Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee- House

Ninety. Accommodating us in this meeting as everyone I think your nose is my first time to tear Committee so I'm quite certain I'll be stumbling out of the gate a few times about the patient we'll get through it in the due course so or start by thanking you represent Ladyman after his service over the last two terms he's been a good mentor to me over a lot of things and he's service chaired this committee has been a well that in certainly appreciate all the time and effort and already he's been a good counsel to me and I know you continue to be to counsel me as I serve and try to fill those big shoes to the passage with thank you for all that service and working on this a lot of hard work appreciate all the time you put into it next electric this of my vice chair Sen here Mariah representing Miller can be glad to have him working as my right hand person in will be calling him regularly what we're gonna do is going to start off this committee may give me by chance introduce themselves and but I'd just for convenience sake work down the right side stood Flippo left come back down we'll start with representing Miller here by just if you just take a minute to introduce yourself tell you also about where you're from your baby everybody in the committee a chance to know you know kind of what your background is and we'll try to make this brief introductions as a way to start the committee. I am Richard Womack service trick ninety which is a tiny bit of Clark County now a little bit Hot Spring County little bit of Garland County this is thank will be my fifth time I was not on this committee last somebody my fifth time on public health I really enjoyed it I have a background in construction however my mom taught nursing for forty plus years so I felt like I was a good fit on this committee because I always had a outside place to go for information that was completely unbiased you know I've I've enjoyed my time here I'm glad to be back. The representative Jack Ladyman district thirty two that's Jonesborough up in the cricket county I've been on this committee every since I've been here for last four sessions chaired a couple sessions and William thank you'll do a great job looking forward to working with you thank you for the good job congratulations my background I worked for large corporations doing health safety environmental compliance for over thirty years and so I felt like I could use that experience here to help the state of Arkansas that's why serve on this committee. Just Gonzales District eighty nine live in Clark County Okolona to be specific population of I think a hundred two now maybe the former home wrecking organize just reminded the everybody knows Okolona either by deer hunting or Ricky Norton that's the only reason I recognize or they happen to pass by the sign on the interstate they think they know where it is but they really have no idea because it's a good ways off interstate. Anyway so I got of Clark County Pike County and of a county make up the majority my district I get I get a little bitty small pieces of the hot spring garden County. My name is Fred Allen I represent districts seventy in Little Rock this central Little Rock almost strong advocate for council legislation on the Council survival in I made a commitment that I will fight for cancellata station and also my background is that uh years ago I worked in medical sales for Abbott laboratories I work full for three or four years and also worked for a company called trans medical to develop a laser devices all blew up about using Landsat and currently I'm a contractor and photographer and I look forward to serving the people of the State of Arkansas. Thank you Mr chairman but as Mark Perry in district sixty six which is part of Jacksonville little rock Air Force base down towards North Little Rock in the Jefferson County line of been thirty seven years in insurance and financial services and the business owner and. I had a beer. Cantor board district twenty three which is west Washington County I'm a freshman first term so excited to be on this committee and I know that I'm going to learn a lot my background is consumer product marketing and I own my own business now or I'm a contractor so excited to serve. Hello everyone my name is Zach Graham like a state representative Fort Smith district fifty I have a background in education I've been a teacher at a middle school for seven years now and I have two and a half week old baby at home so I'm ready got here. Thank you Mr chairman names Gerry Wooldridge and I serve northeast Arkansas Greene County Clay County Randolph County and I believe that all selection should be made off district I'm district number one seniority ninety seven. I think for me here I am I've got a background in behavioral health I'm a licensed mental health therapist aren't Development Council in Jonesborough my wife is a B. as in as been health care for a long time we have two sons Jackson knocks. Thank you Mr I'm Scott Richardson I'm from district thirteen which is up in Northwest Arkansas Bentonville Rogers my background is a lot of different things technology for the most part but I've also dabbled in Education of also dabbled in construction and farming and a lot of other things so I'm on this committee because the I was told was the fun Committee so I'm looking forward to that. Thank you Mr chairman name is Ryan rose I represent District forty eight which is Van Buren a little bit of Fort Smith I'm a pastor in a small business owner and I'm excited to be here. Thank you Sir my name is bart Chilton from district twenty eight I'm a freshman I have roughly half of stone Lawrence independence and short counties very rule area. fifty generation farmer spent twenty plus years working in the chemical industry for the last eight years I have been the general manager of the nonprofit ambulance service been in EMS for twenty eight who roughly years of love the years that I was in the chemical industry I was in the health and safety field working first responder type stuff excited to be here. Everyone I am a representative Aaron Pilkington I represent district forty five which is Johnson County and Polk County which has Clarksville the jewel of the river valley in it so is my third time being a public health that's like you know I don't run a lot of controversial legislation so I'm sure I'll be pretty quiet session. The left that harken not. I've got a beautiful wife Emily and two sons Aaron Michael and Benedict David who we named after the late pope Benedict thank you. Yes good morning Ken Ferguson here District sixty four which is parts of Jefferson and Lincoln initiate County my background is in human resources spent twenty eight years as human resource director for the city of pine bluff and state government that was sent direct to workforce investment board so we're happy to be here this is my second time on this a committee. Thank you chairman representative Mary Bentley this is my fifth term to be I guess I'm a glutton for punishment can to be honest committee but it I'm happy to be here I serve district fifty four pretty much totally new for me my district change ninety percent from last session of the session so now I have Faulkner Salim Perry and yell county in my district I am a graduate from Harding with the BSN of couple of decades ago but if you so I worked at children's for a about fifteen years and I have been the owner and operator for Bentley plastics injection molding company for a couple of decades as well anyway I'm happy to be here good six beautiful grandchildren so that's or here to fight for to make Arkansas better so happy to serve for the. Good morning I'm representative Steve McGee I'm from Conway district fifty six it's pretty small district kind of probably about as big as representive Allen's District is I'm sorry my six term for those of you that don't know me I'm down on Faulkner County is landslide McGee I won my last election by ten votes. I am a practicing physician in the state of Arkansas I have spent in ophthalmology with the sub fenced in retinal disease tree primarily patients with diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration this is I'm glad to be here again this year and look forward to a good session thank you Mr chair yes thank you to everybody and for those who don't know me I'm as representing district forty seven that said Greenwood Lavaca Hackett bonanza I'm a practicing emergency medicine physician of practice here in the state of Arkansas for twenty five years is my third term and second time on public health and I just listened everybody's introductions and excited to have this committee together this great group of people and we're gonna do a lot of good working to try to remember you can hear me without holding mama click this again I'm going to pass around a seat for everybody's phone number I think I may have a base everybody case we don't we're gonna create a text group in case there's a reason for me to reach out to the group as a whole to let you know about meeting that's coming up or if there's some sort of dinner that staff hosted this is a good way for us to communicate that way so if everybody can just put their cell phone number will go down this and come back the other way this is meant to just be an organization meeting just give us a chance introduce ourselves wanna make sure bays where some of the rules that are out there for us in this committee summit summer specific to legislation passes committee before getting that will make sure introduce our staff we have two attorneys are not here today who works specifically with public health committee just building Cassie how I think a lot of us have been here before no both of them well for the new members if you don't I could you go and meet them they'll be here most of these meetings with the certainly helped us with the legislative questions are tourney's our staff members here case still sent to my left she's already been a great resource me as many of us have been before now she's got some big shoes to fill Phil has left that's been was a great year for many many years I have no idea how many Jackie ninety years forty years served in this capacity is so great great loss to get for him for being able to go on and. I have a little retirement enjoy himself in so far Kate said keep me on track and doing a good job in the Donna Chaisson back here to my right will be the other staff member helping us so make sure you get to introduce yourself to them if you have any questions and I'll be happy to help you we will play it we will be have scheduled meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays they'll be at ten o'clock in the morning there will be times in this committee I suspect we're are burden of agenda will get big enough that will need to meet more than once in a day and that'll bit call the chair will will make sure everybody gets heads out of we're gonna need to have separate meetings and they'll be on adjournment in the afternoons on Tuesdays and Thursdays we'll try to make that happen is as little as possible but at the same time it's important I think that we keep our agenda as clean as possible to and so if we're seeing a you know if if I perceive that we get a little backlog of bills don't be surprised if we end up Collins meetings will make sure you plenty of notice for that indigenous for these meetings to prepare two days in advance so um. What will make sure that everybody has a chance to see that agenda that's part of the rules sponsors will get notifications when the bills have been referred to this committee and so that those things will automatically roll on to the once they're added to the dentist to be able to see those on the Arkansas for sure if you have an amendment and I know that I'm speaking the committee members there's anyone to bring bills committee but if you have an amendment to a bill please get it to staff before the meeting if you can If you have a bill that's called the process in this committee will be if it's on the agenda will call the members that's the sponsor and say Hey you're if they're here are you ready right if they're not here we'll pass over it I think it's passed over three times it'll move down to the deferred agenda this is the process is in place for those with her familiar with that before the last session we have some different rules in place for the last session because of covid we're going back to the old process so if the US of this passed over three times to go down to the deferred agenda if someone wants to didn't get it back on the regular agenda be heard they'll need to come to me is the chair and say Hey I'm ready to hear this bill moved from the deferred agenda back up to the regular agenda That there are a couple of special things about bills that come to this committee and want to scope of practice so there is a filing deadline for scope of practice bills first most of records have dependent ISP file in before the deadline in December I don't over the date and now they're they have to be filed within fifteen days of the start of the session I'm told that the deadline for scope of practice bills is still January twenty third so if you have a bill that you think you scope of practice that has to be filed before January twenty third it then has to lie dormant for fifteen days before can be heard so the first chance that we'll be able to hear a scope of practice bill will be sometime around February eighth traditionally those bills have been heard in scope we cried we had a pretty heavy burden of scope bills traditionally in this committee it's possible this session amount I have quite as many scope bills if my perception is one that I have and Big Bird disco bills we may try to hear some of those bills as we go along certainly if you have a scope of practice bill that you do not feel is very controversial for whatever reason you can bring that to me would be happy to hear that whatever the representative focuses just announced herself. I'd like to read about it we had a chance resume first for about introduce themselves I understand reasons obviously relate no problem we give you a chance you would just take a minute just looked at leadership to the committee led by New York thanks a a strongly strongly recommend ways before you hit the record because that second let a Brinkley erect yeah I'm Deborah Ferguson I'm from West Memphis I represent part of creating any part of St Francis County and this is my sixth term mon Public Health. Thank you in members there should be a sheet in front of you to give some of these dates the other thing this new this session and it is ACT eight twelve was passed through the fifth act eight ACT one twelve was passed in fiscal session correct seven special yeah so this is a bill that says essentially if you have a bill that could impact the employee benefits division it's going to require a financial impact statement and there's also filing deadline for those bills so the way I understand that process working again this is a new process because this is new law that's been enacted the filing deadline for those bills I'm told is now January twenty seventh so if you have a bill that in some ways can impact cost to an insurance provider it's likely to trigger a need for a fiscal impact statement the way I understand that to process to work is you're gonna follow bill. I'll be notified by bill our staff this bill requires a fiscal impact statement once I've received that notification I'll be reaching out directly to the sponsor to say are you wanting to run this bill if you are then I'll record you say yes absolutely I filed I want to write it okay I'm going to then notify bill our staff they will request from this golf group which is the consulting this been hired by the General Assembly to do the fiscal impact statements they will request a fiscal impact statement from that group there's that group on the data so they're gonna ask for data from EVD and anyone else that they need data from to be able to in an educated fashion create the fiscal impact statement those bills cannot be heard until after the filing deadline and after we've received the fiscal impact statement. I will make everyone aware if they have one of those bills my plan right now we have about fourteen bills have been referred to this committee at this point I think six of which are gonna require fiscal impact statements so that's going to create a little bit of a slower process in the sense that a lot of these bills that would not to go ahead be hearing we cannot hear by law into that fiscal impact statements back in that's going to be require several steps from several different entities that we don't necessarily have control over so my plan right now is to keep those bills off the agenda I'd like to have a clean agenda where everyone can see how these bills a petition be heard yes represent ballot for questions. Thank you Mr chairman is there a time frame on the fiscal impact statement to be returned to us the to my knowledge there is no time frame. Itself the time frame is when Seagal tells as they can get it back which is five to ten business days but I don't think there's a statutory requirement tied to the time frame which shall come back representative later I'm sorry thank you Mr chairman I talked to the representative of the F. and they the other day well yesterday I think it was and he said they already are swamped with these requests so if you need one of those I was just to do it right away yeah it represents Allen you had a follow up question even interruptions yes thanks for the follow so that's a strong possibility that if you have a good bill are great bill you may never get a chance to run that built the impact statement done come back death I think that's a slim possibility I think the expectation of the General Assembly is the consultants we hired will do business in the fashion so we have expectation I'm sure contract with this call group to get these impact statements back if they're not coming back in a timely fashion I can assure you I'm gonna be pressing that issue as I think all of us will so I think our expectation is we're gonna get these fiscal impact statements back my anticipation right now is to start requesting them in a rolling fashion as soon as I know that we need one and again I'll be coming to you individually to make sure you understand why we've seen your bill it's in the queue or wait on fiscal impact statement but you're not going to see those bills on the agenda right now now I'm open to changing that process again this in the process for all of us but my preference is to have a queen agenda that would people can see this is the public they know these of the bills that may be hard and these are the bills that are referred it I'm I'm worried if fifty percent of our bills almost now are waiting of fiscal impact statements that we could really quickly clutter up our agenda with bills that we can't even here yet so that that out of the gate that's gonna be my process again open to suggestions as time goes by just coming RepresentativeHouse. I think in the past some of the scope bills have been listed on the agenda but they had been put under a different better that said these are scope bills that can't be heard till so I'm thinking do something like similar so the people are aware that the bills are out there that are filed that they've been sent to committee but they I'm happy that M. it but if you get I mean I can see a time where agenda then gets to be three four pages long I don't I don't know it. We'll we'll we'll work through this as we go I certainly see your point I think that may be a valid point maybe we start out with that process but we just I think we need to be open minded had changed against committee for all of us as we work to. For the first. I think if there's it's a probability that not many of these insurance bills that require fiscal impact will actually come to public health they probably will go to insurance that as it stands right now we have a we have our fair share into at least one of these bills a scope of practice that also requires fiscal impact so we certainly have six of six of the fourteen. Five of the fourteen that are gonna require fiscal impact so we'll just see what see how they can they're not about insurance reimbursement I mean are they there I think that so again I'm not the one identifying these for fiscal impact statement as I read some of these bills I think they have the potential impact cost and so but yet at the same time I think they're probably referred to this committee because the content is generally public health related not specific to thank you to see these bills about this year's commerce and public health yes at the age the ideas I just thought when we pass that with the B. day that monitor the consequences of good intentions. jails have any questions on that process. Right did you audit we'll just all be patient he chose work that will make sure figured out a way that base happy with if you have people that are coming so some as representative to wing of representative yesterday on the floor we will have a lot of bills come through are of general similar a lot discusses Committee the majority of these bills will not be controversial the murder majorities bills would bills we can work through pretty easily but there will certainly be as representative Pilkington reference some bills that create a little bit of a star in this committee if you have a bill that you think is going to create a stir or you have a bill where you have people come to town that you want to testify please make sure I'm aware of that we want to be respect I certainly want to be respectful of the time the citizens to come down here that want to have a voice heard that are coming to present I want to make sure we're doing the best we can to keep ourselves on schedule accommodate those people so if you have witnesses coming to testify please let me know so we can make sure we try to be respectful of their time I'll do everything I can to try to front load the witnesses so that they can get in here and get testify done in in any any any opportunity we can to try to just them to do that if you have one this particular controversial obviously we can put that on special order and create is a time for that so if you have a bill like that please let me know. This the bills and. Okay fair enough See that we do and the I have a note in here to recognize in introduced representation the very sage organizations such as a lot of people in the room I see a lot at all after like if we start going around the room and introduced everybody we can turn this into a exceptionally long meeting I'm gonna take that I'm gonna say to anyone in the room that wants time for this committee to introduce themselves please approach me we can carve out time in the early part of the session for you to come let you reduce yourselves there's already been a couple of agencies approached me about have that opportunity welcome to commentate everyone but I'm and I'm not I'm not gonna take the liberty to have everybody in the room in and say hi to everybody we're getting close of covering everything is or anything we Mr. Any other business and anybody other questions about the business committee may want to bring up.