Legislative Joint Auditing-State Agencies
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Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
0:00
first and we're waiting on secretary i think she just walked in let's go ahead and turn to page 10 and we will do the internal control and compliance assessment i better start following i guess the chairman needs an adoption of the minutes from the november 9th meeting i got so moved and all in favor please say aye motion to adopt a minutes is approved we're going to start the review of reports item c but i think we're going to go to page 10 and deal with the department of energy
and environment first since the secretary just arrived we'll bring her to the end of the table and well you might notice that we're missing members we're missing both of our chairman today i think they each have family issues but don't quote me on that and we also are missing tom John Bullington, whose son has COVID. So we're going to make do and be enthralled by Mr. Webb and Mr. Don over here. So, Mr. Webb, would you please read the finding and then we'll ask for
Speaker 4
1:08
questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're on page 10. The finding that is included on page 10 is the only finding that was included in the June 30, 2020 report for the Department of energy, and environment. Arkansas Code and the DF&A Financial Management Guide require each state agency to maintain a record of all property of the agency belonging to the state of Arkansas. And over a period of several years, the Division of Environmental Quality transferred numerous items of equipment and low-value assets with a total historical cost
of approximately $919,000 to M&R and to other state agencies, but did not remove these items from the fixed asset records in ASIS. Mr. Chair, that concludes the finding for this agency. Okay. I think at
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:55
this time I'm going to ask members, are there any comments before I go to the presentation from the director? Seeing none, director, is that the right title? Are you the director or secretary? Secretary? Yes. Thank you. I'll take either.
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
2:14
Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself for the
Speaker 11
2:17
record, and we'll go from there. All right. And I'm Cabinet Secretary Becky Keogh for Department of Energy and Environment. Pleased to see you this afternoon. And we have just, we have been briefed on the results of this audit. I believe our staff did a great job cooperating with the auditors going through this process. And we have responded to the one finding that was identified. Based on this finding, we have implemented a full inventory of all our assets.
We've dedicated a full-time staff member that will manage assets for the department going forward, taking into account not only DEQ but our other entities that sit within the Department of Energy Environment. And they will also be training all our staff that handle assets on proper documentation and handle that coordination of the disposal, especially as we retire these assets, facilitate this inventory moving forward to make sure it meets all the requirements of legislative audit.
So I know a number of these items, as mentioned, were items such as scanners and cameras and things that basically became outdated. Some of these assets date back to 1999, so a lot of this is a historical look back, but in looking at the records, we want to make sure going forward anyway that we have documentation when an asset when it ends its useful life that we transfer you know when we transfer that we have that documentation in our records as well as their records okay
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:53
members do you all have your placards up we should make sure we have them down the center for the video since we're on video are there any questions for the members from the members seeing no questions the chair would entertain a motion for the filing of this finding i have a motion from senator rice a second representative bentley all in favor of the motion to file please say aye that will be remanded over to tomorrow's report and thank you secretary keogh
for your time. We appreciate that. Thank you so much. Appreciate the quick response to modifying the issue as well. Alright, I believe we're going DHS. Let's go back to the front of your
Speaker 4
4:42
report. It would be on page 2. Well, in addition to the current audits that we have with findings, we also have three reports without findings. Those are listed on page 1 of your summary, and those reports are ready to be accepted and filed if
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
4:58
it pleases Okay. The chair will receive a motion to file with no findings those three reports.
I have a motion. Senator Hammer, do I have a second? Second. Second from Representative Lane-Jean. All in favor, please say
Speaker 4
5:18
file. Let's move to page two. On page two, we will also address the finding dealing with the Arkansas Department of Commerce, June 30, 2020 report, that report contained three findings, but the report was deferred from the September and October committee meetings so that more information and a status update
could be obtained related to the third finding. And so a summary of that finding number three is that Arkansas Rehabilitation Services had notified leg audit of six warrants totaling $23,500 that were paid to a vendor in June and July of 2020 for services that were not provided. An agency employee had potentially falsified documentation on behalf of a vendor. After being contacted by the agency in July of 2020, the
vendor returned one warrant in the amount of $2,000 that had not been cashed. The agency is actively seeking repayment of the remaining $21,500. The employee was terminated, the vendor was deactivated from the agency's case management system, and the agency initiated a criminal investigation with Arkansas State Police. As part of our follow-up of this matter, legislative audit has searched through ACES and verified that there were no additional payments to this vendor by the
state, and we also noted that the employee is not currently employed by another state agency. This report was referred to the prosecuting attorney, and so, Mr. Chair, that concludes my portion of the finding, but agency representatives are on hand. Let's go ahead and have them come to
Speaker 27
6:55
the end of the table just to clarify any details the members might have. And if you would
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
7:04
be so kind to introduce yourself or your name and title. Yes, sir.
Speaker 31
7:15
afternoon, members. Charles Lyford, General Counsel, Arkansas Rehab Services. I'm sorry, I didn't catch your last name,
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
7:25
Charles. Lyford, L-Y-F-O-R-D. Okay. Do any members wish to have a microphone? Seeing no questions, I guess the first question is where do we stand? can you give us any more update
Speaker 33
7:43
Yes, sir. We spoke to our state police rep earlier this week. The investigation is still active and ongoing. They're requesting additional records from the business, and they're going to be scheduling additional interviews behind those records. That's the current status. Okay. I was
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
8:00
just told that perhaps you have some other people coming from Department of Commerce that may want to reference this. No? No, not that I'm aware of. Okay. Do we have any questions for members?
I appreciate the comment from the audit department of the vendor or the person involved being terminated, but also not showing up in another state agency somewhere. I think that's one
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
8:24
of the things we've had in failings through the years. No other questions? Senator Rice, you recognized?
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
8:35
y'all following up on this? As far as the prosecution? Yes, sir. I know it always gets referred, and then it's like it just gets dropped.
Speaker 33
8:45
We've been working with the state police just to keep abreast of the investigation and making sure they get all the information they
Speaker 33
8:59
timeline? No, sir. They're still investigating. Again, they requested additional business records. When did they request those? I don't know the
Speaker 37
9:07
exact date, sir. Within the last month or two? Probably, most likely. I can
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
9:12
verify them. Okay. It's just, you know, we see so many of these things.
Then we hear of other cases out with the public that seem like everybody jumps on board for the
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
9:27
to make sure it gets the attention it needs. Thank you. Yes, sir. I want to interject several
members of Ask Where We Are. We're on bottom of page 3, finding 3, and I will request a motion for only finding 3 as we've already dealt with finding 1 and 2 in previous meetings. So if you want to take a second to be able to read what the report was, it's at the bottom of page 3, finding 3.
Anybody else have a question? representative wardlaw are we good to proceed on or do you have
okay very good we've got we had some potential other people coming but the chair will entertain a motion then to file this report finding three and be part of
the report do i see a motion senator hammer you're recognized for the motion do i have a second representative wardlaw is a second all in favor of filing this motion only finding three at this
time please say aye and chair sees that motion passed we will now switch up staff members yes yes are you willing to take one more quick question yes yes sure sure thank you i know that we've
commented about the employee not being employed somewhere else, but the vendor, is the vendor doing any other business
for the state that you know of? Not that we're aware of. It's been
Speaker 45
10:56
activated in our system and we also submitted a vendor performance report asking them to be
Speaker 54
11:01
debarred. Good. Thank you. Yes, sir. Okay. Good question. I'll have all details. Mr. Morgan, would
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
11:08
you like to introduce and tell us first what page we are? I believe we're going to dhs yes don morgan legislative audit field audit supervisor
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
11:26
finding one yes that is it so members if you'll turn to page four department of human services referred to the pa finding one and if you'll go ahead and read
Speaker 61
11:35
that finding for now okay finding number one on department of human services june 30 2020 report While performing an observation of 60 equipment items, we noted three items could not be located for observation, five items had no identifying serial number recorded in ACES, and 13 items were not considered to be currently inventoried. The latest inventory dates noted in ACES on these items ranged from two years up to six years ago.
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
12:05
Finding number two. Yes, now you're on page
Speaker 61
12:11
top of page five. During our review of collateral, we noted that almost 3.7 million of bank balances were not properly collateralized. Collateral had been pledged against the bank account's collected balance and not against the bank account's ledger balance. The agency has subsequently updated the collateral agreement with the bank. Beginning in September 2020, collateral was pledged against the ledger balance finding number three for 24 of 31 bank accounts
we reviewed the agency failed to properly record the banking and activity monthly in aces for the majority of these accounts the banking and activity for the entire year was all reported in aces in the year-end closing process finding number four the conway human development center canteen bank account had monthly total deposits between $10,000 and $16,000 with total canteen sales of over $154,000 for fiscal year 2020.
As a result of our review of canteen sales, we determined the agency consistently made deposits from 9 to 13 days after the original sales date. The agency also implemented the use of an electronic point of sale system at the Conway HDC Canteen beginning in July 2019. The agency failed to incorporate the use of the system's electronic sales reports in reconciling daily sales receipts. Instead, handwritten batch reports were prepared and the mode of payment received was not segregated. Additionally, three deposits
were not included in the handwritten batch reports. Our review also revealed that almost 4,000 in daily canteen sales for June 2020 remained on hand at year-end and were not recorded in ACES as cash on hand. The total sales amount on hand pertained to daily canteen sales received from June 19th to
Speaker 56
14:11
June 30th. Finding number five. Bottom of page six. During our review of Arkansas State Hospital patients' money fund
Speaker 61
14:18
bank account, we noted the following. The agency
failed to perform monthly reconciliations of the patient's subsidiary ledger against the monthly bank statement reconciliations all of fiscal year 2020. The patient's subsidiary ledger contained 21 accounts with negative balances totaling almost $2,500. Included in the 21 negative account balances was an account labeled miscellaneous, which carried a negative balance of over $500. It is common for the state hospital to receive foster care board payments for patients within the foster care program.
Upon patient discharge, any balance of a foster care patient's account is to be returned to the agency's division of children and family services. According to agency personnel, the last time many foster care board payment monies were returned was during calendar year 2018. The state hospital has the capacity to hold 222 patients. The patient census data reported June 30, 2020, listed 201 admitted patients. On the same date, the state hospital's patient subsidiary ledger listed 620 patient accounts,
of which 492 were not listed as current patients. Of the 492 patient accounts, 473 carried positive balances, totaling over $31,000, and the remaining 19 carried negative balances totaling over 1,900. Further review revealed that patients associated with 370 of the positive accounts totaling almost $22,000 were discharged 2 to 23 years ago, and patients associated with 16 of the negative accounts totaling over $1,600 were discharged 4 to 18 years ago.
So basically, the agency did not properly return the patient funds upon discharge.
Speaker 61
16:18
eight. In April 2010, the Arkansas State Hospital Celebration Committee was created by former state hospital employees as a separate nonprofit entity in response to employee satisfaction surveys regarding employee morale. The committee's bylaws state the purpose of the committee is to recognize state hospital employees for their service and to raise funds for awards and special events.
Officers of the committee currently consist of both former and current employees as well as non-salaried individuals performing services for the agency. The committee has a bank account that is not considered a bank account of the agency, and therefore the banking activity and ending balance are not reported in ACES. During our testing of the state hospital check receipt log, we noted one incident in which a monthly vending machine commission check for $600 payable to the state hospital was deposited into the committee bank account instead of the agency's state treasury fund.
State hospital personnel stated it has been common practice for many years for two of the 12 monthly commission checks to be deposited into the committee's bank account, with the remaining 10 monthly commission checks deposited into the agency's state treasury fund. The state hospital check receipt log also listed the receipt of a state-issued warrant for $710 payable to the committee for a rental fee charged for one of the state hospital's state-owned parking lots. Further review revealed the warrant was deposited into the committee bank account along with another $4,000 in cash generated by a fundraiser in which fees were charged for parking cars on state hospital parking lots during War Memorial football games.
This finding was referred to the prosecuting attorney. Finding number seven, top of page nine. Bullet number two on this finding was also reported to the prosecuting attorney. The agency notified us of the following fraudulent activity. Bullet number one. During performance of a bank reconciliation of the Conway Human Development Center Personal Funds Account, the agency discovered that a fraudulent check in the amount of $2,900 cleared the bank in October of 2020.
The original check number was issued during August 2020 in the amount of $133. The agency filed a police report, and the bank subsequently refunded the full amount. Bullet number two, a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, recipient sent in eight personal checks totaling over $10,000 as reimbursement to the agency for excess SNAP monies received. The eight checks were deposited in June 2020. The agency later determined the recipient had over-reimbursed and issued a refund check.
subsequently all of eight personal checks were returned by the bank due to insufficient funds the refund check was cashed the agency filed a police report and as of the report date the funds have not been recovered bullet number three the agency contracts out electronic disbursements of medicaid providers claim claims payments in january of 2021 the contractor notified the agency of an electronic funds transfer wire fraud totaling over $3.3 million
dispersed from the Medicaid funding account. A fraudulent e-fax request to change a valid Medicaid provider's bank account information was processed by the contractor in accordance with their procedures. The weekly Medicaid payment due to the provider was processed appropriately but dispersed to the fraudulent bank account. Bank of America recovered the full amount due to the fraudulent bank account being closed. The agency notified the Office of Medicaid Inspector General and the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Arkansas Attorney General's Office
of this fraudulent activity. And finding number eight, our review of deleted receipt transactions and aces revealed that weekly supervisory review did not occur for the entire fiscal year of 2020
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
20:34
uh committee members i think what we should do let's go ahead and have dhs whoever
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
20:40
wants to answer questions come to the end of the table and introduce themselves but i think it's the chair's wish that we cover the first i don't know
know, there's eight of them. Let's cover the first three with questions first to make sure everybody can stay up to speed on the discussion. So if you'll go back to page four, we're going to cover finding one, finding two, and finding three on page four and five. And if you would introduce yourselves, please. Thank you. Cindy
Speaker 68
21:10
Gillespie, Secretary of the Department of Human Services. Brett
Speaker 69
21:15
Hayes, Deputy Chief Counsel for the Department of Human Services.
Speaker 70
21:21
Misty Eubanks, Chief Financial Officer for the agency. Okay. Okay,
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
21:24
members, do we have questions on findings 1, 2, and 3 specific to begin with? Okay. Senator Hickey,
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
21:45
have reworked your agreements with the banks or
whatever, so that I guess they're, and on the collateral, they're pledging securities for that, right?
Speaker 79
21:55
Yes, that's correct, and we're monitoring those on a regular basis. In addition, banks have been reaching out to us proactively. So, for example, there was a hurricane near
Speaker 80
22:05
a banking center, and we got a proactive ask if we would like to either
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
22:11
re-collateralize or move. Okay. I see that, I guess through the State Board of Finance, that they're requiring like 100% of the cash, 100% of the funds that are not secured by FDIC.
Are you all having any trouble with that additional 5% with the banks? No. Okay. And if one of them doesn't want to do that, I see that you know that y'all's recommendations as you're getting with them to address it. Are you just moving those funds immediately? Is that
Speaker 79
22:48
what you're doing? That's correct. If a bank cannot accommodate the restrictions, then we're moving on to another bank, and DF&A keeps a list of pre-approved banks for state agencies to choose from as well.
