ALC-Hospital, Medicaid, & Developmental Disabilities Study Subcommittee
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Senator Jane English
Unverified
0:00
Good afternoon, welcome to the subcommittee. We have a few number of things today, glad to see everybody here this afternoon. And one of the things we're going to do, first I'd like to recognize the Arkansas Community Colleges Leadership Institute. Folks are here, if you all would stand please, so we could recognize you, thank you. Very glad to have you here. And we're going to have a quick update on the reimbursement rates under the Living
Choices Assisted Living Waiver. So Secretary Mann, if you would grace us. Thank
Speaker 5
0:44
Janet Mann, DHS Secretary. Just a quick update. We provided our monthly letter as an update on the assisted living cost report process. We have begun the new cost reporting period this January. We have had a phone call and set up conference calls with the providers and the contractors,
and we are moving forward with that. And as that process
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:12
moves through, that will bring you more updates. Thank you very much. Now we will have a discussion of the overview of the current status and developments regarding TANF and SNAP. So our co-chair, Representative Bentley. So colleagues, we didn't get to
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:29
finish this at our last meeting, so we're fine getting to come and finish. If you'll turn to page 13 in the report that we've got under this in your folder there
Under today's agenda, if you'll turn to page 13, that's where we left off with Mary Franklin and our friends from DHS, and we'll take off from there. So, ladies, we'll recognize
Speaker 8
1:55
yourselves, and we'll let you guys begin. Good afternoon. I'm Mary Franklin with Department of Human Services. I'm
Speaker 12
2:03
County Operations, making sure y'all can hear
Speaker 14
2:08
you. All right. Okay, starting on page 13, we will walk through some changes in the SNAP work requirement
that have been brought about through federal law changes in the one big beautiful bill that was passed last July. So SNAP recipients age 18 to 64 who don't have responsibility for a child under age 14 living in their home and who are considered physically and mentally able to work must follow the time limit rules to keep their SNAP benefits. And those time limit rules are they can only qualify to receive SNAP for three months out
of a 36-month period if they are not meeting this work requirement or exempt from this work requirement. But to meet the work requirement, they need to spend at least 80 hours each month doing one or more of these activities here below, working, volunteering, participating in the SNAP Employment and Training Program, or participating in an Employment and Training Program other than SNAP ENT.
There are individuals, as I said, that are not subject to this work requirement and our next slide walks through that with more detail. So here are these SNAP recipients would not have to follow those time limit rules, which includes those that are younger than 18, older or age 65 or older, if they have responsibility for a child under age 14 who resides in their home. If they're not working because of physical or mental health reason, if they're pregnant,
taking care of a child younger than age six, or someone who needs help caring for themselves, if they're already working at least 30 hours per week, then the time limit doesn't apply to them, or if they're earning $217.50 or more a week, and that amount because it equates to federal minimum wage for 30 hours a week, if they're getting unemployment benefits or they've applied for unemployment benefits, if they're going to school or college or training
program at least half time, if they are meeting the work rules for temporary assistance for needy families in our transitional employment assistance program, or if they are participating in drug or alcohol rehabilitation program. The One Big Beautiful Act did remove some exemptions that had previously been allowed to the SNAP requirement to work. Previously, there was an exemption for homelessness, there was an exemption for veterans, and there was an exemption for individuals who
were aged 24 or younger who were in foster care on their 18th birthday. Those exemptions are now removed based on the new federal law. And we have updated our policy rule to be in alignment with that. The One Big Beautiful Act also added new exceptions for Indians, also referred to as Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Indigenous people, tribal members. Those federal definitions have now been included in our Arkansas rules for an Indian, an urban Indian, and a California
Speaker 14
5:40
law. All right. And the next part of our presentation is about SNAP employment and training with just an overview of who our current providers are and a high-level overview of SNAP employment and training. On the next slide, what we have identified here for you are the different elements or components, we call them components, that are allowed in SNAP employment and training for those who are participating in SNAP employment and training.
There is a component called job retention to help those who are working to retain that job and keep working. There is job search training, supervised job search, volunteering, basic skills instruction, career or technical education programs or other vocational training programs, English language acquisition, work readiness training, and work activity. basically like work experience.
And our providers this federal fiscal year include the Arkansas Employment Career Center. They provide vocational training components, certified clinical medical assistant, certified pharmacy technician, entry-level cybersecurity, and certified nursing assistant, And along with case management services, job retention, job training services, those are the specific vocational training opportunities that they offer.
Their projected budget for the federal fiscal year of 26 is a little over $1.5 million. They are projecting serving approximately 520 individuals. and their catchment area counties that they, residents of these counties, they can serve. Arkansas County, Faulkner, Jefferson, Lownup, Prairie, Saline,
Speaker 17
7:35
Cleveland, Grant, Lincoln, Perry, and Pulaski. We also have adult education
Speaker 14
7:43
as one of our SNAP employment and training providers.
They provide statewide coverage with the exception of Mississippi County, and that is only because the Northeast Community College in Mississippi County is also an employment and training provider, and they provide these same services in that county. But they provide job retention, job search training, supervised job search, volunteering, basic foundational skills, instruction, career and technical education, including certified nursing assistants, medical aid, pharmacy tech, heavy equipment, and other programs they offer.
They also offer English language acquisition, work readiness training, and work activity as components. Their projected budget is a little over $2.7 million and projected to serve 1,000 recipients in this fiscal year. Shorter College is also one of our SNAP employment and training providers, and they serve Pulaski County. They offer child development, criminal justice, Christian leadership, entrepreneurship and business analytics, and computer science as their vocational offerings.
They also offer basic and foundational skill instruction, general studies, GED, and their projected budget is right at $97,000 and project to serve around 52 clients. And then we also have Arkansas Northeastern College, as I mentioned earlier. They serve Craighead, Mississippi, Crittenden, and Poinsett counties, and they offer vocational training components, including the work or wage program, career technical education programs, including certified nursing assistant, medical aid, pharmacy tech, heavy equipment.
And they offer general studies, GED, and projected budget for them is a little over $470,000, projected to serve 100 clients this year. The next slide gives you some details about our annual characteristics of participants in SNAP employment and training. And these are for the federal fiscal year 24. The 25 outcome numbers are not yet available, so this is for 24. But the characteristics of participants in SNAP employment and training, we had 2,561 voluntary participants.
