here for us on the budget, it said over $500. $800 is
kind of a step above $500 in there. But I'd
like average numbers and also to see justification for those five centers that is spread where those inmates are in the state. We can get that later. Yes, sir. We'll get it to you. Thank you. All right. Thank you.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
2:16:51
Senator Flowers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm looking at the medical monetary sanctions, receipts, and budget requests. So is that part of this contract that you spoke of with WellPath that they reimburse or pay to offset for services
not rendered or anticipated?
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
2:17:24
Yes, ma'am. So during the negotiation of this contract, we upped our performance for them. And if they don't meet that performance, then they essentially write us a check. That check goes
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
2:17:40
into this fund, the Medical Monetary Sanctions Fund. Well, how much have you
been getting back? Can you put that in a percentage or what? And I would think that that would kind of indicate maybe it will work along with assessing
and reviewing complaints by inmates or relatives of inmates that are complaining that their relative in the system is not getting proper medical care. I just kind of want to know, well, how much are
you getting back? So, Senator, it looks like in FY25 it was around $690,000. But I
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
2:18:20
can get back. Let me get back to the office and I can get you a couple fiscal years of what that looks like to give you a better idea.
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
2:18:30
Okay, I think it would be helpful just to have a kind of a history and helps to understand when we get complaints what we can say to constituents or relatives of these inmates that are complaining about health care. you understand what I'm saying yes ma'am
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
2:18:58
well I'm pretty sure that those performance requirements
are broken down in the contract
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
2:19:05
and I'll be happy to get that for you okay but I really am stressing this because I I've received too many uh calls and and letters about um inmates not getting uh medicines or proper
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:19:23
care okay thank you thank you
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:19:26
mr. chair thank you uh representative Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You mentioned 1,500 vacancies, Madam Secretary.
Of those 1,500, how many of those are security personnel? The
number that I have on my sheet for the Division of Corrections is 1290. 398 of those are unbudgeted 398 398 398 has this may be a question
for mr. Payton has the increase in pay helped in recruiting any at all yes sir it
Speaker 370
2:20:08
definitely has helped our vacancy rate dropped tremendously after after that pay plan was implemented so yes sir it definitely helped it's just a matter of turnover
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:20:18
is the version you got 398 or do you not have the funding to pay all of them those those
Speaker 370
2:20:25
positions those 398 are unbudgeted so yes sir we don't have the funds to pay the 398
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:20:31
if i can clarify that that 1290 thank you sonia for the clarification that i gave you it's not just security that's overall overall numbers yes so that would include any sort of programming we
talked about some of the positions not being in the shared services area so programming staff
if if he has a chaplain that's vacant or anything like that, those will fall in that
total vacancy number that I mentioned. Of the 398? No, the
1290. The total 1290 minus the 398. 1299. Okay. But the increase in compensation for the security people has helped you recruit. Yes, sir. Okay. I've got one more question, Mr. Chairman.
On the page 10, item 2, the recommendation in the legislative and the executive recommendation is $529 million. That's an increase of $46 million from the budget. So that's a request for new money? Yes, sir. That's to
cover the increases in our, and that was what Mr. Hudson presented in his balance budget.
Yes, sir. The $40 million, I think, is to help us with our salaries from the increases with the pay plan, the majority of which were security. And then I think five to address the
medical contract. And we'll utilize medical sanctions for the rest of it. You mentioned salary increases in that $46 million. When we changed the compensation plan last time, did you estimate out in front of you four or five years of what your cost would be, or is this just every year's situation?
Speaker 415
2:22:27
Well, Representative, I don't go that far out. I really work on bienniums, bienniums and fiscal years, so I
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
2:22:33
try to stay within the biennium. We keep in contact with DF&A and work closely with them on our numbers so they know our numbers just as well as we do. If anything comes up and a red flag comes up, we have those discussions and we try to find solutions at that
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:22:47
time. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:22:50
All right. Thank you, members. I think that wraps up questions on the division of correction. What's the will of the committee?
We've got a motion for exec rec. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed, motion carries. We're going
Dalton Coleman
Unverified
2:23:11
to move to community correction. Thank you, Mr. Chair. On page 32, you'll see the breakdown of the appropriations for the Division of Community Correction. Some quick totals. Fiscal Year 26 authorized for the Division of Community Correction is around $142 million. And the Fiscal Year 27 recommendation is just over $93 million.
And, Mr. Chairman, those changes are what we just talked about with the Division of Correction. They're just those transfers out for those programs that we mentioned before. So residence cash treasury goes from about $3.6 million to $0. and community correction state appropriation goes from $123 million to about $78 million. Those are all related to the transfer to the Division of Correction. All right, perfect. I have to answer your questions. All
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:23:51
right, thank you. Members, do we have any questions on pages 34 through 40?
All right, seeing no questions, what's the will of the committee? We've got a motion for executive rec. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion?
Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. all those opposed motion carries post-prison transfer board thank you
Dalton Coleman
Unverified
2:24:13
mr chair so the fiscal year 26 authorized amount for the post-prison transfer board is around 2.4 million dollars the recommendation for fiscal year 27 is right about the same there are no significant changes to the post-prison transfer board i'm happy to answer any questions thank you members do have any questions on
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:24:27
the post-prison transfer board that's page 44. all right seeing no questions
what's the will of the committee we've got a motion to adopt executive rec we've got a second any discussion on the motion seeing none
all those in favor signify by saying aye all those
Dalton Coleman
Unverified
2:24:46
opposed motion carries correction department sentencing thank you mr chair our total cost for our sorry total authorized amount for fiscal year 26 for the sentencing commission is 475 757 dollars that amount is the exact same for the fiscal year 27 recommendation there are no significant changes i'm happy to answer any questions you got all right thank you
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:25:04
Thank you. Members, do we have any questions on correction department sentencing page 47? Seeing none, what's
the will of the committee? We've got a motion to adopt executive rec. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Members, as promised, if you have questions that were not part of the appropriation process that we went through, go ahead and hit your mic and you'll be welcome to answer or ask those any other questions for department corrections that would have been
outside of what we covered earlier all right seeing no questions thank you all very much i think we need uh okay yep it's barnhill i think
we're it's your time we're going to move on to Section H. We'll do these one at a time. And with
that, if you could just recognize yourself for the committee, provide a brief explanation, and then we'll open up for
questions. And again, we'll do H1, then H2, then H3.
Speaker 357
2:26:10
Yes, sir. Kay Barnhill with Office of Personnel
Speaker 426
2:26:16
Management. I'm Leslie Fiskin, Secretary of, sorry, Shared Administrative Services. H1 is
Speaker 357
2:26:24
letters that we have submitted to the committee that reflect actions that the departments have taken so far this fiscal year. These are all positions that have been approved by the personnel committee and reviewed by legislative council. We're taking this action so their appropriation bills can be updated accordingly.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:26:42
All right. Thank you, members. Any questions on H1? All right. Seeing no questions. We need a motion to adopt. We've got a motion. We have a second. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying
Speaker 357
2:27:03
aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. H2. H2 reflects pool positions that have been approved for the various departments throughout this fiscal year up to date. Again, all these actions have been approved by Personnel Committee and the Legislative Council.
Again, this will update the appropriation bill so they can be drawn up accordingly.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:27:20
All right. Perfect. Members, do we have any questions
on H2? Seeing no questions, what's the will of the committee? I've got a motion to adopt. I've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying
Speaker 357
2:27:38
aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. H3. H3 is part of the Arkansas Forward Initiative for the centralization of some of the services, shared services for departments.
These reflect positions that have been transferred from the various departments to the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of State Technology, and the Office of State Procurement. Thank you. Members, do we have any questions on H3?
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:27:59
I think I'm there. Yeah, H3. All right, seeing no questions, what's the will of
the committee? We've got a motion to adopt. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. All those in favor, signify by saying
aye. all those opposed motion carries thank you very much members we're going to be back here tomorrow
morning it's going to be my co-chair's turn thankfully he's going to cover DHS public school fund public safety and
department of health is there any others that was it that was it with that we're adjourned we'll see you tomorrow at 9 a.m. Thank you.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of JBC Rules
C. Executive Balanced Budget for Fiscal Year 2027 Presentation
D. Institutions of Higher Education Overview
E. Division of Higher Education
F. Summary of Institutions of Higher Education Budget Requests for FY2027
G. Department of Corrections
H. Reports and Communications
I. Other Business
J. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Speaker 2
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
Speaker 12
Speaker 30
Speaker 31
Speaker 33
Speaker 38
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Speaker 51
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
Speaker 56
Representative John P. Carr
Unverified
Speaker 48
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
Speaker 76
Speaker 36
Speaker 82
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
Speaker 99
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
Speaker 113
Speaker 119
Nick Fuller
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Representative Marcus E. Richmond
Unverified
Speaker 137
Speaker 138
Speaker 139
Speaker 142
Representative Tippi McCullough
Unverified
Speaker 147
Speaker 150
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 153
Speaker 155
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
Speaker 160
Speaker 151
Speaker 91
Speaker 184
Speaker 163
Speaker 189
Speaker 194
Speaker 44
Speaker 25
Senator Stephanie Flowers
Unverified
Speaker 208
Speaker 225
Speaker 226
Speaker 228
Speaker 230
Speaker 253
Speaker 258
Speaker 254
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
Speaker 283
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
Speaker 291
Speaker 299
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
Speaker 305
Speaker 303
Speaker 259
Speaker 244
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Speaker 313
Speaker 322
Speaker 323
Speaker 326
Speaker 156
Speaker 334
Speaker 336
Speaker 314
Speaker 337
Speaker 342
Speaker 348
Speaker 86
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
Speaker 357
Dalton Coleman
Unverified
Speaker 369
Speaker 370
Speaker 371
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
Speaker 378
Speaker 380
Speaker 382
Speaker 149
Speaker 394
Speaker 390
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
Speaker 415
Speaker 426