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
22:58
Okay, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, members?
Speaker 88
23:13
one. Did we ever come anywhere close to finding those 60 items anywhere? So we have been undergoing a year-long process to change our asset management procedures within the agency. We have been working to tag all of the assets so that we can use an electronic system to better monitor all of the agency assets.
What we've also done is our finance team has been doing compliance reviews of all of our agency assets to ensure that we're following our internal procedures. if the finance team identifies the efficiency they're working with all of our divisions and offices on corrective action plans to identify any assets that have not been found and to answer your question directly we are still working on identifying all those assets that have not been
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
24:16
is they check 60 items and we found three and we found five and we found 13 obviously DHS has way more than 60 items do we think that's going to be a percentage of mislabeled misnomer miss can't find if we look at all of them across
Speaker 79
24:35
all of DHS no okay we also have been to Brett's point taking this time to clear off assets from our books that we knew had been sent to MNR or who had been properly disposed of but we're just continuing
to be maintained in the aces system and this counted against our our inventory okay any other
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
24:52
questions on findings one two or three members
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
24:56
the chair is going to entertain a motion to file at the end because they're all filed at the same but if you if you have questions coming back to them please identify that you want to go back let's turn to page six we'll do with
deal with findings four, five, on both six and seven. Does anybody have questions on finding four or finding
five? I would also focus members' attention on the recommendation and the agency's response as well as you look through these findings. Senator Hammer, do you have a question? Thank you.
On page 7 of our report, which is finding 5,
the state hospital capacity is 222. They were below census June of 20. One thing we constantly hear is that the state hospital is staying overbooked that, you know, judges are loading up with patients and all that stuff. They're below census here. Is that pandemic-related, or is there another reason that they were below census? There's two different things, and Jay
Speaker 97
26:18
Hill is here and can also help address this.
But what your census is is not necessarily what your operating capacity is, which is partly what you're getting at around the pandemic, how many beds you can actually have. So since this is your top, if every potential ability to fill a bed, you were able to do it. But it ends up being partly staffing. It also ends up being partly where you have to have a patient that is, well, even COVID positive.
You're having to put a patient over in a quarantine area, which takes up rooms. There's also issues around putting certain types of patients require multiple people on them at all times and have to be kept more by themselves. And then there's always issues as well around whether or not you can actually even have beds in the place to take you up to census. So census is a regulatory of the max you're allowed to have versus what you actually physically can care for.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
27:25
Does that make sense? Okay. And then the second thing, where do the funds originate from that were supposed to have been returned? Are those from state subsidy programs, or are they from
Speaker 100
27:42
the private individuals themselves? It's a mix of those places. It
Speaker 79
27:47
could be possibly Social Security checks, things of that nature, as well as patient, family, and friends often make donations. Do you
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
27:56
ever have trouble finding family to get the money back to?
Speaker 79
28:00
Is that part of the problem? Yes, that's quite common, either patient and or patient and family to issue checks. We
Speaker 80
28:07
do often issue checks, and then they stale date, which means that they remain on our books. Okay.
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
28:15
All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions,
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
28:18
members? I've got a couple, but does anybody else have one? My first one is on page six. We're seeing kind of throughout, and maybe to legal counsel or to staff, the delay in timely deposits of sales revenues.
It seems like that has occurred in several of these findings. I noticed the 12th and 13th period in the previous
one, and up to 10 to 12 days for deposits to be made. Have we been able to do some corrective action towards that? And if so, maybe you could share with
Speaker 97
28:53
the members what that is. I can start. Yes. This, at Conway and around the others, part of what had happened was this was a, it's a cash canteen, as it references there.
The procedures had never been put in place to actually require that they go ahead and deposit on a daily basis. Okay. So those procedures got put in place. It's one of many things that have been going on over the last few years at the HDCs to really professionalize the way financials are handed. It also references in there, sir, the fact that they had moved to doing a, part of what also goes on at the HDCs is that,
in the case of the canteen, is that you can have a, you have a resident and they'll have some money, but they get their money late in the week. And so they'll go to the canteen all week, and it's just on credit, really, kind of informal credit that they're buying food, getting what they're getting out of the canteen. And then on Friday, they'll reconcile everything. And so it was showing as a sale on Monday or Tuesday, but the money wasn't coming in until Friday. So there were all kinds of just small issues
around the fact of the way they were operating the canteen. So there's been a complete overhaul in the way
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
30:15
that's being done. That might lead to my second question on page 7, the 21 negative account balances. Is that a case where they bought on credit and then didn't pay? Is that what we're looking at there? The second bullet on page 7 at the top, finding
Speaker 91
30:29
number 5. Is that still the HDC at ASH? Okay. The ASH situation is very
Speaker 97
30:34
different from the HDC situation. And I can let several here provide you more detail, but let me.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
30:41
I'm not real sure we're into the ASH situation, the second bullet, not the third one. And it may be under ASH. I mean, I don't want to say it isn't, but it doesn't reference ASH when it says we've got a bunch of
Speaker 68
30:57
negative balances with people gone, and that means we've paid for their whatever. Yes, sir. That one is
Speaker 97
31:03
at ASH. And the state hospital is a place where we are taking a lot of very, very serious actions and have been over the last period of time. The state hospitals' day-to-day financial operations were also not that solid.
There are a number of issues. And there are also areas, as we've dug in, looked more deeply there, where we have realized that beyond even these types of findings, we have a lot that we need to do around billing, around revenue collection, and other things. So we have done several things. On the one hand, broadly, we have brought in some contractors who have been doing a deep dive around the way ASH is set up in its financial operations. Where that is, we've also changed out staff in the way that people report there.
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
31:56
Okay, on which issue? Sorry. Which issue? Okay. Let's, we need to move on, but I think that helps. it's just a bookkeeping thing. Evidently we have an EBD. If you didn't feel the room get up and move, there's a key EBD meeting and I don't want to do discredit to these findings. I'm not real sure EBD, or not EBD, but do we, what, are you here with the Department of Commerce or which, what, huh? TSS. Do we have TSS? You had no findings. We approved that, I think, at the very
beginning yeah yeah at the very beginning you had no findings and it was part of the three that we approved so enjoy the ebd meeting
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
32:42
it'll be a whole lot more fun i think all right so i wanted to make sure we cleared that i didn't want them waiting on us so sorry to interrupt that uh any other questions members on on finding five or finding six or four or five excuse me oh i guess i did have one last foster care board payments can
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
33:04
you give us a low down short quick whatever that's
going on there and what's wrong
Speaker 84
33:10
with that process sure that was another process that wasn't working well we
Speaker 79
33:16
were taking in foster care board payments on behalf of patients who were being housed at ash however when they were being discharged back to other placement settings the funds were not going back to DCFS. As the custodian, we've now put in a process that's twofold with DCFS and with State Hospital, and those funds are being returned timely. Okay.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
33:41
Any other questions for findings four
or five? Seeing none, again, I'll ask for a motion for all of these at the end, but let's cover We're finding six and finding seven, and I'm just going to go ahead and throw in finding eight to the finish, but we're on page eight through the top of page ten. So, members, do we have any questions on those? And again, I would reference the recommendations and the agency response, because one of the questions you might have is something they've already addressed.
Okay, Senator Hemmer, you're recognized for
a question? Thank you. It's on finding number seven about the agency contracts out the electronic disbursement Medicaid provider claim payments. Where does the fault lie with regards to that action or what happened there?
Speaker 88
35:04
the process that we had in place to update the bank account information previously was deficient. What happened in this situation, a person had submitted a e-fax request to update the bank account information for that specific provider number. The contractor that handles this function for us did not have adequate verification measures in place
to confirm that this was an authorized representative for the provider. We have since worked with that contractor to update their verification procedures, and we're no longer allowing
Speaker 89
35:47
account information requests to come in via fax. The amount was recovered,
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
35:57
is that correct? Yes. Okay. Was that paid by the contractor, by the bank, or I'm just not familiar. How was that money recouped?
Speaker 89
36:10
Yeah, the bank was able to recover the funds because the fraudulent account that
Speaker 88
36:15
was set up, that account was actually closed, so the money never actually made its way to
Speaker 89
36:20
that account, and we were able to recover it. Okay. And who's the contractor?
Speaker 95
36:26
Gainwell. And they're still doing work for y'all? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions?
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
36:40
Seeing none, I'll jump at the bottom of page 9, the last bullet item on finding 7. Large Medicaid fraud, and it may be a question for staff, but do we have an update on what the prosecuting attorney's status is with that? We do
Speaker 72
36:56
not have an update. We don't know where that is. Do you happen to know the pursuit of whoever did that? Are you referencing the issue
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
37:07
kind of, as I understood it, Senator Hammer, you were more on bullet two, was that correct, or were you on bullet three?
Okay, so he was on bullet three, but I guess really what I want to know is are we getting the bad guy or person, bad person, I won't be gender specific, and are we having any luck with that? Because $3 million
Speaker 88
37:33
for the next case. Yes, this case was referred to the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit for the Attorney General's Office. We have not received word
Speaker 89
37:39
back from them on their progress in this investigation. So we don't have any update for the committee?
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
37:45
No. With that as we approve this filing. Okay, and then I've got, I guess, finding eight was a process correction only, and can you fill us in on how that
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
37:56
process, and is that underway yet? Is it the corrective action as
Speaker 79
38:03
a process? Yes, this process has been corrected, and currently our lead for our CAFR
Speaker 80
38:08
unit goes in and does this supervisory review and authorization on a weekly basis personally. Okay, so
Speaker 50
38:17
That's correct. Any other questions on findings 6, 7, or 8? Senator
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
38:23
Hammer, unrecognized? On finding seven, number two, have you made the procedural
changes to where there's a bigger gap time to make sure that the checks that are being given to you are not insufficient before you issue funds back out? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?
I'll ask on six, seven, and eight findings, and then I'll also ask the same question on all one through eight. findings. No questions? The chair would recognize a motion for all eight findings to be approved. I have Representative Lane Jean with a motion. Do I have a second? Senator Brianne Davis. All in favor of filing findings one through eight, please say aye. Chair calls that as a pass. Do we have anything else for the greater good, staff?
does not look thank you to our speakers at the end of the table uh members i need a volunteer who's going to be here tomorrow and representative richardson i believe you're the vice chair in the house is that correct are you going to be here tomorrow because i will not be can you read the report that they're going to type up at the full audit meeting i sure appreciate that representative fort smith in the
Speaker 50
39:52
house right all right then chair anything else for the good of the cause
chair makes a motion and we are adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to order by Chairman.
B. Adoption of minutes of the November 9, 2021 meeting.
C. Review of reports. (Refer to the Summary)
D. New Business. The next meeting will be held February 10, 2022
E. Adjournment.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — LEGISLATIVE JOINT AUDITING - STATE AGENCIES, Jan 6, 2022 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
Speaker 4
Senator Mathew Pitsch
Unverified
Speaker 11
Speaker 23
Speaker 27
Speaker 29
Speaker 31
Speaker 34
Speaker 33
Chair
Unverified
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
Speaker 37
Speaker 45
Speaker 54
Speaker 58
Speaker 61
Speaker 56
Speaker 68
Speaker 69
Speaker 70
Speaker 73
Senator Jimmy Hickey, Jr
Unverified
Speaker 79
Speaker 80
Speaker 88
Speaker 89
Speaker 97
Speaker 100
Speaker 91
Speaker 84
Speaker 116
Speaker 95
Speaker 72
Speaker 50