Legislative Joint Auditing-State Agencies
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- October 2, 2026
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
0:07
Do I have a motion on accepting the minutes all in favor please say aye aye thank you
next on the agenda is a review of reports and I'm
going to requisite recognize MrBullington at this time. OK thank you Mr chairir. today we're presenting two reports that have
Speaker 9
0:28
findings and we also have four reports without findings that are listed on page one of the audit summary
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
0:38
without a without objection we will file the
Speaker 10
0:49
reports without findings the first report we have today with findings is the department of humanman Services Fy24 report and this report contains
Speaker 9
0:56
three findings the first finding the agency notified us of the apparent theft of almost $8000 from the disaster supplemental nutrition Ass assistance programme by providing false or incomplete information to the agency 13 employees received disaster temporary food assistance
benefits related to the March31st,2023 tornadoes that impacted Pulasi County The employment of the individuals was terminated in the AC referred all cases to the latic County prosecuting attorney's office the improper payments have not been recovered. The Ac also notified us of the apparent theft of5,800 dollars from the medicaid program also by providing false information to the AC one employee received Medicaid benefits to which they were not entitled The employment of this individual was also terminated
and they also referred this to the Placi County prosecutor's office the improper payments of this one have not been recovered as well as I said this finding was referred to the prosecuting attorney and we've also referred it to the attorney general and it was also certified to the bond board the second finding on July31st,2024, the AC received an email notification from the treasurer's office stating that a state warrant issued on behalf of DHS payable to the University of Arkansas LittleRock had been altered and cashed and that DHS would need to begin the
affidavit process to get a new warrant issued to ULr however it was not until August 21st,2024, 15 business days later that theHC notified us of the theft of the almost610,000 dollars warrant the pay line on the redeem warrant was altered and replaced with the name of private business but the warrant amount and number remain unaltered the deputy director and state controlller at DFNA became aware of the issue and notified the FBI on August 20,2024.
ULR completed the affidavit to forge a warrant form on August 22,2024 and the bank was notified of the altered warrant the following day the state's forgery claim was honored and the funds were deposited into the treasurer's account on November 13,2024. this finding was also referred to the prosecuting attorney and the attorney general. and the third finding while performing an observation of assets from a current capital asset listing dated april 16,2025 we noted five of the fi0 equipment out sampled with a
total purchase cost of almost59,000 dollars could not be physically located for observation and or properly identified for audit verification as follows hree of the items could not be physically located and none of these had been documented as lost stolen or obsolete prior to our sample testing one item presented for observation had no identifying tag
Speaker 10
3:33
number or serial number listed in aces and what I one item was discovered as having been transferred to marketing
Speaker 9
3:40
redistribution however the item remained on the fixed asset
listing as a current active item Additionally 10 of the50 items tested had documented dates and ACEs as being last inventoried two or more years ago. during our review of asset acquisitions deletions and observation and observations we also noted the following two items were not capitalized at the correct amount. One item that was still on hand was removed from the ACE's fixed asset listing and airir and one item sighted during observation did not match the description that was listed in aces furthermore we noted that the AC
paid over $17,000 in air for sales tax levied on four vehicles
Speaker 10
4:18
purchased that were tax exempt Mr Chair that concludes the findings fordHS. are there any agency
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
4:26
representatives here and if so please come to the table and introduce yourself and make any statements if you choose to
Speaker 20
4:51
Good afternoon Renee Iickhardt chief fiscal officer DHS. Bbrett
Speaker 21
5:00
Hayes, chief deputy counsel DHS I would like to provide a quick update on
Speaker 22
5:04
the first finding related to the disaster snap fraud cases we do have an update from the time that we initially responded todF andA on these findings related to the status of those cases that were referred to the prosecuting attorney so there
were 13 cases that were referred to the prosecuting attorney.7 of those have been closed with restitution ordered some of those are convictions some of those are agreed to settlements the restitution told4,165 dollars and we have collected3,408 dollars of that and have active claims on all those cases we have4 cases that are still pending with the Pulasaski County prosecutor's
office and we have two that were dismissed those cases were sent back to us and we're in the process of issuing notices
Speaker 23
5:58
of overpayment so that we can collect those funds that were improperly paid thank you committee
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
6:06
do you have any questions Mister meeks thank you Mr Chairman.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
6:11
my question is on the finding three the uh5 items that were missing can you give
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
6:16
us an update I'm curious have those items been been found and we
note those items are I mean if you're missing like a stapler that's one thing but if we're missing a car that's obviously a whole different
Speaker 27
6:31
category so I'm just curious what those items are. So three
Speaker 22
6:36
of those items were server IT server equipment that hasn't been used in quite some time it's likely that those were disposed of when they were no longer being used so we we don't currently have those items on hand. one item was a piece of sewage treatment
equipment that wasn't tagged. It's since been tagged and documented in ASIS and the final item was a vehicle it was tran it had been transferred previously to M andR it just had not been updated in our fixed asset listing. OK so everything's been accounted for then it sounds excellent thank
Speaker 28
7:11
you Representative Richardson thank you Mr. Chair going back
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
7:17
to number one I was curious out of the 13 employees on finding one that received the disaster food assistance
and the medicaid were any of those
the same employee or same people receiving both so on
Speaker 22
7:33
the the 13 cases I don't know specifically if any of those those people were receiving medicaid but I can tell you that because of this of these reviews that we did we made the decision as an agency to review all of our employees that are receiving any type of benefit that we administer but no I don't know specifically
Speaker 23
7:56
if any of those 13 were receiving other services I do have
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
8:09
a question on finding number 2 with the 15 days lag time who dropped the ball on that so that was
Speaker 22
8:18
a misunderstanding on the part of our finance department there was one of our staff members was notified by
the treasurer's office of the fraud and that the treasurer was going to handle the the affidavit of forgery the misunderstanding on our part was that that that included the notification to legislative audit about within about 15 days after that that our agency CFfo Miss Eykhard was made aware of the forgery at that point we knew that we needed to update or excuse me to notify legislative audit and at that time we did so
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
8:58
thank you what corrective actions has been taken in this
Speaker 20
9:07
oversight Yes sir we've we've instructed our it's our accounts payable team that was notified initially so they've been instructed to any any sort of event like this that occurs from now on their first call will be to the chief fiscal office thank you
Speaker 25
9:35
it te e do you have any other questions? Oh Mr.
Speaker 44
9:41
Gonzalez thank you miss chairir. why are you paying ULR600,000 dollars? that's a a
Speaker 46
9:49
DCFS contract and don't off the top of my head remember what that is brett do you? I believe it's for training of our caseworkers I'm
Speaker 22
9:58
not sure on the specifics but if you'd like that information we can get it to you
Speaker 44
10:05
it doesn't have to be specific I was just wondering what what that was
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
10:19
generally for. thanks finding number3 with the sales tax for the vehicles that were purchased that kind of seems like a big deal that whoever was authorized to make that purchase should know that
Speaker 38
10:31
so when it's my understanding from our DDS finance staff when we
Speaker 22
10:36
went purchased the vehicles and we have a a card essentially that is a tax that shows that you're a tax exempt organization when we were purchasing those vehicles we presented that card to the revenue office we were we were denied and required to pay the sales tax it's my understanding that since then we've purchased vehicles and we have not had to pay sales tax going forward and currently we're working with
Speaker 23
11:08
D DFNA to resolve that situation to get the refund that we paid on that sales tax thank you are there any other
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
11:22
questions Ohpresentative Tosh thank you thank you Mr Chair.
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
11:29
I just want to follow up. I think you said a while ago that or maybe you said it that the employees had been notified that in the future that they would
also make someone aware I'm just curious I kind of took that to mean that I I guess my question is did you has that been has that been documented or have you come up with a new policy procedure or do you just verbally tell them hey in the future this is what we're going to do or did you make it where it's part of your policies where you know they they know there's there's no flexibility there that they have to follow those policies and guidelines or rules and regulations ever how you refer to them how did you handle that
Speaker 20
12:12
right I believe as Mr. Hayes says it it was a misunderstanding our AP team that received the original call treasury told them that they would make notifications and I believe our AP team thought that they were also notifying legislative audit when we found out that they had it is when we we were we I verballyaught to them to be it it's the head of our manager I
mean our accounts payable unit she got the notification so we
Speaker 42
12:48
will we will do that going forward. OK and I guess
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
12:53
Mr Chairman my concern that's a verbal notification so you know somebody takes their replaces them and I'm just curious why it was not put into your policies and procedures manual to make it mandatory instead of just a verbal notification we'll certainly make that you will do
that yes sir one more follow up Mr Chair and on the first finding I think you said a while ago that two of the cases had that had been dismissed if I understood you correctly why would they dismissed with lack of evidence or just what was the reason for the dismissal? I'm not sure
Speaker 29
13:34
on the specifics as to why the prosecutor didn't pursue it further do you have
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
13:47
a standard operating procedure employees who are trusted with purchases have to know can you repeat that I didn't quite catch
Speaker 21
13:59
the middle of that question. Well I'm just an
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
14:02
old navy guy and so we have thank all the SOP standard operating procedures that you really need to be familiar with particularly when you're trusted to spend money do you guys have something in your like a three ring band or that says when you get to this level employment
you're gonna be spending the people's money you have to know these things yes
Speaker 20
14:26
sir we we do follow procurement law and and yes it's all written in binders everybody gets training when they reach those levels and so I
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
14:40
believe you're going to incorporate whatpresentative Tosh said about putting it in your training in the future yes sir
Without objection I'm going to defer this to the next meeting so you can come back and tell us that it's actually written down Absolutely yes sir thank you dismissed you're dismissed thank you OK Mr Chair the next
report we have with findings is the Department of Parks Heritage and
Speaker 9
15:26
tourism FY24 report and this report contains two findings the first finding the Arkansas Department of Parks Heritage and tourism notified us in april 2024 of the loss of receipts totaling almost3,500 dollars from one of its museums an employee was terminated and as of the report date no criminal charges have been brought against the employee this finding was referred to the prosecuting attorney and the attorney general and it was also certified to the bond board. and the second finding during our review of the AC's various
change fund cash accounts the following exceptions were noted at Daisy State Park a $100 in camping camping drawer funds could not be located by the park staff at the time of our audit and at War Memorial Stadium it was discovered at the time of audit that the change fund had an $80 overage. war memorials change fund is unique because it has both a cash portion and a balance held in the commercial bank account and this amount can be adjusted throughout the year based on the size of events that they're holding and the need for additional change funds
the overage had not been previously discovered because the acC did not have procedures in place that would consider both cash and bank bouncing together when verifying the change fund Mr chair that concludes the findings for parks
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
16:42
and tourism thank you sir if their agency representatives here please come to the table and introduce yourself and make any statements as needed Jamie Fisher, CFO for Parks Heritage and tourism.
Speaker 67
16:58
Shay Lewis, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks Heritage and
Shea Lewis
Unverified
17:05
tourism thank you Chairman Unger the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and tourism takes all audit findings very seriously and since thebiing these findings have come forward we have implemented action plans and controls have been put in place to address the specific issues we've also provided our information and responses through a a management response letter that's also part of the
Speaker 70
17:28
packet and be glad to take whatever questions that you have sir committee do you have any
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
17:34
questions seepresentative meeks thank you Mr Chair. two questions one on each the3,500
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
17:39
dollars from the from the museum do we think that was just misappropriated? Was it stolen
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
17:43
do we know we believe it to be stolen and it says there's no criminal charges have been filed to date. Is that still an ongoing investigating or are we just writing off our losses and moving on the statute of
Shea Lewis
Unverified
17:59
limitations have come to a conclusion on that we did refer it to the Plasky County sheriff's office as well as the prosecuting attorney's office during the time period that the statute of limitations expired we were awaiting approval for a subpoena tocash App for additional information and that led to the the time period and the expiration so how short is
that that seems like this only happened in 2024
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
18:29
I mean if you don't know off the top of your head I'm just kind of curious it seems like it it that was pretty short time period to try to react to that.
Speaker 74
18:40
I don't know it off the the exact length of time off the top of my
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
18:44
head my my second one's for war memorial Stadium and and you know I was never a fan of the state taking over a football stadium. I just didn't think that was a proper role of state government but obviously I was overruled at the time when we voted on it and so now y'all have this stadium
my question is it's been in the state's possession now for a couple of years. Was there no controls on this change account this whole time and I mean I'm glad we found $80 more than we were supposed to have and not the other way around but it just seems to me that as long as War Memorial Stadium had been operating over the decades that this is not something that was you know in place before now. Yes sir. there have been mechanisms in place
Jami Fisher
Unverified
19:26
this this as we mentioned is very unique because there is a combination of the amounts left in the checking account as
well as cash that fluctuates depending upon events I will say at the time of this counting it was right after the razorback game so they had a significant amount more in cash on hand so that led to the overage but yes now we're reconciling that after every event with my staff. OK. and that's all
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
19:52
being done electronically I'm assuming correct ok thank you Mr Secretary oh I'm
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
20:00
sorry subway whose microphone is on Miss Brown sorry ok
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
20:08
forgive the thank you Mr Chair. Am I on it's red OK I'm trying to find the language in here I heard mention that something had been referred to the bond board so I'm trying to find where that's written but so are all of these parks are they all protected by a bond I mean are the money mons protected by the bond is that what that's referring to? I didn't quite follow ' m not sure
it's up at the top of page four certified to bond board refer to prosecuting attorney AG what is the bond board yeah the bond boards ensures all
Speaker 10
20:59
state employees so they're they provide coverage for state employees if there's something like this they'll cover and I'm I'm looking at Kevin I can't remember the amount but there's an amount that they'll cover it up to and and reimburse the state for
if there's a loss of state funds like that and it involved a state employee so so
Speaker 80
21:16
have we been reimbursed or not at this point no we're just now
Speaker 10
21:19
referring it to the bond board thank you
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
21:25
Mr Secretary, before the meeting I sort of heard a a plane language explanation this is in finding number one of how this money disappeared could you share with the rest of the committee exactly how that happened it's my understanding at the
Shea Lewis
Unverified
21:42
museum itself we have rental space available as a rental facility and the employee was taking money for the rent of the facility but never being entered into the cash register for that and so was using our understanding different online payment options for that so the customers would pay that but never did since that time we have implemented a point of sale system and a reservation system
that allows for the tracking of this appropriately thank you was this a
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
22:19
single point of contact employee that was taking all the money for bookings or or were there other employees who handled bookings I would imagine different employees handled bookings throughout throughout the
Shea Lewis
Unverified
22:32
year over but primarily this person was stationed at the front desk where those reservations would have happened OK one more question and I'll let miss burkes have it
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
22:44
the question I had is somewhere
you know let's just say we were doing bookings in January and February and March somehow they just disappeared and everybody wondered what happened was was there a supervisor there that took note that something was off and and that is
Shea Lewis
Unverified
23:04
an issue at hand that that we've made corrections to as well to make sure that there is verification versus payments collected versus the reservations or bookings that take place.
Speaker 89
23:16
there was there was a there was a failure a service failure there OK that just seems so common sense uhpresentative burkes thank you museum was this mosaic Templer's
Speaker 91
23:29
ulturalenter. inttleRock yes ma'am and do all of the museums have the ability to rent out the facilities or is that the only one that does that I believe they all do, yes OK and and now at this time is there a central office that can see or have transparency into that money coming into each of
those museums? Yes with through that point
Shea Lewis
Unverified
23:49
of sale system that has been implemented instead of a manual system it does allow oversight thank you Mr Secretary,
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
24:04
have you had any further contact with the prosecuting attorney on this matter we have
Shea Lewis
Unverified
24:10
we have we have stayed in contact and asked requested updates along the way and we're waiting approval
for that subpoena in and did find out at the last update that the statute of limitations had run out it had run out it had run out do we
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
24:31
have the ability to as a state to put a lien on this person's taxes I do not know the answer to
Speaker 97
24:39
that for the answer to that p re s ent ative gonzalez
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
24:41
I would just like to say that I'm I'm glad that y'all found
Speaker 44
24:49
the $100 at Daisy State Park and that state park is able to stay open and serve the people of Arkansas great deal Representative Luundster on the employee that
Representative Robin Lundstrum
Unverified
25:01
stole the money from the mosaic tempmplar did they withhold the last paycheck Not that I'm aware of no. could we have something in the rules or in your regs that if you're fired for absconding with funds your last paycheck should be withheld and those funds were
taken from that paycheck do not know if we could create a rule like
Shea Lewis
Unverified
25:24
that that that seems like DF andA or or shared administrative services would have to create something like that through the office of personnel management. OK I'll
follow up. it seems like there should that should be a captain
Representative Robin Lundstrum
Unverified
25:36
obvious thing regardless of what agency all right thank you and yeah private business would do it so I'm not sure why we you don't have that authority to do it
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
25:56
I'd like to Mr Bollington has some updated information on the prosecuting attorney and I recognize him to speak to us yeah thank you
Speaker 10
26:05
Mr chair yeah our office was in contact with Will Jones' office yesterday about this
Speaker 9
26:10
about this shortage at parks and tourism and that incredible investigation still remains open according to him and it's active and according to Mr. Jones as recently as November of 25 his office had requested additional information for parks and tourism and is waiting receipt of that information
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
26:30
Committee do you have any other questions Representativeburkes'm sorry did you just say
Speaker 91
26:37
that they're waiting for information from the agency that's what we were told from the prosecutor's office yesterday. yes
Speaker 86
26:40
ma'am not aware of that that's news to us but we can certainly follow up with
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
26:51
them are there any other questions without objection we will defer this report to the next meeting because I would like to hear how this crime drama closes out
thank you you are dismissed new business our next
meeting will be on the 1elth of February 2026 and
we are adjourned was it that's right
Agenda
A. Call to order by Chairman.
B. Adoption of minutes of the December 11, 2025 meeting.
C. Review of reports. (Refer to the Summary)
D. New Business. The next meeting will be held February 12, 2026
E. Adjournment.
500 WOODLANE STREET, SUITE 172 • LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS 72201-1099 • PHONE: (501) 683-8600 • FAX: (501) 683-8605 www.arklegaudit.gov
LEGISLATIVE JOINT AUDITING COMMITTEE ARKANSAS LEGISLATIVE AUDIT JANUARY 8, 2026 STANDING COMMITTEE ON STATE AGENCIES
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — LEGISLATIVE JOINT AUDITING - STATE AGENCIES, Jan 8, 2026 | Agenda | 2 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
Speaker 9
Speaker 10
Speaker 20
Speaker 21
Speaker 22
Speaker 23
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
Speaker 27
Speaker 28
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
Speaker 25
Speaker 44
Speaker 46
Speaker 38
Representative Dwight Tosh
Unverified
Speaker 42
Speaker 29
Speaker 67
Shea Lewis
Unverified
Speaker 70
Speaker 74
Jami Fisher
Unverified
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Speaker 80
Speaker 89
Speaker 91
Speaker 97
Representative Robin Lundstrum
Unverified
Speaker 86