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- October 5, 2026
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0:00
Thank you.
Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, members.
if you'll take your seats we'll go ahead and get this thing this
meeting started I call the peer subcommittee of council to order we chair sees a quorum will begin
with item B thank you mr. chair we're in
William Parrish
Unverified
5:25
section B these are various temporary appropriation requests the first item is a letter from the Department of Education, Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. This
is for $32 million in appropriation. It's to cover the total expected need of eligible students for the 25-26 school year in the Educational Freedom Account program. This is to be supported by a restricted reserve fund transfer that will be requested later in the agenda. For the community's information, this is the second transfer for the program. A $90 million transfer was approved at the beginning of the year from a set-aside account that was created for this purpose today's transfer would come from the various general discretionary account next item b2 is a letter from department of public safety state crime lab this is for 476 000 appropriation
this is to purchase health and laboratory supplies it's supported by fines paid to the dna detection fund uh last item is b3 this is a letter from dfa assessment coordination this is for 90 000 of spending authority this is to cover cost increases in contracts it's supported by ad valorem taxes. Let's share those with the three various temporary preparation requests on the agenda. All right members has been the routine here in
the past I'll just go to beat each one of those items if you have a question hit your
light at that time. Are there any questions on B1? B2? represent Garner
Chair
Unverified
6:54
represent Garner do you have a question okay B3 represents
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
7:13
Cavanaugh you recognized for a question thank you if
I could have the agency come down please someone from the definite DFNA
Speaker 17
7:29
come to the table please if you would please identify
Speaker 20
7:36
yourself for the record mr. chair members of the committee I'm Sandra Collier I'm the director for assessment coordination division
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
7:44
represent Kavanaugh, you're recognized for your question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The request for this transfer
states that it's because of the
higher contract cost. And so my question is, it's a contract and you have a set price. How did we go over that
Speaker 20
7:58
contract price? We have, it is a scaling contract and it is the, we purchase data for all the counties to use to value vehicles and also to use on real property values and it is a it scales up and we actually had to renew the one for cotality this past um two months ago and it just was it just came in a little bit more than what
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
8:24
we were expecting okay did that contract have to come
Speaker 20
8:30
through review i do not believe so i believe it's considered a commodity okay
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
8:35
and on these contracts like you're paying to value vehicles and how much is that contract representative kavanaugh i do
Speaker 20
8:46
not know the number but i'll be happy to get that for you this afternoon if
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
8:50
you can get that for me i'd appreciate it
you're very thank you really well absolutely seeing no other questions without objections these items will be
William Parrish
Unverified
9:01
approved item C's Thank You mr. chair we're in section C these are American Rescue Plan Act requests there's one item on the end on the agenda is for Department of health, epidemiology, and laboratory capacity. It's just for $1. This is returned unused funds to
the CDC. All right, members, any questions on C1?
All right, seeing none, do I have a motion? Senator
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
9:47
Irvin, you recognize for a question? I'm just curious. on the one dollar that we need to return how much money is that going to cost us
to return the one dollar you don't have to answer that just i just never in my life had seen something come
before us for a dollar so appreciate that okay got it thanks all right seeing no other questions so i
have a motion to approve this item have a motion a second and a second all those in favor say aye opposed say nay item is approved thank
William Parrish
Unverified
10:25
you mr. chair we're in the section D of the agenda this is a restricted reserve fund transfer request the first one is D1 it's a letter from Department of Education Division of elementary secondary education this is a $32 million transfer it's from the various general discretion a majority vote set aside the appropriation was requested earlier in the agenda this is for the educational freedom account
program the next item is D2 this is a letter from the Department of Energy Environment Division of Environmental Quality this is a 2.5 million dollar transfer it's from the various general discretion majority vote set aside account it's according to the letter these funds will support used tire program reimbursements and other costs associated with the used tire program this is the same request as last month however the letter has been updated to stipulate that funding will will not be used to reimburse or remediate any tires the Jefferson County processing facility
All right members any questions on d1 Representative
Cavanaugh you're recognized for a question. Who do you need need the agency? Have somebody from the
Department of Ed come to the table.
Please identify yourself for the record. And Representative Kavanaugh, are you recognized for your question? Courtney Salis-Ford, Department of
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
12:03
Education. Daryl Smith, Department of Education. Greg Rogers, Department of Education. Thank you all for being here. My question is, how many students are
Speaker 41
12:11
we currently funding through these accounts? 44,137, I believe. 124,000, did you say? 44,000. 44,000.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
12:18
I couldn't hear you. 44,000. I'm like, 124,000? Okay. When we were first talking, and I support the education funds. I mean, people need to go where they can best get their child educated. But in the same breath, I'm going to say we do have a budget. we do have limited funds and when we first started going talking about these education funds personally I was told that we were never going to hit 28,000 that just never was going to happen
it was never going to be we were going to have to fund more than 28,000 students and that's that's kind of where we set our money that we were looking at in the budget I was told that repeatedly by the agency on numerous times. You're now saying it's at 44,000 and it will continue to grow. My biggest concern is how we're going to fund this going forward. I realize we're currently funding it outside the RSA, but I realize that that can't continue. It has to be part of the RSA
going forward. We can try to take it out of restricted reserves like I think in 24 after this request we have taken out 122 million dollars out of reserve different reserves to go ahead and pay for these accounts as someone looking at the budget and worrying about the budget and how we're going to fund these things and we all have different priorities that we want to fund how are we going forward to be able to fund this amount of money through the RSA what are we going
to cut out of the RSA to be able to fund this? Or are we just going to fund these for one year and say, I'm sorry, I don't have the money?
Speaker 45
14:05
Thank you, Representative Kavanaugh, for the question. I mean, I really feel like that's probably a little bit outside the scope of our ability to speak on. I don't know if you would like Secretary Hudson to come up. Whoever can answer will be great.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
14:23
And just one thing, if I might add, because I don't want to
give any precedent that we're going to punt the rights to draft RSA to the executive branch. So in a lot of ways, that's going to be a question for ourselves on what we do and what we include in RSA. You know, speaking to the $90 million that was in restricted reserve, that was intentionally outside of RSA, but also well within anticipated revenues in that year. so we weren't going to be needing to cut something else.
That was intentional. The $32 million that we're talking about today is on top of that as additional funding for the program just based on participation. But as a body, and again, not to take away from anyone else's authority, we draft RSA, and I do not want anyone to have a misconception that
we would ever forgo the ability to draft RSA. They're going to propose to us a budget, and we look at that budget, and we dispose of that budget. But ultimately what comes out will be something from the legislature. Thank you,
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
15:24
Senator. I understand we're in charge of RSA, but we fund so much stuff out of RSA.
And when we tell ourselves that we've got a balanced budget, we're lying to ourselves and to our constituents. So if you could answer that, Senator, I mean, Secretary, if you could give me some light on how we're
Chair
Unverified
15:42
going to move forward. Yeah, I don't agree with the statement that our budget is not balanced. Our budget is
Speaker 55
15:47
balanced. I don't know how one can say that it's not. It is balanced. So the governor will be submitting a proposed balance budget according to the timeline that's been set out. We'll get that to you well ahead of fiscal session.
She will include the EFAs in her proposed balance budget, and we'll follow the same process we always follow in terms of going through the legislative process and deciding what ultimately will get funded for the state's budget. This is a priority for the governor, and it will be reflected in that. We have one-time money for this fiscal year. We're not proposing to use one-time money next year. It'll be in the RSA. That's what
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
16:25
I'm asking. So you're looking at a way that you're going to take these counts
and move them from one-time budget out of reserves into the RSA. Well, I mean, that's what I'm asking is a lot of times we'll take and set aside this money for special fundings or whatever. Sure. But this is not a special funding. This, as you said, is a priority for the governor. Sure. And it really should be, in my opinion, part of the RSA because it's going to be a continual spend that we have to look at funding in the state. So $187 million currently
Chair
Unverified
16:58
is in the RSA. So most of it is already in the RSA.
An additional $122 million is coming in through
Speaker 55
17:04
the one-time funds for FY26. That additional one-time funds, $122 million, will be imported in the RSA for the next fiscal year. So we're looking
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
17:12
at, what, about $300 million, somewhere around that? $310-ish. Okay. All right. And in the beginning of all this, you know, like, again, we kept being told that this was going to be controlled by the budget. And my frustration is it has not been controlled by the budget.