There were no mandatory participants in 2024. 76.61% or 1,962 of those individuals had received a high school diploma or the equivalency of a high school diploma prior to participating in SNAP employment and training, and then 22% did not have that equivalency or diploma before entering SNAP employment and training. There were 41% of those volunteers who were identified as an ABOD,
an able-bodied adult without dependents who would be subject to our time limit rules if they were not participating or working or exempt. There were no participants learning English language. We had about 30% male and about 70% female, and the age range, the largest age range that participated was between age 18 and 35 at 53%, and we
Speaker 17
11:22
had about 36% who were between
age 36 and 49, and around 9% that were age 50 to 59. And on
Speaker 14
11:33
the last page of this presentation is some information about the outcomes for that federal fiscal year. And as part of our outcome reporting and measuring, we look two quarters back after someone completed SNAP employment and training. And we found that of those 886 who, when we did the look back, who had completed SNAP
employment and training two quarters prior, 451 of them were working, had unsubsidized employment in that second quarter after participation in SNAP employment and training, 50.9%. And the median quarterly wage in that quarter for those individuals was $3,627.95. We looked again in the fourth quarter after completion of participation in SNAP employment and training, and there were 585 individuals in that group, and 241 of them, or 41 percent,
did have unsubsidized employment in the fourth quarter after completing SNAP employment and training. And then the fourth metric there tells you that of the 1,609 participants who enrolled in SNAP employment training and were assigned in either an educational training, work experience or on the job training component, that 45.31% of them completed that component. All right. I've got a couple questions. If
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
13:11
members after me have some, just let me know.
But as we move forward into our new SNAP requirements with the work training, do we see anything different going on? I know when we had talked before, Mary Franklin, we had what the folks at the DHS office would do was simply hand someone a form and tell them this is where they need to go to get training. Are we doing anything more to help those folks get connected? Are we having any specific county? Are we
going to be doing anything different moving forward as these things become mandatory and not just
Speaker 14
13:46
voluntary. So we will, our staff, during the interview with our client, because we not only have
to notify our clients in writing about
Speaker 8
13:54
the work requirements, we also have to give a verbal explanation, and we do that in the eligibility interview. And during that eligibility interview, as we make the shift to mandatory employment and training from voluntary, we will be discussing that in detail, determining if they are exempt,
Speaker 14
14:11
determining if they're already working enough to be compliant, or doing some other activity that makes them compliant, and letting them know whether or not they've been identified
as someone who is mandatory to participate in SNAP employment and training. We'll be discussing with them the providers that
Speaker 8
14:29
are available based on where they live, and getting there, we will find out if they are willing to
Speaker 14
14:37
do that. They will do that and understand the consequences if they don't. And, of course, that's a policy change that we have not yet brought you, but we will be bringing you soon. But essentially it will result in the loss of benefits for them
if they refuse to participate. But if they agree to participate, we will make the referral directly to that provider on their behalf
Speaker 8
15:00
for the provider to pick up and take the next steps with them on getting them involved in employment and training.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
15:06
Okay, great. That was what I was looking for. So I was just looking at some other information that we received from the audit that we got about the amount of money that you guys are receiving in 2024 for ENT training. So you're getting $11 million.
And this is some information that we received for ENT training. So do you feel like you have enough funding? So I guess I'm asking you enough funding to make sure that we can get adequate training done for those that want to go to work or require, I guess, mandate to go to work at this point. Do we need to add any more? I guess what I'm asking, do we need to add any more vendors? Do we think we're adequately covered with vendors to make sure we have some options for folks
Speaker 14
15:50
to get some work training? So I think we have enough to get started and then see how it goes and can make adjustments as we go.
Part of how we offer this training is by partnering with providers who have funds that are eligible to match with federal funds. So, for example, let me use adult education because they're our biggest provider with the most coverage throughout the state. They have funding that is eligible for MATCH, and they have a mission that serves our population anyway. They provide adult education services to Arkansans, and those Arkansans that are SNAP recipients,
this program works as a good fit for them because they're serving our population and partnering with us as a SNAP employment and training provider. they can bill us for the services they provide to SNAP employment and training participants and then get half of their money back. So they're going to serve them anyway. They're serving them with funds that are eligible to match with FNS for SNAP employment and training. We have an agreement with them. We have them included in our state plan that's approved by FNS.
And so the amount that they have to match, we can request the federal portion of that in our state plan and get additional federal funds that way. That's maybe more than you wanted to know, but that's how we operate and recruit providers is we look for providers that don't require an additional spend of state general revenue that works as a good fit to maximize that funding. and then help them, help us, help our SNAP participants
and help them by potentially giving them funding to expand their services because they're getting some of that money back. And as far as reimbursements go, we have an appropriation and funding set already and how much we need ultimately will depend on how many people participate versus choose not to participate. So I think we have enough to get started. Thank you. Senator Petty.
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
18:04
Sorry about that. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have three questions, not necessarily related to each other, but just curious. Is there any report or any information that you gather that can show a cross-utilization of these on one individual? For example, someone's receiving SNAP. they're also participating in the SNAP E&T, and maybe as part of that, you know, the adult ed benefits. Just conceptually big picture right now, is that something that we already get or we already track?
Speaker 14
18:42
So if they are participating in SNAP E&T, they have to be a SNAP recipient to start with. So anybody that participates in SNAP E&T has to be a SNAP recipient. And then if they are working with
Speaker 8
18:55
one of our providers, we know who they are
Speaker 44
18:59
working with. So that information we can track,
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
19:01
yes. Okay. And so where I was headed with that is, you know, is there a way for us to determine the total public benefit that someone that is participating in SNAP and the training and adult ed is receiving?
So just doing the math on the adult ed a minute ago is around $2720 to $2900 per participant. There's that cost if they're participating in that, plus there's the cost of the actual SNAP benefits themselves and then, you know, maybe any other public benefits. Is there a tracking mechanism for that so we know the participants? Some individual may be working through the ENT and receiving SNAP benefits,
and it's $12,000 worth of public benefit versus $2,700 adult ed only. So we definitely can identify recipients
Speaker 14
19:55
who receive Medicaid, who receive SNAP, who may be participating in TANF or WorkPays, or who are in our SNAP employment and training program. So we can, yes, answer that question for the services that we offer. And then how far we could track beyond that would depend on data matching with other agencies.
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
20:19
Gotcha. A couple more, if you don't mind, Madam Chair. So in doing that, that's not something that you automatically track, but the data is there. Is that what I'm hearing? Okay. Yes. And then last question. So on the adult ed, the $2.7 million in budget, is that funding that goes out to the local adult ed organizations that you were talking about, or is that just the state-level budget and funding?
Speaker 14
20:50
So this is, our agreement is with the state-level adult ed,
Speaker 8
20:55
and they have sub-agreements with different colleges and providers out in the counties.
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
21:00
So, for example, I personally believe our Crawford County Adult Ed does a good job with theirs. They would have a sub-agreement with the state agency, and they would receive a portion of that $2.7 million? Yes. Okay. And so back to Madam Chair's question, I hear throughout, not just them, but throughout,
that maybe the Adult Ed budgets are a little tighter than they once were. I'm not trying to debate that issue right now, but is there an area where we could look at leveraging our resources
out more to our local adult ed organizations? Well,
Speaker 8
21:47
I can't really speak to their budget or whether or not the budget
Speaker 14
21:53
is tight with adult ed.
I just, and at this point, you know, if they were able to expand or provide services, additional services,
Speaker 8
22:05
and had additional money that could be matched, we could always look at requesting additional funds for that match or if they were going to serve more, you know, recipients. We're open to that. It's just, you know, I think it will be an evolving process as their needs become
Speaker 10
22:23
available or their ability to match with our federal funds.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
22:36
Chair. Thank you. Representative Beatty. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to make certain that I understand, because I've got some calls in the past about SNAP, ENT. In the past, voluntary participants were eligible on the program, and now they're
Speaker 14
22:50
no longer. Is that correct? So when we make the shift from voluntary to mandatory, we will shift and serve mandatory recipients only.
And that does go back to making sure we have funds and budget to serve
Speaker 8
23:03
those who have the requirement. So that is a change we're making. And that was a decision made at
Speaker 14
23:13
the department level? Well, yeah, I mean, yes. to maximize those resources and make sure that we have funds there to serve the mandatory recipients and not have to defer them because of lack of funding. So have we come up
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
23:28
with a plan for some of the voluntary
and how we can fill the void there and backfill some
Speaker 13
23:35
of that? We can take that back as a discussion point and talk about it, but we
Speaker 8
23:41
can also refer them to other programs potentially outside of the SNAP employment and training program. I'd
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
23:46
like to know what those other programs are. Do you have a list of those that you could
Speaker 8
23:53
share with the committee? Yes, there are programs through WIOA. There are other job training programs that are not SNAP employment and training related.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
24:01
Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you. Representative Garner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I've got a question about verification processes. Are we going to get there? or is that part of
the presentation, or can you tell me it's now a good time to talk about how participants are going to verify that they're working and they're doing all the things that they need to be doing? Is that an in-person kind of thing, or is that an online kind of thing, or do we know yet what the verification process will look like?
For SNAP? Yes, for SNAP and work requirements and
Speaker 14
24:36
all of the extra requirements. So in the SNAP program, we verify income. We verify if someone is disabled, we check data sources like Social Security to see if they've been determined disabled by Social Security. We also accept evidence that they turn in from a medical provider that says they are disabled or they are mentally or physically unable to work. So in SNAP, this is a verification process.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
25:06
Right, and I understand that part. It's the number of hours that they're working or the
number of volunteer hours that they're taking on, or who's going to verify that and how often are they going to have
Speaker 8
25:20
to do it? We get that verification at application and at recertification. If they're volunteering, they have to provide us documentation from the organization they
Speaker 14
25:29
do volunteer work for that documents. And how often does that have to be done? Our SNAP recertifications are, for the vast majority of our recipients, are every six months.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
25:41
So every six months, someone is going to have to come to you all and say, I'm working this amount of time, or I'm volunteering this amount of time, or something has changed? Yes. Okay. And to do that, they come in person
Speaker 14
25:55
to? They do not have to apply in person. Now, people can apply in person at a local office. They can send us applications by mail. They can apply online, by phone. But they all have
Speaker 10
26:08
an eligibility interview, which may or may not be in
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
26:11
person. Right. I understand the first one. I'm talking about afterwards, just that re-verification and the recertification.
How often are they going to have to, if they have a job, how often are they going to have to take off work to do that? Or do they have to? Can they do it online? Or are we making it easy for these folks to keep the jobs that they're in or keep the volunteer hours that they're maintaining, whatever it is they're doing to keep their SNAP benefits? Are we making it as easy as possible to
Speaker 8
26:37
make that happen? So the eligibility, the interview is a requirement. So we have to do that interview every time we take an application
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
26:43
or a recertification. So every six months they have to come in person.
Speaker 14
26:47
Okay. Well, they have to have an interview. It can be by phone. Okay. But they have to have an interview. That's good to know. Yeah. Yeah. It can be by phone. And we are able to offer, you know, before 8 o'clock or after 5, you know, after 5. Okay. Great. You know, for those individuals that specifically request. Yeah,
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
27:05
get at is what we need to be telling folks that they need to do to make sure that they're kosher with everything they need to be doing to meet their requirements.
Speaker 74
27:16
Yes, we do try to work with our clients.
Speaker 8
27:18
It is a requirement to have the interview, but it doesn't have to be in person, which can take longer. Like you said,
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
27:29
take off work, drive to a location, do an in-person talk as opposed to a phone call. One more, Madam Chair. And is that online and easily found, or can you make sure that we have that to send our constituents? To apply online? No, just the process of applying and then recertification and what they have to do to maintain those benefits, to make sure that people know that
they're working or volunteering or whatever, all the new requirements.
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
28:08
great. Thank you. Representative Barnett. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a question, and it's really as it relates to abled body, I think you referred to it as ABOD. Do you have any data currently on like the total percentage of recipients that would
be classified as ABOD? And then I want to know how many of
those ABOD are college students, just in general? So there
Speaker 14
28:40
are around 19,000 able-bodied adults without
Speaker 74
28:43
dependents, but I would like to confirm that number because the definition
Speaker 14
28:52
of what an able-bodied adult without dependents has recently changed based on this federal law because
Speaker 8
29:00
it also now includes parents with
children age 14 and up where they wouldn't have been included before. So I want to vet that number. I think that number is close, but it may be low because it may not include those parents that have now been added or the 54 to 65 or 64-year-olds that have now been added, but it's going to be around 19,000, possibly more, that are not exempt, that are not
Speaker 10
29:30
currently meeting the requirement or exempt.
Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
29:33
So my next question, if I may follow up, how will the work requirement impact students
that are in college that are receiving benefits that may not be a part of the ENT program? So being
Speaker 14
29:49
in school or college at least half time makes you compliant with the
Speaker 17
29:54
work requirement for SNAP. Thank you. Representative Beatty. Thank you, Madam
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
30:07
Chair. I just want to kind of follow up on what Representative Gardner was looking at, too, about the interview
process, and I had one of the other members want me to ask about how long that interview process takes, the timing of that. How long of an interview, and how long does that interview take? Well, it's going to vary a little bit depending on
Speaker 14
30:32
how many household members there are that we need to ask about. Let's say there are four household members.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
30:38
Four household members, I would give you an hour. An hour? About an hour. Okay. And then the question I wanted to ask, I want to get that one out of the way to begin with.
My question is going to go back on the error rates and the verification and the outcome of getting that information from that interview entered into the system because the other side of the penalty side of the error rates and where we have historically been in Arkansas, if I look at that right, that would be a 10% penalty on the average that we would have to pay once they start enforcing penalties.
What I would like, and you don't have to do it today, but maybe at our next meeting what I would like to request is that you make us feel better about your audit process and how you get information from that interview that's correct and into the system correctly. Because I think at one of the last meetings when we discussed this issue and we asked who was making the error, was it on the provider of the information or was it on staff and input? And I think you gave me a number of like maybe 63, 64% of the error
was in-house and not from the recipient side. So I'd like to know how you're addressing that, provide us a little oversight on that and how we get that information from the recipient in the system and make certain that that information is correct, especially if we're going to be repeating this every six months. If we've got that level of error rate, it just seems prime to repeat those same errors. So I know you've got some plan. you've been working on that because we don't want the penalty because it it wouldn't be fun for any
of us to sit around and talk about that um and i you know we're going into fiscal and looking at budget and i don't see that money in your budget so um that may be at the next meeting or if you want to talk about it now and share some some information there but i'm willing to give you a little more time to provide us a good response on that because i think it needs to be it you need need to share with us everything you're
Speaker 5
32:57
doing on this issue, because it's going to be very important. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question and the discussion on the error rate. It is at the
forefront of what we are trying to work on. I think we've tried to be very transparent about that. We will bring the plans. We are going to be judged on timeliness and accuracy, and so we are looking at every county office. We are looking at our procedures and our process, and how to quality check that almost on a daily basis so that we can address the offices that are doing it well and then take what they are doing well with maybe some offices that are struggling with their rate and see how we address that.
Speaker 99
33:39
But we're trying to break it down to the county office so that we can address it on boots on the ground. So yes, sir,
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
33:49
we will bring that back for y'all. And just a quick follow-up, maybe that'd be good, too, to see which offices are
the problems. Maybe that would be something for those of us that are in the room. If it's my office or one in my
Speaker 5
34:01
district, I'd want to know that. Yes, sir. I think we're looking at it or trying to look at it as a positive way of a little friendly competition from county to county.
That's how we're framing it. Madam Secretary, that's exactly
Speaker 59
34:13
the way I'd be looking at it, too. Yes, sir. Representative Nazarenko. Thank you,
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
34:24
Madam Chair. Thank you all for the information. I had a question kind of online with Representative Garner's,
but back to the Comparable Work Fair, that was the volunteerism Comparable Work Fair. Can you give me an example of what Comparable Work Fair is, what that volunteerism looks, and then kind of to her point, how would that be tracked?
How would that be, you know, quantified? and then making sure that it's, you know,
Speaker 8
34:50
tracked each, I guess, six months. So comparable workfare, that is more of an outdated terminology, but volunteering basically is the best way to understand what we do. But an individual participant can volunteer at a, you know, nonprofit, a church, state agency or local government entity and get documentation for us to verify that they
volunteered, how many hours they volunteered, so that we can use that in the case record to make sure
Speaker 44
35:23
they are meeting the requirement through that or a combination of that and some other activity.
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
35:29
Okay, great. And I think that was kind of my, you know, where I was looking at is like, what's going
to qualify the organization or whatever? How will that organization become, you know, part of that? Is it a city municipality that can come in and say we've got, you know, programs going on in the city and we could use
Speaker 52
35:46
volunteers and then those volunteers hours could be
Speaker 14
35:49
tracked as well? We don't assign those activities. Our clients can seek out and
secure that volunteer opportunity themselves and bring us back documentation where
Speaker 8
35:57
they're volunteering, who's the supervisor we could contact so that we have documentation in our record that they're meeting that requirement. Okay, great. Thank
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
36:05
you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
36:15
You're welcome. Representative Brown? I don't have a question right now. Thank you. Okay. I changed my mind. Okay. Representative
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
36:22
Rose, you're next. Thank you, Madam Chair. I had two questions. On page 18, you list the following
components. I'm not going to try and go through one, one, one at a time or anything, but I was just curious if you have any metrics on some of these for like number of participants that you've served who did supervised job search or who took basic foundational skills instruction or any number of those things. Some of those job search training, job retention, maybe you do have metrics. I don't know, but some of those I would think are definitely easier to track than others. And
so do you know if you have metrics on those now or is it something you
Speaker 79
37:10
could track moving forward? I believe this is information we
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
37:13
can get for you. And that kind of leads into my next question. I'm sure you're already on top of this and it's one of those when we're not on your side of the equation, we don't know how long it takes to aggregate at all these things, but you've got the FY24 annual characteristics, and it says the FFY25 are not currently available. Do you know when you'll have the FY25s?
Soon, very soon. Ballpark months, weeks, years? I think by the end of March. Okay, all right. Thank
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
37:55
you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation.
Thank you. Representative Beck? Thank you, Madam Chair. My question has to do with the annual outcomes. Do we track any of those by the vendors themselves, like what each vendor that you're utilizing?
What are their outcomes? I'm assuming this is the ones that you gave us is just everybody grouped together type of outcomes. Do you guys track them by individuals, vendors? Let me take that back. I believe that is something
Speaker 14
38:25
we could, if we know who completed the component, I think we can get to who was the provider that assigned
Speaker 44
38:31
them and worked with them for that component. So I believe that's information that we can provide. Just a follow-up.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
38:41
The other is I noticed that, just doing some really quick
math, that there is some, by participants, right, vendors, how much, and some of them, the highest, I'm rounding off these numbers, now the highest numbers were at about $4,700, and the lowest number was about $1,900 for the vendors, just the average cost for the vendors. And I was wondering, you know, if we had that data too, you know, So I'm always looking for what they call that one, the secret sauce, right?
You know, one of your vendors has that one piece that seems to make them perform above the others, one element or whatever. So I guess that's what I'm looking for there. But there are some discrepancies between the amount per participant, the cost per participant. So that and just, you know, I think the annual outcome, you might find that your highest vendor has got the best outcomes, right?
And, you know, which would validate that, but maybe not. And if we could get that data, it would certainly be appreciated. Yes,
Speaker 14
39:56
sir. You're looking for cost per participant by provider compared to how many
Speaker 8
40:01
clients they served, how many of those clients completed the activity they were assigned. Right. Okay. Kind of just putting all that
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
40:08
data again together. Thank you. Thank you. Representative Garner. Representative Garner,
Speaker 129
40:26
turn your mic back on, sorry about that.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
40:30
The question is about ABOD and who is actually in that database. Do we have age groups or when you're
talking to these folks, do we know how old they are, who they are, and the reason that they say they can't work or that they're not working? I'm wondering, I mean, I'm sure there are folks that are out there that just don't want to work or don't feel like they have to or whatever. But I'm also concerned about some of these smaller communities where they're just are
not jobs or what is the reason that they're giving that they're not working and what can we do to help with that? I'm sure there's some that just don't, but my guess is there are a lot of reasons that people aren't working. Do they not have transportation? Can they not get whatever the reason is? But I'm just wondering if you gather that
Speaker 14
41:25
data or if someone does. So the new definition based on the new federal law that was passed in July of able-bodied
adult without dependent for SNAP, they are 18 through 64 years of age. Previously, it was 18 through 54. Right. And they are also 18 through 64 with a child age 14 or older in the home with them. Right. So that's our universe. Now, within that universe of who is an ABOD, able-bodied adult
Speaker 8
41:56
without dependents, We then look at who's working already, who is compliant or exempt from the time limit because they are already
Speaker 14
42:04
meeting the requirement, who's in school, who is disabled, and all
Speaker 8
42:09
of those things, we would verify that status. As we make the determination, is this person meeting the requirement or not? Because if
Speaker 14
42:18
they're not meeting it, they can only be in the SNAP program for three months out of a 36-month period. Right. And then we have to take them off of SNAP or that's an
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
42:30
error. That's an accuracy problem. Right. And I understand that, but these 1,900
or what was it? Around 19,000. Yeah. These 19,000 people, how many of those fit in that category, fit in these categories and those that don't fit into those categories that actually are not working and don't fit into those?
you know, how can we decide, how can we determine the age group of that? I mean, 18 to 64 is, that's way too wide of range for us to figure out why they're
Speaker 14
43:02
not working. Okay. So I think you're asking for, could we give you an age breakdown of the individuals we've identified as ABODs in our SNAP
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
43:12
program? Right. So those folks that don't fit these other requirements.
Speaker 8
43:17
Those that are at risk. We call them the at risk. The group that's at risk because we can't identify an exemption or compliance for them for the at risk group.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
43:28
Right. What is that age group? Is it all old people? Is it all young people? There's a big difference in the reason, I think, that they're probably not working. and what is it that we can help them figure out how to meet some of these requirements as opposed to lose their SNAP benefits. Yes,
Speaker 79
43:48
ma'am. We can gather that. Thank you. Thank you.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
43:51
And I know U of A just put out a report. Arkansas Advocates has a report out. Feeding America has a report.
There may be some of that information out there somewhere else. But I trust y'all to have Arkansas's data. if you can get it. Thank you.
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
44:15
Senator Petty. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a constituent that's watching online, and they had a comment that maybe there, and someone touched on it a minute ago, but maybe there needed to be more
teeth in ensuring that they complete these programs. Do you have a thought or a comment on on what we could do to add more teeth so we don't have someone that gets halfway through a program, spends half of the $2,700 in employment training, and then quits just because they're tired of it or whatever. Do you have
any thoughts on our ability to put some teeth in finishing what you
Speaker 14
44:59
start? The shift to mandatory SNAP employment and training from voluntary adds more teeth.
Speaker 8
45:05
so to speak, to the process. Because if we determine that you're a mandatory participant and you don't accept the referral, you refuse it, then we go into what is called a
Speaker 14
45:16
sanction process. The first offense for that sanction is one month loss of eligibility. If you have a second sanction, it's six months loss of eligibility. If you have a third sanction, it's a year. So there will be more teeth. And the same would be true if someone says, I'm going to participate, and
they go to participate, and then they stop attending
Speaker 8
45:39
class or stop doing the things they're supposed to do to cooperate with the employment and training provider. There would be that same process. But the first thing we're going
Speaker 10
45:48
to do is find out, do they have a good reason? Is there a good reason why someone couldn't finish that training? Because there are things that happen, hospitalization, sick family member, death in the family, transportation broke
Speaker 8
46:02
down and had no way to get, there are things, we would look at that.
And then if there was not a good reason why they could not complete that, then that would evoke the
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
46:16
sanction process for that individual. Just one thought, that's good to know and to hear, and I agree that this should add some more teeth. But back to the discussion around the verification process. Do we do anything to verify that they really did have a death in the family or it was that uncle that has died four times? Is there any verification process in that?
Speaker 14
46:37
We would be looking for like an obituary or a program from the service.
