Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee - Senate and House
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HR1
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Matched: “two provisions in the in the new bill from hr1 the states will take on an additional admin cost starting i…”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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- October 2, 2026
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
7:48
right if everybody can take their seats right good morning everybody if everybody will take their seats we're gonna go ahead and get started calling the our committee on public healthal welfare and laborbor to order I need a motion to consider
approval of the minutes and second, thank you. all in favor say aye and opposed ayes have it the motion carries minutes are approved. All right, we're moving right down our agenda item C like to welcome doctorackett if he could come to the table real quick. We I wanted to I saw this on Arkansas business and wanted to get an update. I think it's
important the legislature has invested a lot into our Winthrop P.Rockef el ler Cancer Institute and National Cancer institute designation this discussion and announcement of this award is a big deal towards that end so thank you so much for changing your schedule last minute when I reached out to be here to give us just a really brief update and and discussion about what is happening here with this thank you if you'll just introduce yourselves both
for the record then please proceed. OK
Speaker 41
9:24
thank you for the invitation. Alanackett a professor
Speaker 42
9:26
of biochemistry at UAMs and deputy director of the Winthrop P.Rockefeller Cancer Institute. andy Davis with UAMS OK, so I'm gonna give you first of all I appreciate the opportunity to come speak today. I'm gonna overview a recent grant that was awarded touaMS where I'm the lead investigator and I'll be happy to answer questions obviously at the end this grant is from the National Institutes of Health it funds an entity that exists
at UAMS and within the cancer center it's called the National Resource for Quantitative proteomics and I'll tell you a little bit more about that as I explain this grant first this resource that operates on our campus is the first and the only national institutes of health nationalour eververett Arkansas so we are very unique entity that not necessarily a lot of people know about that this grant will support the next5 years of our operation giving us 10 years of continuous support from the
National Institutes of Health and this will be a $10.5 million award that will help support us for the next five years our operation employs 12 local arkansans we have high-end computational infrastructure and about $20 million of equipment we are the largest academic or commercial resource provider of our kind in the world and before I tell you about the resource I do want to thank the Arkansas state you all have contributed towards the development of this resource
over the past two decades and I've been at UAMS for the past two decades as a professor and funding from the state through the national Cancer institute designation actct the Arkansas Biosciences institute as well as Arkansas Research Alliance has helped us grow this operation to a national resource so what we do we provide nationwide access to technology as well as local expertise for the discovery of new disease biomarkers I think many people understand what biomarkers are but these are
measurable measurable indicators that are found in your body that could be in your blood, your urine or your tissue that tell a doctor about your current health status they're used in clinical assays to screen, diagnose, prognose and create personalized treatment regimens for patients some examples could be our prostatespecific antigen when men will at a certain age will get screened for PSA and that's a biomarker for prostate cancer and even when you get lipid panels measured at your primary
care physician, those are biomarkers for cardiovascular related diseases so we provide the development of assays for those c lin ical biomarker assays that are performed within the clinics we have impact at the national as well as at the local level in terms of the United States we support thousands of national institutes of health funded laboratories across every state in the United States so it's thousands of research laboratories send their samples to us for biomarker asset development this supports
hundreds of millions of NIH dollars across every state in the United States. we developed 10,000 different assays every year and of course development of these assays allow physicians to detect disease early on and treated earlier on which that'll obviously compounds and cost savings for healthcare for Arkansas impact our local economic impact here in central Arkansas is in the tens of millions of dollars we support development of
biomarkers that impact Arkansans particularly for chronic diseases that are the major killers for Arkansans like cancer, diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease as well as other diseases and infectious diseases like influenza and tickborne diseases also so we we function to develop assays that help ourkansans we support community outreach efforts across every corner of the state and we also have specialized programs for local workforce development and retention of talent within Arkansas and we have undergraduate internships
to train our our young scientists and hopefully keep them here in Arkansas and for others doing biomedical research in the state we provide subsidized access to our resource and finally we are a key resource in the application for national Cancer institute designation which is ongoing at UAMS so we play a key role in supporting every cancer researcher within the WinthropRockefeller cancercer Institute so with that overview I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have.
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
14:02
thank you again I just really thought it was so important to give us an update and just a description of this to inform the legislature about the fact that you're leading the nation and just so exciting and and to focus on the science side of things a lot of times we focus on the healthcare side of things but it was important for me to recognize your work and just say thank you for the work that you've done for the past two decades. the science part is incredibly important to the to the healthcare that we
provide so with that again just appreciate the
update. are there any questions from anyone in the legislature? yes. Representative Allen. thank you madam
Representative Fred Allen
Unverified
14:44
chair thank you Doctor Tagart for being here and thank you for all the good work that you're doing with bowel markers. what is the average cost of a biomarker test?
Speaker 42
14:55
so we again we're on the the development end of the space where we're developing biomarker assays. Now if you for us to develop a you know assays you're talking about
tens of thousands of dollars on the development phase and then of course you're gonna have to translate through the you know and towards the clinic you know not to run a clinical assay it depends on the on the assay you know you could be in the hundreds of dollars to the thousands of dollars if you're running a lipid panel it's obviously less expensive. PSA biomarker screenings fairly inexpensive but you know there are some genetic biomarkers we you can test for certain mutations for given cancers so you know it depends on the on on the particular assay but hundreds to thousands
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
15:37
of dollars for an assay thank you you're welcome you are there any other questions right see none. oh yes hold on
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
15:48
sorry Representative Springer good morning and thank you madam chairir. uhpresentative Allen is being modest as well as senator Wallace they're the representatives and senators that introduced this to help cost savings for the state of Arkansas with respect to cancer research so I think that we should give them an applause as well. thank you
Speaker 57
16:10
thank youpresentative Allen and Senator Wallace
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
16:13
they they did some good legislation as it related to this which is another reason why I thought it would be good for us to have a report on this from you so appreciate the hard work of Representative Allen of course his personal testimony and journey has been important to that policy development but what you're doing is really also incredibly important to our policy development to to make sure that patients have access to the hard
work that you put in so helping us to know that this is happening and informs us to make sure that we continue on that path of providing access for patients to have the ability to to have their biomarkers tested and and and have that to be a reasonable cost. so appreciate you very much. any other questions right thank you for being here appreciate you right.ext we will move on to adam D, Department of Human
Services if you will all please come to the table Good morning I'm Mary Franklin
Speaker 60
17:41
director of the division of county operations for Arkansas Department of Human
Speaker 63
17:50
secretary. good morning Ms DUank's deputy secretary DHS. you may
Speaker 66
17:55
proceed thank you I'll give a quick update on Snap and Mary andisty can answer with lots of details if there are questions sosnap is fully functional. we are up to speed. We after the government shutdown
ended, I think it took took us approximately two business days we were able to pay november benefits that was approximately a week later than normal but we are operational onsnap and I'll defer to the details with Miss Franklin. that's
Speaker 62
18:27
correct I think by November 13th we were able to get the benefits that we had been instructed to hold issued we we got final guidance from FNS not to do partial but we were cleared to issue full benefits we had not yet issued
any partial benefits so we were able to just get the full benefits out the door as we would normally have and then just on a daily basis from since then we approve new cases and issue the benefits they're entitled to and effectively back to normal
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
19:04
operations with snap so a lot of us are following what's happening and states like Minnesota. we've obviously our compliant with the federal government is
that correct with submitting all of our information to make sure that there's no fraud happening within our benefits we're fully compliant on that yes we have been cooperative
Speaker 62
19:25
with any requests for data that have come from our federal partners related to the the new focus on that and and their their work to compare state to state data in a way that states have not been able to compare it and then so we are cooperative and have been
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
19:45
responsive through that process and then did we extend any money whether it be state or federal towards retooling through all this kind of chaos when you were getting direction that was just a question that I'd had about cause I know that we have vendors that we work with you know through contracts that we were getting you were getting changed you know changing
directions so did that throw us off any? Do we spend money do you know having to retool and then retool back. I'll start
Speaker 62
20:27
go we were we definitely were working with our system integrator which is deloitte and they had been working to make those calculation changes in the snap benefits and implement that in our system but as part of maintenance and operations we did not get a change request that we had to pay or expend additional funds
for that and end one thing I will say is if we are faced with something like that in the future we have some functionality now that
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
20:58
hopefully could make us more responsive more quickly that's good that's good to know so it was already part of what was negotiated in the contract and maintenance
and operations so it wasn't a different change order that would cost us more money. that's good to know all right uhpresentative uhRay. thank you madam chairir.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
21:19
Secretary mann I think you've addressed this before but I just I'm asking because I need a refresher so the provision that the federal government has passed about states taking on a portion of the cost for snap if their error rate is above a certain threshold. what it what it can you remind me what's that threshold? iss it5%? no
Speaker 66
21:40
sir it's6% and that is correct. there's actually two provisions in the in the new bill from HR one the states will take on an additional admin cost
starting I believe October 1 of26 for that year which will add an additional 25% for admin that is not dependent on anything else. The second piece is what you were asking me about that is error rates will under6% will have no additional cost to benefits for the state after that there are bands or ranges of the percentage of what the states will have to contribute for those benefits and I believe that startsoctober 1 of2027 for
Representative David Ray
Unverified
22:27
OK and what is our what is Arkansas's current
Speaker 82
22:32
error rate on snap we are at7.01% we are still
Speaker 62
22:37
working to finish the reviews required for federal fiscal year 25 and we are about 82 almost 83 wait close to 88% complete so about 12% more of the cases to still
be finalized in that review process to know what our overall number is actually going to be but we're at7.01 and I can tell you that we finished federal fiscal year 24 at 9.56. so we are making improvements we have not yet gotten below6 but we are continuing to work on that to keep bringing that rate down. OK and do you have an estimate of
Representative David Ray
Unverified
23:17
what the cost would be to the state at7% and what the cost would be at 9.56%.
Speaker 62
23:27
so at if we were if we are above6 based on the average amount of benefits that we we have issued over the last 12 months above6% would be around a $25 million cost. I don't I don't have the math for beyond that but we can certainly get that to you and I would just say that this is an estimate of course it's gonna it's based on how many households receive SnapP how much are the benefits and also the error rate OK yeah
Representative David Ray
Unverified
23:59
if you could if you could work up what the cost would be to the state at 9.5 or whatever the previous year was that would be helpful and I appreciate you respond to that and look forward to learning more about what the department's doing to lower our error rate thank you Representative Bentley thank you chairman thank you ladies on that point
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
24:21
there with our error rate, are we getting any guidance on the federal government to help on what we can do to decrease our
error rate is there anything that we're doing or are we getting any assistance or guidance or recommendations on what we can do to get
Speaker 60
24:37
where we need to be. We have a corrective action plan that we're actively working with FNS that they they review and
Speaker 62
24:43
approve but I actually left a meeting with my team right before this meeting where we are actively reviewing where we're at where what what are the causes of the errors that we are finding and what we can do to prevent them so I can just I can
tell you that we do we do the required reviews as part of the quality control process but we also do what we call secondparty reviews which is just cases that we are supervisory staff review and to see how we're doing to see what errors we are finding before the quality control process finds it and then we make adjustments based on that we're launching an a we we have done that all along we're launching a new initiative we talked about this morning
where based on those quality control reviews and the outcomes of those secondparty reviews if there are particular caseworkers or particular areas like income deductions household composition that we're finding problems in so that we can target reviews specific to those places where we're having issues we have always done training but we're doing a more formalized approach to refresher training that everyone has to take and
we're doing that monthly and it may be like a one hour long webbased training that workers can do on their own or we're doing like quarterly and instructor led portion of that training where where they spend more you know, close to a day focusing on a particular problem area we are also we have a team of investigators special investigators that our staff make referrals to and so any
anything we learn through our review process or through the quality control errors in general that could inform better for you know better referrals for cases to be investigated for errors on the client side we're doing that as well. we're also doing something new we revitalize something that happened years ago where in conjunction with the refresher training that we're doing with our staff. we are sending out
not prevention in a snap. we're calling it prevention in a snap and it's in very plain language explaining to staff these are these are the latest errors we found and these are things that we can do to pre partnered with our communications team at DHS and there's a QR code on those uh, notices that go out to our staff where they can give us feedback if they have recommendations or suggestions on things that we can do to help prevent those kinds of errors
we're taking that feedback giving that opportunity for staff to be you know more involved in helping us come up with ideas on additional things that we can do to prevent the errors so we're working on it on many fronts and and I would also like
Speaker 79
27:53
to add we have reached out to other states that have lower error rates to inquire what are they doing how are they doing
Speaker 66
28:00
things differently to see if there's a process or a procedure that we are not doing or paying attention to but in addition I think it's important to note
that the beneficiary errors if they fail to report something or some report something in error that counts against us also. so we're focused on how do we educate the beneficiaries on the information that is needed but also on our staff and team of what to ask for how do we how do we have those interviews and be consistent. So trying to handle it from multiple fronts. Just quick follow up chairman. so we had
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
28:33
an increase in our pay plan trying to cut down on our turnover rates so and we're doing better are we keeping our
staff longer because I know you got a lot on your plate, lots that they're doing so we're seeing a decrease in our turnover rate s since we increased the
Speaker 62
28:49
pay plan at all. I would say we we have more or less stabilized we are having lower turnover than we definitely did during the pandemic and I haven't seen it increase over the last few months 11 more follow up chairman if that's
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
29:03
ok. I know you guys have a lot on your plate another thing that's coming up real quickly is oursnap work requirements so we
moving forward on that can guys give us a quick update on when that's going to be implemented and
Speaker 82
29:18
one that we have to have that in place for federal so the HR one
Speaker 62
29:23
bill did did make some changes to the able bodied adult without dependence snap work requirement it increased the age from54 to64 and it also added parents of children over age 14 to the group of mandatory individuals who have that work requirement which means they can only receive Snap for three
months out of a36 month period if they are not complying with the work the work requirement or otherwise exempt from the work requirement and we did an emergen we did not get guidance on from that from FNS until October and we did an emergency promulgation and fast system changes so that we could implement that in November. so we have implemented that increased work requirement we've done some training with our staff
because it's it the work requirement's not new but the additional recipients of snap that it will apply to is new so we wanted to make sure we brought that to everybody's attention so they can be aware of that as they interview and make sure that they explain correctly the requirements to our to our clients and also make sure they code them correctly in the system so that if they are not meeting the requirement they don't receive the benefits for more than the three months out of36 so that we
have in place in the regular promulgation will be coming through to you through that process the public comment period I think it may have started over the weekend but if not then it will be very shortly going to public comment and then coming to rules committee. thank you for the appreciate it thank
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
31:04
you Representative Richardson thank you madam Chair. Good
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
31:06
morning ladies. I've got3 questions for you. I'm gonna just random them out if you could just get them to me regarding uhaniff
any idea where the or if they're going to receive october reimbursements for we
Speaker 65
31:25
we are very anxious to receive our notice
Speaker 66
31:27
of award from the federal government on TAF and several other grant grants that were shut down during the shutdown that we've not received as of this morning. I went back and double checked this morning. SotaNf notice of award from October 1 also with our social services block grant in our community services block grant
and our older Americans Act we've not received those notice of awards or funding as of today. as soon as we do receive those which we have received at least notices that they are in process for every state and territory but we've not received that notice or funding as soon as we do that with the guidance we will be processing as soon as possible. thank you guys and do
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
32:11
you know if those subgrantees of TAf when
it's when it was shut down if
they're going to get reimbursed for that time when it was shut down because you had some that were operating and working during that
Speaker 36
32:27
time? Do you know if they'll be getting that
Speaker 66
32:30
or not? so foroctober we we we let them go in good faith thinking that that that would be coming through. We did ask them to pause some activities at the very beginning of November because the shutdown had gone longer so I think it's it's really two questions you're asking me. I think our intent is to pay them for October in good
faith once the notice of award is received because we did not give them notice or ask them to cease duties for October. there was a certain time period I believe it was 11 or 1el days that we asked them to pause some activities that could could or could not be reimbursable depending on the guidance that we receive from from the federal government. OK so with that you had ok I
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
33:13
think you've answered all of my questions with that response so thank you guys
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
33:23
Sorrypresentative Thank you madam chairman don't want to go over anything that we've went over so far but let me ask you
this Mary a couple of weeks ago you and I were speaking about the percentages that we pay like for medicaid you know all down the line what is that going to change to is there going to be some kind of a change in 2028 that's gonna
like if we were paying 80 like if it was 80 for the fed and 20 for the state that we were paying is that is that going change some I think you mentioned about $25 million worth of adjustment
Speaker 62
34:15
program the administrative expense that the states are required to bear changed with the passage of the federal Hr one and that change changed the
administrative cost of of implementing snap from a 5050 share between the states and the federal government and it will change to a75% share for s states in a 25% share for the federal government starting October 1 of2026 for federal fiscal year 27. and you know our estimate I believe for that has been around 25 million and then the the other change that's significant insnap as far
as potential cost of of operating the snap program does lie with the snap error rate that we were talking about and if it's above6% beginningoctober 1,2027 states will have to pay a a range of5% for6 to I believe 9.99% error rate and then it would go to 1 0 % for 10% and above and then 15% so if
our error rate remains above6% as as of october 12027 then the state will have to pay additional cost toward funding that snap benefits themselves follow up please let me
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
35:49
ask you this Mary that is the only program out there that we're receiving help from the federal government that's actually gonna change isn't that right under those conditions so that
Speaker 82
36:05
those are the only changes that I'm aware of at this moment related to snap. Now
Speaker 62
36:11
I do believe there was a medicaid FM map
Speaker 66
36:15
change so that was the only change in HR one sir medicaid F map percentages change annually onoctober 1. so that's always been there but as far as HR one that was signed on July4th, those were the biggest changes for Snap. thank you all very much thank you Mr Cha.
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
36:36
youpresentative Long thank you chairman. I've got a couple of questions for you we've been hearing some statistics nationally and from some other states on people being removed you know they're ineligible for benefits I was wondering if you have any numbers that you could give us on on the number of people that's been removed that you were not really eligible for the benefits and also if you would tell us what you're doing to identify these people so
Speaker 62
37:06
our I was looking at this this morning before I came here in our enrollment has stayed pretty pretty steady over the last 12 months between like 243,000 individuals and over a little over 247,000 but every every single day we we process applications we make a determination if someone's eligible approved or denied or we may process changes that have been reported or changes we've become aware of and determine if someone is
eligible to continue if their benefits need to remain the same or change or close there and again we have provided data to USDA that they requested and we will be if you know any any cases that they send us through that process that we need to review to see if they remain eligible we will be doing that we are getting similar lists fromcms for medicaid on
citizenship we recently got one on concurrent enrollment, meaning concurrent in more than one state at the same time and this is information that states really prior to this have not been privy to except through what's called theparris match public assistance reporting information system and theparris match is good in that at least it's something but it's it has limitations let me just say that because it's always looking a quarter behind so it's not real
time. We have actually implemented something in the snap program that FNS required us to and this is outside of HR one didn't have anything to do with that and this is called the national acccuracy C clearinghouse. so FNS was already steering the country in the direction of that shared platform real time so that if we get applicants in Arkansas that we checked the national accuracy clearinghouse to see if they are receiving benefits in another
state and vice versa so I think we were the eth state to get enrolled in that so it'll be much more effective when the whole country's enrolled but Cms is also gonna go in that direction. I don't know if they're going to use the same platform but I do know that was part of HR one to get us more and better information to help with accurate eligibility determinations so I don't have anything specific I can just tell you all those things are are going on. I've also heard
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
39:41
maybe a rumor of ofdC that there might be a requirement for people to re enroll is that something y'all
Speaker 60
39:48
are hearing so did see a news article about that in and actually I I don't know if anything
Speaker 62
39:53
more concrete is going to come but and and it may not have been clear in the article but snap you already have to recertify at at periodic intervals and here in Arkansas most of our clients are certified for six months and so they recertify there are a group of our clients that we
have a waiver for to certify them for36 months and those are our elderly and disabled households that don't have earned income so they're certified longer but they still have we still notify them yearly you know, let us know if anything has changed but most of our clients are cer t ified for six months or less thank you ma'am you're welcome. thank you Senator Love thank you madamir and want to
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
40:37
go back to something that you touched on about the 14 year old and the work requirement so
can you can you just make that a little simpler for me I can better understand it so sayy I'm a parent and I have a four year old under the the new HR one rules if if I'm coming to recertify
Speaker 62
41:06
what does that look like now? so as the parent of a 14 year old or a child 14 to18 you would now be subject to the requirement to work insnap,
which means you have to be employed full time or30 hours or more or earning the equivalent of minimum wage for at least 20 hours a week to be compliant or there are some other activities you could be involved in it could include volunteering it could include school or training so we will you know as our caseworkers, conduct interviews and process
applications from households they're going to be looking at all of those things making sure they explain that to the client and try and identify if there are ways that the household is compliant. or if there are circumstances that that adult is experiencing that might make them exempt such as substance abuse you know being in substance abuse treatment or going to school things like that so they'll be or disabled they'll be examining those things and
it will not mean that someone doesn't get approved but they may only receive benefits for three months out of a36 month period if they are not complying or exempt from the
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
42:36
I was just I'll I'll leave it
at that let me let me ask you this what are the what are the top two
when you start talking about the your error right what are the top two errors that that usually
Speaker 82
43:01
are reported or that you usually have The top two categories of errors are wages
Speaker 62
43:10
and salaries or right shelter is usually the second shelter expenses or deductions not being correct so income income is tricky. it can be hard to get right it's
always a challenge and it's usually number one both errors that the agency makes and errors that the client make in reporting. and then shelter deductions is usually number 2. OK and then you said also
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
43:38
that you if the if the income is reported to to DHS
wrong then it still counts as an error against DHS as far as the error rate is that? Yes, if, when the
Speaker 60
43:52
cases are reviewed by quality control,
if the cases are determined to be in error,
Speaker 62
43:58
meaning the client didn't get the right amount of benefits if it is determined that it's because the client didn't tell us they were working or gave us incorrect information about their work then it still counts as an error in the state's error rate, but it can also be because even if we had the right information we didn't key it correctly or calculate it correctly using the
system you know for example, if it's weekly wages but we we d we keyed it as if it was biweekly or something causing the the right amount of
Speaker 125
44:37
benefits not to be calculated. so it can be on it can be either agency cost
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
44:43
or client cost. OK and then I know last but not
least thinkpresentative Long touched on this but do do we have the numbers for the num the people that were possibly either
lose benefits due to the changes of HR one do we have those numbers I know that you said that we re certify people every six months but do we have the numbers do we have the numbers on people that
have lost benefits since that change? Have they recertified or is that going to be a
Speaker 62
45:17
rolling ongoing number that'll be an ongoing thing based on you know who applies who recertifies or existing clients who you know get to that three month mark and are not you
know compliant or exempt so no one no one has lost coverage yet because of the increase in the age limit and the addition of parents of children aged 14 and up because it hasn't been three months yet since we got it implemented but it will happen on a monthly basis so we probably won't have like good
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
45:48
numbers till after the new year's that if you're saying a three month rolling average so
after the new year we'll have numbers on if someone or if people did lose
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
46:01
alright thank you thank you madam chair thank youpresentative beatty thank you madam chairir. I'm over here my my question's kind of following in maybe digging in a little bit deeper than what Senator Love just followed with that was kind of my line of questioning out of the the error rates that we have and they've been uncovered. understand the process is you know if federal government took all their programs as seriously as they take snap in in the
review process that the state's conduct and and then that the USDA comes in and follows up to to verify those errors who knows what we could find out what we have and in in government what we could say. So my question is going a little bit deeper into that as far as errors that are airs maybe that enrollees they're being paid benefits supplied to to DHS versus errors created by
DAHS in Keing or or other things do you have a breakdown on that of what that percentage is and is it is it largely more of folks reporting inaccurate income or is it more someone keying things in that are causing these errors I did not bring
Speaker 82
47:21
the specific numbers with me today but it it it we can we can get
Speaker 62
47:26
you the specific numbers as they stand right now but it it is based on my memory at this point
higher agency errors than client errors that's a problem I'm thinking around6040 but can that's a huge problem if if if
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
47:42
that ratio if it's more on the
agency and someone keying in the information that our folks are supplying and I I think that's a huge problem that we need to address because in the end it's going to cost the state money as well as and I don't know what the breakdown is on underpayment and overpayment cause I know we have to make those underpaymentho as well but it
you know it seems like that ought to be an easier fix if we're getting that information from the enrollees and and the folks that benefit and that we can get that into our system the the second question is we calculate our error rate and we send those files in and I think the fed comes back and they look and do a secondary view later. how how much are our numbers increasing from our review once the once the feds look at those numbers are are those numbers staying
about the same or they finding more errors than than what we calculated when we did our review. so they
Speaker 62
48:45
they do review behind us a certain number of the cases that we review they select and randomly review to see if they get the same outcome that we did I can get you specific numbers on that you know I am aware of one case from this current review period that we're not quite finished
with where the feds had a difference than what we had reported and occasionally that happens but it it is you know not not it doesn't happen very frequently where they find things behind us we try very hard to get that review correct. that that's good because
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
49:26
that may maybe we're just being a little more diligent in our reviews in some other states with with calculating our error our error rate and and that
could be a good thing compared to some of these states that maybe they'll get hit a little bit later but really if if the problems on the agency and keying information in then then that should be a top top priority on this is it's going to have a an adverse financial impact on the state so I I look forward to looking at that information and seeing and I'd also like to see kind of the breakdown on the Fed review compared to the state reviews and and look at those but I appreciate y'all being here and thank you. you are there any other
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
50:08
questions? All right seeing none appreciate it if you don't mind I need to talk with you about a one of the rules that's coming up after the meeting. I appreciate that. Any other questions? right seeing none thank you. All right is there any other business to come before the committee? all right just quickly
one thing I want to mention Christmas in the capitalpitol is Thursday at 1:30. I know we have audit at that time I think the chairs might try to delay those meetings for just a
little bit so that we can attend Christmas in the capitalpitol just a reminder that's when we as a legislature take care of our children that are in our custody we team up with a department of Children Family and Services and bring Christmas presents unwrapped Christmas presents to the state capitol this Thursday at 1:30 and the old supreme court roomom so I want to invite all of you of course to hopefully attend that with me. and with our department of humanman Services and DCfS and the
governor at 1:30 at the old Supreme court room and bring any unwrapped gifts for and these are for the children that are both in foster care as well as the children that are within our department of division of youth services at our youth facilities so if you can remember to put that on your calendar this Thursday at 1:30. Thank you. Any other business to come before the committee? All right seeing none we are adjourned. thank you.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration to Approve the November 6, 2025, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Discussion of $10.5 Million Grant Awarded to UAMS for the Development of Biomarkers for Human Diseases Including Cancer
D. Update on Department of Human Services (DHS) Response to Government Reopening Including Impacts on SNAP Funding
E. Other Business
F. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — PUBLIC HEALTH WELFARE AND LABOR COMMITTEE - SENATE AND HOUSE, Dec 8, 2025 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit B - Draft Minutes 11-06-2025 | Exhibit | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
Speaker 41
Speaker 42
Representative Fred Allen
Unverified
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
Speaker 57
Speaker 60
Speaker 61
Speaker 63
Speaker 66
Speaker 62
Speaker 73
Representative David Ray
Unverified
Speaker 79
Speaker 82
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
Speaker 65
Speaker 36
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 69
Speaker 125
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified