Arkansas Independent Citizens Commission

The Arkansas independent citizens commission of. Let me first say hello to the commissioners thank you for your efforts it will be here today for a live meeting I think it's very important the pharmacist to this meeting and all the ones that we can in the future welcome to the judges and our witnesses in this farm bill which shall not rule Ragland not really with this rule is that he's a he's here to answer some questions for us Of. Let me start by calling the roll. And so fickle that you write in like this morning thank you so much the only for your hard work the lease had some. Service family health issues and we're all taking the death that she's I will be here sorry for what's been going on with you I hope everybody else's families are reasonably well if not totally well insulated from what's transpired the last year Hey. Still nobility those known as we speak to have said that if you call the roll please. I could have done for you could. Chairman banks. There. Jonathan Rogers here Tanzer in here just a static here Nathan Everson. Timing may. His. On the phone so we'll count them as part of this. ladies and gentleman of. I think that Our next item of business would be approval of minutes from the November eighteenth of twenty twenty may. That was done by the. As a matter of fact I think we dollars the last year and twenty and part of nineteen by the so this is our first the. live meeting and so thank you for your efforts to be here to answer I think it's well worth it. I'm sorry I move. I move the approval of the minutes thank you section seven. All of anybody. Hi. All right before we start with the days of the agenda of taking everyone's had an opportunity to see the agenda of and you had an opportunity course see the minutes you know what items that are on the agenda which we hope to attend to cover all day and it and convenience and speed is not what we're here for we all know that but at the same time we don't want to Terry and and Waste time with the people who give another volunteer service for independent citizens the serving on this committee so. Let me just say this of we're going to go straight to the of the first Speaker Michele everybody's familiar with John of from having been here before and then we'll go to this Barnhill and and Mr Ragland in that order of a most does have some general idea what they're gonna share but here's here's what I won't talk about first and I think that the let the remiss in my responsibility so this is for the enjoyment of. And the thought of being your chairman of this commission of John came up to me just a few minutes ago I noticed that some of you wearing your mask and I think this personal choice on like this the policy here in the capital of I case study on file with my glasses so I probably will wear mine today but John came to me just as soon as he walked in the door and said that they're over the if they get their agency this morning that there was a of a COVID of outbreak or a notice of the code outbreak in their hand to take the steps older to not pointing the building but to disinfect or whatever your rules and policies are there so having said that of. I want to be sure that I'm not trying to push forward on the meeting because a lot of work gone into a lot of people are here again our our conveyance and eighties is not what's important if there's anybody here start with the commission there's anybody here it feels that the they would be in some measure exposed or put in a position which they're not it's not a reasonable thing to go forward with this meeting again I'm not trying to promote that but normal trying to prevent it if the will of this stuff Commission is to cancel this until another day certain real soon. Is there any comments about it. All right no more apes this off okay and find yes to. You're fine with that is there anybody that's not fun with. Hummel soon then that the majority as everybody else feels comfortable with mask without the management going forward today all right let me also waste this of while I don't I don't want you I'm I'm not asking for your vote but is there anybody here that's with the any of the groups of which that we have a responsibility is to look at the salary increases or otherwise anybody here feel that going forward with this so you know we're spiced out would expose you or of of people they're here with you to a problem so is that you would want to. Meal out don't go don't go forward. All right I'm all present we can go forward John's already told me he won't stay as far away from me as he could so Thomas code comes close as you can and if you would and I'll be sure we're going everybody remembers use your life from the time he said I'll close to. I do have an N. ninety five mask on so that may help some. German is good to be back with you and and with the members I'd like to recaps the revenue results for the completed fiscal year FY twenty one to begin with. And then discuss the economic forecast. Indicators and prospects for Arkansas in the short term forecast. Why twenty one ended on June thirtieth with a revenue forecasts change on the last day that fully fund of the remaining allocation of the revenue stabilization act which is the budget for that year. The forecast was revised up by two hundred and twelve point three million raising the forecast to the maximum funding level of RSNA. The main effect of that was to allow transfers into the Medicaid trust fund. well the Public School Fund in universities receive their extra allocation up to their maximum funding levels automatically. results from collections and distributions for FY twenty one reached a level of six point eight four five billion. And a surplus of nine hundred and forty five point seven million. That was a record surplus by the way. The surplus is defined as the amount above the fully funded or as a. Level and in the budget. And the state's long term reserve account will surpass one point two billion or twenty percent. Of the general revenue budget. In this process. And that's up from zero. In twenty sixteen. And all years prior to that. So Arkansas essentially had no long term reserve in prior years it relied on. Essentially a catch all fund which we call the general improvement fund in those years. So now we have a. A fun terms long term reserve. And I just received the an update from an independent group the urban institute late yesterday is not in your packet but it has a map of the fifty states and how they. what they experienced along the side of. And Arkansas turned out to be sort of in the middle of the pack of the states. Of all the states around us have the same kind of billion dollar surplus results. Similar percentages in terms of their respective budgets. the only two states that experienced a negative. We're small states with high exposure to energy. The building Alaska and North Dakota. So. That startling result for the majority of states. One is the product of a recovery well timed stimulus from Washington and a V. shaped recovery and and large to a large extent. which looked more like a recovery from a natural disaster. Then an iconomi that had structural problems going into it. And so we're coming back out at a fairly high rate. Partly because of stimulus ongoing monetary and fiscal stimulus and partly because of that rebound rate to The generally healthy economy except for some sectors. In percentage terms are major categories were up sixteen percent in individual income. that's partly due to the fact that we. We have several changes during the year causing to income tax due dates to fall in one fiscal year. Another product of COVID nineteen and shifting the due dates. By executive the executive order. first to July. Of last year the beginning of our FY twenty one. And then a smaller shift to may. within the same fiscal year so to income tax due dates and one fiscal year so that explains a significant part of that particular category. corporate income was up thirty five percent. that is are probably our most volatile category of revenue collections it depends more on corporate tax payer strategy than it does the economy so it's rather difficult to handle. that's tends to be large accounts and see court filings. Operations. Sales tax was up thirteen point four percent and that was with the help of cash distributions from treasury to individuals. as part of stimulus transfers to households and other stimulus provisions. as I said most states ended up with multi billion dollar surpluses and that was. Born out in that map that I just received late yesterday and I can share with the commission. So a lot of states have the same experience of. Providing a cautious forecast that turned up to be overly pessimistic. And that turned out to be the case in Washington as well for the for the US forecast. turning to the narrative provided to I will mention that. We received a US forecast and the forecast updated monthly. And I'll share with you some comments about the latest August version of those updates. Although Judy PS the months were have been revised down a little bit in recent months The recovery remains on solid ground driven by extensive fiscal and monetary support. Real GDP GDP growth in twenty twenty one calendar year twenty one remains well above average at six point one percent. And will stay above average and twenty twenty calendar year twenty two at four point four percent. And you can think of maybe a long term average being approximately two point three percent real growth. In national GDP so still elevated next year. and turning to prices I think a lot of people started to talk about inflation. the the way a lot of uh. Senate commerce and private economists and Wall Street economists are looking that that this is this inflation were sick person is saying is transitory or temporary inflation it is not viewed as endemic inflation that's going to continue. Be on the this episode. So we're looking at short term inflation rates so. Over four percent in the near term because of a combination of a pent up demand supply constrictions that are you know if you can name a little collection of sectors that are being impacted by that. But it does slow down in the forecast back to a more reasonable two point four percent or slightly less over the next few years. you can make up your own scenario where that does not happen. Where it takes longer for this to play out. I've heard some alternative ideas that. These problems in the economy persist for another year. A little bit longer than expected. But for now the federal reserve was assuming the inflation is this level of inflation is temporary. And they're focused on rebuilding employment levels that were lost in the the shock of Coleman nineteen impact and we're still not back to. That level of employment of say twenty nineteen. So they are willing to look aside to this inflation for now and focus on employment growth. I will add that the we have one month in two fiscal year twenty twenty two for Arkansas. And the growth rates looks similar to what we saw. In the final quarter of FY twenty one which is rather startling high growth rates in our main indicators that relate to the economy. payroll withholding and sales tax still look very strong as of July collections which mainly reflect activity in June. I can't talk about August because we're not through all the deadlines for collections yeah but the it could be another good month in August. I shared with you some economic tables. Used both any calendar year terms and are converted fiscal year equivalence for Arkansas. I think I gave you July but we now have a August available. And even though through the P. was revised down a little bit in August nationally. The indicators that really matter to us actually went up. In growth rates. So we're now looking at a rather unbelievable nearly eight percent growth in wage and salary disbursements in fiscal year twenty two as an indicator. That indicator goes along is paired with our payroll withholding tax which is a major part of income tax in Arkansas. It also says something about consumption rates for sales tax coming from that income growth. This is a soon to decelerate over time in FY twenty three and twenty four back to a long term average of around the. four percent. That would also imply a sales tax growth rate out there and twenty four around three and a half maybe three percent. But we're not there yet we're still on the edge of the spike in activity caused by stimulus programs coming from Washington. the some of the indicators are actually moving in the opposite direction. Another component that goes into total personal income is transfer payments. So that includes things like social security checks. But in this case we've added cash payments from the treasury to households. In the same category so transfer payments to Arkansas went up by double digit percentages and FY twenty one. And now they're going back down. With the termination of that type of stimulus program from Washington. So that component of personal income is down expected to be down a negative eleven percent. And twenty two. And this is one reason we're focused more on wage and salary as an indicator of the Cork on me and how we're really doing separate from those one time payments. Also that's our guide for the most part although we do look at. and other indicators for retail sales especially retail that excludes gasoline stations and motor vehicles. eight I can see that were already on the downhill side of spike that we saw in motor vehicle sales over the past year. We can start to see those coming down on their sales tax reporting system. so you may see more of that in the coming months so that's so motor vehicle and retail appear to be leveling out and coming down in some cases. we're as restaurant sales are still going into recovery mode with double digit growth. And the same may be true for some aspects of transportation. So some sectors are still in recovery some have or the moved up early and are topping out even coming down in the case of motor vehicles. so we have quite a blend of unusual growth rates and all across all of these. A retail was an early winter from stimulus payments including online sales. in fact the online sales are a. Your difficult to interpret because we have a relatively new law for a collection of a. Market place sellers. Hello states benefited in the COVID period because they have that new law coming from the way fair decision. Fairly early a little bit less than the year before the pandemic started. So they were still getting used to those collections. When the stimulus payments started coming in. The online shopping spiked. And so now we have to interpret what happens next without those stimulus payments how much is the come back down and how much is underlying growth in online sales I don't know the full answer to the this point. With the I thank all of the turn it to to the chairman if there are any follow up questions. The German of this opportunity to the Garfield please ask questions you need more clarification. John I noticed that you mentioned in your report the US social security Cola determination will be made later. And you give an estimate for that Do you still see it in that range of four point five to six point one that's pretty high it is high you know social security. Administration has an unusual time frame and their formula for that calculation is unique to them close to a full that night so is the third quarter I guess it relates to the federal fiscal year yes someone is. So The the final monthly number in order to get that order is coming up yeah with a little bit of the delay. And you'll see that announced nationally. probably in October or early November. but because of the unique timing is picking up. That spike in prices. From Our usual consumption rates and restrictions constrictions in the supply chain. it's going to be a one time spike in the coal. So it really is is not taking into account what's happening now. This is a lagging indicator okay thank you. Of course the you know of specialist Wall Street firms are always second guessing the federal reserve and others so you can. You can make a plausible scenario that this takes longer to play out and inflation stays up for a bit longer including some wage inflation which is most critical to the for the for long term. evaluation for policy adjustment. I can't remember when does the minimum wage go up in Arkansas is that is that. Pretty well even doubt now in terms of how it affected me it's been in law I don't remember the exact month but it has been in place for a while okay. I'm not a conoces you know but I will pick up on. What commissioner took this ask about giving given the fact that this projection was done and I thank you said June thirtieth I didn't I couldn't understand weather or what if you addressed it is there any changes that have transpired since that time I think in terms of the The New outbreak of covid I'm thinking in terms of the the of the terrible international crisis that we have in Afghanistan of and other factors that may have transpired just in this past starting in July did you address that in your marshes stand and does it affect of. Any of your opinions or thoughts you shared with us of this now. As I said we we get updates monthly for the U. S. FOR. The state and part of that is really an international global forecasts From our contractor. what we're saying is some shaving off of the growth rate but still. Very very high very elevated recovery rates despite these these issues is not until you start seeing. More evidence of shut down and states especially large states the the you can see a pessimistic scenario coming forward and taking the place of what we're looking at here. the I should mention though the. In terms of the official forecast for the state revenues it actually dates back to the rate of release by law. On the third Wednesday of may before we even finished FY twenty one. And it was using input information from April so it's even more out of date. The next official forecast by law is not until early. December. Prior to the start of the next fiscal session and early next year. Unless the state CFO and the governor. request a new forecast in. In the interim period. as you know we were looking at the possibility of a special session this fall. so I don't know I can't predict the what will be done at this point but. a new forecast can be called for as needed. But the official forecast on the table today is somewhat out of date compared to the reason finishing result in FY twenty one. Plus all the months of taking place since April. In these economic fluctuations that are part of the update. The the release in may did include the enacted results from the regular session those tax. Curbs and and tax increases. So those were built but not these economic fluctuations. I think it would take a lot to derail the recovery that we're sitting now from all of that stimulus that is in place from Washington. Well you mentioned the changes subject matter you mention I thought you said a spiking of coal point or did I misunderstand well the the goal of that we're gonna be saying from social security is going to be a rather unusual number compared to recent years and on the high side. Is there is there from your forecasting experiences or of of the station between Coles that or granted by the governor of verses salary adjustments to the the constitutional officers that we have jurisdiction over is there a distinction about a cold. Well I think I'll let this Barnhill answer that in a moment I think our state employees system is based on performance and I don't think you have the you know your a. Your. Looking at okay. Thank you Sir any other questions from the. Sorry I didn't have too many questions all right we got a hand out one of the state revenue impact of the act two thousand twenty one. And I could go through this and try to figure it out but generally what was the net in other words how much less money is coming in for more money when you take into account act that reduce taxes were increased tax. Well again we look at the in our shop in terms of the general revenue forecast which is not the total impact the total could include special revenues that have been cut in the process. What we're looking mainly in general revenue the the know that we're looking at for FY twenty two includes the one time affects. Cuts that are not continuous some that are. The the total is a negative two hundred and three million. But most of that is a one time That relates to PPP. Effort and state response to. US treatment of the P. P. for small business. Amber turning my call with. When you look at FY twenty three for general revenue impact this back down to a negative twenty nine million which is the ongoing or. And that's a blend of Sales tax and income tax that includes the The exclusion or exemption for some of the used car sales tax Value okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much appreciate your tenths of a. Look everybody with the thank you all. Of. Are they would go with our judges next of. Are you ready to go if you're ready come okay that's fine you know come on that's good you'll fit right in let's go. The. Being here this morning yes thank you for giving us of some documents or exhibits for with what you just to tell us who you are what you do. I'm K. Barnhill mom the director of the state office of personnel management and so we are charged with the responsibility of all the races administering all the raises for state employees will help determine that amount and also we want the payroll system so we actually end up paying them as well I think German bank your first question to me was how we did state employee raises this year and you were asking for some consideration of that basically what happens in our process is the governor read fees at the end of the fiscal year all the possibilities funds available and then makes a determination of how much each department will we see far there raises the the difference in just a three percent straight out race which he did the governor this year said three percent of payroll cost can be used for employee raises but as John mentioned earlier. I ask does not include coal it is strictly based on your performance level of which there are five categories for from far from so some employees received thirty three percent some employees we say four percent some employees may have received even up to five percent for outstanding performance but some employees receive nothing at different levels at very to from department to department there was no consistent application so even with the fully functioning employee it was not always three percent because when they tried to stretch their payroll funds around all their employees and if they had very many higher level raises they've course had to drop the levels and some of the other one so I'd say most state employees I would say we say between two point eight and three of the issue. Now this this evaluation she knew that because I will do in the. Question to this evaluation you just talked about on the state of employees getting the cold. use. Is there a. A performance evaluation process was applicable to our of constitutional based officers and judges and prosecutors Nassar so if I'm understanding you correctly would that mean that the. If I'm of work over in. Game and fish commission there's someone there that evaluation not formats and that mandates for percent any I get from a state employee yes Sir. And we don't have the same process course with our judges and others right okay we do not we don't have it also with other constitutional offices sections game and fish commission but like and Department finance ministration Department of Human Services as large departments that's where this process is. So if you would tell us what the this document that you brought with us and and I ask you to come and ask you to help give us some guidance on the distinction between the salaries of judges salaries of state employees and this issue of performance based code right right. So this document right here's what you want me to yes okay but what do you call an election salary sorry fishing is the lack of elected official survey well you'll start with I'm gonna start with the average because I wanna explain that the average salary was based on a like you said the hybrid states this includes Louisiana Missouri Tennessee Oklahoma and Iowa was also include here because we have a lot of comparisons to Iowa. And then and the rest of the tax plan includes Individual statistics for each state now when researchers were looking at the book of the state's information provided here there were some discrepancies with the numbers we had ours make probably were not adjusted for the cost of living increases in those states at this time which is why their numbers I think a little bit higher because they said they put a cost of living adjustment with the book of the state which was the source of the data that was in your packet all right okay. Tell me what's the exit you roll with you that you at. That's basically all I brought with me will also with you that you sent of salaries for different positions of the constitutional officers that includes the the the the judges. My misunderstanding what you did under their judges included here. For each state. Right so that's what we that's what we collected from their compensation offices in other states. So we have looking in at the starting with Supreme Court in going to of the justice the chief judge of the circuit court District court prosecuting attorneys those from your you're a year of work and and expertise those of the correct salaries if they're being paid yes this is the information provided to us as a summary the first pages average summing up the information that was provided okay is. That said what you've also given this is you broadest brought those salary increases up today from twenty seventeen. Yes Sir without the chart of what the increases have been for the last five years okay for that this is for the Arkansas officials only we didn't have that for every state this was for the Arkansas office and you did the same type calculation with other contiguous states states that you mention what Missouri. I did not determine what the cost of living raise or what the colors have been for all the surrounding states I just brought the current salaries did you did you determine for the for any other states that they have raised for the judges at all. It appeared that occurred in that will be for all other states except Arkansas Margaret no I'm not trying to lead you into saying something not true right record right I mean. Well I could not guarantee what when and then the other states I don't want to try to say that but I know I can really test Arkansas's actions but not anybody else okay now. did you tell us All that you well you you've already covered the distinction between the three. Coal right for sample and we had one of the governor did wanna mess that's for sure that that happened this year already correct yes Sir I ask Act cost of living increases are awarded and the. Next fiscal year we complete our process and gene of the of the year and then the raises are awarded and and I in this case we completed the process of fiscal year twenty one and awarded the races beginning fiscal year twenty two. All right. Any other questions. Please don't want me to do all. Yes. Yes. Thank you very much thank you no no other questions. All right now who anyone is here for the the judicial of. The Bill. Please have you Chief Justice affect German banks Dan Kemp Chief Justice Arkansas Supreme Court appreciate the opportunity to appear before you this morning I want to report to the commission that during this pandemic that the courts have have remained open we've had to adjust because of the situation had to suspend for a period of time in person hearings except on the emergency type proceedings. And we had institute some adaptions of two records by authorizing a virtual hearings primarily by zoom meetings. And that's allowed us to continue with their of court proceedings. and of course for peer time we had to suspend jury trials for the safety of the court personnel the party's attorneys and your worst we've suspended jury trials for fear the prospect five months initially. when the pandemic hit it reinstituted jury trials for a period of of four months and then with the second wave of late last fall we had suspended again up until the spring this year and we have now as of Monday reinstituted the lease authorize the circuit courts to continue with the jury trials. And because we feel like spring court deems that we provided the necessary tools to records in the form of P. P.'s you know a asking of you know sanitation stations and also zoom licenses and encouraging the use of judges to use those in proceedings. And of course with vaccinations starting that allowed hopefully mortgagor or should be willing to participate in our in our jury trials. And now with the most recent emergency enactment by the governor. the court Supreme Court has not instituted an account suspension jury trials at this time because we feel with those tools we provided we'll leave it up to the discretion of our circuit judges in our particular districts to make the decision as to whether a jury trial should continue or not so hopefully you know they're exercised that discretion jury trials are ongoing cases or a proceeding through the courts and DO and and many locations are some backlogs and had to be addressed but they're being addressed the Supreme Court is four C. feels to the Supreme Court we are called up surprise we were caught up because the appeals or. Select off road would have trials jury trials for a period of time. And I anticipate that they'll be rising again and I think it's probably the same situation to the court of appeals we have of a chief judge Harrison here from the court of appeals and I think you could probably you can confirm that as well that you know we're the appeals account called up but we anticipate that they're going to increase as trials continue back but that's a brief report on on the status of of the courts during this pandemic any questions. Obviously I'm going to ask a question. in terms of the judges and their discretion on juries do they get information about their communities vaccination rate and use that for decision making that information is available to the judges of the Arkansas department of health yeah and other agencies we ask the the judges to consider the guidelines recommended by the department of health and making their decisions because different parts of Arkansas at different vaccination rates it's Arkansas is it has a very of geography as well as is that that issue Do you have any idea about you know. I mean I I I don't know that you it's premature to survey but. How many judges are starting up jury trials. I think there's a large number cross the state have a have restarted the process because we had written some as jurors the server appeared for months and would this is suspended jury trials for I think personally five minutes so new panels had to be right under five to appear so that process you know takes a little bit of time so the they're gearing up and are you probably see in the paper you know jury trials in different locations throughout the state yeah you're just in the past a couple months a month and I presume that most of those are criminal cases because of the speedy trial yes yes then they need to be addressed so quite a few although we Arkansas civil trials that are being spaced out. Do you have any information about any outbreaks of COVID in different courthouses. anecdotally we received some information along the way with the either at in the clerk's office in the sum courthouses or occasion with the judge or judges staff a court reporter or a trial court assistance it may have a. COVID. With quarantine that may have affected things for a week or more okay. Thank you very much yes. Other questions. Just wanna ask you a couple three of C. Fite correct on this. What what we've been asked to do of for for this meeting and for this year the next year of fiscal years to a grant of three percent increase in your sale. Is that correct yes and of. Also of the the requested additions salary increase was two of. Increase yearly on an annual basis your salary in conjunction with the code will that was about the study. The board you where that's what's been I ask of this commission hi yes I would defer to the president of the judicial council Hamilton singleton he'll you can make some comments about that would just as part of the proposal so the guy would be comparable to other well I ask this question with the. Absolute respect on only one may be disrespectful because I think you would agree. The one of the biggest fans of the previous year and my actions or words in support of what's been done back in the first commission or or matter of public record. But I do want to ask you this do you feel that the that the Supreme Court and you do just the judiciary of the study has been treated fairly and reasonably it was a historic changes in your salaries. From that from back then and fourteen to present to the. yes Sir yes Sir if you look at the handout there's a charge for that so. Salary shark from the national center for state courts. And Also Page behind it gives I think some salaries for this will be called fable yes Sir it's And I'm sorry right yeah that's it. And if you'll notice Arkansas. Is listed for a pellet. Quartz twenty first in the nation. And two categories of twenty seven point thirty categories. The. Yes intermediate appellate. Intermediate appellate courts in the states and then the court of last resort of the Supreme Court. So you're we're mid range there as far as salaries in the nation you know twenty one twenty seven thank you so the court feels is twenty first in the nation's frame corporation or twenty seventh is that correct in the circuit in the circuit is twenty four yes Sir correct. If you would like to be twenty one percent. I would like to be twenty one percent as well as with all the twenty one percent with the. If. Is out as I call it the table that you showed me yes if you take in of the the. The cost of living in the state of Arkansas is dramatically lower than many of our contiguous states is that correct that's correct from the chart here is because only one this listed is the circuit to judges and if we look at the. The aboriginal for Arkansas. And going to the call where it says adjusted for cost of living index. It appears that the Chief Justice of would go to a hundred ninety three thousand three hundred eighty seven dollars if we granted what you wanted on am I right on that or my mistake on the list of the Chief Justice Is that uh in Arkansas the Chief Justice has about a fifty I'm going from say about probably fifteen thousand dollars higher salary than the associate justices. So I'm not occurred about that that's fair enough I'm not trying to cross examine you down I'm just trying to get a feel for whether or not we need to do in all honesty anything else at all this year. I like to hear your comments on that if I were if I voted myself to try to add this of this commission of that will not give the judges any salary increases you're not. Would you feel that I was being mean spirited was baseless. Maybe not to that extent but yeah I'd like to see the judges get the comparable increase with the other employees of the state thank you get this a fair answer all reshape anymore questions yeah I'm I'm looking at this chart and and I'm reading the adjusted cost of living index. And it looks like to me and correct me if I'm wrong on reading the charts. It basically says that if you would join us the general jurisdiction court of which is a hundred and seventy four eight eighty three. To the cost of living it turns out to be one ninety three three eighty seven. Which puts it in the fourth. Number four it state of welcome on all the state. And so it doesn't have a figure as you pointed out for appellate courts of both. Court of last resort an intermediate court so I I guess the question arises since. You know that. That puts Arkansas at least for trial courts. At number four I mean pretty. Pretty high up hundred ninety three thousand based upon call it do you. Raising it it it it raises the amount of money that you're actually getting because of the lower cost of living in Arkansas so I mean do you have any comments to that particular figure and if not maybe. Judge singleton will or somebody from the trial bench will. We all know that the state's cost of living the three percent that the state gives is really a performance driven it's not really a Cola so it gets distributed among employees according to miss Barker Hill just based upon their performance so it's kind of like apples and oranges is what I'm saying and we don't know yet what the. The so security will as as already mentioned by John cost of living increases going to be a spike that's unusual so just help me with with that. Landscape. Does it does it. Support an increase for. Judge of judges in Arkansas or we're not. I respectfully I think it justifies okay okay thank you. I'm sorry you know how this works for you so I ask you just a little one or two of. Do you know let's assume that your salary is not the number fourth in the country with this adjusted living of cost of living adjustment. Use your base salary of and I'm not here to the. Really talk about yourself or what I will no is this do you know the disparity between the. With the Supreme Court justices of and other judges is as compared to state employees. You have you ever looked at that to see what our employees are getting cut in contrast to other states that's part of what we're supposed to look at is the economic condition. And I fear that sometimes we have been looking at this closely as we should. not not not criticizing you I'm just saying you know you know the difference between what the justices have already been awarded by this commission versus state employees who get an occasional call. Performance based code mmhm and now I don't have a I just seems like in the past we received your comparable mountains with the chair police has. But I don't know specifically no okay thank you I appreciate you being here I'm very much so appreciate your service to our state thank you all right I'll defer to Hampton singleton. That same. You're saying you for a long time Dalby tenet come on up here. I just move all out slower than. Not here so. What is a. To the Committee. Yes. Thank you. But I can't hear it. We. What is this. what is it what That. What. What. That would have to work. Correct. I think this wrong old on one mistake one of our yes yes this current. That What is that what we. That. That. You know what. But. Here. But I want to do. We appreciate appreciate your comment. Judge welcome nice to see. Thank you it's good to be here. I appear on behalf of the Arkansas judicial council. Where it is my privilege at this particular point my wife to be there president. And I'm wrote to the commission of going back in July maybe July seventeenth and. asked on behalf of the Arkansas judicial council that we be considered like any other state employee. for a three percent raise. I did in the closing portions of that letter. I guess make allusions to that this would be the simpler way to conducted in the future. But I'm here for. Twenty twenty two. Thank you okay and and we'll worry about twenty twenty three another time actually I won't because I. The. Of the work. The all right. You know. In in. Justice. Kirk's question I got the impression that she was thinking that with this raise the general jurisdiction judges the circuit judges would be receiving a hundred ninety three thousand no we won't be but it'll be a hundred and seventy nine somewhere in that. And and. Which is not count of it's not a range when you consider Tennessee in Illinois which are a. adjacent states. I'll be the first to tell you that. The Judiciary has over time. Been been. Compensated finally. In great part as a result of ICC. We we had our issues with some of the governors in the past and didn't ever getting raises and you you you all have done a wonderful job and and trying to put that together we first started getting maybe the feeling that because now we're making the kind of money that we all. That maybe we should be treated differently last year because we didn't get the full color last year. I would remind this August body that. The judiciary and the state of Arkansas is funded by one percent. One percent of the budget. For the entire state. That's everything we do. And a lot of as you know last year we lost. Twenty eight twenty seven twenty eight circuit judges have five more new judges come on the largest circuit judge turnover ever in this state and we will continue to be losing senior judges from our ranks and we've got to have something for which. Lawyers are going to try to actually give up their practice to go out and try to become a circuit judge in a that if if the salaries don't remain competitive. then I think it's going to be very hard to get the kind of judges that you're going to be looking forward to address the kind of problems that that will be addressed not the least of which. Not the least of which are our schools. Where are superintendents make way more than we do. Many of the press will make monthly. UAMS where the instructors are paid way more than we all. And when their when their balloon goes up. They bring it up. They say here thank you for your it's our mess you figure it out. So I I wouldn't I would urge this body to please consider this year. A three percent raise just like every other state employees if there needs to be some. Some of. Further thinking on this then I would encourage this this body as well as the judiciary and anybody else to sit down and start acting as a. And see where you're going but I don't think I would start saying well no no you're making too much money is it is so even though you're state employee you're not going to. Three percent. but I would be happy to see us work with you to try to make that reasonable and. That's what I'm saying. Judge singleton hi I was talking about this chart and not about what you would get with the three percent raise and. The chart of from the national centers basically takes the general jurisdiction court. And based upon the adjusted cost of living. And with Arkansas ranked fourth meeting. A low cost of living. Then it adds about twenty thousand dollars. To the to make it a hundred ninety three effectively for the chief no no that's on the far sighted subjects general jurisdiction courts it's on this we have this in on the back one look yeah and look at Arkansas it doesn't do it for the appellate courts it just does it for the general jurisdiction court. And so in the last two columns. You all are making a hundred seventy four eight eighty three right and that put you in the twenty first ranking. That's correct then when you go over to what everyone column. It It calculates what that salary really means in terms of adjustment for cost of living and this chart is saying it means really a hundred ninety three thousand three hundred and eighty seven based upon the cost of living in Arkansas which puts us at number four really that that's all I was pointing out but what I noticed you've pointed out which I think is important to to notice on the general jurisdiction side as I said up for jury trial courts Arkansas is it about a hundred seventy five then Tennessee is a hundred eighty six. I'm looking at let's see. South Carolina is at a hundred ninety six. So we're looking and and now Mississippi is at a hundred and thirty six much lower Louisiana is at a hundred and sixty three. Iowa is at a hundred and fifty five and then I was looking for Georgia is compared hundred seventy three. there was one other Oklahoma is at a hundred forty five so we have states surrounding us. Oklahoma Louisiana. Let's say I'm. And that in Texas yeah out which is only a hundred fifty four that make less and I think that's what this this charge was about that was provided by this Barnhill showing. That that the Chief Justice average for these other states Missouri Louisiana Oklahoma Tennessee and Iowa. Makes a hundred and eighty one six. And. And obviously are not all right are Chief Justice I I don't think we have a figure on here for our Chief Justice other than. Of. You said fifteen percent fifteen thousand it added to it right okay so it it's it's a hundred and eighty four plus. Fifteen yeah it's about two hundred so it's and then when you get to the justice of the Supreme Court it's ten thousand more than the average and when you get to the judge in the court of appeals it's about nineteen thousand more circuit judges about ten thousand more and I think that's what's. Driving this conversation I'm not saying I agree or disagree with. It's just a question of those. Those jurisdictions. Salaries and wondered if you had any. you know we can we can look at other states like Tennessee that are comparatively. And so it just depends on who you pick to compare with. He's here on the an interesting observation that he shared with all of this is just a little bit ago and that is that. The actual inflation figure what is the next years four percent. My information CPI's five point one or two percent right right of so. It's already even if you were. Gracious enough to understand us. a three percent raise like the rest of the employees of the state of Arkansas we're still going to be behind the ball on inflation and consumer price index at least this year at least this year yes this year what yeah you know I'm I'm. Shame on me take my last sentence out of my letter okay even go there okay I'm just I'm just visiting with you on that. Do you are you okay I hear you thank you so much thank you I appreciate. Judge of blood you claim that last sentence you letter yes now because I don't know how about the So do so you'll know on news that had the of a figure of speech to because our our mandate The New and from this to that to hook on to something else like that but here's my real question of for you now since we've gotten that out of the way of. It uses several times that. Your salary of a hundred and seventy four thousand plus is just. In fairness just focus on to the same amount that the state employees or get. Do you. And less I'm rollover you realize there's the that a lot of state employees are not getting that full amount they're they're just not getting it because they're on a performance based environment that you all don't have we don't go and check your performance out the program yes right now I understand that but I think the performance is is that we are elected. We use that performance when we get a lectern I agree in in many of its face that performance when were elected repeatedly without an opponent. I agree with that too I don't disagree with that I guess it's of. Not just a figure of speech that it's what I'm may not understand correctly what what we're talking about is as you have. On a very good job of pulling it out we're talking about a salary increase not. Of a merit based or performance based increase for state employees is the judges are asking to get three percent and they're using that three percent granted by the governor as more of a figure of speech rather than. You're not asking for coal you're asking for salary increases that correct. Actually in view of the inflation. Forecasts and sepia I would I would submit to you that it is a cold. But yes get our asking for is. To be treated equally are you all right thank you very much thank you Sir. The body of. With the next gentleman was of. I'm sorry. Mr chairman of fear that I can't follow the Chief Justice injured singleton but I'll try and make myself available to the commission to answer any questions that I can my name is Brandon Harrison I'm the chief judge of the court of appeals. Then want to to go without thanking the commission for its work and making myself available as my colleagues have. Does anyone have any questions. For me. Although. What presume you you stand by what the chief and and a judge singleton have said is there anything so specific to the court of appeals you'd like to address. Nothing specific to the court of appeals except to say we are a hard working body and the the standards that all the court members that here too and their staff in here to are of the highest quality in my opinion and and I try to make my standards high because of that so I've been taught to keep them and I have been a court watcher as justice talk knows for nineteen years now I've always had a love for the appellate judiciary passion for it and uh Arkansas's judiciary and I mean it's whole Judiciary because course we review circuit judge work all the time this the Supreme Court refused our work with some frequency and over many years I have gained a high appreciation for the the standard of work an excellent that Arkansas judges provide day in and day out year in and year out and now I can now say into going into even my twentieth year well nineteenth year as an attorney so while while some of these these figures for cost of living I do sometimes reflect a generous salary I do think that the training the professional training lawyers and to go the time in the trenches that that and the skill that you get and the experience that you gain over time I'm okay personally you may not the big surprise for me to say this but I'm okay with Arkansas being near the top I'm proud of who we are and what we do and if we were number one I'd say we were deserved to be number one so someone has to be number one and number two and number three and one Arkansas. Any other questions. Thank you are up couldn't agree more with your sense of fairness about where you're right of as I read this of your this appellate judges have twenty first in the country. We talk about the intermediate denture Sir. Yep this is not the. I got right on. Yes that's what I see here. So you're getting of. Probably not if we were judging just use that would be just just your of course your judges then that would be different board judging all these five or six different factors that was trying to take in consideration concerns so I guess what I'm asking is you're doing better than many of the of course there in conjunction continue with us and and less better than some. But you're up there pretty substantially at a ranking of twenty first in the country are you in awe yes Sir. Thank you I appreciate you being here today and I appreciate your service there are state also thank you and same to you judge saying the. And here's a service. Thank you. Bob. Thank you for being here today this Barnhill. Some public man on the prosecutor coordinator representing prosecutors association chair makes I think I've got a letter in your packet this pretty much self explanatory I mean I I can remind you know we're we're at if you'd like to certainly be happy to answer any questions but years ago after lengthy presentation for prosecutors you know the commission agreed to adopt the formula where the Division a prosecutor's those are our prosecutors there are prohibited from having a proper practice they make ninety five percent with circuit judges making in our division B. prosecutors make eighty five percent of what the the a division a mate and you all agree to adopt that same principle when you all came on as the commission about a year ago so all we're asking is whatever is awarded the circuit judge as we continue to follow the policy that you all set a year ago and again I'll be happy to answer any questions about. I read your letter let me ask you if you work for your question I'm sorry. Did you could you qualified in a percent of what you know he knows what what what in order to it's ninety five percent of for the Division a so I got you if you set whatever you set the circuit judges salary Justin B. ninety five percent of that I think thank you for. Patients with me oh no no problem at all. Lazily body else have your questions comments. Thank you for being here thank you. Of. Senator. Right of. Well you're not nine on the. Thank you ma senator. What if you just a couple questions of to start the first till late and yelling and for the record so some matter record who you are and what you do. Roy Ragland the chief of staff for the Arkansas house of representatives I've never had the opportunity to serve in that August body of the state Senate I've been a state rail okay the people chose to. Put me in the House rather than the Senate so it's all right. The chief of staff for the house. I ask you called today to answer questions and reason not of a revisit of of per diem and mileage and other expenses that we're mandated on the constitution. The to look at that are sales rose in just sign off and say well yes I know that if we did that last year and I'm asking of for you to explain to us if you would of. How you keep up with that and whether or not we get a report that will satisfy this commission or pass that report on without us doing what this constitution requires us to do is take a look at it. first of all let me say that. I don't speak for the Senate the. Generally speaking however with we were all on the same page on how we handle per diem and mileage. So. Per diem and mileage or form of expense reimbursement outside salaries. or maybe in conjunction with the they're separate issues because if a member from say Northwest Arkansas travels to a meeting is being held today they would be eligible to receive when they sign at that meeting. reimbursement for their mileage. Roundtrip mileage fifty six cents which is set by the general services administration so we just follow whatever they set which happens to be fifty six cents right now some from time to time during the year they may raise or lower that but it does point time speech six cents so. If you are here tomorrow. That same member for the same for another meeting they won't get mileage again tomorrow they just got it because we're assuming that if you drove down here. Then you gonna stay and so we're not paying mileage but if there's no meetings tomorrow and there's a meeting the that there's a successive day which there's not a meeting then you get mileage that that next day because of the assumption as you drive back home and come back the following day. So mileage in that is reimbursement for wear and tear gas tires. All of that so that's that's a reimbursement of expense per diem. And the per diem. Is set for basically all of Arkansas the only place that has a higher rate than here in little rock little rock and rest the state is set at a hundred and fifty one dollars a day that's for meals lodging. And and so on hot springs has a. Is about thirteen dollars a day. A higher but generally all the meetings are going to be here in Little Rock so it's you would get reimbursed hundred fifty one dollars plus your mileage. And those are. Again expense reimbursements that's that's not salary. That's not to an income it's just a reimbursed so it's not taxable thank you within fifty miles the fifty mile radius then that is called a taxable expense in their paid mileage. And in paid five dollars just distracted five dollars but that's that's taxable that's. A taxable expenses something are really couldn't explain you know because I don't understand how that could be a taxable expense reimbursement but that's. The CPA's could answer that I'm sure. As far as the report I would say that probably is our report we could give you and we do it is a matter of public record of course how much each member is paid in reimbursed in its again that's. There is because of the distance some travel and berries the amount of meetings that particular committees meet some committees don't make much and they are very often in the interim some committees meet every month so it it depends on what committee years Cervone and and the frequency of those meetings. Thank you of let me tell you what my concern is the and nothing about what you said but as I read the plain language it is mandatory for of. To make A recommendation. To the pro temp of the Senate and the Speaker of the house concerning the amounts to be paid to members of the General Assembly for this for so. The last year what we did was there was a motion and all voted for it to. Passed unanimously that we would not. Whatever GSA the. I'm concerned about how we handle our duties and responsibilities of in a more more of. Serious matter so Davis selected better don't let good term but in a manner that is required of us our duties and responsibilities this commission pursuant to the active comes to collect the previous so can you send to us what you to say that so that we can deliver I talk about it and then of confirm it rather than just say because I I haven't seen anything GSA. Maybe I'm not looking right but is there some way we could do that both the house and the Senate. I can send you the sheet that the. Is. From the general services administration what. What we use we take it from them will it show all the different members of the General Assembly all of your wanton sent a report on what we have paid. L. by using this sure. we can do that. Amended again it's gonna be it's it's going to very often quite a bit some what we can do it and we might we might conclude that this not possible for us I don't know but I wanted to be sure that's why I am asking you to come by if you would would you give selling a copy that is not in the record so would it be too much to ask of you all to give us a written request and I would also suggest that you might give that to the Senate as well. While you're here this state fast with that is there anybody that has any objection to. Getting that report so we can. feel that responsibility to this constitution. Thank you we would be pleased to have that no. Michigan will be pleased to do that. All right. Thank you very much I appreciate being here. Okay his or anybody else of the other. Portrait questions well I forgot to ask the chief judge Harrison does the court of appeal still get it's expense expenses for travel. Okay and that's not taxable. I don't think it is okay okay that's all I wanted to know thank you now that the Supreme Court does not right. Okay. It is S. okay. So it's a hundred miles. Yeah. Okay. One of my so the last thing can you please. And Solomon for the court of appeals the mileage reimbursement is for anyone who lives outside of Alaska County so that is. All but two of our judges currently and there are only two positions of the twelve position court that include Pulaski County within their district but those judges the other ten received violence because they must remain domiciled within their district right. Just wanted to be sure that was on the record thank you. All right of. Anybody else there that needs to make one. Anything else so. Okay ladies and gentleman of. I think we have eliminated of this section H. about the. To be known so to speak what I like to do this is to inquire of. This will not the the commission wants to take some time to deliberate about what we are today and then come back go. Hopefully we can do is look in person as you can hear the next of seven ten days the surviving so. Good deal and then propose of. Whatever we're gonna propose do our deliberation and analysis of. What's left to. Is that yeah I think I would meant I agree with you I think we need to look over this information and kind of digested and with the information that's been given orally as well and and then reach reconvene to deliberate. Because there's there's documents that are going to why don't the doctor is going to be given to us right we don't have yet that's right so okay anybody feel otherwise. I'm not saying. Okay of. If you listen there but this is talk about the raised. I'm all for by getting a raise okay. It's just how much do we give because you consider what's going on in our world today. The government send out money like to cotton candy. And it's that's not always going to continue so it will be a day of reckoning one of these days on on the money. People are spending money left and right you go to tractor dealership we go over the. Any word People are spending. Of course not only under the money supply that will run out. And when these days we're going to have a train record for not careful. So we have to be very careful very conservative about. What makes we do give the cost. We could have a correction and we may be asking for three percent five to three percent four so. I think that's consideration is that the fact that. It will happen in the future but as far as work for business for about ninety people. And we've that gives raises your or on warranted. Only because the funny but work. I think we'll have a day of of correction. You see what's going on all over the world. And especially with the government's been online or over spend and. number voting by when I borrow money I have but at the. If not it comes disaster so State from a judge with. Trying to explain why it got there the way that that's just all and say just the the. I'm all for a raise but we have to be very. Very where's the. One day we will have correction in this in Arkansas. As a field of. The folks on the phone any comments or of a statement you want my. Mr chairman I'd like to speak I think that in reference to our judiciary here in the state of Arkansas they do an outstanding job they have monthly fixed expenses just like all of this the monthly payments that you referred to a commissioner I don't think any of this group is probably been the recipient of any of those funds that have been given out and I think we need to think respectfully about what we're asking it's costing me more to fill up my time at the at the at my tank at the gas station I'm paying more for groceries and I think with the fact that our judiciary has been on the front lines. fighting to keep the courts of and and doing a great job day by day that we need to think very favorably about the three percent that they are asking of us it is not fair in my eyes that other people that are getting call of races are at much higher salaries in our judiciary given their education level there could commitment to work day in and day out and yet we have others that are not nearly at the same level and judiciary's ask for daily decisions based on how our state moves forward I think they're in a large part very responsible for what we see now in our state having such a success rate thank you will focus on where you share that with thank you again of this may. What. But. The question. Races. Discussions with I will do it within the motion to form a more entertain a motion to adjourn and reconvene for the deliberations on home are just my decision is. Their second or can I have a first also health first is their second. Thank you. It's so that all all nobody's supposed or. All right we've got the motion there that we're gonna adjourned and come back hopefully within the ten days will borders poll everybody make sure they've got the. It's convenient to their schedule and then come back and and live right about the decision is that is that okay with you on. Ninety. Thank you so much okay getting once. What is a. Yes it. Okay life. I need a motion to adjourn if there's anybody else's got any comments they one way. I was thinking if we could go ahead and look at our respective calendars and go ahead and at least for those who are of president or on the phone be able to set a date yes all right now depending upon when of Mr Ragland and pro tem can get us. The information I don't know how long that would take. Yeah. I don't think they have to use that before next meeting to the. Will that be required well that was. That was what you said we were supposed to consider as a part of our deliberation was the per diem. Issued I thought he was just gonna get us of report that we could. Analyze right okay right of. Let me suggest this day we can go on and come back to the main thing at hand we check these calibers now come back in mind thing in hand I think that's a good idea and then enter will will finish politician about the. For the. With the seventh of September give everyone at half time. It would make. On the two day twenty fifth. That is a high holy day for four days. How about. September eighth. That's fine. September the eight on Wednesday. Okay. Anybody. Unavailable. Sorry I don't have to make sure that the room is that. Okay. Tentative still work providing. All right this does. All entertain a motion to adjourn it unanimous. We're germ thank you thank you