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
46:43
So you do independently. It's not just an honor system. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay, it looks like we're ready
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
46:52
to finish the report. Madam Chairman,
Speaker 99
47:07
you're ready for us to move to community engagement?
Yes, ma'am. Okay,
Speaker 143
47:23
make sure. Thank you. All right, now we're
Speaker 8
47:41
topics and talk about Medicaid community engagement
requirements. community engagement requirements for Medicaid were also enacted by the One Big Beautiful Act back in July of 2025. They must be implemented, not just in Arkansas. This is a federal change nationwide. They must be implemented by January 1 of 2027. And it applies to individuals age 19 to 64, very similar to SNAP. And in Arkansas, this will apply to our home
category, our Arkansas Health and Opportunity for Me category, which is also referred to as the Medicaid expansion population. We have
Speaker 14
48:33
already been preparing for that change. It is a big change. The penalties for not implementing that could include loss of federal financial participation, which is funding that we use to operate the Medicaid program. So it's very
important. We will be in compliance and we're working very hard to get there. But community engagement, the goals are to help preserve the federal funds, to build skills for our Medicaid recipients, and help them to attain more economic independence, and also to help with workforce shortage issues. If there are able-bodied adults who receive these services, the goal of this and community engagement requirements is to help them get more engaged in the community and then
overall help them with their health and well-being, and also help with labor shortages, help our economy
Speaker 8
49:35
overall. So there are around 217,000 our home recipients, and they
Speaker 14
49:43
will be subject to community engagement requirements per the federal act. And they will either have to have engagement hours or be exempt, and I'll talk a little bit about how we'll verify that.
So individuals in our R-Home program between 19 and 64 will have to show that they're employed 80 or more hours a month, that they're doing work program participation in a work program or training program. educational program, or doing community service, but they will have to meet that 80-hour requirement. If they are exempt, some of the populations that may be exempt from the community engagement requirement include disabled veterans, caregivers, pregnant and postpartum women,
Speaker 8
50:37
and individuals determined to have special medical needs, medically complex conditions that prevent them from working. Verification, the verification requirements in the federal law, this is different. You all know that we had a work requirement back in 2018. This federal requirement is different in that even at application,
Speaker 14
51:04
we will have to be looking
to see if the person would have
Speaker 8
51:11
met community engagement requirements the month before application or been determined exempt. So that is something
Speaker 14
51:17
that is different than what we have seen before. In addition to that, we will have to verify every six months that the individual is either exempt or meeting work requirements. We are going to do that and CMS, the federal law
encourages us to do that, but we are going to do that as much as possible in a ex parte way. We're going to check data sources. Because we also do SNAP and we have SNAP in our system, we're going to see what verification we have in SNAP that would apply to community engagement for Medicaid. We're going to use data sources to see what we can verify about community engagement on the front end without having to ask the client, provide me some proof.
So that will be our first step in the process to see what we can get on our own through data. But we will also give the client an opportunity. They will always have an opportunity if we're not able to verify things through data to verify it themselves and provide that to us. We also have a plan, and we actually have a procurement, it is out for bid and proposals now, to procure a customer service center that will involve an outbound verification center process.
so that we will have a partner that after we try our ex parte verification process clients that we are going to have to ask for additional information. We are also going to engage this vendor to help make those outbound phone calls, texts, emails to help try and individually reach clients in addition to the official notice that we'll send out through our system. So we're going to have that vendor on board in attempting to assist clients, reach clients,
make sure they understand, and see how they can help them get
Speaker 8
53:25
the verification we need to establish that they are engaged in the community, meeting the requirements, or that they should be exempt because of some medical issue that they have. We have been working on this since around September of last
Speaker 14
53:44
year. We have a large part of our team working on policy, working on data, looking at what else we can add to the data that we check, what is reasonable for us to add,
what else can we add to help increase the ex parte verification so that we don't have to ask as much of our individual clients. We are planning to, this is such a big change, and it can have such an impact on our customers' eligibility. We are going to soft launch this in July of this year. The requirement and the actual penalties won't go into effect until January of 27, but we're going to soft launch this so that as we are communicating with our clients, we're going
Speaker 8
54:32
to check those data sources, and we're going to let them know if the requirement was in place today, here's what we know about you, that you're already working, you're meeting the requirement, or we've not been able to verify that you have, that you're meeting the requirement through work or school or a type of disability or medical condition we're aware of. If the requirement was in place, this is what you would need to do to show us that you're meeting the requirement. So we're
Speaker 14
55:00
going to have that process going on between July and December
to help our clients get ready and to help
Speaker 8
55:09
them know and understand exactly where they stand when January comes
Speaker 14
55:19
and this requirement is in effect. So we're drafting policy, we're drafting requirements for system changes, we are working with state longitudinal data system to see what data we can use through the data system that we already have in place.
And we are also working on communications and starting that process to educate not just our clients, but the community and stakeholders about what's coming and how
Speaker 17
55:50
they can help clients get ready. And so, I think at this point,
Speaker 25
56:03
we can take questions that you may have about Medicaid community engagement. Representative Garner, did you have a question?
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
56:13
A quick one, and I think you've answered most of it. So, this customer service person or group will start July 1st. Is that the first time that these folks will know that the changes are going to be made? or I'm just hoping that we can do that as early as possible so that they can make sure that they're doing the things that they need to do before January. Even July to January, that scares me a little bit to think that they can find work or volunteer opportunities in some of these places.
And maybe there's not that many that will need that. So
Speaker 8
56:51
our provider that we're in the process of procuring may not be on the ground ready to go in July, but there are other things that we will have in place as far as notifying them through our renewal process. We're going to have a media campaign. We are going to have meetings with stakeholder groups. We're going to be doing things similar to what we did
to prepare for the unwinding from the pandemic. If you recall, we did a lot of engagement outreach.
Speaker 14
57:21
We're going to be doing all of those things, including, you know, messaging to clients through the renewal
Speaker 8
57:28
process or the application process, if this requirement was in place today, you would either be meeting it, great job, or you would not be meeting it and we would need additional information from you. And here are things that you can do to make sure that you meet the requirement, you know, including volunteering, working, or if you have a condition that prevents you from working,
Or if you're a caregiver, you know, if you're a caregiver for someone outside your home, that can be hard for us to verify, especially, you know, if you're taking care of
Speaker 14
57:59
your mom and you're not getting paid, there's not going to be a data source that we're necessarily going to know that. So it's going to be about just educating as much as possible to help people know how they can get us the information we need and to learn as
Speaker 61
58:14
we go what other data sources we may be able to use to help with that process. Great. And if
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
58:20
you just let us know how we can get that information out as well,
that would be extremely helpful. Thank you. Yeah, I would
Speaker 5
58:28
just like to add we are working on the communication and the toolkits. We're working on landing page on our website with the details attached. We will bring those to you all also. Very much taking some of the lessons learned from unwinding on communication and multiple forms of communication and with all different groups. Anyone that will talk to us, we will talk to them. That is the approach that seemed to work really well during the unwinding, and we're going to use that approach again.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
58:58
Representative Beck. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question has just a little bit. I
do appreciate it. I think it's a great start this in July. That'll be great. But as far as the decisions that would be made, I'm talking about July or whatever, Where would those decisions be made, and I'm just going to preference that with this. I know some things when you're dealing with a local office, they say, wow, that goes to Little Rock, and then they'll tell us whether we have everything, you have everything you need.
So is that going to be like a local type deal where the people in the local offices will be able to say, okay, yeah, you are meeting the requirements, or you might want to take a look and provide us this additional information? So will that be local, or will that be something that was done in more of a
Speaker 14
59:50
centralized office? That's going to be a combination of things. And part of what will happen through these
Speaker 8
59:56
next several months is we will be promulgating a rule about how we will implement this community engagement requirement in the Our Home program.
The guidance from CMS is still evolving, and we really don't expect to have it all until June. So we are developing, making plans, implementing things based on our interpretation of the federal law and the limited guidance we have gotten so far. So we are also prepared to have to change some of that based on the actual full guidance that we get from CMS. But, you know, we will be developing policy.
The data sources we check, we'll consider them verified. There won't be anything for an individual to follow up on if we've determined that this is a data source that we can use and consider verified upon receipt. That data source will be telling us whether the person meets the requirement or not. But we
Speaker 14
1:00:56
will also have, staff will have to be involved, absolutely, in the process. this because if we're not able to
Speaker 8
1:01:06
verify things with data and client turns in information,
that information has got to be reviewed to determine does this meet the requirement. So if it's check stubs, those are pretty easy. They're either working enough to meet the requirement or they're not. If it's a medical statement, we're actually going to be developing an optional form for people to use. We won't require that specific form, but an optional form, if they choose to use that to help us streamline and is this person disabled or are they dealing with a condition that's
medically complex? They may not be permanently disabled, but they're going through chemotherapy. So right now, they're not able to work, and that was just an example. So it's going to be a combination of verified data sources and then verified information that clients return to us that are looked at and evaluated by a caseworker. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all so much
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:02:09
for your work and your effort to bring this report to us.
We look forward to hearing from you again next
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:02:25
Thank you. So, Representative Bentley and I will kind of go over the audit that we had completed by the Alliance for Opportunity, and you all have hopefully had a chance to read through that and some of the facts that are in there are really quite interesting and kind of gives us a roadmap of where we maybe need to be going.
So one of the things this subcommittee is tasked with in the legislation was looking at social work, social programs, and workforce development reform. So while we sat here today and talked about SNAP and Medicaid and those as programs, we We really haven't talked about employment first and these programs as support systems
to help people in there to get a job and to have a job. So we're probably talking about 165,000 people that we're going to be having come on here shortly. So I think the goal of the audit was really to look at what we're doing and what's successful and what isn't successful. We have some number of really good things going on in the state, but we also have had some programs that spend a lot of money but don't really produce any results.
And I think that we've spent probably 50 or 60 years with federal dollars coming in for all kinds of training programs and programs just like what we've been talking about, but people aren't any better off. So you have to ask the question about why is it we're spending all this money and how do we do a better job of that? So we have an opportunity right now with the federal government is really interested in some innovation and some new opportunities and ways to look at things in a couple of
different areas. One is this employment and making sure that people have the education and the training to be able to get a job, not just to be, to fill out the forms, but to have that. So what we have right now is the Federal Workforce Program, which is TANF, I mean TANF and SNAP, which is only a small percentage of people who are involved in that. And then the Department of Workforce Services that has WIOA.
And if you look through this book, I mean through our audit, But you will see that most of that stuff has just not been successful at all. We spend a lot of money, but we don't really produce a whole lot of results. And when we had the Zoom call with Nick Moore, who's the Assistant Secretary for Adult Education and all, one of the things that he was really talking about that the administration is looking at is how do we use these programs as part of a solution?
How do we look outside to our own state efforts to what we want to do for people who make sure everybody has an education and training? And that's starting right now in the fifth grade where we have children already learning about what those possibilities might be and we have those opportunities for our high school students to be able to do apprenticeships or to have work-based learning or all these kinds of things that are important for the future. And that's what we need to be thinking about,
is how do we build that talent pipeline for the future and use all the resources we have in the state to make that happen. In some cases, some of the programs that the people are going to don't really produce the results and they don't have all the options out there that they ought to have to be able to say, I can, this is something I want to do, rather than there's only four things that you get to do. One of them is truck driving.
We just gotta be able to move beyond that. And there's so many things going on in the state right now that people just don't know about, that all of these recipients should have an opportunity to take advantage of that. Anyway, this is a much bigger deal than I think we thought it was going to be in the beginning. And it's one of those things that I think Representative Bentley and I are hoping that will this committee and the administration will be able to work together to be able to come up with some solutions
and a vision for what we want to be and how we want to get there. So, Mary. Well, I just think we
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:07:08
have a very unique time where we have the federal government on board with us doing some new and unique things and us having an opportunity with workforce and with SNAP and all these things working together, we're really at a critical time. So I appreciate this committee and what we've got to do. We just need to look and see what we can do together. Again, we'll take the administration being on board and what can we do to take our workforce dollars and really make them work across the state.
Because I know that many of you, like me, are from rural Arkansas and there's great opportunities here in Little Rock, but there's not very many in Perry County and there's not very many in Saline County as much as they are here. So, I think it's really important for us to make sure that we're moving forward, but we move forward as a whole state. That's what I really want is to make sure that as we looked at the map that Alliance for us and a lot of our camp our state the only place in the county is a DHS office so that DHS office really needs to know what in the world is going on and what's available not just snap and ENT but what education is available in
that community so I think we have a really a good opportunity with online things what we're doing across the state we're really set to do I think to be a leader in the nation I believe that wholeheartedly but it's gonna take us working forward and getting a good plan moving forward I'm excited I think I've I've been this excited about anything since I've been here at the legislature to really do something that makes a true impact on those folks that have been trapped in poverty for generations. I'm really thinking it's a good opportunity. I don't want us to miss it, but it's going to take some hard work. So I appreciate all of you being here this late in the afternoon during the week.
I really do appreciate it. And we're doing a contract. Yes. So we are
looking at, I think you all would look at the $55,000 that we spent with this group. I thought it was really well worth it. that we've got, the audit that we've got gave us some really key information. So we'd like to consider doing a new contract with them to help us to move forward to make sure that we can get good legislation moved forward, get good, we'll have to have a lot of committee meetings moving forward to get with the agencies to get the agencies to do what they need to do moving forward. So we'll be looking at next month a contract to bring this group to us,
even through Zoom and through other ways to make sure that we get a great product so that in 2027 we're hitting the road running and it's going to really take some help from them. so we will consider our next committee meeting just extending that contract to them a little bit to make sure because we have such a narrow window right we've got to get this report done we're looking at a short amount of time so i think in order to really get a good product we're going to need some help to get it done so we'll be looking at that our next committee meeting to see if we get a little bit of help from them to make sure we get the final product where we need it to be
so if anybody has anything like to share or comments or suggestions we're all ears this is
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:09:43
exciting time. It can be an exciting time. You've all asked really good questions here about SNAP and the people that are in it. We've just got to figure out how we help. So the next generation that comes along, we have half as many people applying for SNAP or Medicaid as we have right now. And that's building a pipeline. And it's not just moving programs around, which was something we've done for years and years, we just have an opportunity to do something really new and innovative. So we need everybody's brain power.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:10:17
Yeah, I just want to say, I think we've done what we've done with learns and access has really paved the way when it's kind of, now we're getting those folks that have been left out
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:10:29
behind that we haven't captured. And make sure that all those programs that we're implementing now are useful on
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:10:34
into the future. Yep. Representative Brown, do you have something you want
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:10:41
to share? Well, I'm an alternate on this committee, but I want to say I'm really glad to be part of this committee, and I think this work is extremely important because if we are just
keeping people where they're at, we're not helping them improve their lives, we're not helping our state, we're not doing what we were sent here to do, and if we're not helping the people of Arkansas or people who are disadvantaged, we're just not doing our job, and I am very excited about what we're trying to do here, and I just want you to know, I think I'm tickled to death to be part of this. Thank you. Good. Thank you. Representative Beatty. Just a question.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:11:24
We just got this report in, correct? Yes. Has it been released publicly? Yeah. Or it has? Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 162
1:11:32
it's on the website. It's out there. It's been out there for almost a month. Okay. I just
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:11:39
didn't, I mean, I don't hear a lot of people talking about it.
No. And I think the information, if you look in the report, the information that's in this report is very eye-opening. It is eye-opening. And so I think the more people that invest some time reading this study, the more attention that this committee and our efforts with the other agencies will get the attention of those agencies.
Thank you. We agree. So I would encourage maybe staff or committee to make certain that this is sent out to all members, even those that are not on this committee, so
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:12:20
that they can review this. I think Caitlin sent it out to everybody. Oh, yeah, all
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:12:27
of the House members. Right, House and Senate, because I know it's out there on the website, but I think they've got this in an
email as an attachment. It draws attention to it and highlights the seriousness of the
problem we have in the state.
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:12:43
So, you know, it might be we've had a lot of time with other stuff, but maybe in our next meeting, we will sit and go through, or we could even have another meeting if people are interested in going through what was in, and whoever wants to show up, because we need a lot of legislators, not just everybody that's on the committee, but we need all kinds of people coming to the table, because we need everybody's thoughts and ideas. This is one of those things where
Four people can't get in a room and decide what the world's going to look like. This has got to be a lot of people coming to the table, and that's agency people, administration people, lots of folks, so we can figure out where we want to be and how we're going to get there. And we don't have a whole lot of time. Correct.
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:13:34
Thank you. Senator Petty. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I know it's late, and I'll be brief, but the thing that I like about this, and I think they refer to it as silos,
and why I think it's so important that we have full engagement of not just this committee, but to Representative Beatty's point, everybody, because the ladies do a great job at DHS and their team, they do a great job, but they're doing a great job administering their programs. We need us as a legislative body and the executive branch to focus on how can we take that piece and this piece and be more efficient or serve more people or just change the trajectory of so many people you're talking about.
So that's why I am excited about where we're headed. But it is going to take engagement. The ladies from DHS
and the other departments that we've talked, they can do a great job in their role, but we need to
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:14:31
look at the big picture as legislators. Because you're right. People inside of state government all run programs. and everybody loves their program and they're all tied to their program and that's wonderful and they do a good job but we need to get past thinking about programs
and thinking about what do we want to do and how do we bring those programs as the resources to help people not how do we just get people
to sign up. You're here. Okay. Anybody else? Thank you so very much for being here. This is really important. We're adjourned.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Overview of Current Status and Developments Regarding the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) [Exhibits B1-B3] 1. Janet Mann, Secretary, Department of Human Services (DHS)
C. Update of Reimbursement Rates Under the Living Choices Assisted Living Waiver Pursuant to Act 213 of 2022, Section 15 [Exhibits C1-C2]
D. Discussion of Final Report by Georgia Center for Opportunity [Exhibit D]
E. Discussion of Recommendations by Subcommittee
F. Other Business
G. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Senator Jane English
Unverified
Speaker 3
Speaker 5
Representative Mary Bentley
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Speaker 8
Speaker 10
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Senator Jim Petty
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Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
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Representative Denise Garner
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Speaker 25
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Representative Lincoln Barnett
Unverified
Speaker 99
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Representative Jason Nazarenko
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Speaker 52
Representative Ryan A. Rose
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Representative Rick Beck
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Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Speaker 162