We have still expanded and still expanded, and we're asking it to come out of one-time funds. And although I support this 100%, I just want to make sure that we don't get the state into an area where we, and quite frankly, we're going to be there anyway, that we have to make some really tough choices. As you said, what are we going to prioritize to be able to fund? And we're fast approaching that. And I just want to make sure that as we go forward that we realize that those choices that have to be made,
that taking money out of one-time restricted funds to fund something that's an ongoing expense is not the way for the state to state in a balanced budget. And that's my biggest concern with this. Don't disagree. I mean, that's what a budget's
Chair
Unverified
18:15
all about, is having conversations about what priorities are and how you're going to meet your priorities. And so,
Speaker 55
18:20
again, I think as we get into the fiscal session, we'll be very transparent about what the governor thinks her priorities are. I think she's been talking about it. There'll be nothing new there, really. and we'll talk about what will be in the budget from her perspective going the next fiscal year.
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
18:39
Senator Hickey, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mine's for the agency. Just a question here in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. I believe they reported some questionable items. I believe that audit found. I'm not going to go
into that. However, it made me start thinking, and I'd just like to see how we're handling this. So if a parent student, if they request a computer, would that be like an approved use for these funds, I assume, for technology?
Speaker 69
19:12
Yes, sir. Obviously, the law states where the qualifying items are,
Speaker 70
19:15
and then the rules kind of expand on that a little bit. So certainly computers and those type of supplemental items that would enhance a student's education would be included as an eligible item. Okay.
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
19:28
And this is my question because of what we've seen with some of those suspicious items. Whether or not they were mistakes or not, again, it led me to start thinking. Of course, if you're, I guess, a public school or even any type of state agency, You're required to document, I believe, and
to keep your serial numbers so that inventory can be done on those particular things.
What safeguards, and it would seem hard to me, what safeguards do we have in place that if somebody goes, we approve them to do a $2,000 computer, they go to XYZ retailer and buy that, we approve it, they get the money. What keeps them from returning that and just putting that money in their pocket? It's an excellent question,
Speaker 70
20:19
and certainly we're putting as many of the controls as we can on those type of items.
Would we find out immediately when a student returns it? Probably not right on the first end immediately, but we do have new reporting in place that has come through this body and some reporting through the ClassWallet platform that will allow us to start looking for those types of things where if a family chooses to buy another item or multiple items so that what we're doing, we're looking for anomalous activity or things that are out of the ordinary so that if a student would buy another computer,
so if we see a system or a pattern of a family or a student buying multiple computers, that would flag on our end which would then lead to an investigation of whether or not uh those the items are being
Speaker 69
21:11
used appropriately and in that in that particular
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
21:14
case for that for that particular item capital item whatever we want to call it whenever the money does flow to them at that point that's no longer the property of of the state or anything like that that is just automatically their property
is that correct that is correct sir okay mr chair whenever it's time to vote whenever it's time to to vote on this, and I'll have some questions on the next, I would
appreciate a minimum of a voice vote. Thank you. Yes, sir. Senator Love, you recognize? Thank
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
21:47
you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for allowing me to ask the questions since I'm out on committee, but I wanted to just get a clarification from Mr. Hudson in regards to some of the numbers he said moving forward in funding the EFA accounts.
Mr. Hudson, did I understand you to say that it was going to be, once we fund the efa accounts in rsa it's going to be about 310 million dollars moving forward
Chair
Unverified
22:17
it the sum of the transfers plus what's in the rsa for fy 26 is about 310 million dollars as to what the amount will be for fy 27 we'll have to go through that analysis it will be
something like that that there'll be some people who probably come out of the program some new people will come in the program there'll be you know in terms of the category fundings as well will change so the exact number for next year's rsa i can't give you at this point but that will be in the governor's proposed budget in the next few weeks
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
22:57
chair senator ervin you recognize thank you mr chair thank you last week in joint audit in the education subcommittee we had a report university
of arkansas systems had done an internal audit and
had found where students had falsified fafas and received federal funding that weren't enrolled and it just as we so i have two questions number one i know that we had we passed legislation to tighten up on some of the EFAs have you seen any change in utilization due to that legislation that's my first question well certainly we
Speaker 39
23:35
again we verify every student that comes through so
Speaker 70
23:39
once the application is done that they they no money is received by a student unless they are verified enrolled in a private school or they have a verified notice of intent to homeschool and so we verify that every quarter to make sure there's still an active notice of intent or that they're still actively enrolled in a private school if those if one of those two conditions exist then we fund so we
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
24:04
always fund after we verify so if you if you verify and they're notified of being homeschooled then is that is that all that's required or is there a curriculum purchase
that's required to trigger the reimbursement well
Speaker 39
24:17
every every submission is reviewed by our staff so anytime any reimbursement submission or invoice comes
Speaker 70
24:22
in we will review those expenses and based on the eligibility of the items that are on the on the receipt itself as well as as they apply to the ordinary necessary criteria that we have employed to determine whether or not an item even though it may be an eligible item it may or may not be ordinary necessary based on a reasonable
cost and so we both we look at both a cost framework as well as does it actually supplement or enhance the education of that particular
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
24:56
student right so my but my question was as it relates to a child that is homeschooled i realize that if they're in private school it's easier right it's a direct line of sight that we know that that tuition is getting submitted and used private school education my question was on homeschool you said and when they
file notice of intent to homeschool is what then allows for the release of the funds is that correct well it allows
Speaker 39
25:24
for release of the funds into their account but funds aren't been distributed from their account unless it's been for
Speaker 70
25:30
an approved item and we do keep track of the type of items so if we see a homeschool student spending a significant portion outside of core curricular activities whether that's curriculum or supplements to that curriculum then that's going to flag on our end which will then trigger at least some questions to the family of how that money's being spent and
why that money's not being spent necessarily on core academics. Okay Ms. Salis
Speaker 45
25:57
Ford did you have something to add? Well
Speaker 38
26:00
and I was just going to add once a student is deemed eligible through their notice of intent just like if it is with a private school there are no required purchases to Mr. Smith's point they have that amount of funds available in their account and they can then best decide how they want to expend those account that those funds as long as they're in eligible use most of the expenditures are through the marketplace so there are no funds going directly
to the parent or and it's not even a reimbursement the funding goes directly from the account to the vendor that the parent has selected that item from there are some instances where we will reimburse and again as Mr. Smith stated there's a process for the parents to submit all of the documentation as to what the purchase is for why and why they needed that for their students education and why it needed to be a reimbursement and not a direct payment
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
26:48
to the vendor. Okay so there's no requirement for a curriculum
to be purchased if they are homeschooled. That is correct. Okay and and are
you checking on the back end my case that I brought up from audit as to any kind of as it relates
Speaker 38
27:08
to fraudulently I mean yes we have many yeah safety precautions and guardrails in place through the administration system through Mr. Smith's staff review of expenditures we are constantly cross-checking to make sure that there's not duplicate enrollments between the EFA program and public school can we say that we're going to prevent every instance of potential fraud
that's not possible it's not possible with any program but we have multiple guardrails in place and continuously checking and auditing to try to avoid and catch any of
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
27:41
those and the last question is did you see any utilization change and as it related to the legislation that was just recently passed that changed some of those restrictions and made them a little bit more uh set a little bit more tighter parameters did you see any change in utilization we
Speaker 38
27:59
really didn't and that was kind of difficult to do because this was the first year for full implementation. Um, the first two
years, not only was eligibility restricted, but use of the funds was restricted. And so the parameters that were put in statute, um, really did not come into effect until this third year when eligibility became universal. Right. That makes sense. Thank
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
28:30
you. Representative Kavanaugh. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is, you know, we're all hearing these crazy stories about what got funded through the education counts.
You hear news stories on them. You hear people talking about them. In your audits of what they're asking for being reimbursement, how much are you catching that are really just outside that they're asking for this? Because we hear all kinds of crazy stuff. They're paying for vacations, paintball, whatever. How much of that is really going on, and how much of that do you all actually see? Well,
Speaker 41
29:01
we see everything that comes through, because nothing comes through the office without it going through an approval process. And so I would also, I guess, encourage you not to believe everything that you read,
Speaker 70
29:11
because there are some things that certainly have been misrepresented maybe in some of the articles that have been presented here recently. I will say to the question directly, though, is that our staff looks at every invoice, every marketplace purchase, every direct pay vendor purchase, and within the best that we can do, with the best of our ability, ensure that those things that are purchased are to benefit the students' educational outcomes.
And so we work really hard at that. Again, to Courtney's statement earlier, are we going to catch 100% of everything that comes through? Probably not. But it's certainly our goal to make sure that we can justify every approval that we make in this program. Okay. Thank you.
Representative Painter, a little technical difficulties there, but you're good now. You're fine, Mr.
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
30:18
Chair. Thank you very much. Secretary Hudson, really
quick, if this $32 million request is approved, how much is the total balance of the restricted reserve left? I've seen some different figures, so I just wanted to. Just checking for the last number, 35, I think. That's after the 32, correct? That's correct. Okay. It's mr. Chair. So this is coming out of the
William Parrish
Unverified
30:44
Discretion majority vote set-aside account within that account the current balance is sixty five point eight million This would pull from that 32 million. We have another request for 2.5 million for use tire If both of those were approved the new balance for that set-aside account will be 31.3 million. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, mr Sarah love
Chair
Unverified
31:05
I'm gonna give you a little bit of lead way here
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
31:08
Well, give me a little bit of leeway. I just wanted to follow up, though, on the homeschool accounts. All
right, so we are, you said once they make the purchase, you know, I guess according to the guidelines.
What I want to verify with you all, though, is so are we making sure, so once they purchase the item, Are we making sure, like, is anybody going out to the home and checking, or is it just we just, it's kind of like on an honor system that we're going to, they're going to keep the item, they're going to make sure that they have it?
Speaker 115
31:48
Well, we're certainly not going into their homes and checking their items.
Speaker 70
31:52
Obviously, from a parent choice and a parent empowerment standpoint, We're trusting the parent to educate their child to do what they feel like is best for their
Speaker 69
32:03
child. So I guess to your question, I guess it would be on the honor system. Okay. All right. Thank you. Seeing no further
Speaker 116
32:17
questions, do I have a motion on D1? I have a motion.
Do I have a second? I have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye.
All those opposed? Ayes have it. Motion passes. So with that, members, we'll move on to D2. And we've already explained it, so any questions on D2? And I would highlight that the last sentence of the item says this would not be used for Jefferson County's tire remediation. I think that's important for the members to understand. Senator Hickey, you recognize. Yes, and I'll try
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
32:53
to be quick, but I would like to have the agency down
just for some quick clarification. Anyone here from AEDQ?
If you guys would, introduce yourself for the record, and Senator Hickey, you're
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
33:17
recognized. Lauren Ballard, Chief of Staff, Energy
Speaker 127
33:20
and Environment. Bailey Taylor, Chief Administrator of Environment and DEQ Director.
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
33:25
okay okay i think thank you all for working on this over the month so i want to make sure that and i understand what's been said so we are going
to still be funding district four but jefferson county in no way shape or fashion can can receive any of those funds about that so that's correct right okay my other thing to say is this of course after the last meeting as always happens and i'm not being accusing anybody of anything but people start calling
and saying i know this i know that and of course i give those to the appropriate officials which i have done myself the whole thing with jefferson county is a huge red flag or red flags everywhere is i assume it is with you all and a lot of the other members that i've talked to So my only thing is, is I think that there should be, and maybe some of them are here listening or whatever, but, you know, that the District 4 board of directors, you know, should understand that those, you know, things have come into question.
And I don't know if any of the same players are involved with District 4 that were involved with Jefferson County. But I think those board of directors, they need to be cognizant of that fact. Just until we get to the bottom of all this and see where we were, because I've heard things that, you know, would run up a red flag, more than a red flag. You know, I've heard things such as possibly commingled funds and things like that. Don't know if that's happened.
I'm not accusing anybody, but, you know, all these behind-the-scenes conversations need to be checked out. So I think that the board needs to be cognizant of that and to be very wary, you know, that, you know, there is a possibility those can be looked at. Thank you. Thank you, members. Do we
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
35:20
have any other questions? Seeing no other questions, what's the will of the committee? We've got a motion to approve. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. We are at E1 Thank
William Parrish
Unverified
35:48
you, mr. Sherwin section e this is a reallocation of resources for the Department of Human Services Special language allows the department to make for reallocations This is the first reallocation for fiscal year 26 on the last page is page five our tables showing all transfers The second table on that page shows transfers between divisions the division of County Operations is requesting
hundred eighty thousand salaries and match for positions those positions will also be requested transfer on this table the next table shows fund transfers the department requesting total general revenue fund transfers of four point two seven million among the divisions to meet client needs the largest of the transfers is 2.1 2.1 million to the division of county operations for administrative support and the next largest is 1.9 million to the secretary's office the remaining transfers are for the division of children and family services and that's two other divisions to support activities performed by those divisions on behalf of dcfs clients and then the next table shows
four position transfers between divisions and they will go into more detail in the personnel subcommittee all right thank
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
36:51
you members we have any questions on e1 all right seeing none we need a motion to recommend approval to the alc personnel committee we've got a motion we've got a second any discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed motion carries to our review items members i'm just going to draw your attention to the reports here i'm not sure if we said it earlier in the meeting but if you've got questions on the reports
go ahead and be getting those ready and then i'll ask if there's any
questions report and we'll take those and if not then those items will just stand as reviewed
William Parrish
Unverified
37:25
all right with that f1 thank you mr chair we're in section uh f this is appropriation of front transfer requests this is a letter from the department of shared administrative services division of building authority is for 1.4 million is to make a loan to the office of technology to replace the power supply for the data center west facility in little rock the appropriation funds are made available by the sustainable building
design revolving loan fund program the letter says the project is expected to net a 23 energy reduction all right thank you members do we have any
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
37:54
questions on f1 seeing none what's will the committee we've got a motion review we've got a second in discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor signify by saying aye all those opposed motion carries members we're going to go through g1 through 5 and then we'll take questions on each one one at a time thank you mr
William Parrish
Unverified
38:11
chair we're in section g these are cash fund appropriation requests the first item is a letter from department
of education division of elementary and secondary education this is for 2.4 million appropriation is to create a real-time data dashboard to help address a persistent teacher shortage It's supported by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation. G2 is a letter from Parks, Heritage, and Tourism, Outdoor Recreation. It's for $750,000, the Spending Authority. This is to make grant payments related to the all-kids bike program. It's supported by funds passed through from the Minority Health Commission. G3 is a letter from Public Safety, State Crime Lab. This is for $74,800. This is to provide for toxicology tests and sexual assault kit outsourcing.
It's supported by funds from the Office of the Attorney General. G4 is a letter from Veterans Affairs, the Veterans Cemetery Divisions, for $40,000. It's to cover operating costs, including realigning headstones and general maintenance by the cemeteries division. It's supported by federal reimbursements and private burial funds. G5 is the last item. It's a letter from Health Board of Podiatric Medicines for $2,000. This is to support collaboration with other agencies in conducting licensing investigations. It's supported by their fees and fines. All right, thank you, members.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
39:20
We'll go through these one at a time. Any questions on G1? senator urban well sorry all right no questions on g1 g2 senator urban you recognize for a question on
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
39:32
g2 yeah i just wanted to see about yeah the department of house thanks
Speaker 141
39:53
jamie fisher parks heritage and tourism cfo
Speaker 143
40:00
okay thank you katherine andrews director office about
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
40:02
recreation hey guys thanks quickly so uh this is going from your department through to the department of health minority health commission
to other way around okay i got you thank you okay all right and then you're
going to work with the schools is that correct to get this out to as many schools as possible or how what's the approach there i mean i'm supportive of this
i just i thought it was the other way around and
Speaker 145
40:31
that didn't make any sense to me so yeah so um we are going to be uh passing
Speaker 143
40:38
this to these schools who have self-selected into the program via the arkansas game and fish education initiative so they currently have about 70 schools um that are in the program this year and so we'll give those funds to the schools that have been selected through that program and then ongoing throughout the years that follow and they have a plan to
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
41:00
engage schools to try to get them enrolled yes correct all right thank you appreciate it
thanks Thank you, Mr. Chair. Seeing no further questions on G1? G2. We'll move on to G3 without objection. Questions. Any further questions on the other items under G? I forget Senator Desmaine's procedures.
Seeing none, I have a motion. I have a second. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Ayes have it. With that, we'll move on to H. And just go ahead and explain H1 through
William Parrish
Unverified
41:45
3, and then we'll take questions. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're in Section H. These are miscellaneous federal grant appropriation requests. The first one is an item from the Department of Veterans Affairs. It's for $5.5 million. They have a grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs to expand the North Little Rock Veterans Cemetery.
H2 is the Department of Agriculture. This is for $7 million. They have a grant from the USDA Forest Service to make an award to Central Arkansas Water to acquire 1,300 acres in the Maumelle Watershed. Members, this is the item that's been on your agenda for the past two months. Also at your desk is a resolution that was passed last night by the Perry County Quorum Court. Now we'll move to the last page of the packet. That's H3. H3 is a request from DFA Dispersion Officer.
this is for 6.35 million they have a grant from the center for medicare and medicaid services for the rural health transformation program this first request is to provide for administrative expenses in order to establish the program which will award over 200 million in the next four years let's share those are all the
mft requests senator davis you're recognized for a question thank you
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
42:59
mr chair at the appropriate time i have a motion for item h2
okay any questions on the items before I take the
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
43:08
motion senator Hickey you're recognized of course I don't know what
the motion is my question on h2 and again it may could be in discussion is I guess what I was wanting to see with this is with whatever counties if this is located in and I'm not even for sure if there's any municipalities have we have we had any resolutions from the and I've been told we don't but do we have any resolutions from like the quorum court or any municipalities involved in support of
this so from a local standpoint so again I don't know where the appropriate time is but that that is of a
Speaker 153
43:54
very important that's of great importance to me thank you all right uh representative
bentley you recognize thank you chairman
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
44:12
and to senator hickey's point
there is a resolution from perry county in your packet they're just put there it's okay if i hear we have central arkansas water for some questions please yes thank you chair if you want
to go ahead and introduce yourself for the record and then representative Bentley you're recognized my name is Brian Rupar I'm the watershed
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
44:47
protection manager for central Arkansas water thank you
for being here today my first question is to you in throughout this entire process that you've been working on this land grant has anybody ever reached out or worked with a perry county quorum court the perry county judge myself or senator rice that uh covers perry county have you worked with them in any form or fashion during
this process thank you for the question i did attempt to meet with county judge on several different occasions um i met yourself in the county judge out at lake sylvia not specifically
on this during their dedication event and spoke about some of the protection efforts we're trying to partake but I did not reach out directly beforehand before the grant application was submitted to you. My next
question are you aware of the land that you received in 2024 the 2,000 acres
that you got through this land grant that you remove the potential from Perry County for 1.5 million dollars annually in property taxes. I'm sorry
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
45:50
taxes? In Perry County in 2024 you got 1,935 acres through this land grant. That 1,935 acres if we had been able to build houses on five acres plots in that area we could have gotten 1.5 million dollars in property taxes in Perry County something that we desperately need. At this point Perry County's land budget, I mean road budget, is only $900,000. So when you receive that 1,935 acres of prime, as we have in testimony heard, prime acreage for development, you took
away the potential for Perry County to get $1.5 million in property taxes, which they now will get minimal amount of forestry land. I just want to know if you were aware of that when you were working on that project and did not in any way
work with Perry County, the Quorum Court, or the County judge on that grant? Thank you for the question. We did not analyze potential future tax revenues if there was a full build-out scenario. I do know that, you know, several Perry County customers benefit from CAW Water, and that purchase of about 2,000 acres was
about 0.06% of the land in Perry County, yet we serve almost 10% of the population in Perry County clean water. So it was really an investment in clean water for Perry County as much as anything else.
Are you aware that the Perry County residents for centuries have taken care of the Lake Maumelle of the river, Maumelle River? We have residents beyond the land that you purchase on either side of the river and for centuries have taken care of this land and the water coming into the Lake Maumelle from Maumelle River has been pristine during that time, has it not?
the water is pristine that doesn't mean every action taken has not in some way led to the degradation of the river system there have been several incidents of machinery even recently gravel mining in the river which on navigable waterways i believe is falls under the commissioner of state lands and his state property and all that sediment eventually flows downstream into the lake now the lake is still in pristine condition but it can only handle so much nutrient loading over time and so that's what we're
concerned about is long-term nutrient loading and sediments
Speaker 174
48:14
into Lake Maumelle. I would just counter that
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
48:18
we've been for centuries taking care of that land and done a phenomenal job and in return my county is being hurt. We have a small very small fraction receiving water from Perry County but nothing in this grant brings more water structure into Perry County or benefits my county whatsoever so I will leave it with that but my county is being heard immensely and I'm just wanting Perry County to be completely removed from any further land purchases you've already gotten 2,000 acres from our from our county I think
enough is enough thank you chairman for the
time representative Eubanks you recognize thank you mr. chair I guess I'm curious How this resolution might impact the sale of the of the piece of properties? Is there somebody here from from? potlatch
or from Department of AG that could possibly
Chair
Unverified
49:16
Answer that question Kyle Cunningham State Forrester Department of Agriculture In Usozaki Department of Agriculture Scott Corley Potlatch Delta
an adjustment Yes, how would this possible adjustment maybe impact the overall sale of
Chair
Unverified
50:07
the remaining portion of the property yes sir uh i know with the adjustments we've made in the past they weren't removing parcels uh but when we try to change or alter any acquisitions uh the national uh forest legacy panel and and forest service
can be hesitant to do that i believe on the reduction we could probably pursue that but i don't know for sure what the ramifications of that would be i would say um you know if you look at the packet we gave you there's two pieces to this purchase this piece has been approved the second round is still waiting to be approved at the national level and so there are very strict timelines on some of those things to occur for approval and so that would be
my concern would be the full completion of this forest legacy project could be impacted from a timeline perspective but we could check into
it if you want us to all right members I'm trying to stay with committee members first
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
51:19
representative Beatty, you are recognized. Maybe. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a question because I heard Representative Bentley mention the tax, property tax implication of this acquisition to the county.
But she used the word if in her estimate. So I was wondering, does someone have the actual property taxes that are paid on this property right now and what that impact would be? Because I remember that number being a rather small number last
Chair
Unverified
51:53
time that we were here. So I can speak to the property tax on if the land stays in forest land. And I know for the Prairie County portion of the Creeks tract, it was only like $48 or $50 a year in property tax.
I believe her question was, what if it were developed? And one of the things I would like to, if I can, follow up on, the forest legacy program is based on potential for development in the long term and what consequences that could have on a waterway. And so when you start talking about migration from other states, from other countries and that type thing coming in, you're really opening the door for a higher level of impact on waterways. and so that was the justification for us pushing this particular purchase uh in a forest legacy
program request does that answer well that that that answers
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
52:49
some of the question because i i that that number would would have a significant impact on on most of us if if it were going to hit the county for over a million dollars in property tax but you you said that number again was how much go ahead so
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
53:06
the number for the per the 2 000 acre purchase that was done previously um at on our closing statement it showed a tax liability of four thousand one hundred and fifty
Speaker 189
53:16
dollars a year is what the county is losing in revenue from taxes
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
53:21
and and this would protect the waterways and and and that 2 000 acres for for the foreseeable future under under good conservation efforts. Correct. And we're working with the
Speaker 168
53:31
Game and Fish Commission to have that open for the residents of Perry County to recreate on as well. So the
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
53:38
residents of Perry County would benefit for this for the indefinite future. Yeah, even those
Speaker 168
53:45
that aren't served by our water system,
as I said earlier, about 10% of them are in the Y Mountain
Speaker 189
53:52
area. The rest could benefit from the public access opportunities. All
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
54:04
right, thank you. Representative Kavanaugh, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You mentioned the second purchase. How much land is going to be purchased both this purchase and the secondary?
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
54:17
The total for the two parcels together, the two tracks together
it would be 3,471 acres okay and how
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
54:23
much is the secondary purchase going to be how much money
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
54:29
it will also be a seven million dollar federal
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
54:32
award and how much is the water having to put with it central
Speaker 189
54:37
water well we're estimating approximately three million dollars so
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
54:40
central water has six million dollars they can put toward approximately toward this purchase correct so why don't they
just purchase one and not use federal dollars
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
54:57
tax dollars because it's a future investment it's a federal investment these are non-discretionary federal funds that we seek out to protect that green infrastructure you know our forests are our first drinking water filter and if this helps protect 500,000 Arkansans that are served by Central Arkansas Water. We feel that that's a great federal investment, and it's a great investment of our ratepayer funds because we're
only using 25 percent, maybe up to 30 percent with our additional match on this grant to provide that same quality of protection by
Speaker 168
55:32
leveraging federal funds along with our own funds. And you also happened to
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
55:37
mention that Arkansas Game and Fish was going to be involved in this. How is Arkansas Game and Fish
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
55:46
going to be involved in this? We've been discussing the possibility of expanding our current lease acreage. We lease our acreage around Lake Maumelle to the Game and Fish Commission
at a reduced rate. I believe it was 52 cents an acre per year to lease the property for 99 years to open it up for public fishing and hunting opportunities. We would want to expand our agreement with them it allows them to provide enforcement open up those recreational opportunities and provide also technical expertise to help with forest management public recreation access points and help you know develop those it's been a great partnership and they'd like to continue that and
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
56:27
expand those opportunities okay so the land that you're purchasing thank you mr chair does it actually touch
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
56:38
the lake this land does not it touches other properties we already own and major tributaries running into lake
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
56:44
maumelle okay so the guess what i'm trying to figure out is what game and fish how they would actually provide um opportunities for arkansans in being able to use this land if it doesn't touch the lake and can't get to the lake on it how would this land with
Game and Fish provide opportunities for our Kansans? So
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
57:09
there are other roadways that connect to the property. It's not accessed directly from the lake, but from
Speaker 189
57:14
access points along public roads. Some of the land, especially the 200 acres
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
57:20
in Perry County, touches existing Forest Service lands, which is already open for public access. And so if we're able to acquire that additional acreage in Perry County on the southwest side of the tract that will also physically connect to additional properties that
central arkansas water already owns that has difficult public access they have to cross the maumelle river to get to it and this would allow the opportunity to cross over land to access existing holdings as well as the new 200 acres okay thank you representative kavanaugh could
Speaker 202
57:51
i follow up also on that thank you so you're correct
Chair
Unverified
57:55
this purchase does not touch the lake but it's in a very important i want to make this point it's in a very important or critical area because it's in the headwaters there's there's three or four streams that feed into maumelle
or maumelle river there and then it also touches the maumelle river itself or near it the 2 000 acres i do want to go back to 2 000 acres or so that were bought in 2024 the maumelle river runs the length of that property and so i'm really speaking more from the forest legacy standpoint I'll let CEW talk about the development of the entire watershed you know those areas are important because
they buffer those streams and where I was headed with that was if you think of it from a timber harvest and I'm a forester it's always related to timber harvesting we do streamside management zones on timber harvest and we buffer the entire stream along that way that we're doing the harvest on and so from a forest legacy standpoint trying to put this in perspective that's really what we're seeing here if you look at the map of figure one of seven it shows that these areas are buffering that watershed or that that waterway whether it's the
river or the lake immediately adjacent to that so it makes sense i just want to make sure i'm getting out we're focusing on this particular area within the watershed for the forest legacy i want to talk about our reasoning for this is there anything
Speaker 205
59:38
potlatch would like to add to that yeah you know i'd say we're always looking across our ownership we have about 935 000 acres in the state we're always looking for what's the highest and best purpose of each property we own
and you know almost all the time that's sustainable forestry management for us and that's what we do occasionally that's development but there are cases where conservation is what wins out and this is one of those cases and for us we've always viewed this property highest and best use as a conservation outcome and that's why we're so supportive here you remove the possibility of conservation from this then we have to move on to the next thing and i can't say what that would
be it could be a form of development it could be anything that might not after a sale have the water quality impact that's trying to occur here so that's when we're fully on board we're trying to do what we think is best for the citizens of central arkansas and that's protect this watershed but we can't say what tomorrow will bring if if that possibility is removed so i would just add that thank you can
you walk me through from a potlatch perspective what that would look like
if housing was to be built in an area that's that high of a value of conservation and what that would mean to the conservation world in central arkansas yeah there's
Speaker 205
1:01:17
certainly some properties there that um i'd start by saying i view conservation on this as being a ways out um obviously we have chanel properties in west little rock and we have a good bit more acreage before you even get to the lake um but certainly if you get in that area and you think about the
amount of dirt that has to be moved I mean they're the heels there are not very conducive to just build houses as it sits right now so you're going to have to think about the amount of dirt work that goes into this and what that does downstream in this watershed I think it could have a pretty large impact and we probably I'm you know I can't sit here today and say we'd be the developer we have Chanel properties it's more likely that you know somebody approaches us another developer approaches us about uh building in that area and we'd have no control over that and i'd hate to
look back and see this opportunity pass us by and 10 years from now we're all looking back and saying man i wish we had done what we could to protect this this watershed um so yeah that would kind of be the impact so give me more lines
i guess you kind of missed my question a little bit but give me more of the lines what that means for water quality and maybe central arkansas water could answer that if all this dirt movement had to take place on the side of these hills with the tributaries at the bottom what does that look like long term because we've heard the impact
of a million dollars on the property taxes if it was developed so obviously people in perry county want it developed so what does that look like for the other 500 000 water
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:03:00
users so along with development comes more than just the initial slug of of dirt and erosion and sediment that washes off a job site there's not currently any wastewater treatment in that area either so if you're talking five acre lots there'd be at least one or more septic tanks on every lot
there'd be however many pharmaceuticals those households are taking that aren't filtered out in typical septic systems and winding up downstream and eventually in the lake. So the more and more sediments and future contaminants, some that may not even be on our horizon, are in the lake, the higher the treatment costs are at our treatment plants. And then those are going to get passed on to the ratepayers in the future. That's why these investments on the front end to protect those areas, especially along major tributaries, it's like the old
cliche, you know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It's just much cheaper to protect it in a forested state. Keep it in natural vegetation instead of lawns that are fertilized and people changing their own oil and all those additional nitrogen and phosphorus inputs from housing
Speaker 168
1:04:11
developments. Keep it in a forest that can cycle those nutrients instead. Thank you. Senator
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:04:21
Irvin, you recognize? Okay, thank you. Appreciate the conversation. I'm looking at your page three of the handout, Under Threatened,
and there it talks about the real estate development projects you've got with Chennau Valley, and then another one, and then Lakeview West, the picture that is presented here. Do you know how much in property taxes that one Lakeview West subdivision produces? I'm assuming that's for Pulaski County. I'm not aware of
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:04:57
those properties. Okay, but the Lakeview West development here that's in this picture,
the land that you're wanting to purchase is around that development, is that correct? Or near that development, touches that development? It is nearby. It's about a
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:05:14
half a mile west of that, I believe. i'd say would be the closest parcel to it okay um but it does not have the same overlook of the lake that these parcels do
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:05:29
okay so your parcels would be of higher value if if it were developed
Speaker 168
1:05:34
no no our parcels do not have the same overview of the lake the same scenic overview
Speaker 189
1:05:42
as these do yeah especially over the the proportion of them you may get a glimpse of the lake from certain ridgetops, but nowhere near
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:05:50
Lakeview West has. And then I guess when you talk about watershed, I mean, I live in the part of the state where if you want to talk about a watershed and issues with watersheds and runoff and sediment and all of that kind of stuff, then you're talking about the entire portion of north central Arkansas.
And so, I think for me, it's, I understand the perspective. I understand your perspective. I also understand Perry County's perspective, particularly. And I just feel like y'all are not sensitive to that issue. And they're not, like, hearing that, like, you're not sensitive to the fact that when you take properties out of the public domain for development, you are absolutely affecting these budgets of these very poor counties and they don't have
and so here's here's you're you're considered about you're worried about water sediment downstream and all that well when you don't have a road budget and you can't pave roads then you have dirt roads and then those dirt roads are not built correctly guess what happens to the lakes and the rivers and the creeks the sediment and all the gravel and everything gets dumped downstream because of the runoff and the washes because of a heavy rain or whatever I feel like y'all just are completely disconnected to rural Arkansas
and what actually is happening in rural Arkansas as it relates to how vast and big a watershed is actually defined and the control that you want over a watershed for the greater good and that's what bothers me about this is that there's just really no recognition of what representative Bentley is talking about you don't even acknowledge it and and that quite frankly for somebody who grew up in this area out west Little Rock I know exactly what
but I live in very rural Arkansas I live in the Buffalo River watershed so yeah we have a septic tank you know we're those rural poor people that change our own oil I guess I'm a polluter I guess you just look poorly on me I don't know but that bothers me I'm just going to be frank with you and so you know under threatened you're talking about me you're talking about people that are trying to build in a rural part of the state of Arkansas
that's really beautiful i get your arguments but just a little bit of recognition would kind of go a long way here in my opinion and i just don't find that from central arkansas water you can respond if you like but is that ever in your calculation of what you're doing to these rural counties plasca county doesn't seem to matter here because they got plenty of property tax they got plenty of county road budget do you ever give back does potlutch ever
donate to the unpaved roads program that the state of arkansas set up have you ever contributed money towards that have central arkansas water if you're that concerned about sediment and water quality and water control have you ever put money towards the unpaved roads program that the state of arkansas set up legislatively with state funds and private funds to be able to help out these county these county roads have you ever done that just both of you can answer sure thank
Speaker 161
1:09:30
you for your question and one i apologize i didn't mean to insinuate any offense to you i changed my own
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:09:37
oil i have a septic tank i'm saying compared to a forest there's a difference between a residential development, and a forest as far as drinking water qualities. And the meetings that I mentioned earlier with the Perry County judge were specifically, I was trying to talk to him about the unpaved roads program. We've reached out to the county road department and invited to go with them to the unpaved road trainings, which is a pre-requirement to getting that funding.
They have to have a representative go through the training. I know, I wrote the bill. Well, thank you for that. I've attended the training myself, so I could learn more about how to identify problem areas. So those are some aspects we work at, and there are several other outreach opportunities. I've just been focused on the subject at hand here, but we'd love to discuss more about how we can better
Speaker 168
1:10:23
serve Perry County with the properties we do currently own as well. Potlatch, do you want to respond?
Speaker 205
1:10:31
Yeah, unfortunately I'm not in our group that handles our donations, so I'm unable to speak about that, but I can get that information and
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:10:39
let you know. Well, I'm just – it's just the understanding and recognition of being able to say, you know, we're going to be good neighbors here. We recognize that there's issues here, and there's perhaps ways to work with these rural communities and these rural counties in a way that would be beneficial to them versus them looking at this. Because when I look at Lakeview West development, that's a ton of property taxes that's going to Pulaski County.
Undeniable. So you can say what you want about forestry land and what you're paying in property taxes versus if it were sold to a developer or if you as yourself developed it like you have in Chenal, the property taxes there are tremendous. They're extraordinary. Yes? Oh, yes. So you understand the issue when you take that much money out of the public domain. We face this and we deal with this with the National Forest. you know that's a lot of land particularly in Searcy County that they can never collect any
kind of revenue off of but they're always on the hook for taking care of those roads and they don't get paid for it because there's not the federal funding to support I could go down that whole path so I guess I would love to have some recognition from you know potlatch and central Arkansas water that these kinds of issues do exist and that there's real concern amongst us that are rural legislators that represent these areas of the state of Arkansas. And a little bit of recognition would just go a long way. So I'd appreciate if you want to look into that,
and I'd be happy to talk with
you offline. Thank you. Absolutely. All right, members, I've got two, three more committee members, and then I'm going to go to
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:12:29
the non-members. Representative Beatty is the first in line of the members. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess
my question is, if we hold this project up, what are the drawbacks in delaying,
and what do you think the feds will
Chair
Unverified
1:12:47
do on this? Yeah, again, I think we could potentially look at the creeks track purchase, which is the one you're approving today. But, again, this is a two-part purchase, and so the streams on your map, the streams is the whole area. And this is just my initial thoughts. We'll have to talk with U.S. Forest Service Region 8 with our contact there.
I don't want to speak for them. But my concern is that it could impact the timeline on that remaining acquisition because it's still going through the national process. We've received these funds. These are IRA funds. They're not the traditional forest legacy program funds. And so that's another concern I have is we did a lot of work to get these into place. And I can promise you if we return these funds, they're gone. We're not going to get them back. And so it's an opportunity, you know, to protect this area.
This is a watershed that is experiencing forest loss. Most of the watersheds in Arkansas actually are increasing in forested area. The Maumelle watershed is not increasing in forested areas. It's losing forested area. It's experiencing population increases, and so it's a little bit unique. Lake Marmel itself is a little bit unique. I'll let CAW speak to that. That's not my area. But, again, it's just when you talk about going back to the drawing table and you're dealing with, you know, this goes on the president's budget.
It goes through Congress. It goes through the USDA. Secretary Rollins has to approve these. And when you start messing with those timelines, that does concern me. All right.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:14:26
Well, I mean, first of all, I want to say on the record, I'm sympathetic to Representative Bentley representing. She's taking care of her district. She's taking care of her folks, taking care of Prairie County. And I think that's what all of us are here to do. You know, overall, it looks like if I've got the numbers right, if I heard the numbers right, there are 200 acres out of this 1,325 acres in Prairie County.
So roughly 15% of this project is in Representative Bentley's district in her county in Perry that she's referenced. But the other 85% are outside Perry County. So I'd hate to see that the whole project be held up over that 15%, 200 acres there in Perry County. And, you know, the deal is I wish you guys would have expended a little more time on the front end And while you're trying to get the money from the feds to reach out, work with the local folks there in Perry County and with Representative Bentley, I'd encourage you to do that in the future.
That could probably forego a lot of what we're discussing here today. But with that said, I just think if we hold this up, just what you said, we're sending the message back to the feds. This is fed money that we can take and utilize here in the state to protect this land, protect conservation. And so that's why I'll be in support of this issue. But I am respectful and appreciative of Representative Bentley protecting her district. So thank you. Yes, sir. And if
Chair
Unverified
1:15:49
I may, you know, and this is just from us at the department,
we obviously support private forest landowners in Arkansas. That's our mission. And so we're certainly not trying to do anything to impede private landowners' rights or anything like that. You know, these are willing sellers that we work with in Forest Legacy, and I want them using Arkansas wood to build homes and to expand. But I think we also have to look at areas that are sensitive like this that could have a broader impact for decades on both Perry and Pulaski County.
Representative Eubanks, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm trying to remember our other meetings, but I thought that an issue came up that this portion of land that we're talking about would connect a trail. Is that correct? That is
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:16:51
correct. A portion of the purchase connects the Ouachita National Trail, a 223-mile trail. It goes all the way from Tallamina State Park in Oklahoma to Pinnacle Mountain State Park.
Speaker 189
1:17:04
I believe it's about a half mile, I'd have to look back through the proposal, cross some private potlatch Deltic lands, and this acquisition project would
protect those. I think one of the reasons that I'm supporting this purchase is that it affords the people that live in Little Rock area, mainly an urban area, some sort of recreational avenues for them. that you know that they don't have to drive a great distance to in order to be able to avail
Chair
Unverified
1:17:38
themselves of it that's correct sir i'll just follow up with that haven't really hit on the multiple use aspects of the forest legacy and again i'm speaking to this specific purchase i'm not talking about the broader development in the in the watershed or in perry county um you know uh the fact that this would be a wma there would be hiking you know bird watching hunting all of those things that anybody would want to do the land would continue to be a productive forest it's one of the big things with the forest legacy program is that they can continue to harvest
timber off of it and manage those timberlands to keep them healthy don't want to get too far off on the side but from a state forester standpoint managing those areas to reduce fuels and wildland fire potential could play into this as well again I'm getting off a little bit here but there are there are multiple benefits to this other I know we're focusing on water quality today but there's multiple benefits to this to the people in both counties Senator Hickey you're
the last one in the queue that's in the committee
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
1:18:44
all right thank you Mr. Chair whenever we first heard about this and time gets away I don't know if it
was a month or two months ago I started asking I said well I want to know what the local people think i'd like to see a resolution in support of it and then i started that off because i was told we didn't have those and it wasn't stapled in the package but they were right it was in there but i hope all the members do understand that this resolution is not in support of it's against from the local folks in perry and it's also uh i don't know where pulaski county is
because I don't have one for or against. So I am getting a question, Mr. Chair. So my next question is as it relates to the title. And if somebody's already said this, I apologize, but I want to
hear. So money's coming in. Who's going to close and who's going to hold title to the
Speaker 189
1:19:46
property? The title would be held under Central Arkansas Water's name, And it would have a notice of grant agreement attached to that as well, stating that the funding came from U.S. Federal Forest Legacy funds, and the property needs to be managed according to the rules of that program, or those funds have to be returned.
The current value of those funds would have to be returned. So if they paid for 75% of the property, 75%
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:20:11
of the current value if it was ever sold, let's say in 500 years, Lake Maumelle is too polluted to drink, and Central Arkansas Water
Speaker 189
1:20:20
decides to sell it, 75% of that revenue would have to go back to the federal government. Okay, so there are
Speaker 230
1:20:26
going to be some restrictions on the deed, and those are going to be
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
1:20:32
listed as exceptions, and everything's going to be done correctly whenever they do the title policy or whatever.
Speaker 189
1:20:37
Is that correct? That is correct. It's filed with the deed or shortly after as part of
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
1:20:44
the closing package. Okay. Let me follow up real quick. Just one more, and then that would be good. So in the event Central Water wanted to sell 500 acres of this later, they're not limited. They just have to return the funds on the 500. Is that correct?
Speaker 189
1:21:04
Not entirely. It does have to go through a series of approval, even through the, I believe it's the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States.
So it wouldn't be up to us. There would be other decision makers involved. Okay,
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
1:21:19
so it's not allocated like whatever the total price is divided by the acreage. if there was some other property that was of greater value, they couldn't just go in and sell this on the per acre price and then get an increased value that they're going to put in their pockets. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. Thanks for those explanations.
Are there any other questions for committee members before I
go to non-committee members? See you none. Senator Johnson, you are first in
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:21:58
the list. thank you mr chairman um hardly know where to begin but let me first thank all of you for being here and your expert testimony um let me kind of respond to uh senator hickey's very important point in question uh this resolution that we got stuffed in our packet uh was passed yesterday
so you haven't seen a lot of eyeballs on this and I want to say two things about my friends in Perry County before redistricting I had 98 percent of Perry County in my senate district I love the county I love the people I love representative Bentley I think most of you in the legislature know she is one of my dear friends now I don't have that area in my district but I have the 85 percent that's in Pulaski County I can tell you that my constituents in Roland
Natural Steps Little Italy in that area almost to the person support this because we've been under threat from inappropriate developers I'm for developers I want to compliment Potlatch Deltic they've done a lot of work close to my house and might have had a couple things I'd really you may made that second round about a little smaller but otherwise they are responsible developer and the deltick part of that in case you don't know this came from a merger the deltick timber that's the murphy
family from el dorado and i believe they bought this property 90 years ago or something crazy like that they've had it forever and they've been good stewards of the land as not just here but wherever they've been operating now so they passed this yesterday now i get the point about uh development uh and inappropriate development but i also get the part and my friend mary bentley says we need development in perry county i absolutely agree with her but you also to get
development you need water and you need to recognize that the kind of people that would want to come there and live there and build a house there want those things too and they want to be able to hunt and fish and hike and ride their bikes or whatever else they want to do this is extremely important but again 85 of this area is in my district we've been working on this for some time and i acknowledged in the last month when this came up a very important point
that senator ervin made about some past indiscretions by caw totally unrelated to this project really unrelated to water and they kind of got out of their lane and I've chastised them for that and their board responded by passing motion to they're not going to do those kinds of things anymore and I'm grateful for that because when people make a mistake and they admit it and they in effect apologize I appreciate that very much but what we're talking about here is what's the appropriate use and what's the long-term benefit now long-term if these this
property's development but just develop that 48 a year on the property tax yes it would it would probably go up but at what cost on the other side there's always a net cost to these things so i just i want to thank everyone and i especially want to thank the gentleman uh from the Department of Agriculture for clarifying this. In fairness to your department and to Secretary Ward, I think maybe we had the wrong guy last month down here speaking to try to explain
this, and we probably wouldn't be sitting here today. No disrespect to him, but I believe that the Secretary acknowledged to me personally that he was miscast. He said he's a great nuts and bolts guy but he didn't quite have the overview that's very important for all of us doing this but i ask every one of you out there when i hear from my friends in this room and throughout the general assembly about an issue in their district i listen to them and philosophically i might have some
problems the very idea that we've got all this privately publicly owned land all around the country that keeps private development from happening that bothers me i mean you go out to Nevada the federal government owns most of the state that's that's ridiculous but when
we're protecting water not just my drinking water and this is my drinking water now but also
it's drinking water for some people in Perry County and maybe more in the future because CAW was
chartered by state law to be a regional water provider and their influence will continue to to grow and so far when they stay in their lane i'm comfortable with the job they're doing and i think they're going to continue to stay in their lane but we've this has been vetted by our congressional delegation by senator cotton senator bozeman and congressman hill and i i pledge to my
friends in parry county i will do everything i can to make sure that their concerns are met and that everyone that i have any influence with brings them in the loop into the table when there's anything that affects their county and i feel bad that that didn't always happen in this case but let's don't throw the baby out with the bath water because we have some people trying to do their job and they they drop the ball on a couple of things but would you agree that what i've said applies to this situation appropriately and would you believe that if we
don't do it we could find ourselves not just in some things we regret as far as you know polluting lake maumelle but also some water quality issues that absolutely affect our future economic development in central arkansas i asked
Chair
Unverified
1:28:13
i agree with everything you said um you know water quality and quantity are an ever-growing concern and that's
not going to go away it's only going to worsen and so that's why those projects rank so highly in the forest legacy program area uh you know we look at those here before we send them up the line and if it has water quality in there with the combination of of uh preventing forest loss because there's been multiple studies performed that show that forest cover provides the best land use for both water quantity and quality. And so that's why we get behind this. And it's not to, you know, prevent anyone from developing land in the area,
but these specific tracks are deemed important from the water quality standpoint. Okay. Thank you, sir. And thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:29:00
for letting me ask these questions. And a heck of a question
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:29:05
it was, Senator. If we could, I think we actually need to probably mark the tape and call Guinness World Book of Records, and that may almost make it in there is the longest question I think I've been here for. So, members, here's what I want. We are in the question phase, and I understand that you all have some points you want to make, and we do take some latitude when we do that.
All of us do, I think, and when we're asking questions to make sure it's, you know, got kind of the background we want, you know, as we're trying to get to an answer. Again, we are in the question phase, so if you have a question let's do that right now and at some point there'll be a debate phase and we'll enter into that later on uh so with that i'm going to recognize or if you're just
simply wanting to state like hey i've talked to uh mayor scott mayor scott supported the program if i've talked to you know county judge uh barry hyde and he supported the program say that but i don't think
we have to i think senator johnson's handled it for you otherwise so representative keith brooks you're recognized for a question that's a tough
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
1:30:05
one to follow thank you mr. chairman for the latitude to speak not on not on this committee so I will echo senator Johnson about 3,000 of the 3,400 acres is in my district and overwhelmingly their support of this but I'll pivot to a question a couple questions first on the forest legacy program as you look into the future are there additional plans to purchase additional tracks that are not included
here? Not at this time. Second question, and I'll editorialize and thank my friend and colleague Representative Bentley because she is a strong advocate for her community and her district as she should be, so I really appreciate that. Relative to the question about usage of the land specifically, not necessarily just in Perry County, but Pulaski County as well, and this is for the hotlatch representative has there been overtures or offers to purchase land uh to utilize for
development since that's a question relative to tax revenue uh have there been offers and have you entertained offers to uh to utilize it for development uh and and if not um would you even would that even be a question in your mind that you would
Speaker 205
1:31:21
consider in the future to my knowledge we have gotten offers and have sold what I would call rural home sites single homes in the area nothing on a large-scale development basis that hasn't come to us yet
if it did come to us will we consider it we have to I mean as a publicly traded company we have to do what's best for our shareholders as well so we have to consider all aspects so we would certainly give it a look.
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
1:31:50
Thank you and again I appreciate Mr. Chair the latitudes and appreciate the work that y'all are doing on
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:31:56
this. Thank you for the question. Representative Collins you're recognized for a question.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:32:01
Thank you Mr. Chair. I also appreciate the latitude and like Representative Brooks this is part of something that also affects my district because I represent
part of West Little Rock that goes out to Pinnacle and I understand that water quality is probably the most important thing we're talking about here, but I'm very interested and focused on the Washtenaw Trail aspect of this because, as you mentioned, that goes from Oklahoma all the way to Pinnacle, and I think it's pretty common knowledge among people like myself who go out to that trail a fair amount that that little stretch there toward the end on the east side over by Pinnacle is one of the least traveled, least popular parts, and
i think part of that is due to maybe the difference in how it's maintained it's mostly the washington national forest out west central arkansas water does a great job i will tell you i was out there i i went in december i parked in perry county drove out there shopped in perry county by the way which you know i just want to make the point also that in addition to this being a property tax issue it's a sales tax issue because if you have tourism if you have people coming from all over the country is they do to go on the wash dog trail they have running events
they have hiking events it drives you know activity in the area and it can be a beneficial thing it's low impact but my question for you is how do you maintain caw what would you do differently from say a private landowner as far as how you would conserve the area because i'll be honest that area between highway 9 and highway 10 uh no knock on anyone but it looks like it's managed differently than how CAW does it let's just put it that way what are the differences that we could expect
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:33:42
thank you for your question our forest
management strategy differs from some of the other landowners out there who are doing short-term intensive single age management where we try to do an uneven age management, where we have trees of all age classes represented on a particular stand. It's also currently, most of it's under management for off-site loblolly pine, which isn't the native pine to that area, it should have been in shortleaf pine, and for the record I'm also a registered forester in the state.
Part of my background is forestry. And so we do a longer term rotation, we manage with prescribed fire, we do less nutrient inputs. It's common. I did my master's thesis on mid-rotation treatments to plantations of adding herbicides and fertilizers at about 15 years into their growth cycle to stimulate more growth and bigger saw logs and more output. Whereas we're also trying to maintain a herbaceous ground cover on the site too to stabilize the soil. So managing more for the whole ecosystem rather than just for
the trees themselves as a timber commodity. And Potlatch-Deltic does meet sustainable forestry initiative standards, and we also manage to those standards above. We just try to go above and beyond those standards, increase our streamside management zone widths, increase our BMP requirements for contractors. So we try a variety of things to play again that long game for long-term management of those sites. Thank you and
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:35:20
I think even more than what is the current comparison to potlatch is what
is the comparison to a potential future where there's development private development and homes and things all around and do you I mean I guess you can just tell me do you think that management by CAW of property where the Washtenaw Trail is passing through would be better for tourism better for that kind of aspect of bringing people to the trail than the alternative of having it be sold for development. I would absolutely agree with
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:35:53
that, and we can back that with the fact that just this past year
we opened up two designated camping sites along the Wachita National Trail where there are shelters. We worked with the Friends of the Wachita Trail, the organization that maintains it, and to ensure that campers had a spot to go and concentrate where that disturbance may happen where we can monitor it, clean it up, and concentrate it in one area rather than having them disperse throughout the whole property. Thank you.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:36:28
Senator Clark, you're Alan Clark, you're recognized for
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:36:31
a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I'm listening intently, both from a conservation standpoint from a property development standpoint it would appear to me you can tell me if I'm wrong that no property development leads to the highest water quality but I don't think we want to go to no property development but as I look not at this purchase but
down the road that the same arguments what land in arkansas what part in arkansas above sea level is not above a tributary and watershed surely there's none so
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:37:22
these tracks again were were focused on major tributaries and areas with a high concentration of streams running
Speaker 189
1:37:29
through them which makes them least desirable for development you know a
developer would have to have additional culverts and drainage and and we're not against development in the watershed we just would like to have some smart development and have them in areas with the least impact to the water quality all of it's going to have some but there are ways to do it less disruptive and so we're trying to protect these critical areas around the critical stream corridors that gives us a buffer so anything uphill from that like you mentioned would have to flow through those managed lands before it reaches our lake and i'd just follow up with that
Chair
Unverified
1:38:08
if you don't mind um so we have had a forest legacy acquisition in the what we call the white rivers headwaters uh forest legacy area uh that was a pass through to the natural heritage commission i believe and so we've done other areas but again they're very specific and not every watershed is in at risk of being developed to the extent that this one is because it's around Little Rock and so there's some criteria here again from the forest legacy standpoint that this specific acquisition meets that we would not apply broadly across the landscape and and I'm not
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
1:38:43
saying I'm against what you're doing and or that you're wrong I just want to make the point that all property is above a major tributary yes sir and just a few years ago sitting here in this room we had the federal government wanting to control everything uh every drainage ditch uh and so i'm listening very carefully uh while the arguments you're making may be very good for this piece of property that can be made for just about any piece of property when you when you get
down to it and that concerns me thank you thank you mr
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:39:17
chair thank you representative howard Beatty recognized for question
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:39:23
thank you mr. chair I was just wanted to know
do we have any representative from Perry County are from Pulaski County here in the audience today that would like to speak
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:39:38
on the record on this I'm not seeing anyone all right thank you sir thank you all right centered Davis you're
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:39:46
recognized thank you mr. chair I'd like to be recognized for my motion that would be awesome okay thank you I make a motion asking that this item be deferred to the full legislative council meeting this Friday and request that the Department of Ag would consider removing the purchase of property in Perry County from its request which would therefore limit the purchase of property in the Maumelle watershed using the federal grant monies to federal grant monies to property I'm sorry using that money to buy that property solely located in
Pulaski County this motion would allow the agency time to resubmit the request to include only the purchase of property in Pulaski County all right
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:40:31
thank you so that just kind of restate the motion would it defer it to the full legislative council requesting Department of Ag to
remove the purchase the Perry County portion of the property, and then for limit the purchase of the property in the Montmel Watershed using the federal grant monies to property solely located in Pulaski County.
That's the motion. All right. And then with that, Representative Eubanks. A roll call with a divide to vote. All right. So we've got a motion. Do we have a second on the motion? We've got a second on the
motion. We've got a request for vote by division. We need three hands. we've got three hands for the vote by division and now we're going to move on to discussion all right senator hickey you are recognized
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
1:41:21
so and i don't i don't know if that's just has to
be between us or if there's there can be other questions here my only my only thing with this motion is unless staff knows of course if we didn't take the whole acreage and say each acre is worth x amount of dollars if if the land in perry county is worth more then there's going to have to be a renegotiation with potlatch during this time also so it won't i don't know how that the agency could just resubmit it and restructure it unless there was a renegotiate renegotiation
with perry county which i do like the sound of personally you know as long as i can hear that Pulaski counties for it and some of the members have told me they are that's that's the only thing so I don't know if y'all have enough time to do that
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:42:13
it's just something to consider you know and at this point we're in discussion amongst members and I understand them and I understand that means so I think what he's really doing is asking you a question because pass or fail is probably something that needs to be answered so uh after committee uh all right members we have any other
discussion on the motion representative Eubanks you're recognized for discussion on the motion I'm
gonna withdraw my request for roll call okay all right that's
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:42:41
been withdrawn with that we've got a we've got a motion asking this
item be deferred to the full legislative council meeting this Friday and requesting the Department of Ag remove the purchase of the property in Prairie County from its request and therefore limit the purchase the property of the Montmel Watershed using the federal grant monies to prove property
solely located in Plasky County. We've got a second. Discussion's over. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed? No. All right. Motion carries. All right. Members, I'm trying to recall where we are in this process. I don't think we've taken up H1 and 3. So, yeah, Is there any objection to reviewing items 1 and H, 1 and 3?
All right, seeing none. Those items are reviewed without objection.
William Parrish
Unverified
1:43:42
Item G1. All right, sorry, I1, sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Section I, this is a pay plan appropriation request. It's from the Department of Veterans Affairs. It's for $133,000. This is to support implementation
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:43:53
of the new pay plan. All right, thank you, members. Members, do we have any questions on item I-1? All right, seeing no questions, we've got a motion to review.
We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed, motion carries. J-1. All right, members, we're at reports. Again, we kind of mentioned this earlier. Are there any questions on J-1? All right, Senator Irvin is excited. Is there any questions on K1 through 7? All right, seeing none. Members, with that, we are adjourned. Thank you for your time today.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
Items for Approval
B. Various Temporary Appropriation Requests
C. American Rescue Plan Act Appropriation Request
D. Restricted Reserve Fund Transfer Requests
Item to Recommend Approval to ALC-Personnel
E. Reallocation of Resources Request
Items for Review
F. Appropriation and/or Fund Transfer Request
G. Cash Fund Appropriation Request
H. Miscellaneous Federal Grant Appropriation Request
I. Pay Plan Appropriation Request
J. Semiannual Report
K. Monthly Reports
L. Other Business
M. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Representative Jon S. Eubanks Chair
Unverified
William Parrish
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
Speaker 17
Speaker 20
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
Speaker 41
Speaker 45
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
Speaker 55
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
Speaker 69
Speaker 70
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 82
Speaker 39
Speaker 38
Representative Jeff Wardlaw Chair
Unverified
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
Speaker 115
Speaker 116
Speaker 127
Speaker 141
Speaker 143
Speaker 145
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
Speaker 153
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
Speaker 169
Speaker 174
Speaker 57
Speaker 181
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
Speaker 189
Speaker 168
Speaker 202
Speaker 205
Speaker 161
Speaker 230
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
Speaker 239
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified