Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee - Senate and House
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HR1
· 1 mention in transcript
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 5, 2026
Speaker 4
2:30
I'll make sure it's getting in the right hand.
Speaker 33
7:30
All right, if everybody can take their seats. all right good morning
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
7:43
everybody if everybody will take their seats we're
gonna go ahead and get started calling the our committee on public health welfare and labor to order I need a motion to consider approval of the minutes and second thank you all in favor say aye and opposed eyes have it the motion carries minutes are approved all right we're moving right down our agenda item C like to welcome Dr. Tackett 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. Rockefeller 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 discussion about what is happening here with this. Thank you. If you'll Just introduce yourselves both, for the record, then please proceed. Okay, thank you for
Speaker 41
9:19
the invitation. Alan Tackett, Professor of Biochemistry at UAMS
Speaker 42
9:21
and Deputy Director of the Winthropy Rockefeller Cancer Institute. Andy Davis with UAMS. Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to give you, first of all, I appreciate the opportunity to come speak today. I'm going to overview a recent grant that was awarded to UAMS 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 national resource ever in Arkansas. So we are a very unique entity that not necessarily a lot of people know about that.
This grant will support the next five 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 Act, 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 indicators that are found in your body. It 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 prostate-specific antigen, when men 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 position, those are biomarkers for cardiovascular-related diseases. So we provide the development of assays for those clinical 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 thousands of research laboratories send their samples to us for biomarker assay development.
This supports hundreds of millions of NIH dollars across every state in the United States. We develop 10,000 different assays every year. And, of course, development of these assays allow physicians to detect disease early on and treat it earlier on, which that obviously compounds into cost savings for health care. 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 tick-borne diseases also. So we function to develop assays that help Arkansans. 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 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 Winthrop Rockefeller Cancer Institute. So with that overview, I'm happy to answer any questions anyone might have. Thank you.
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
13:56
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 to focus on the science side of things. A lot of times we focus on the health care 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 health care that we provide. So with that, again, just
appreciate the update. Are there any questions from anyone in the legislature? Yes, Representative Allen.
Representative Fred Allen
Unverified
14:39
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dr. Taggart, for being here. Thank you for all the good work that you're doing with biomarkers. What is the average cost
Speaker 42
14:50
of a biomarker test? Yeah, so, again, we're on the development end of the space where we're developing biomarker assays. Now, for us to develop assays, you're talking about tens of thousands of dollars on the development phase. And then, of course, you're going to have to translate towards the clinic.
You know, now to run a clinical assay, it depends 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 screening is fairly inexpensive, but, you know, there are some genetic biomarkers where you can test for certain mutations for given cancers. So, you know, it depends on the particular assay, but hundreds to thousands of dollars for an assay. Okay, thank you.
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
15:35
You're welcome. Thank you. Are there any other questions? All right. Seeing none.
Oh, yes, hold on. Sorry. Representative Springer. Good
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
15:43
morning, and thank you, Madam Chair. Representative 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. Yeah,
Speaker 57
16:02
absolutely. Yeah, thank you, Representative Allen and Senator Wallace. They did
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
16:08
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 I 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 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 have their biomarkers tested and have that be a reasonable cost.
So appreciate you very much. Any other questions? Right. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Appreciate you. All right. Next, we will move on to item D, Department of Human Services. If you will all please come to the table.
Speaker 60
17:34
Good morning. I'm Mary Franklin, Director of the Division of County Operations for Arkansas Department of
Speaker 61
17:41
Human Services. Good morning. Janet Mann, DHS
Speaker 63
17:45
Secretary. Good morning. Misty Eubanks, Deputy Secretary, DHS. Thank
Speaker 66
17:50
you. May proceed. Thank you. I'll give a quick update on SNAP, and Mary and Misty can answer with lots of details if there are questions. So SNAP is fully functional. We are up to speed. After the government shutdown ended, I think it 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 on SNAP, and I'll defer to the details with Ms. Franklin.
Speaker 62
18:22
That's correct. I think by November 13th, we were able to get the benefits that we had been instructed to hold issued. 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 operations with SNAP. So a
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
18:59
lot of us are following what's happening in states like Minnesota. We obviously are 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
19:20
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
Speaker 69
19:38
compare it and then so we are cooperative and have
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
19:43
been responsive through that process okay um and then did we expend any uh money um whether it be state or federal towards retooling through all this kind of chaos uh when you were getting direction uh that was just a
question that i'd had about because i know that we have vendors that we work with you know through contract but 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 happen to retool and then retool
Speaker 62
20:22
want to go um 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 expand additional funds for that okay and one thing I will say is if we are faced with something like that in the future we have some functionality now that hopefully could make us
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
20:53
more responsive more quickly okay that's good that's good to know so it was already part of what was negotiated in the contract under maintenance and operations so it
wasn't a different change order that would cost us more money that's great okay that's good to
know all right uh representative uh ray thank you madam chair
Representative David Ray
Unverified
21:14
addressed this before but i just i'm asking because i need a refresher so the provision that uh 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 what can you remind me what's that threshold is it five percent no no sorry
Speaker 66
21:35
it's six percent and that is correct there's actually
two provisions in the in the new bill from hr1 the states will take on an additional admin cost starting i believe october 1 of 26 for that year which will add an additional 25 for admin Again, that is not dependent on anything else. The second piece is what you were asking me about. That is error rates will under 6% will have no additional cost to benefits for the states. After that, there are bans or ranges of the percentage of what the states will have to contribute for those benefits.
Speaker 79
22:13
And I believe that starts October 1 of 2027 for the
Representative David Ray
Unverified
22:22
federal fiscal year 28. Okay, and what is
Speaker 82
22:27
Arkansas's current error rate on SNAP? We are at 7.01%.
Speaker 62
22:32
We are still 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 at 7.01, 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 below 6, but we are continuing to work on that to keep bringing that rate down. Okay, and do you have an
Representative David Ray
Unverified
23:12
estimate of what the cost would be to the state at 7%
and what the cost would be at 9.56%? so uh
Speaker 62
23:21
at if we were if we are above six based on uh the average amount of benefits that we we have issued over the last 12 months uh above six percent would be around a 25 million dollar 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 going to it's based on how many households
receive SNAP how much are the benefits and also the error rate okay yeah if you could
Representative David Ray
Unverified
23:55
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 yes thank you Representative Bentley
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
24:16
Thank You chairman Thank You ladies on that point
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 anything that we're doing we're getting any assistance or guidance or recommendations on what we
Speaker 60
24:32
can do we need to be we have a corrective action plan that we're actively working with FNS that they
Speaker 62
24:38
they review and 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 second party reviews which is just cases that we our 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 and 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 second-party reviews if there are particular case workers 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 web-based training that workers can do on their own or we're doing like quarterly an 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 anything we learn through our review process or through the quality control errors in general that could inform 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 revitalized something that happened years ago where, in conjunction with the refresher training that we're doing with our staff, we are sending out prevention in a snap.
We're calling it prevention in a snap, and it's in very plain language explaining to staff, these are the latest errors we found, and these are things that we can do to prevent them in the future. And we partnered with our communications team at DHS, and there's a QR code on those 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
Speaker 79
27:48
I would also like to add we have reached out to other states that have lower error rates to inquire what are they doing,
Speaker 66
27:55
how are they doing 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 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 um so we had
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
28:28
an increase in our pay plan trying to cut down on our turnover rates so is it are we doing better are we keeping
our staff longer because i know um you got a lot on your plate a lot that they're doing so we're seeing a decrease in our turnover rate since we increased
Speaker 62
28:44
that pay plan at all so i would say we have more or less stabilized we are having lower turnover than we definitely did uh during the pandemic and i haven't seen it increase um over the last few months okay one more follow-up if that's
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
28:58
okay i know you guys have a lot on your plate another thing that's coming up real quickly is our snap work requirements so are we moving forward on that can you guys give us a quick
update on when that's going to implement the one that we have
Speaker 82
29:13
to have that in place for federal so the hr1 bill did in did
Speaker 62
29:18
make some changes to the able-bodied adult without dependents snap work requirement it increased the age from 54 to 64 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 a 36-month period if they are not complying
with the work requirement or otherwise exempt from the work requirement. And we did not get guidance 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 requirements 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 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 of 36. So that we have in place and the regular promulgation will be coming 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
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
30:59
okay thank you for the appreciate it
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
31:01
thank you representative richardson thank you madam chair good morning ladies i've got three questions for you i'm gonna just ramble them out if you could just
get them to me um regarding uh tanf uh any idea where the or if they're going to receive October reimbursements for?
Speaker 66
31:22
our notice of award from the federal government on TANF and several other 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. So TANF notice of award from October 1, also with our social services block grant and our Community Services Block Grant and our Older Americans Act, we've not received those noticeable 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.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
32:06
Okay. Thank you, guys. And do you know if
those sub-grantees of TANF, 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
32:22
time, do you know if they'll be getting
Speaker 66
32:25
that or not? So for October, we let them go in good faith, thinking that that would be coming through.
We did ask them to pause some activities the very beginning of November because the shutdown had gone longer. So I think 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 12 days, that we asked them to pause some activities that could or could not be reimbursable
depending on the guidance that we receive from from the federal government okay so with that yeah
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
33:08
okay I think you've answered all of my questions with that response so thank you guys you're welcome sorry representative
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
33:24
Rye 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 oh you know on down the line what is that going to change to is there going to be some kind of a change in 20 28 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 going to change some? I think you mentioned about $25 million worth of adjustment there.
Speaker 62
34:10
SNAP program, the administrative expense that the states are required to bear changed with the passage of the federal H.R. 1, And that change changed the administrative cost of implementing SNAP from a 50-50 share between the states and the federal government, and it will change to a 75% share for states and a 25% share for the federal government starting October 1 of 2026 for federal fiscal year 27.
And, you know, our estimate, I believe, for that has been around $25 million. And then the other change that's significant in SNAP as far as potential cost of operating the SNAP program does lie with the SNAP error rate that we were talking about. And if it's above 6% beginning October 1, 2027, states will have to pay a range of 5% for 6% to, I believe, 9.99% error rate, and then it would go to 10% for 10% and above, and then 15%.
So if our error rate remains above 6% as of October 1, 2027, then the state will have to pay additional costs toward funding the SNAP benefits themselves. Let me ask you this, Mary.
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
35:44
That is the only program out there that we're receiving help from the federal government that's actually going to change, isn't that right, under those conditions?
Speaker 82
35:59
So those are the only changes that I'm aware of at this moment related to SNAP. Now, I
Speaker 62
36:06
do believe there was a Medicaid FMAP change.
Speaker 66
36:10
Yeah, so that was the only change in H.R. 1, sir. Medicaid FMAP percentages change annually on October 1. So that's always been there. But as far as HR1 that was signed on July 4th, those were the biggest changes for SNAP. Thank you all very much.
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
36:29
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Representative Long. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I've got a couple questions for you. I've been hearing some statistics nationally and from some other states on people being removed that are ineligible for benefits. I was wondering if you have any numbers that you could give us on the number of people that's been removed that were not really eligible for the benefits. And also, if you would, tell us what you're doing to identify these people.
Speaker 62
36:59
So I was looking at this this morning before I came here, and our enrollment has stayed pretty steady over the last 12 months, between like 243,000 individuals and a little over 247,000. But every single day 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. And, again, we have provided data to USDA that they requested. And we will be, you know, 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 from CMS 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 the Paris match public assistance reporting information system and the Paris 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 hr1 didn't have anything to do with that and this is called the national accuracy 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 check the national accuracy clearinghouse to see if they are receiving benefits in another state and vice versa so I think we were the eighth state to get
enrolled in that so it'll be much more effective when the whole country's enrolled but CMS is also going to 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 H.R. 1 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
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
39:33
going on. I've also heard maybe a rumor out of D.C. that there might be a requirement for people to re-enroll. Is that something y'all are hearing? So I
Speaker 60
39:43
did see a news article about that. And actually, I don't know if anything more concrete
Speaker 62
39:48
is going to come but and it may not have been clear in the article but snap all you already have to recertify 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 for 36 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 certified for six months or less thank you ma'am you're welcome thank you senator love
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
40:32
thank you madam chair and i want to go back to um something that you touched on about the 14 year old and the work requirement so can you just make that a little simpler for me so i can better understand it so say i'm a parent and i have a 14
year old under the the new hr1 rules if i if i'm coming to recertify what
Speaker 62
41:01
does that look like now so as the parent of a 14 year old or a child 14 to 18 you would now be subject to the requirement in SNAP, which means you have to be employed full-time or 30 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 case workers 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 a 36 month period if they are not complying
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
42:31
work okay all right and so
I will just, I'll leave it at that. Let me ask you this. What are the top two, when you start talking about your error rate, what are the top two errors that usually
Speaker 82
42:56
are reported or that you usually have? The top two categories of errors
Speaker 62
43:05
are wages and salaries, or shelter is usually the second.
Shelter expenses or deductions not being correct. So 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 two. Okay,
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
43:33
and then you said also that if the income is reported
to DHS wrong, then it still counts as an error against DHS as far as the error rate.
Speaker 60
43:46
Yes, when the cases are reviewed by quality control, if the cases are determined to be in error,
Speaker 62
43:53
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. For example, if it's weekly wages, but we keyed it as if it was bi-weekly or something, causing the right amount of benefits not
Speaker 125
44:32
to be calculated. So it can be either agency-caused or client-caused. Okay. And
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
44:38
then I know, last but not least, I think Representative
Long touched on this but do do we have the numbers for the number um the people that will possibly either lose
benefits due to the changes of hr1 do we have those numbers i know that you said that we recertify 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
Speaker 62
45:12
a 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 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 age 14 and up because it hasn't been three months yet since we got it implemented but um it will happen on a monthly basis all right so we probably won't have like
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
45:43
good numbers to after the new year is 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 okay all right
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
45:57
thank you thank you madam chair thank you representative baity thank you madam chair i'm over here i my question is kind of following in maybe digging in a little bit deeper than what um uh senator love just followed with that was kind of my line of questioning out of the um the error rates that we have and they've been uncovered i understand the process is you know the federal government took all their programs as seriously as they take snap and in the review process that the states conduct and and then that the uh usda comes in
and follows up to verify those errors, who knows what we could find out what we have in government, what we could say. So my question is, going a little bit deeper into that as far as errors that are, errors maybe that enrollees, they're being paid benefits supply to DHS versus errors created by DHS in keying or other things. Do you have a breakdown on that of what that percentage is?
And is it largely more folks reporting inaccurate income, or is it more someone keying things in that are causing these errors? I did not
Speaker 82
47:16
bring the specific numbers with me today, but we can get
Speaker 62
47:21
you the specific numbers as they stand right now. But it is, based on my memory, at this point, higher agency errors than client errors that's a problem i'm thinking around 60 40
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
47:36
that's a huge problem if if 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 um because in the end it is going to cost the state money as well as i don't know what the breakdown is on underpayment and overpayment uh because i know we have to make those underpayment whole as well. Um, but it, you know, it seems like that ought to be an easier fix if we're
getting that information, uh, from the enrollees and the folks that benefit and that we can get that into our system. Uh, 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 feds look at those numbers or are those numbers staying about the same? Are they finding more errors than what we calculated when we did our
Speaker 62
48:38
review? So they do review behind us a certain number of the cases that we review. Right. They select and randomly review to see if they get the same outcome that we did. I can get you specific numbers on that I 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 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 well that that's
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
49:21
good because that maybe Maybe we're just being a little more diligent in our reviews than some other states with calculating our error rate, 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 the problem's on the agency and keying information in,
then that should be a top priority on this is it's going to have an adverse financial impact on the state. So 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 look at those. But I appreciate y'all being here, and
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
50:01
thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions? All right,
seeing none, appreciate it. If you don't mind, I need to talk with you about one of the rules that's coming up after the meeting. I appreciate that.
Any other questions? All 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 Capitol 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 Capitol. Just a reminder, that's when we as a legislature take care of our children that are in our custody. We team up with the Department of Children, Family, and Services and bring Christmas presents, unwrapped Christmas presents, to the state capitol this Thursday at 1.30 in the Old Supreme Courtroom.
So I want to invite all of you, of course, to hopefully attend that with me and with our Department of Human Services and DCFS and the governor at 1.30 at the Old Supreme Courtroom and bring any unwrapped gifts. 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. 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
Speaker 2
Speaker 6
Speaker 7
Speaker 3
Speaker 5
Speaker 15
Speaker 4
Speaker 19
Speaker 12
Speaker 20
Speaker 33
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 69
Speaker 73
Speaker 77
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 125
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified