Education- House Early Childhood Subcommittee
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- October 2, 2026
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:33
there you go members let's have everybody take a seat
and get started if we could. Welcome everybody and thank you for being here this is the this
is a meeting of the early childhood education subcommittee and I just wanted to let you know that it's a little bit different than our
normal committee meetings so we don't have legislation that we're working on right now we're not in session but this meeting is to make sure that we get information about what's going on with the childcare issues and the questions get answered for stakeholders in the community and and educators and families and then we see where where we go from here so those are the goals of this meeting and I think we have good representation from each of
those groups and we will hear from those folks and then have questions from from the members and we'll start with the education subcommittee members as first then questions from the education committee and then general questions from members house and senate. So with that let's go ahead and get started and we'll start with the
department of Education and if Secretary Leva can come up and answer some
Unknown speaker
4:07
questions Good afternoon Jacob Oliva, Secretary of Education.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
4:40
you know there's been some drastic changes and some communication efforts that maybe have not gone to where we wanted them to go so we really appreciate you being here this meeting is not to blame anybody state federal where it's to figure out what's going on and how we can fix the issues. So thank you for being here and
Speaker 25
4:58
it's my pleasure thank you thank you for having me and actually thank you for everybody that's here today on different committees to kind of get an update and even some of our providers who are here in the
audience with us today to to get it kind of a better understanding on where we are with child care and and make sure we define quality and how do we deal with voucher programs and and some of those components as it deals with federal investments as well as state investments so if I could I'd like just kind of give an overview to give us some background knowledge on where we are and why we're having to act for a little bit of sense of urgency and then maybe talk about some solutions or some next steps if that sounds fair. that sounds great and and I
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
5:42
think there are some communication some miscommunication about COVID funds. so when you talk about COVId funds, I think when most people talk about that they think about Arpa funds for COVID. so if you'll talk a little bit about the the waivers and how those have been changed and and it's not
reallyarpa funds but just explain that a little bit better.'d be happy
Speaker 25
6:04
to so 1st 1st thing I like to do is clarify on on like some of the social media
posts I am a big advocate for early learning and I'm a big believer in high quality early learning programs. I've spent most of my career supporting education I'm getting over 25 years close to30 years. I started most of you know as an elementary school teacher when I was in elementary school principal I added early learning programs to my school when I became a school superintendent we added early learning programs to all of our elementary schools so unlike some of the narrative that's been going around, I do want to clarify and advocate for early learning since day one when I've
come to this state that's part of the investment that I've incurred the legislature school districts private providers communities to rally around and and if we know anything about the research in the studies that we see in that space there there's some studies that say every dollar that you invest in early learning gets about a nine time return and you know when you talk about quality of life you talk about overall wellbeing you talk about students are are ready to be successful beyond high school
and also coming to school kindergarten ready so anything we can do to support any kind of investment our agency stands willing to work side by side with you to make sure that we can provide high quality learning environments for all of our students and families and make sure that access becomes a real reality one of the things I think is important to note too is that the legislature and the state does make some pretty significant investments in early learning. I think the biggest program that most of you
familiar with is Arkansas Better Chancesgra Most people refer to it as ABC that program serves about 22,850 students currently and it's about $114 million annual appropriation by the state legislaturedditionally the state legislature appropriated 22 million dollars for related services for special education students so that may be in the form of speech language therapy occupational therapy physical therapy
but also in this space to help support access to high quality learning environments is there some federal funds and some federal grants that we received as a state and so in 2025 I think some of the biggest grants and I'm not going to go through all of them that we need to look at and consider as the childcare development block grant which is where we're probably gonna have most of our conversation today but additionally there is some American America Recovery Act AA funds that were part of the COVID funds there was about 2.9 million dollars that went through this
fiscal cycle also the state had a preschool development grant which is around $18.6 million we also receive a headadart grant even though it's not part of our agency but it's still an investment in early learning and that's around $110 million but I think most of the question that we are getting asked about and we've recently issued some guidance because we're getting ready to go into a new fiscal cycle which is October firstt and there's some concerns that we have in regard to the revenue
received and the amount of reimbursements that are being paid in the community care or the childcare development block grant the CCdBG grant so I think it's important for folks to to understand what the purpose of that grant is and then we'll talk to you about where we are and then maybe some ideas for next steps but that is a ma the main federal law for governing childcare programs for a low income working families and in that law it identifies seven broad program purposes so it just kind of give everybody
the same background knowledge the seven purposes is to allow states flexibility in developing programs and policies it promotes parental choice to empower working families. it provides consumer education to families and promote family involvement it's to help deliver coordinated care to maximize parent options and support independence from public assistance to improve quality through health safety licensing training and oversight improved childcare and development of participating
children raise the number of and percentage of low income children and high quality care. so within those goals and we look at prioritizing the types of students and families that we want to serve in this program some of the biggest priority groups include children and families with very low income children with special needs children who are engaging are experiencing homelessness in foster care children so one of the kind of good things about that programs we have more families accessing those opportunities to be in these
voucher programs now than we did even if you go back to pre-COVID levels in fact we have about 1100 student waiting lists that was established in February. Now it it's important to note because I've seen a lot of misinformation going around on how these funds are allocated dispersed to states the the CCdBG grant is a formula grant right that so that comes through the health and human servicesation committees it comes to us as a state we take
the dollars that we receive from the feds and apply that to a methodology that historically has been aligned with a program called Better Beginnings here in the state of Arkansas and we disbursed that funds I've be getting asked a lot of questions about well you just got a grant to expand charter schools why can't you use that money to offset costs in and shares in early learning why don't you care about early learning? why do you only care about charter schools. Well like when you look at examples like the charter school grant that was a competitive grant that that's a there's a difference between a
formula grant that helps fund different programs so like in K-12 think about Title1 Title 2, TitleI, Title4. this is similar even though it comes through a different agency but then also the federal government through their active registry advertises for competitive grants then I can tell you that as an agency anytime we want to apply for a grant that can help make our program stronger regardless of where they fit on the educational spectrum it's in our best interest to do that and bring dollars to support our learning community and if there
are comp et it ive grants on early learning I can promise you we'll be the first ones to have our applications in because this is something that we that we want to invest in and make sure that we keep as a priority so one of the things that are getting ask questions are as we go into October 1 right so things that we're monitoring at the federal level one we don't have a continuing resolution to maintain a budget right so there's some very concerns about a budget government shutdown and these are the funds that we use
to reimburse providers at the rates that have been established in the dollars that we allocate to families but when you look at the current rate of spend in the amount of revenue that we're receiving it's lopsided and we knew that we were able to offset some of the spending costs because this grant requires about a 12% set aside for improvement and professional growth in defining quality and we were able to use some of those COVIdarpa funds to offset
some of those grants so that we can maintain a fund balance that we want to carry over as high as we can for reimbursements one of the things that we didn't know that was going to happen to us is in this last quarter when we got our allocation and we get quarterly payments the formula changed and we had an $8 million reduction that wasn't being anticipated for. so that caused us to already go back to and look at the reimbursements rates to say that's a pretty significant hit as we're getting ready to go on the next fiscal year, what does
that look like because we have not gotten our appropriation we typically by this time of year we get what's called a gan notice the government anticipation notice an award we have not received that yet because Congress is still going through the process of developing their budget the last I've seen is there's a little bit of a different in discrepancies between the house and senate side on what that amount should be but our feeling is most of the feedback we're getting when it comes to this grant it'll be level funded so until we get that award we don't know if that level funding's going to include an $8 million
reduction that we weren't planning on last quarter moving forward to the next quarter.nother contingency that's factoring into how we support early childcare and we don't know because we don't have a budget yet is another grant called the preschool Development grant to PdG grant last year that grant for the state of Arkansas was around 18,700,000 right now it's it's it's it's not funded on the house side but it's level funding on the senate
side until we get a budget we can't plan on spending those dollars so we we had to start immediately really looking over the last few weeks because these were short notices and I think a lot of criticism that I'm hearing from providers and it's very warranted is that they didn't have a lot of time to plan and make some decisions because we received really short notification that the current revenue and future revenue may look different depending on what our congressional awards are so we immediately started researching opportunities and
things that we can look at to put in place and one of the things that we need to look at was the rates that we're reimbursing our providers our current rate scale ranged anywhere from I want to say it was about39 dollars up to75 dollars and then also implementing a sliding scale provision for families part of even the spirit of the grain is that participating families are expected to contribute to the cost of care on a sliding scale basis we hadn't really been implementing
that for a while or at all and so one of the things that we wanted to accomplish moving forward into October 1st is establishing a fair sliding scale that would make sure we prioritized our families in greatest needs so that they wouldn't have a copay especially if they were under45% of the state medium income all the way up to the 85 scent state median income which is part of the threshold for qualifying for that grant so that the copayments wouldn't be typically around4% of what their
reimbursement rate is so as we've been rolling this out we've we've talked with our local leads I've heard from several providers I'm sure you've heard from several providers as well and some of the things that the feedback that I definitely hear pretty consistently is that they would like to have a little bit more time right to figure this out that this kind of sprung on them pretty quickly and they want to make sure like if we have to make adjustments that they can do that with due diligence
and one of the concerns that I've been sharing with them and I've been s sharing with legislators is without knowing what our future appropriations is is every week that we put a pause we have to look at the fund balance that we have in our grant not knowing when the next award's gonna be we we we can't make allocations for programs for revenue and dollars that we don't receive so we we know that this is been quite a change in quite
a lot that happened in digest in a very short amount of time but but as I stated I've been meeting with a lot of folks in this space in fact that had a great meeting with about 8 providers earlier today before we came in to to sit down at the table and say how do we make this palatable right and I and I think what's great about our field is that they understand that if we have to make changes they they just want to be a thought partner and have a seat at the table and be a part of the process and I can tell you from our
agency is we want to do everything we can to mid to mitigate like any changes to levels of service for students and families and we don't want to do anything that's that detrimental that are cause great undue hardships overnight so one of the biggest asset that we have received continuously is like can we just pause for like30 days before the new rates go into place and the reimbursement rates go into place and get a better understanding because they're they're under contracts they
have employees they have budgetary concerns as well and is that something we can consider and and so we've kind of gone back and and looked at current payment rates and one of the proposals I think that we could look at is one thing that we do need to do is start implementing the sliding scale for families and my recommendation is to keep that on track to go forward with an October implementation we've been notifying families we've been notifying providers but if
we pause for 30 days and went to November 1st on reimbursement rates and get kind of a really good working group around here to maybe come up with some better ideas I think we can do that and make that happen depending on what happens at the federal level hopefully all of those budgetary discussions get resolved and across the finish line and we can get the appropriations to make it but what I can assure you is as I've met with everybody the current model that we have is unsustainable and when we look at the current waves that we
have a wide range of reimbursements we can't keep funding at that level unless the state or somebody else makes a significant contribution so right now if we just said well what if we want to leave everything alone and and and leave it all the same it's probably about $80 million a year that we're that we would need to invest as as a state so that's a that's a conversation that the y'all would need to have obviously I don't have the authority to to make those kinds of decisions but I do think there's some strategies we can
implement such as the sliding scale that should be implemented less than5% of our families were given anything on a copayment and then continue to work with providers to come up with a reimbursement rate that recognizes quality that gives providers an aspiration towards improvement is something that we are are willing to continue to do so that we can get this right Before we go on, could
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
20:32
you just talk a little bit about the
amount of money that has been withheld and what the gap is and and how
Speaker 25
20:44
that's different Sure so if you look at the fiscal year 24 allocation for the CCdF allocation it was and I hope it's ok if I round a little bit. it was about $137 million in 24 million that's the amount of allocation that we received in 25 and then we were notified last quarter that that
allocation was reduced to 127 so if we're looking at level funding moving forward we we have to plan for that to be 127 because that's kind of where it left off and that's what we're expecting and then if sheriff I could also I think part of that was in 24 we received $9.6 million in the preschool development grant
which is what we received in 25 which would be scheduled to sunset in December and we don't know if that's gonna be picked up in the legislative appropriation for next coming
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
21:52
school year or not. as of now see the CCdPg and the the the PG or Pdg there's a lot of fun acronyms are actually do want to let you know that I did put some acronyms on the on the table for the members. I know there's a lot. I I thought there were a lot in medicine until I got into education but anyway
there are some acronyms and they're not nearly all of them so if you don't mind just kind of make sure that we we get that when you're talking. but anyway the the right now those two grants are level, right?
and so no ma'am and that's why I want to be clear in but anyway the the right now those
Speaker 25
22:31
two grants are level, right? and so no ma'am and that's why I want to be clear the correct but it's not in the house and and that's why we that's why we have to be very realistic and cautious about building a budget because we
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
22:43
don't know what it's gonna be it's it's so it's actually a nutrition that's been cut completely right and the and the oh that college program those two
were cut the parents the yeah and I don't know
Speaker 25
23:04
how much we received as a state in that one because that that was a pretty small allocation at the federal level I wanna say it was like a75 million dollars federal
allocation nationally so are you talking about
Speaker 39
23:30
the childcare access means parents and school grant yeah that that one had a75 million dollars national funding level so
Speaker 25
23:37
I I don't really know how much if we got any as a state I I'd have to investigate thatkansas but yeah
Speaker 52
23:45
said it was probably a small amount. but we don't know like they're they're still negotiating
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
23:51
through Congress. great ok members questions Representative McKenzie dees came a button thank you
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
24:10
thank you chair so Secretary Leva appreciate the time today two questions really come to mind. there's a
lot of subject matter here and it's important it's a good conversation to have and I'm sure a lot of providers would like to talk in a in a more fulsome way. Two things that have come to mind one, since we've spoke about this subject previously was a call I received from a provider in northwest Arkansas relative to direction they received regarding an authorization form for the new reimbursement rate that's going to take effect October 1 and that they can then now go and apply the differential copay amount to parents to make up for any of
that stopgap that does exist but they still need an authorization form in order to fill it out per per student to figure out what that differential is that they need that I believe by by my information today was they need that that form filled out and complete and submitted back to OCE or ADE tomorrow at the beginning of the new fiscal calendar for you guys but they still hadn't received that form yet so before we go any further have you maybe some folks back there at dE can help us understand or if that's a federal limitation on how we can go ahead and facilitate providers getting
that authorization form so that they can start to track on the out of pocket that parents will have to make
Speaker 25
25:24
up so thank you for the question. I think that's part of the work that we're working on to make sure we get that transition which is why I think we're looking at if we had to do a quick little pause you know for implementation it might give us a little time to work that out but we need to know moving forward that there's some real grave concerns about the spending levels so without a significant investment we're not going to be able to continue operating the way we always have understood OK
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
25:50
in that same vein I'd love to have a better context. you've done a good job of eliminating I think a lot of us have been hit with questions and emails and then some of the ad hominem about well money in this bucket versus money in this bucket and we all know education dollars aren't created equal because they come from different revenue sources but can you help me understand the the population of those that have been drawing down SRA benefits cause I know I think based on what an AI summary told me that in 2007 is when the CCdF as well as the
PdG really began in earnest we enacting legislation in 2008 and then from their ADEs promulgated rules can you help me understand the population so like any other entitlement and I'm not trying to lead the the witness here but like any other entitlement you know sustainability of these programs is really dependent on the size the eligibility and the accountability on the back end. So if if we know on an apples to apples basis that in 2008 this served6,000 kids and now it serves over 24,000 kids we can help elim illustrate the strain by the pure number
of applicants and people on the program.
Speaker 39
26:56
Yes I wanna say if if I can read my own handwriting because sometimes I can't tell if this is a 9 or a3 but prior
Speaker 52
27:04
to 2019 to today we're serving about 19,000 more or excuse me 9000 more students ok that's rough numbers
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
27:12
appreciate that. to that end and the the conversation I had today with a great provider who's feeling feeling the effects of this or will feel the effects of this goes into action
tomorrow. a lot of the basis of this and and I think we both understand is that as well as anyone that's on the subcommittee or in the greater committee that in education we we work on these policies and specifically the money in a proactive way adequacy takes two years it's a very long arduous and important process. This one seems a bit we're reacting and and that's ok because like you mentioned there are some dependencies that are outside of our control. I'd love to understand in your opinion and again chairman garner did
a great job of we're not it's not to point fingers we're just trying to figure out problems arise how do we create solutions that benefit everybody and not create too much disruption. in your opinion what happened? how did we get to this point where besides the federal government doing what the federal government does which is wait and delay and defer. did we get to this place where we're kind of having to make quick action within two weeks and then possibly a hold. Yeah
Speaker 25
28:17
so I think that's a great question and you know one of the goals I think we've all had is that we want to increase access and eliminate
deserts and islands and make sure that every family that wants to participate in high quality childcare can and if you can qualify for this grant or this program or this voucher or something else we want to help you do that as as we've brought in more families the pot of money hasn't grown and as we've increased quality and we're paying for reimbursements at a tierle per rate it it's a good problem to have in the in the sense that
we're increasing quality and we're increasing access but it it required us to create a waiting list if I could go back in in hindsight because we knew that the amount of seats that were going to be available were becoming limited when we established that waiting list in February that waiting list didn't slow down the spending as much as we had hoped or anticipated but we were still monitoring it but we weren't planning on getting a federal reduction right like at the last minute so we knew that there was going to
have to be some adjustments made if if we could have went back in time in February and started implementing the copay based on a sliding scale back then it would have offset the speed of spending and started getting these programs in line with where payments met the revenue and part of the challenges that we have today which is why this is going so fast is because October 1st is the next fiscal year and as we've been receiving federal allocations whether they're forward funded or current funded
in this program is current year funded when we're looking at the reductions that we've received not knowing what the legislature or congre is going to vote on and approve and sign into law we have to make plans based on the revenue that we can strongly predict and that's where these decisions were made one more chairman garner if that's
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
30:18
all right thank you so I'd love to
know and this may be something you don't have access to but um, again like I mentioned earlier entitlement programs it's
important to to create a program that has long term sustainability. do you have any access to information or is it something that's percolated up to ADE oroCE relative to the percent of parents who draw an SRA that do pay a copay cause through some of my research and preparation for this committee meeting, there's some facilities that just don't they just don't collect it a because the math and the admin time that goes into figuring out what the percentage of the deferential you're allowed to apply is either nominal or it's it's hard to extract that money and we all know that people that
have own or operate businesses chasing that money can be more of an investment of your time but I'd love to know how much how much of the burden share is actually happening with SRA applicants and families that draw downurrently the number that
Speaker 25
31:11
was shared with me is less than5% of the families have a copay right now thank you chair thank you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
31:36
OK thank you umpresentativeought thank you madam
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
31:43
chairir. so you said less than5% have a copay right now. So what is their copay as of right now and what will the new copay be? well many
Speaker 39
31:56
of the recommendations with the copays let me see if I have it here in front of me is to make sure that students that are
in the greatest needs don't have to have a
Speaker 25
32:10
copay so if you're below the40% of the state medium income and it it's kind of a nuanced question because it also depends on if you have an infant a toddler or an afterschool care so it it varies a little bit but for just kind of overall perspective if you are less than40% of the state medium income that you would still maintain is zero copay zero dollarsar copay if you're between40 and60% and
I'll use toddler a full-time toler per exam for example the copay recommendation is6 dollars 95cent and then if you're greater than60% it was 10 dollars43 cents which re which is about4% of what the recommendation is for the family wage the feds say you can go up to7% but these were set at4%.. may I ask another one ma thank you ma'am. So I I think
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
33:10
we would all agree0 to5 is one of the most important stages of education that there is correct I know that some went to a meeting this past weekend SEB and I wanna say Hunt institute where no other state was talking about this and we're the only state talking about this. So I want to know why we are the only state who's talking about these cuts when we know0 to5 is the most important time for education to take place I know that I
personally had one daughter who was about to have her third child. it was too expensive for her to actually work and we want people in this state to work. so we have to find a way for them to have care while they while a parent is working, right? so my my question is
I don't understand why we're the only state talking about this there's no and don't know why they're telling you that because I've been talking to
Speaker 20
34:06
a lot of other states in many you tell me where those states are Indiana for one
had an an allocation readjustment based on their federal guidelines that I know for a fact and when and when and you keep saying we're talking about cuts right like
Speaker 25
34:21
we we get so much money from the federal government that we redi distribute and what we're we started making recommendations around reimbursement rates whether they're the right ones or the wrong ones. I'm not disagreeing with you about the early learning investments what we're talking about you want to compare us to other states if you look at our proposed rate
for infants and I'll just look at infants. our proposed reimbursement rate is36 dollars 11 cents. Missouri's who touches us 24 dollars50 cents. Oklahoma who touches us 20 dollars. Tennessee who touches us34 dollars. Texas who touches us 3 $1.80 cents. So our recommendations is still well below the federal recommendations for a sliding
Speaker 96
35:03
pay scale which is significantly higher than the states that that surround us so that we can do that exactly what you're saying
is keep that high quality investment but make sure that this program is sustainable because the last thing I want to do is set up a reimbursement rate that at Christmas we got a call everybody and say we're done we spent
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
35:26
all our money and can understand that so but again we do know this is the most vulnerable group and again, southern Regional Education Board where they were talking about this exact thing. there was no state in the southern region who was talking about this and can't speak for
Speaker 20
35:43
what you're tell what they're telling you but if
Speaker 96
35:45
you just googleunding cliff and early learnarning this has been written about for several years and states have been grappling with this for several years because we got a large amount of money during COVId to incentivize providers to open and we did that the state did a wonderful job they said you're the most important people to us we want to give you the most amount of dollars that we can and we established rates that did that that60 million dollars has all been obligated
so we can't keep maintaining that level of payment if the revenue doesn't match it. What I'm telling you is I made recommendations based on the federal appropriation we see if the state wants to make a state recommendation or appropriation we're willing to roll up our sleeves and help make that happen but I can't make a federal pot of money increase when I have no control over it and I understand that I
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
36:35
I know you're getting aggravated. I'm not going at you . I'm not going at you it's when you're saying that no other state is dealing with this
that's not true but I'm sorry at SEB no other state brought it up that's why we don't go to their who brought it up so that that is a red flag for me when no one else is bringing it up and I'm not going at you again.
again I believe this is the most important years of children and if we want to read on a third grade level, this is a very important need that we need to figure out how to sustain and I do believe it has to be sustainable I'm very conservative whenever
it comes to money. so I totally get what you're saying but I also would like for us to figure out some way to help these uh,
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
37:27
these providers. Thank you ma'am thank you Representative Mayberry Hello thank you thank you madam chairir. I've got quite a few questions but I'm going to try to give just a few and then get
back in the queue. , I'm I'm perplexed with why we did not have to
promulgate rules for this significant of a change can you help me understand why we aren't going through a rules change when we're going through such a drastic change on
how we're funding this program and how we're we're looking at this. can you explain that it's a federal program not
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
38:11
run through our state and run and we have rules governing the
Arkansas bettertter chancegrame run through our state and run and
Speaker 39
38:23
we have rules governing the Arkansas bettertter chancegra a through so and that's why
Speaker 25
38:27
I'm trying to make sure we understand like the AC program that we have rules around is a state funded program and if the legislature wants to invest in that state program which I don't think has had an investment increase in quite some time from what I'm being told if we want to expand raise payments rate quality do all those things that's a state program we're we're willing to help work with you and make that
happen that that's up to this legislative delegation which you're speaking about is a federal allocation that they have on a formula that we redistribute as a state agency because we're in charge of distributing that federal allocation it's
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
39:08
not a state program . so in the past we've been paying based on the level of
care that the that the daycare is providing that the early childhood center is providing I absolutely love that we want to increase the quality of that care, and and actually one of the things that I absolutely loved about the learns actct is that we moved early childhood education from DHS and moved it over to the department of Education because I, I felt like, OK, this is a great step forward that we're seeing these years is really very
important years the pipeline to reading by third grade and and all that and so it was set up to allow those um, early childhood learning centers who were providing that extra step, um, whether that's you know all the different levels that are there and all the different things that they have to meet to get to that higher level and now it's a flat rate so when did that idea come up because I I can't imagine that that just suddenly came up in
the last week or two based on the information that you can easily find online now about what you're doing so this must have been some idea that internally has been discussed but perhaps externally has not been discussed and that's why you have all these folks sitting here going where did this idea come from? and and I think that's
Speaker 25
40:46
from we had to look at what our federal
all allocation was still not knowing what next allocation's gonna be but using our best prediction and had to reduce by6 million dollars a month in allocations of spendings that we're not receiving revenue for so yeah this this was a big deal it hit us fast but when you're spending6 million dollars more a month than you receive and you have a new federal fiscal year
Speaker 96
41:12
starting with not enough fund balance to make it through a month you have to do something drastic so do we want to do a
quality indicator and a tier and recognized for service and support 1000%. I think we're all on the same page here. I know like a lot of people are frustrated this is a federal allocation if we want to make a state state investment then we need to talk about that but I can't control the allocation that we get in a formula but I also know that I can't start making payments that are6 million dollars more a month than I have in that grant because by Christmas when when you think we're upset now and I tell everybody we spent all of
our years' allocation you're all are closed you're definitely getting those calls too and I do want to remind this legislature that this is one grant and we don't have a budget for a lot of federal grants that cover a lot of things
Speaker 25
42:05
to do at education that we need to stay on top of to make sure because I I think there's more deeper conversations coming so
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
42:12
so again kind of following up to to to ask when did this idea come up because the idea
has been you know a sliding scale that a
level three would be compensated differently than a level4 and a level5 so when did that conversation happen three weeks ago weeks ago
Speaker 125
42:30
that idea was never brought up before the because
Speaker 96
42:34
we we don't have enough money to keep paying for a system that's not generating a revenue it gets so we had to model out and we looked at what neighboring states are we looked at what a sliding scale was gonna be we looked at what we can do to help prioritize the needs of our providers while serving
the most students of families that we can is started with a rate and that's why even in our guidance we said we're going to build out a tiered quality as we move forward but we have to reduce the amount of dollars going out the door that are coming in fingers crossed Congress gets things across the finish line, grants are restored, things get better what they need. I can go back to the field and say good news we we got more than we projected but when you're projecting like a low amount and we can't keep sustaining that at at the
point because we're not allowed to run a negative balance. we're not Congress, right? like we we have to present level balanced budgets and I know it's painful and it's not fun but but I think when I talked to the field they understand that there's probably some adjustments that need to be made. they've asked like can we just not
Speaker 25
43:41
do this so quickly? can we have about30 days to help process let us work with you let us look at these amounts let us define quality I'm willing to do that but I'm willing to do that to make sure
Speaker 96
43:54
this legislature knows that if this government shuts down for another three weeks there's no money to pay these
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
44:00
people at all well but also going back so let's just say three weeks ago this is when the idea came up with with you and you all became aware of of the situation was there any phone call or meeting to people who this might greatly affect and say hey this is what we're being told we want to come up with some
ideas. Was there any effort to involve the stakeholders in trying to come up with a solution instead of finding out in seven days this is the solution no ifs ands or buts and I think that's where there's a lot of frustration in this'm publicly saying I hate that we're here. I
Speaker 96
44:39
I didn't ask for this. I don't disagree do we want to be transparent? Yes. are there things we could look in the rearview
Speaker 130
44:45
mirror and say I wish I would have done differently which is why we say the windshields this big the rearvi mirror is this big. These folks
Speaker 96
44:54
want to come to the table and have that conversation but when you're under the gun to have anoctober one budget it's hard to get a lot of inputs so did we meet with local providers did we talk to our team? did we look at other states did we
Speaker 130
45:07
ask as many people as we could? yes is this the perfect solution? no I'm not disagreeing but we have to do something I'll I'll let someone else
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
45:16
ask questions. thank you Representative painter thank you madam Chair.
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
45:27
Secretary Le, I appreciate you being here today. I know we've thrown some numbers and and different things out there what is the exact amount of of dollars that the gap is that we're we're that of decrease in funding it's
Speaker 25
45:41
it's right now when we look at our current spend rate and our projected revenue it's about6 to8 million a month and it could end it's it's hard to give you exact number because it depends on days of reimbursement and how the different categories factor in but it
could be somewhere around $80 million a year. Got you. And
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
46:02
and sorry for my lack of knowledge in this area but t those copays or every are paid every day correct? well I don't know or not paid every day but that's that amount is every day factored in every day and I think you mentioned earlier too and and and I appreciate you saying we're not like Congress and I'm very thankful that we're not like Congress and can run up a debt we can't afford but you said you might take a pause for 30 days. What does that look like and what does
that look like for our providers because when I think of a pause that's a little concerning if I was in
Speaker 39
46:35
their shoes about what what I think the providers and
Speaker 25
46:39
they've they've been not afraid to share their opinions said can we not implement thisoctober one like can we pause on the implementation of the new rates or reimbursement rates till November 1st let's just say 30 days um'm rounding numbers and I feel like we can but what we can't pause on is starting to implement the copay we have to
start reducing spending in this grant and if if we can still reimburse the providers at their current rates while we come up with maybe a different method ology while starting to implement the sliding scale we should be able to have enough fund balance to get us to that next month or hopefully through the next quarter if we can get an allocation or continual resolution signed and
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
47:25
across the finish line do you secretary anticipate maybe some future
Speaker 138
47:31
more allocations from the state in this area well I think that's the conversation we should have
Speaker 135
47:37
I mean I just based off what the what things are going on at the federal level if if
Speaker 25
47:43
this is the standard that we want to provide as a state right so let's say like representative Mayberry says we love these tiered services we want to pay for these tiered services and these qualities at the current level that we're paying right now keeping everything in place where we need to invest as a
Speaker 144
48:01
state yes and it's kind probably be about $80 million a year and and just 80 million is that
Speaker 25
48:10
correct rough number right I'm just giving you a that's why I say it's it's hard to calculate because the reimbursements are different but if the state wants to make that investment they can and I and I will remind folks that this is a federal grant so the state has an investment in this federal grant it's around $10 million
right if we increase that that means we got to do that in perpetuity because of maintenance effort for a federal grant with supplement and supplant. The state also has an AC fund that's a state program that's 114 million if you want to build that out maybe make an AC 2.0 look at reimbursement rates, look at tiered quality invests in estate program access quality we could do that too I appreciate that madam chair and I just
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
48:59
want to reiterate for the record that you're looking at doing a a
pause till November 1st with the current rates yeah you make sure make sure it
Speaker 25
49:11
what what we're looking at is not changing the reimbursement rates to providers for about30 days so that we can get them a little bit more comfortable that they they they are businesses too and they have contracts they have payroll they they have been very clear like I I feel for the most part they understand the need to make some adjustments to this program they
just need a little more time and want to have more voice to help make those adjustments and we're willing to do that. I do think we need to start implementing the sliding scale for copays for families because we can't just pause this program we'll run out of money by the end of the month right No,
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
49:50
I appreciate that thank you madam chair for the grace
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
49:53
amount of questions you thank you and I just want to clarify a little bit about the parent copay foroctober 1st. So if we're saying that we're going to take a30 we could take a30 minute or3
uh30day pause. how are we working the copays for the parents. we're talking to parents still that don't have any idea that this is happening
or or what's gonna happen so
Speaker 44
50:16
what's and that's where we would have to provide additional support to the providers and communicate with
Speaker 25
50:22
the parents like I said if you're under40% of the threshold there's not a copay40 to60% there's a little bit of a copay above that is it's a little bit more if we stay the status quo and don't
get a congressional delegation there will be no money in this pot to give providers. I get that I
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
50:40
just I do understand that I'm just a little bit concerned a whole lot concerned actually that we've given less
than a pay period to these parents to figure out how they're going to pay for childcare and that's why I'm saying the
copay that goes up byoctober 1st and I want to work
Speaker 25
50:58
I want to work with the providers I wanna work with this delegation what I'm telling you is if we don't do something this pot of money
will not have any money in it and somebody's gonna have to fill this pot of money with money from somewhere else and I don't have the authority to do that
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
51:23
Representative Brooks thank you madam Chair Secretary Le, thank you for being here and and all the information also want to thank all the providers and initiative partners for being here as well. I know that it takes a lot to to step away from a day of work and so appreciate everybody. So a couple of questions probably general follow up on some that have
already been asked, just to reclarify the reclarification frompresentative painter. so the pause of30 days we have the money in the pot for the pause of30 days to continue provider
Speaker 39
51:48
payments as long as we don't have a long term congressional shutdown of at the federal level
Speaker 25
51:53
we should get our next quarterly payment if they sign a continuing resolution that would help fill in that gap because obviously I think this is
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
52:00
you know a a primary issue is businesses have payrolls and families have budgets and that's what we're trying to all wrap
our minds around so when it comes to so two more questions madam chairir when it comes to the communication I know we've this this runway has been very short in terms of communications to providers and to families what what has the communication been to providers specifically in as well as families letting them know what the change is and and what will that look like if we haven't done it as comprehensively as we need to what will that look like in coming days to make sure everyone is very aware of what's
Speaker 25
52:40
going on and and we we can continue doing a better job of communication but we we did host a couple webinars for providers we know some fighters weren't able to do that we sent them everybody in our system some emails and follow ups that included sample letters that they could share with families they could tailor it to however they wanted it to to help provide that information. OK so so the providers
Speaker 39
52:59
would would be expected to communicate to the individual families that would probably be the best line of communication yeah and so you we've talked a lot
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
53:12
about the different tiers the the six different tiers within our system can you give just a little bit of a a background as to what and you may have already said this and I apologize if I missed it but what the different tiers are and what the difference is in those relative to reimbursement as well as relative to
Speaker 25
53:33
a quality discussion of those tiers. don't know if I have the current tier system with me but I know like for early childcare it could range based on the lowest
level from about39 dollars per day all the way up to75 dollars per day based on the quality index and do you know what
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
53:49
and and if we don't have the information madam chairir, if we could just request maybe get that from staff up to the members but do you know what what those different tiers represent from a quality standpoint in terms of of the recognition of different reimbursement levels. Yeah, I mean some
Speaker 39
54:04
of it looks at of instrument on how they're
Speaker 25
54:07
the program's been evaluated using thevial rating scale I think when you get to the higher tier it also looks at ratios which is
why they're reimbursed a little bit at a higher level so it looks at those different factors there there isn't as many level sixes that that are at the upper upper level but I think where you see a lot of our providers are on that3 or4 index. thank you
Speaker 165
54:37
madam chair Representative Brown, thank you madam chairir. umpresentativepresentative Secretary ofliva thank
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
54:40
you for being here today. could you
just sort of from a30,0an0 foot view tell me the difference or if there's an overlap between the program
we're discussed the federal program we're discussing today and the ABC programme. Yeah so
Speaker 25
54:56
I I I wouldn't say there's really that much of an overlap the the I mean maybe some of the criteria for qualification if a student or family might want to particip ate but the AC is is a state funded program. it it sets a a daily rate it it currently
serves about 22,847 students and it's a flat rate of5105 and it's required to have 178 days of instruction which is about $28 a day of for reimbursement but then there's also I wanna say about a40% inki match which is why you see mostly schools doing that because they can provide space and power and furniture and electricity as the inkind match. where the CC d F funds is a federal allocation
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
55:50
thank you and so it it they both serve the
Speaker 25
55:54
same age group well AC I believe was recently expanded from birth to5. it used to primarily be3 to4 to5 year olds but it was just recently expanded and the is is well it goes all the way
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
56:05
up to I want to say age 13 is
Speaker 25
56:07
is a qualifying age but from birth you can qualify all the web to age 13. thank you and did you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
56:20
did you say how the parents were notified of the rate changes we we
Speaker 41
56:25
we sent sample letters to providers to share with families. I don't know if we have direct
Speaker 25
56:29
access to all their information oh when they sent an email to every family as well so you sent an email to every
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
56:36
family and then the provider if if it was in our
Speaker 20
56:40
kid care system they received an email if they're not in our care concepts and they don't have
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
56:47
it. Order point of order if the audience will hang in there with
us we'll get some answers to these questions thank you OK so you
sent an email to the families that you have information on if they're in the system and
then the information to the providers to make sure that they could tell the families ok and they and they were notified that they needed to tell the families they were given a sample letter
Speaker 20
57:09
they could even share with families. thank you RepresentativemcGruder thank you madam chair
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
57:23
Secretary Oliva and your staff we we really appreciate all the work that
you all are doing I'm hearing everything that you're saying it seems as if you're trying your best to lay down on a sword in this situation because this is the federal government situation but lack of a better phrase I would trust Dracula at a bloodd drive before I could trust with the federal government is doing right now we are truly suffering and this is an issue that we must address. I've done the numbers
131306 total kids are on our waitlist. 29% of these centers that are being affected about this are and Senator Murdock's district and this is a real concern what can we do to stop situations like this happening because I'm a father of6 my children were a part of the AC program. I loved it but I was part of that5% that had to make a payment so there were days when I was dodging the provider because I didn't have
the money to pay it because I was a a young man who didn't just have the funds and I know working on a budget is very difficult and this is very hard for the families who are experiencing this right now and I know it's fright I know that word because your children depend on you we are elected by a group of30,000 people and I know the audience wants to make comments but you need to be reaching out to your legislators right now so they can make comments for you. You need to know exactly who represents you in your area. I thank you for laying on the
sword but my question to you and my question to us all what can we do to help in this situation cause I don't want these families suffering cause thank God my baby is 16 years old and I don't have to deal with childcare but I will have grandchildren and everybody isn't financially stable enough to pay300 dollars for childcare or even the50 dollars that they're asking for per week it's a it's a bad issue for people to be facing right now especially people in the low socioeconomic background and this is why AC is designed for
children from0 to5 which was created in 1991 to have the the education background before they get to school. So I just want to know what we can do to help alleviate some of this stress. I thank God that we're holding over till November the first if possible but I know that's right around the holiday season and everybody's gonna be pinching pennies during that time to making sure they can get something done so what can we do as a body do we need to be reaching out to our US representatives of what I don't think that would
Speaker 25
59:55
hurt. I mean and and that's why I go back to
there's there's a different funding recommendation on the house side than the Senate side I think the Senate side may be a little bit more favorable to the folks that are in this room to reach out to them and encourage them to adopt the senate proposal would be a little bit more funds back into this program but it also go back to as a state like you like you represent referencing AC which is a state funded early learning program if if this is the quality of care that the state wants to provide for all the students and families and it's
gonna take a significant state investment because I don't know if we can rely on a federal allocation to make sure that you can maintain the program the way it is right now with the allocation we're projected to receive it can't maintain that s the same level of service without a state investment. thank
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
1:00:51
you and I believe he's correct as far as the state investment and we have him doing so many different jobs right now in every everything we're
handing over to the Arkansas Department of Education. they can't continue managing all this I'm speaking for them he hadn't shared that with me but we we got to figure out something here at the state level to help out. OK Representative Steele thank you for here madam chair thank
Speaker 185
1:01:24
you madam chairir. my first question I have just a couple but my first question is along the lines of
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:01:32
representative Mayberry so it won't take long at all the question gonna ask to when did you see this coming she actually covered quite a bit of that but my question's a little different it's more on along the lines of you're a person that's here in this chamber just about as much as we are my question is why didn't you let us know before the decision was made I think there was an extensive
presentation by you a week ago and we talked about education, the future of education absolutely no mention of this situation the way I found out about it was from my constituents I'm the elected one and should maybe be the other way around we're informed but but my question is why not come to us before you make the decision so that we can have this type of dialogue and
maybe come up with a solution to
Speaker 39
1:02:37
this problem I think that's fair feedback
Speaker 25
1:02:39
and I I think the reason why this happens so quickly is because when we started getting a handle on these allocations we knew we had to make quick decisions and and act with urgency because we wanted to give people as much information or time that they knew or or so that they would know but if as this stuff comes forward I'm more than willing to involve any
stakeholders it it it we we meet with lots of different committees, lots of different legislators so we we wanted if we need to do better at that we
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:03:12
can do that well my question is why not tell us as legislators first so we would better be able to respond to our constituents when something like like this happens and I meet with a lot
Speaker 25
1:03:23
of legislators that don't meet with every single one but we we have been meeting with with key legislators as well we probably could do a better job giving you more information so that you're
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:03:34
better informed on the front end. Let me also ask you about the quality of care evaluation reimbursement process Mr Secretary would you agree that that quality of care sometimes costs resources yeah and I
Speaker 25
1:03:51
think we've had that discussion if we can come up with a way to recognize quality of van care and incentivize providers to provide more opportunities and better serve
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:04:05
their students then we should recognize them for that but then the reimbursement process as it is now before you change it the reimbursement process already has built in different reimbursements based on the number they received from
Speaker 44
1:04:20
the evaluation is that correct? under the better
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:04:24
beginning skills the 2 through6 yes sir OK so with that quality of care reference some of these individuals who own these childcare centers have invested resources to get better trained
people, higher educated people so that they can provide the quality of care that our children deserve. so they've already made that investment so how do now in a short period of time they go back and like I said I'm I'm not disagreeing with you but I'm telling
Speaker 25
1:04:51
you is we can't continue to pay for that quality of care under the amount of dollars we receive. so if the state wants to make an investment we can go back work with these providers get this across the finish line
Speaker 20
1:05:08
the federal appropriropriation that we receive
Speaker 185
1:05:13
can no longer sustain that level. understand that but this process this legislative
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
1:05:17
process which if we would have known this train was coming a little sooner or if we would have been informed a little sooner there could have been an opportunity where where we could have done things a little differently even including the governor's office in this there is something called a special session there and I'm
not advocating for that but I'm just saying when we as decision makers come together and discuss and dialogue it's amazingtime what we can do but what we find out after the fact and it's already done it's much more difficult to go back and undo something Thank you madam Chair. you Representative Collins Thank you madam chair thank you Mr Secretary. so
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:06:10
there have been a different ideas you know thrown out here about communication and about maybe moving things a little bit delaying them. I I think my personal preference would be to not make these changes and to do that I understand we may need to to backfill some money that won't be coming from the feds you said 80 million dollars. I realize you that's not an exact figure but $80 million are you saying that that is what has been cut
from the federal allocation that we have and just
so I am clear are you saying that that is all the CCdBg money that is being
Speaker 25
1:06:51
cut so the there's a couple programs that I've talked about that have been maybe reduced a little bit which was the CCdF allocation that we don't know what the preschool development grant is gonna be which is around 18.6 and the reason it's 80 million is because we've been building off a fund balance to make these reimbursements rates that we
were able to to as we looked at the sunsetting of COVID dollars and paying some grants off we're able to use these grants or these funds to build up a fund balance which is why we're able to continue these payments we knew that this fund balance was going to start diplenishing which is why we put in the waitlist in February it didn't have the impact probably as quick as it should. Like I said if if I could have gone back in time, I probably would have started implementing the
copay on a sliding scale or recommended that in February to slow down the spending but the spending at our current rate's gonna leave about an $80 million de deficit this next fiscal year.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:07:53
OK, so you know as we you know, I think of all agreed there it's unlikely that this won't be reauthorized and it may be reauthorized at a flat rate I'm talking about the CC DBg fund so you're saying that $80 million was our burn rate from that COVID money that we were spending down a balance
at the rate of $80 million a year currently
Speaker 39
1:08:15
if if this is why I go back to we're spending about68 million dollars a month than we receive so if
Speaker 25
1:08:21
I take the amount of money we receive and then look at the additional dollars that we've been putting towards it. it's about6 to8 million dollars a month which is why we've got to slow down that spending which is why we added a waitlist so it's really not what's
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:08:36
been going on on the federal level it's what is running out from I mean I
guess in some way it's federal money but you're saying it's 100% of that 80 million whatever it is 6 to8 million dollars a
Speaker 39
1:08:50
month is COVID spend not 100% because about30 million dollars was part of that's
Speaker 25
1:08:55
part of a reduction as well so it it's a combination of both storms hitting us together at the same time and what's
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:09:03
the30 million dollars reduction? We got
Speaker 25
1:09:05
a reduction in quarter4 on the CCDf grant and we still don't know about the future of
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:09:12
the preschool development grant and how can you break out what's what there? what's CCDF and what's preschool development and and so mean you say30 million dollars can you separate
Speaker 25
1:09:28
out those two? Yeah I mean I just want to know where where the30 million is we received our fiscal award for 25 was about 10 just about $136.5 million in CCDF we got 1/4 quarter notification that the formula is updated we actually
received about 127.5 million dollars. So round off about $8 million or so if that's carried forward to next year that's 16 million dollars. The PdG grant was funded at $18,670,000 that's sunsets in december if that's not reauthorized in this budget that's another reduction that we don't know if it's gonna happen or not and do we have confidence that that's not going to be reauthorized or
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:10:07
or a reasonable belief that it's not well it's not in the house budget but it
Speaker 35
1:10:16
is in the senate budget but we like this is why we we
Speaker 25
1:10:20
don't know right? We we don't have a continuing resolution and we don't have our next fiscal year budget we have not received a gan award and that and that's a thing is important for folks to know because typically by this time of year we get our government anticipation notification award on this is what you should be expected to receive. we have not received that our fiscal year starts tomorrow.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:10:41
OK so just so I'm clear then so the $8 million sounds like
that's from the CCDF18 million you're saying may not be reauthorized it may be reauthorized if it is reauthorized by the way and we have made these changes where does that money go? I
Speaker 44
1:10:57
think that's where we can go back to the providers and say we've gotten some more dollars and we had planned
Speaker 25
1:11:03
for and this is where we could look at those tiers of quality look at reimbursement rates look at redu cing copays I I think it gives you some more dollars to be flexible with and you've
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:11:13
put the two years of the e together so you're about that's where you
get the th30 so it or were you saying that you were spending50 million dollars then in the COVID money
Speaker 20
1:11:24
I don't know the exact number but it it it was pretty significant yeah
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:11:27
ok but I'm just trying to dig down a little bit deeper to know because again my view my belief maybe not everyone's belief is this is where we ought to be is where we currently are not making these changes finding the money so if we're finding50 million versus you know 80 million versus40 million or30 million those are very different things and and we have to make those decisions as a
Speaker 25
1:11:50
body and that's why I think it will help
Speaker 213
1:11:52
when we get our next fiscal budget from our congressional delegation because it could change that number and
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:11:58
the last thing and thank you for the latitude is you know a lot of these providers have done a lot of things in reliance on the current system as it's been set up you know they've made investments to set up things in the way they've done it so I mean I would definitely feel more comfortable leaving things as they are while we wait for these things to resolve themselves rather than you know
go one way then another way and then possibly back to the first way if if the will is there to to make things right in the under the current system it's more of
Speaker 36
1:12:34
a comment thank you Representative meeks, I apologize I
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:12:43
missed you. thank you madam chairir. so I have a question that may not be a very popular question but the the the concern I what
what's what's the total budget that we spend on this program every year. I haven't heard that total dollar amount or if I have I've missed it so how much in total are we spending on this every year? I can tell you what we've or what have we spent because you said there's like an $80 million shortfall potentially so what's the total in
Speaker 25
1:13:16
24 the total fiscal year expenditures with all the grants because it it varies based on reimbursement
Speaker 76
1:13:24
rates was about 28 million in a 25 it's around 226.5 million. So just
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:13:29
the last year we've had almost $20 million in growth of the program and obviously I I think it'd be reasonable to expect that program to continue to grow and my concern is is kind of like what you've stated if the state wants to backfill for every dollar we give them to help them out we've taken that dollar from another family and so taking a dollar from one
family to give to another family it gets to be concerning right? so my so my question is a lot of times when we get these federal grants we make sure that and and as we pass them through the state, we make sure that the recipient of the grant understands that this is federal money and it could go away at any time. We try to stipulate that upfront and it sounds like we've gotten here in part because a lot of the providers have grown dependent on this grant do we send that information to
them to try to reiterate to them that this is federal money that we can't control it and it could go away at any point to try to help them plan for these kind of eventualities or have we just kind of gone by the assumption that this money is always going to to be there have we have we tried to in the past I don't mean obviously right now everybody knows it's an issue but I mean have we been alerting them to say hey this is federal money it could go away at any time be prepared for that eventuality. Have have
we done any of that training in the past or is it just boom all of a sudden
Speaker 20
1:14:59
surprise it's gone No I think that's part of the understanding
Speaker 25
1:15:03
when you take a federal allocation especially when
Speaker 52
1:15:06
it's a formula it's not an entitlement it's not a guarantee it's dependent on the next fiscal year appropriation right and I know we
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:15:12
understand that but we we have we done things to make sure they understand that that's that's
Speaker 61
1:15:18
part of the agreement when they accept the funds OK I'm
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:15:21
I'm just just as get feedback as we go into the
future with these if there's a way to make sure to help drive that point home that these federal funds are potentially temporary and could go could go away because it sounds like to me that potentially we've created a dependency here and caused this you know got us to where we got us to where we're at so just just some feedback to maybe try to help prevent these kind of
things happening in the future. Thank you madam chairir.
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
1:16:02
Representative Mckenzie thank you madam chair. So I mentioned it earlier and we talked about entitlement programs. I'd love to understand better from you or someone OCE eligibility requirements so again if we talk about sustainability of this program and having to umbuds against federal government you know lack of responsibility or dereliction of duty from funding programs on a continual basis then it's incumbent upon us I mean there's a lot of talk and a lot of speech here today about how can we let this happen? Well we all did we all had an entire legislative session where we
could have backfilled or paid more for ABc and none of us filed that bill but I do want to take take a moment and say if the work needs to start today what what needs to happen? what eligibility requirement s are we required to from a federal standpoint adhere to and then what can we go in and say yes this should be reserved and it should be totally sustainable for those who need it most amongst our community. so what limitations do we have to go in and look at this under the hood and say you know those parents that are at you know less than you know 150% of the federal
poverty limit which I know for a lot of us here in the education committee we understand that really well with the free and reduced lunch rates what can we do to facilitate making
Speaker 25
1:17:14
this program sustainable in the future ? yeah so I think we do have a little bit of latitude on defining priority if you're looking at defining access and typically when you look at kind of priority one of of guaranteed funding you want to serve all of the families that have foster care children that are TAF eligible that are homeless special education and then when
you start getting into different parties that's where you can look at do you want to emf emphasize infant and childcare do emphas emphasize pre-k do you want40% of the state medium index under65% that's where you can start sending those tiers like teen mom s is something that typically you would want to prioritize as a state but we we can determine how many families qualified they come up for an annual eligibility these recommendations were so that we would protect all the families
that were already in a program and
Speaker 20
1:18:07
not have to kick anybody out in the middle
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:18:13
of a cycle. OK thank you very much Representative Mayberrry
thank you madam chairir. can you because this really hasn't been brought up in other conversation and I realized that the more immediate crisis is what we are talking about but I wanted to get your feedback and also make sure that we all are aware that this does affect the
hippie program, the hippie program that provides maybe the the stay at home mom with an opportunity to educate her child in her own home. and this is heating that home visiting program as well. Can you speak a little bit upon that? I I may not have that information in front of me because I think
Speaker 39
1:18:56
that's part of one of our grants that's a great question but let me see if I can
Speaker 25
1:19:01
get some of that and follow back up with you. OK I would
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:19:06
appreciate that because I don't think really has been talked openly and and is another component of this. um, those moms who like I did, I stayed home with my children and I'm I'm very thankful for that um, opportunity to do that but this is a way the hippie program, you know, provides great service s to those families and I want to make sure that we include that into the conversation moving forward if we're looking at some longer term solutions the other thing I'm I'm trying to to figure out because you
mentioned that this is still a higher rate than perhaps some other states and um, I, I understand that but what does it cost in the state of Arkansas, I think is more of the concerning question. I don't care what it costs in Texas. I don't care what it costs in Louisiana. I care what it costs here and somewhere in this discussion that took place because in in the
a program that's now going to be put out there I guess it says Benton and Washington counties will be paid at a higher rate and so and the reason for that is because it costs more there. Well, if it costs more there then somewhere someone has factored in what it cost. so why are we allowing those two counties to receive a higher rate and the rest of the state not like why would we look at just those two counties and what it actually costs to provide the
services there and just tell everybody else well it's it's less than or it's more than what you would receive in another state. Can you can you help us understand what went into those ideas so as part of a condition of
Speaker 39
1:20:56
this granny you have to do a market rate study and we have a contract
Speaker 25
1:21:01
with UAMs to do to do that some of the feedback that we've definitely heard is that study only happens every three years or so so the latest study
that we're able to build this dollar amount off of was that market rate study was back in 2023 and in that study it designated Benton in Washington as an as a part of that's because it it looks at the high cost communities urban rural does a bunch of those different factors and helps setting the rates the federal grant says you can't go below50% of the market study recommendation we recommended and this is what the feds would also recommend that dollar amount was based on
a75% rate of that market study so like yeah we looked at neighboring states the threshold that could have been dropped to for a recommendation was50% this is7075% and that's where that number came from OK I guess I still don't understand the the
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:21:56
other two counties and let me ask just one other thing and I'll, I'll stop. I could talk for
a long time and I know we have other presenters that want to want to talk to as I mentioned I I love the tiered system because it does help the parent and
understanding you know what the cost is for that care and the quality of the care and we're improving and hopefully getting everybody to raise the quality of care and I, and I absolutely love that quality care is so very very important but I do have to ask how often is that reassessed for each facility and is that done you know, if I, if I qualify and I'm a level5, I've been certifiedlevel5 quality of care when is that assessed again
and how often and are we positive that a level5 facility is in fact still a level ive facility. is it annual
Speaker 102
1:23:01
the he it sounds like it happens every three years for that evaluation are we positive that that's done I
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:23:08
might have to check every three years for every single facility is the the question
Speaker 25
1:23:17
that may be a question you asked I just don't know that
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:23:29
off the top of my head.. thank you. Representative Painner thank you madam chairir. so listening to all this and everything else in
in the short term of notice I understand that the funding is going to stay stay stay the same till November 1st did you guys even think about maybe keeping the copays the same till November 1st just to kind of help families out because I mean if we're raising
that and it starts tomorrow then you know that's for some people back in my district that's a it may not seem a whole lot to a lot of other people but that for them that's a lot to go ahead and figure that out for tomorrow so I I
Speaker 20
1:24:01
think the short answer to that question is yes like we're willing to have that conversation what I'm telling you right now is we may not have the money
Speaker 130
1:24:09
if we keep everything in place to make these payments inoctober because the fund balance is there so if the legislature's gonna give us the money to make it happen, we can have that conversation we had to make decisions based on
the pot of money from this federal program. I I can't make it grow. I can't add other other money to it that that's why we've made the decisions we made there there there's it's it's about3 million dollars a week depending on the week we if if that fund balance that we have which is under $10 million dries up and Congress goes on vacation forever and there's no quarterly payment. I mean that that's that's a lot that's a lot that's why those recommendations
Speaker 25
1:24:46
were to start October 1st we've got to reduce spending in this
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:24:50
grant if we're going to sustain this program No I agree I was just trying to
see if we could you know if we're if we're shooting at the November firstt then you know trying to keep it consistent for families and providers and for everybody else Also number two is I'm more concerned that yeah we're we're looking at a government shutdown and and a possible CR but that CR that they're looking at is only good for November 21st of this year so what are we going to do to be prepared and not be back having the same meeting in30 days which
Speaker 130
1:25:22
is why we said we need to implement this October firstt. right? I know it's not popular we're spending6 to8 million dollars more a month than we receive and if that budget doesn't happen or it gets a decline we're we're right back here again this is why this went out so quickly so yeah did it happen
Speaker 96
1:25:41
fast? could it better be communicated? could involve more people?1000% are we hitting the panic button that this pot of money is no longer gonna exist by Thanksgiving if something
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:25:52
doesn't happen 1000% well and I agree with you on that but what I'm saying is is I guess of going back is what we've learned now from communicating with people and a short term notice we also might be behoove ourselves to be prepared that hey also too we could have the same conversation in30 days and so I just hope as a state that we're prepared and ready to go to have those communications ready to go
Speaker 138
1:26:13
because we'll be back right and so to that like when I met with some providers
Speaker 25
1:26:18
today I had that exact conversation cause that that's what they're asking is can we pause for at least th30
days on reimbursements figured out and I even said what if that means I gotta call you at Christmas and say the pot of money's out they said we'd rather work towards that knowing that that could be a possibility in the future because we would have time to plan for that this hitting us now so quickly didn't give us that time so yes I think 1000% that needs to be part of the conversation where we can't just be kicking this can down the road we need to look at this investment in early
Speaker 138
1:26:49
learning. Well I hope we all are as a state and providers are prepared
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:26:56
and get prepared for next month because we'll be back here having that discussion again if we're following the federal pro government. thank
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:27:03
you madam chair you as we're talking about the families again the the the folks that received these these allocations
is isn't there still a federal mandate that they stay within7% of their income of the family income yes of the family incomes how many of our
folks our families is that gonna affect don't think it's going to affect
Speaker 25
1:27:23
any because one we wouldn't go above that
the rate that was set at the recommendations based on the medium income of the ranges was around4% but if a family has a lot of children it it depends like it some of these answers aren't as simple as they are to give but we wouldn't go beyond that7% for any family because that's the limitation that was recently enacted in a 2024 rule
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:27:45
so we're we're we're staying that same7% thank you Representative Fo
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:27:58
Thank you ma'am. So I understand that some of the states from the SREB I want to apologize, put in state dollars to try to help make it till they could find out about the CR that's that we're sitting here waiting on
Speaker 135
1:28:10
that's what was said I was confused when you said that. I was like don't understand that
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:28:14
they had already put state dollars in there. If this
is never refunded like if they are if the feds never fund this. what happens then? can you tell me what that as
Speaker 25
1:28:23
far as like like say they just zero out the whole
program well I I guess 1 506 $0 million of voucher programs we could either pick up as a state or just wouldn't be made available thank you sir Representative
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:28:48
wooten thank you madam Chairman. Thank you Mr Secretary for being here today first of all unfortunately I appreciate the
fact that you gave your background and your learning ability and that type of thing the unfortunate thing about that is the fact it didn't take place in Arkansas with Arkansas people. my first question is how many parents have you talked with who benefit from this program like currently in this I would talk to families all the
Speaker 39
1:29:16
time and talk with any of them OK I said I talked to
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:29:25
families all the time secondly do the providers have
Speaker 25
1:29:30
access to what the individual parents make I don't know if they get access to what they make what they would get is the allocation based
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:29:42
on what they qualified for for the sliding scale from the state so why would we depend upon the
providers to inform the parents of a state decision which has been placed the whole burden has been placed upon the federal government it's their fault. let me ask you this how many years have we gone
without a budget at the US Congress. I
don't know the answer to that question how many times have we threatened to close down the government how many times don't keep or at least let me ask you this then how many times have you taken this type of action at the last minute
to reduce the pay that the schools are
providers received and that the parents receive an order that the school can compete with the AC mandate that we put out there so we we
Speaker 130
1:30:42
get federal allocations and redistribute them out to schools and community all the time like every quarter we we just got an update to all of our Title I allocations this morning that we're gonna send the districts you got new numbers my next
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:30:57
question is if you permitted madam chairman the next question is
have y'all ever have you ever done this before? Have you ever told the providers or any co anyone that you have a contract with that we can't pay you I feel like you're asking me a loaded questions.
Speaker 20
1:31:19
Have I had to give people bad news all the time have I had to tell people their grants man
Speaker 130
1:31:24
just changed all the time that I have to tell people their terms and conditions of the contracts change all the time that's part of my job I know what your job
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:31:36
is. I know very well what your job is and you brought that up. did you inform the governor of this action you were taking beforehand I met with the
governor and her staff you met with her and her staff but yet you didn't
Speaker 130
1:31:52
have the courtesy to extend it to this body I've met with key legislators. I did not meet with every single legislator I not
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:31:59
speak with a committee but I met with key legislators advise you in the future that the totalboy needs to be informed of an action
that's going to affect the well-being of every child involved in early childhood care in this state. my next question is this my my next question is this why are you cutting340,000 dollars out of what the universities and colleges receive in the AC program if it's state money all we've heard is federal money right so there has been no cuts
Speaker 20
1:32:38
to the AC program there has been some updates to the grants that some of the university received in this program so that's those
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:32:48
are grants that are in this program are you cutting340,000 dollars out of the grants for the
Speaker 19
1:32:55
ABc of of AC I I don't we've not had any conversations around AC How
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:33:03
about the million76 dollars that's been cut out a total of
preschool grants and fiscalccDf and AC of340,000 in the total is a million dollars right
so in I wanna make sure we're clear ABC is a state
Speaker 19
1:33:22
program we have not made any conversations around that my information is that340,000 dollars have been
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
1:33:30
cut out of that is that correct? not to my knowledge no. there
has been no cuts to AC madam Sheirrman I may want back in the queue but thank you thank
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:33:46
you we're going to hear a little bit more about the pd the the pdg grants in a in a little bit too
we'll talk more about the development Representativehudson thank you madam chair
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:34:02
and thank you Mr Secretary for being here. so when you were looking at other states and trying to make
determinations about what to do. did you endeavor to do an apples to apples comparison. for example, Texas has what30 million people in it
we've got3. you mentioned Tennessee. I know that they've got a significantly higher population. how did you decide where to make your comparisons to make a determination on on
Speaker 25
1:34:31
what steps to take so the recommendation that we're looking at for the reimbursement funding was based on the market rate study done by the
University of Arkansas UMS that's at75% of what the threshold is for the average cost of care the federal grant allows you to go down to50% but they typically recommend you to be around7 5 % and
Speaker 176
1:34:54
that's where that number is. Does that take into account and you may not know
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:34:59
I mean since youaS did the study the fact that that
they have a much lower minimum wage for example than we do here in Arkansas and so their costs for the providers may be significantly lower than those for Arkansas providers my understanding is when they do
Speaker 20
1:35:16
that snapshot they pull real time data on what
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:35:20
the cost of care is. and then I wanted to make sure I understood on the copays you mentioned that you were planning to raise them and I think this was for the60% and above about 10 dollars43 cents is that per day, per month, per year? it depends on
Speaker 76
1:35:35
the category but it sounds like the one you're referencing is per day OK. so that's I'd I'd
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:35:41
I was an English major so I try
to avoid math but that's 208 dollars60 cents per month for a family with two kids and that's $2,503.20 per year. does that sound right? roughly without
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:35:59
know I mean was there any discussion about what kind of impact that was
going to have on families. I mean $2500 is is difficult for any family and certainly in a time like this with inf l ation to pull out but these
are people who are are receiving you know, assistance and paying their their de daycare costs and I'm hearing from several families who are saying we may have to pull our kids out and I may have to quit my job because it just doesn't make economic sense. we don't have $2500 a year. So was that part of any discussions when y'all were figuring out what steps
Speaker 19
1:36:34
to take and and that that's not something that we want to see happen
Speaker 25
1:36:37
and when when we look at even in when you read the spirit of the grant it it's it even states in there and I wrote it down that
families are expected to contribute to the cost of care on a sliding scale basis and the rules that have been updated in 24 said that that percentage can't go up to7% we didn't want to go up to7% because we know that's a burden on the families those recommendations around4% is that the right number? I I don't know that's why I said we we have to start somewhere if we want to look at the long term sustainability
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:37:13
of this program and and on that7% it's my
understanding that the department at some point has applied for a waiver from the federal government to actually increase above the7% is that correct? I don't know if
Speaker 20
1:37:25
we have applied for that waiver. I know some states have but I don't think we have. The last question
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
1:37:33
I have and it's just it's it's maybe more of a philosophical one and I'm concerned about it. I've spoken to several daycare providers who are saying that
in essence these cuts will mean that they can't afford to take anyone who has these vouchers because they
can't these families will not be able to pay and their alternative is to have to raise rates for all of their all of their families whether they take these vouchers or not and so in essence the concern is is that some of these providers who have been offering slots to these kids will have to start turning them down and then those children will not be able to find care. And so in essence by by saying that we're changing the program we're essentially going to just gut it because these vouchers are going to become worthless. do you share the concern that we are
essentially changing the program in such a way that it is going to be difficult to even say that it helps families because the burden is still too great for the families to be able to seek seek quality daycare for their
Speaker 39
1:38:31
children that's why I'm here and and that's why I've been meeting with virus because early
Speaker 25
1:38:36
learning a high quality care is a top priority unfortunately there's some unintended consequences that we don't want to see and when I meet with providers and they look at what implementing this new daily rate is or reimbursement rate is compared to what they've giv been giving
it's significant. they can't cause they don't want to pass that cost on the parent but they also can't absorb that cost and
Speaker 96
1:38:56
it puts them in a conundrum we're all on the same team here. What I'm telling you is if
Speaker 130
1:39:01
we don't do anything to this grant this program won't exist. so if we want to continue funding at the way we are we will roll up our sleeves we will get with these providers we will do whatever we can I don't have the authority to make that
Speaker 35
1:39:14
decision or the budget to make that happen senator hammer
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:39:24
thank you madam chair and thank you for letting committee members have an opportunity to ask questions end of the day the sliding scale is going to go in effect at some point in the future regardless. is that a
Speaker 25
1:39:36
fair statement? I I think if this program's going to be sustained over time we have to do that and
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:39:41
we're talking about having to find at the current rate I just want to make sure my numbers right $80 million is what we would have to come up and that's a
Speaker 25
1:39:48
rough number and I think we had some members talk about if if the grants come through at a
higher rate that might be less but we're we're not planning
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:39:58
on that yet and right and I'm just trying to be real quick so and quick answers are good. so the at right now we're operating on the assumption that the feds the federal government's going to cut the program funding and this is your your alarm that you have set off that is coming now we we may find out when they get the budget in place that hey, everything's going to continue as it is and and things will work itself out but right now sitting here today we don't know
that is that correct OK. so also I want to ask you the question when it when it comes to the calculation of the cost there's a difference between there's a difference between what market rates say that people can pay but then the actual cost to operate given inflation what it costs to hire good help overhead insurance all that kind of stuff when you do a comparison to other states are you looking at what people can pay or you actually looking at what it cost to to run a
Speaker 25
1:40:58
preschool facility and and that's why I want to be clear that that that marker rate study was done by a university in Arkansas based on the cost of what it costs to produce now that stu' wasn't hasn't been updated since 2023 so the cost of business is different today than what it was but that recommended rate that we had in here for reimbursement was based off that market study. OK and not and not to be
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:41:25
redundant but the market rates are what people can pay but then there's
the actual cost to run the facility and I know that may vary from facility to facility depending on management styles, programme offer
all those kind of things but but that rate study is based on actual cost I I don't know if I
Speaker 269
1:41:44
know the answer to that question I'll have to get that for you'd like to get that if you don't
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:41:49
if you don't mind and then what's not been discussed to date the lengths you've got 1100 people on the waiting list. is that correct? currently about that by doing what you're talking about doing
will that allow any of the 1100 to come off that waiting list or will that waiting list remain the same by implementing what you're proposing to do so
Speaker 25
1:42:13
I I think when as we look at that waiting list for this implementation we want to prioritize different groups on that waiting list because once you're already in the program you're typically in there for a year until you come up for reauthorization. if we have priority lists of the families and students that we want to serve they might take precedence over that but this at
this current rate it wouldn't reduce that waiting
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:42:39
list could it potentially add to the waiting list because if centers are not taking individuals cause either the families can't afford to pay the difference, or the senators choose not to take vouchers anymore? could that waiting list potentially potentially yeah ok so I think that needs to be in the discussion you're about to have over the next30 days. lastst question or close to last question would be this there are certain I heard that there are
certain requirements that are placed on the facilities that if you take the money then we expect to do this. maybe that's curriculum or other things because there's going to be a reduction those requirements that are being placed on the centers are those going to be stopped or are they still going to be continued to provide meet those meet those requirements with less funding to do it with. Well I don't think you want to do anything
Speaker 25
1:43:31
that lowers health safety and welfare of the students so you when you when you look at those licensing requirements those
minimum expectations I don't see that going down but with those reimbursement rates for for higher tiers may have qua may have required different actions by the agency I think that needs to be part of the discussion. So
Speaker 269
1:43:49
like take hippie program because this is going to touch the the hippie programme is that correct? I as I said earlier I don't have that in front of me right now. OK I know that my understanding that there's certain requirements that are on those programs
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:44:04
you know as far as what they're
expected to deliver in the way of services material, whatever support but if we're going to cut their funding and we still expect them to deliver that that in itself I think is the conundrum how do we expect them to continue to do what we're asking them to do but the funding's not there for them to do it and that's going to have an adverse effect on I think early childhood development and I think over the next 30 days that you have those meetings something that needs to be put into consideration last thing is this the walkway and this is being redundant I know but loud and clear the
redund the the position you're taking right now is that over the next 30 days to continue the rates but everybody needs to understand if you take the money from the pot now, there'll be less money in the pot later potentially depending on what Congress does and all we may do is slow down the train but the train's going to come to a stop is that a fair set and and I
Speaker 25
1:44:58
think part of that is a commitment one for them to get a kind of handle on this not hitting them so fast and two some of the providers said that they'd like to sit down and look at some
options maybe there's different proposals different angles different things to look at this would be a chance to kind of roll up our sleeves together because at some point this current rate is not sustainable and I asked for fund balances iss there any wiggle room in any of
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:45:23
your fund balances to help plug this hole by and do you have the authority to even move money between the fund balances don't think we can move a fund balance from a different grant
Speaker 25
1:45:31
to this grant well I think that needs to be out there publicly just so the public
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:45:35
knows what your limitations are or not. thank you
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
1:45:43
Representative Barnes thank you chair one question you mentioned that you did meet with the governor if you can to elaborate on that was she open to maybe trying to give some funds towards solving this issue I think in
Speaker 25
1:46:02
my conversations with the governor she wants to make as little disruptions as we can to families and and and it it actually expand access and do whatever we can because she
Speaker 44
1:46:13
knows how important this space is and is willing to have those conversations great
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:46:25
thank you Senator Lovev thank you madam chair so Mr.liva I got got a couple of
things that don't want to discuss. first things first is that we're
talking about child care vouchers and you know the conversation that we're having in district 15, Senate district 15 is this
is that it seems like and this is the appearance it seems like that when we were talking about vouchers for for private schools you were on top of that
but now we talk about vouchers for the most vulnerable populations in our district and all of a sudden this change is gonna have to come so talk me walk me through that because I I do want to ask you
when you first, I mean I know the question was asked when you first found out about this shortfall book the conversation was and when did you know about it because I'm hearing a lot of different things about when you all first knew about the shortfall so that's what I want to ask you but but talk to but first address that issue of private school vouchers versus the vouchers for the most vulnerable and how we seem to be
prepared for that and ask for $90 million but we didn't seem to be prepared for this so thank
Speaker 20
1:47:50
you for the question. I I just wanna make sure we're on the same page when you when you talk about private school vouchers
Speaker 25
1:47:57
I'm assuming that you're talking about the educational freedom accounts so I go back to that's a state program that's funded through state dollars. These vouchers that we're talking about is one federal program we we don't control the money that goes in or out of that bucket. it's a formula grant that we received from the
feds which is why we're bre having this conversation in a very open public forum today because if we don't increase that funding or add a state commitment it could greatly impact the quality of service those children receive. but
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:48:30
here's the thing though is that you all seem to be more on top of that
issue and you seem to be more willing to come and ask us for the additional funding the additional preparation versus we're seven days I guess734 days
out and there was no there was no
Speaker 39
1:48:51
request made so just like this formula grant in every other formula we grant that we
Speaker 25
1:48:57
get from the feds whether it'sitle 1, TitleI, TitleI. we pass on that formula grant to the districts I've never once come to this state and said Title3 funding's been lower can we offset with that allocation is never once it's a federal grant based on a formula that we pass on that we receive
Speaker 123
1:49:14
so just like this program and any other
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:49:19
program we inform the recipients of those allocations on a let's let's turn it down because you you're starting to yell at me and I'm not yelling at you but I'm just I want you to answer that so that we can go through it but you're starting to
Speaker 135
1:49:35
you're starting to and don't mean to yell I do get passionate but you're trying to accuse me of not caring about these students. No
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:49:42
I'm not acute hold on. I didn't accuse you of anything. What I said was the perception was this I didn't accuse you of anything
now we've worked together before so so please don't say that I'm accusing you of anything but the perception is out there so I wanted you to give you a chance to
Speaker 44
1:50:03
address the perception that's what I wanted you to do
Speaker 25
1:50:06
and that's go back to say when you talk about educational freedom accounts it's a state program we talked about AC accounts it's the state program you're saying the perception is is I don't care about this federal voucher program but that's not the case
this is this is this is a big deal to a lot of students and families this is a space that I am000% on investing every dollar that we can. The more money we can invest in getting kids ready for kindergarten the better our state's gonna be so I I I don't I don't know where this perception is coming from but it's not true and just like any other federal grant like if those we get a mements to those grants every quarter. The formula grants.
I've never once come to this legislator and said, oh by the way, this formula grant last quarter changed we need to do something about it so have we faced
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:51:01
this drastic of a cut to a to a program and other federal grants I'd have to do some research but yeah I
Speaker 39
1:51:09
mean those those grants fluctuate so the grants fluctuate
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:51:14
but umm I mean because we're we're talking about putting some people out of business and so that's that's
that's what's going on here that the people are also as you say you're you're passionate about it. people are also passionate about making sure that their kids stay in high quality childcare
centers but the lastly I wanna I want to go to this and this this is going to go back to the the promulgation of the rules and the changes that we're having so you said that this is a 100% federally funded program so when you when you began to do your rule changes
does that does that mean that you don't have to you bypassed the
Speaker 25
1:52:01
legislature that you don't let me clarify it's so when you talk about the CCDF grant there is a state match of about $10 million so it's not h00% federal but the majority of
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:52:11
it is a federal program OK so then then would not the the change in the
rules with that not necessitate you then come into this body to actually and that's why
Speaker 25
1:52:24
this doesn't have state rules this is a federal grant it's an appropriation
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:52:29
grant so then then all the all the grants I'm just I'm just trying to clarify all the grants that are 100% federally funded then that means when
you promulgate the rules you don't need to bring it to the legislature is that that's why'm
Speaker 25
1:52:43
saying there there's no rules to promulgateu typically when we get an allocation like a federal allocation I'll use like Title One. it's a formula grant then it gets applied to a state formula and gets
distributed to those school districts this is similar
Speaker 291
1:53:01
madam chairir I'll get back in the queue for for my
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:53:06
other ones maybe maybe it would be helpful if the legislature
decided that we wanted to spend part of this500,000 surplus that
we have to boost early childhood is there a way to do that
with those state funds that would not hurt our federal relationship with those grants
Speaker 25
1:53:35
right so I think it depends on what program you want to invest in so like if you want to invest in AC which is the state program not gonna have any impact on the federal grant if you wanted to invest state dollars to offset federal expenditures when you get into maintenance of effort you're basically setting a foundation that you're going to continue that appropriation so it doesn't look like you're trying to get
into a supplant supplement situation can you talk
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:54:00
just a little bit of different about the difference between supplanting and yeah so the the federal code
Speaker 20
1:54:07
has some very clear guidelines that if you get a federal aoc allocation you can't take away state
Speaker 25
1:54:12
dollars because it looks like you're not providing a level of service that the state was already committed to so if the state makes a commitment we need to continue that commitment because if we got more federal dollars in the future and we took state
dollars away that could be considered supplanting because the state had made a commitment but now you're not seeking that commandment because the feds are giving a commitment it's supposed to supplement or go above
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:54:41
and beyond what the state commitment is. but we could support potentially we could support until we
Speaker 29
1:54:49
hear more about the federal grants. For CC DF for whatever support
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:54:53
we need for the providers and the families.
Speaker 25
1:54:58
a similar program maybe I guess that goes back to like if you wanna look at updating AC or something to meet different tiered qualities that are similar to this program I think that might be a different conversation than just putting money into this bucket if that if I don't know if that makes sense how can how can
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:55:22
we do that in a way that doesn't hurt that relationship, that grant relationship yeah I think you'd
Speaker 25
1:55:30
have to look more at a state program and we could help research that for you
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
1:55:34
great and senator dismay Yeah I'd be happy to
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:55:39
have a conversation about the budget issues so if y'all want to just think about most of all of this has been into a peer meeting right and in the peer meeting federal money flows through every single month for different programs and they are not state programs right and we don't pass a new set of rules for those now occasionally if it's a state program that requires a new individual to be
hired or a new position we may authorize a new position but we don't set up brand new programs and i just because we receive federal dollars and so when they're saying that you don't come to us and I I understand there's a lot of people in the in the room that are going to shake their head no and I've seen it but I'm telling you we don't set up state rules for federal programs we follow the guidelines and they give us some latitude of what that looks like and that discretion is less with the agency but as far as us going in I mean it's 100% correct if we
want a state program there is a path to do that I don't know if you have enough latitude inside the AC program to write new rules. I would doubt that you do so it would probably take a state law first and then from that state law we can have an appropriation with state dollars and then we'd follow through that process but again when heat when I've I've heard it from providers. I've heard it from some members just think about yourself setting in a peer meeting and we get a federal dollar do we follow up and have a rules meeting to approve how those dollars are spent never never
So that that would be my clarifying point on that. I'd love to ask some questions when I get a chance this is your chance awesome right so because if we're gonna speak in this vein of creating a new state program. I want to make sure that I understand all the facts the situation we're in because again I I can say I can repeat verbatim what I've been told by department of Education to provider and the provider is pretty much going to say that they're lying right and so this has been a helpful conversation just to try to understand the different buckets that fund early
childhood education for me obviously someone that's not in that arena what I would love to see is a chart of the buckets that go in to fund these programs for early childhood education I mean because I will tell you I am still find it hard to believe and I'm gonna say something that I can't believe to be true that if you make 85% of median household income in the state of Arkansas you get a full paid voucher where where some small copay but if you make 86% you get zero I can't believe that to be true so if you could give me some
more information like that because that just seems impossible to me but I believe that may be the federal program or how we've allowed it to be implemented so I would like to see that I would like to see the information on the surrounding states so we can get a better idea of what that looks like because I think what we're being asked to do is to create a new state program right and if we're going to do that I can promise that I don't want to be beholden to whatever the federal guidelines were for their program.
and I don't imagine you ultimately will want to be either so just to say well let's put some more money into it because also understand if we put more money into this program and it continues on we're beholden to keep giving those additional dollars and if they change the parameters of that program we are obligated to keep funding that program with their new parameters so again if we're gonna do something it's gonna have to be on the state side and it's going to have to be something that we diligently work through and have all the information so I'm I'm on a fact finding mission at
this point and so if you don't mind I think those timelines the different buckets when they're going to run out haul that it goes into the higher education funding what it looks like and then we can have knowledgeable conversations about where we need to go with early childhood education because the other thing I'll tell the committee is I can promise you we're going to have this conversation again and we're gonna have it on healthcare and we're gonna have it you name the the entity and we're going to have it over and over and
over whether it be because the feds decide that they want to go through the government shutdown and none of those dollars are flowing to us in the state again or because they decide they want to eliminate programs and you're going to be asked should we continue and if we do what should it look like and this it's a it's going to be a difficult time and we can talk about surpluses those disappear pretty quick. I mean we're not talking about throwing nickels around. we're talking about tens of millions of dollars so again if I if you don't mind you've heard a lot of questions hopefully the staff has taken
that down putting that stuff on paper would be really really helpful. thank you. and if
Speaker 19
2:00:17
you don't mind sending that to staff they'll send it to everybody we
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:00:21
can share it with you and then you can send everybody here thank
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:00:27
you very much ok Representativeauugt you're back up Thank you madam chairir. Just a couple of questions. This was at DHS at one point, right? Is this the program that was at DHS one of the programs yeah ok and then it when it came to y'all who was over the program who's like who is the boss of
this program? It wasannya Williams. OK and then was she aware of the shortfalls that were coming and when was she aware? was it was y'all made aware when it came from DHS to you that there were shortfalls gonna happen Well
Speaker 39
2:00:58
I think that's always been the conversation when when we knew say back in
Speaker 25
2:01:02
February to start establishing a waitlist we that that was those conversations around we've got to slow down the spending because we don't have enough in a fund balance to keep sustaining at the rates that we were getting
I don't think anybody predicted 1/4 quarter rate adjustment based on the line item so that
Speaker 20
2:01:20
that kind of hit us by surprise and then I know like you're the main
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:01:25
boss but who if Tanya's not over this anymore, who is over it now? So I don't with Ashlyn's last
Speaker 20
2:01:33
name ashland Avy is been hired as an interim director. OK thank you madam chairir. thank you Representative Woootten
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:01:45
thank you madam chairman first of all, I want
to make a statement and I hate to say I told you so but what senator Desmaine said he's exactly right this conversation is just beginning and it's not gonna be just with the education Mr Secretary it's going to be with health it's gonna be with any federal grant that comes into the state of Arkansas. The main reason is we owe
the federal government owes37 trillion37 trillion dollars 1 trillion dollars,1 trillion dollars a year in interest and we cannot sustain that we cannot
as citizens sustain that and it's it's difficult time and this is what I've warned my colleagues
about for at least the last four or five years is
reckoning day is coming and it's here and whether the federal government shuts down or doesn't shut down we're still going to have a37 trillion dollars debt and it's got to be
dealt with now Mister Secretary. do you have you looked at any
stopgap method from the surplus funds or extra money or
cash balances or other amounts of money that you have down there Yeah
Speaker 19
2:03:24
I think that's why when we heard from
Speaker 25
2:03:26
the providers even though October ones the new fiscal year if we could pause on implementation for about30 days so let's say November 1 we'd be using our fund balance in this grant to make sure that we can continue those payments and that that's what 10 million or how a little less than
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:03:43
that yeah ok and and by the ways along we
want Senator Hammer said your staff assured us that they would have the fund balances and everything for today's meeting and we didn't we don't have that do
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:04:06
it available for you how much is your budget for all of secondary education in the state the RSA number do you know when you say
Speaker 130
2:04:15
secondary are you talking about K12 or talking about K through 12
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:04:23
and yeah I'll say a
Speaker 52
2:04:26
little over3 billion rough the number
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:04:30
I have is 2.49 $billion billion and it's the same next fiscal year and so they were relying we we were relying on you to come up with the extra money for the formula funding for every student in the state whether it's freedomc account or otherwise but
if if you could if you could come up with that amount of money why can't you come up with a stomp gap effort here to help these parents and children and providers out at least for for one year I mean we're in a we're
in a road to nowhere we don't know what the federal government's going to
be but is it you know and if we're talking about 80 million for a year and
I hate for us to start a new program I I just you know because we have to have a balanced budget in an Arkansas and and we have no choice of politicians the governors not just Sarah but the rest of them try to make a big deal we balance the budget they don't have any choice. The constitution says you can't spend more than you take in so is there any any thought been given to some stopgap method use
of funds down there that you have access to for to get us through this for to help these parents and so many of them like you say and I agree with you wholeheartedly that the the younger and I spoke to 12 schools this past in the past two weeks and every one of them I've made the point that reading and writing and arithmetic and reading a new book opens a
new world every day that they'll read a new book so have y'all given any thought to
come it's it's less than what 2% of your total
Speaker 25
2:06:37
budget I think that's where it gets complicated where I guess the question working with the legislature is if we want to invest in offsetting this federal grant is that a commitment that we're going to make in perpetuity or if there's a question on how do we provide more access to early learning and state programs do
Speaker 20
2:07:00
we want to start a new program or expand an existing program those are the
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:07:06
kinds of questions we need to answer. Well, my, my question is can
is there anything that we can do for a stopgap method for for six months or a year to to give the providers more time and to give the parents time to adjust in the event that the federal government continues like they are down the road and if they shut down I
don't think it's going to be for just a week or three or four
Speaker 25
2:07:34
days. No, and oh and and that's where a kind of the struggle is why we're saying we need to do some October firstst because the fund balance in this program it's not like we can shift other federal dollars into this program the fund balance in this program wouldn't be able to last six months at the current rate. thank you thank you Mr
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:07:51
Secretary and thank you madam chairman and and I will say Representative wooten and
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:07:54
to the rest of us is the goal of this meeting is to talk about these things and see
what we can do so I don't think this is the end this is not the end of this discussion we're going to be talking about this for a long time. It's a national issue it's one we've always subsidized every level of education except for the one that's most important to a child's life and so it's a it's a national conversation obviously if we can figure out a way to help make that stopgap, with the budget constraints that we have then great and that's a conversation that we'll continue to have and you're willing to do
that I I know you are yeah
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
2:08:36
so thank you for that senator Love thank you madam chairir. So Secretary Leevi it's it's my understanding it was
explained to me that some of the federal dollars are also used to supplement the ABC program during
summer months when the schools is out is that correct or is that incorrect? don't know if I know
Speaker 25
2:08:57
the answer to that it it may be it may be
Speaker 35
2:09:02
those those families can qualify to use this program in the summer because the AC typically run
Speaker 316
2:09:08
through a school year do do we know how much
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
2:09:11
money do we know how how much that would be to cover that 8 to10 weeks we can get that for you. OK. because this is and this is my point in asking that was to also say that this is another place where the state is taking federal dollars
in plugging in a state program so if we were to actually plug in the debt additional money then that means that that would open up funding on on
Speaker 116
2:09:42
the federal side with that not if you
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
2:09:44
said to add the state dollars for the summer yeah I would think so yeah like some of the some of the conversation that we're having is that the state probably needs to fulfill an obligation
in the first place because if we're not if we're not truly covering all the ABC students from for the 12 month period and just for the nine
month period then we've we've actually contributed to that to that shortfall I mean I I understand that the that your department is going to actually try to make everything work I I'm not saying that and I applaud you all for that but at the same time we as a we as a body needs to we need to understand that so that we all we can act appropriately and so I do believe that this will be a conversation in the
future but I I did want to try to get that point out there to see like you know I heard that but I I
Speaker 25
2:10:42
didn't no I think I think to your point if if you expand AC and I think one of the challenges that a lot of private providers would say preclude them from participating as the reimbursement rate's not as high and it requires a40% match so if we're gonna reimagine ABC to try to make it
Speaker 20
2:11:03
more competitive, I guess with the federal grant then that's a deeper conversation and
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
2:11:09
those are the conversations that we need to have so thank you for that thank
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:11:13
you madam chair thank you and thank you all for your patience. we've got one more question and then we'll go to our other speakers senator Dismay not a
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:11:21
question my question is because I've heard and I felt like I just need to finally ask my understanding is some of these changes are driven by the Learns Act so we've made some statutory changes that are then
creating two or helping lead to the shortfall and everything else is can you walk me through what learns act changes were made that are having an impact on this problem so
Speaker 25
2:11:49
helping foster this problem right so when when you look at the federal grant the appropriation the 100 on a round it $136 million there's required s set asides for professional development for growth, for
quality of about 12% when you look at some of the implications like for like learns when we're flip switching to the class observation tool or the development of the local leads part of that 12% that were required to set aside for professional learning took on some of those expenses forEar's implementation. Is that it OK oh sorry
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:12:38
So just to make sure I follow up that'm sorry missed that you're good you're behind the columns can't see awful it's my favorite spot so but what you're saying is we were able to kind of duplicate some of the efforts of learnarns to be able to meet the 12% requirement right and then there's
Speaker 213
2:12:55
also some state commitment dollars to that as well it's not 100% on the burden but as far as learns driving up the cost we just shared cost with something that we were
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:13:03
already going to do that we could apply to the 12% correct
Speaker 35
2:13:08
that you have to spend that 12% on professional learning. OK
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:13:14
thank you. thank you and thank you for your your your explanation and for your willingness to help to to make something
better appreciate that thank you if you're looking at your agenda we've got a plane to catch at4 o'clock so we're going to switch the agenda just a little bit and have Do Kelly Doctor Brandon Kelly and Gina Gina Dicky are gonna come up and
Brendan Kelly
Unverified
2:13:58
would you please introduce yourselves for the record thank you madam chairir my name's Brendan Kelly and I have the privilege
Speaker 329
2:14:08
of serving as the president of the Arkansas State University system. Gina Dickey consultant with
Brendan Kelly
Unverified
2:14:15
Arkansas State University Childhood Services. and please go right ahead. I appreciate it madam for over50 years a state childhoodervices has been serving all of Arkansas's counties. we were the first entity to
provide training for childcare programs in the state of Arkansas our staff lived throughout the state we are working alongside childcare educators and administrators to support the health safety education and operational practices of the childcare businesses that operate in this state. for us to address the impact of these cuts while I am in the business of developing people of all ages. I wanted to bring my colleague Gina Dicky because
she is integrated throughout our childhood services entity she has the type of subject matter expertise for what is upstream in terms of training and creating quality and childcare the downstream impacts on families children etc and then the impacts on our partners and if you don't mind madam Chair I'd like to hand it over to her to walk you through
Speaker 330
2:15:30
the impact on in the field. thank you for this opportunity both to this body as well as to the university to represent them that's filling a little big. one thing that I wanted to say first of all was that it's really is very exciting this change to recognize a B to16 continuum and I feel like in this seat today I represent represents that higher ed component and that all of that really does start at birth and I really appreciate how many of you have said that in your comments today that it is clear
your understanding about the quality of early education being equivalently important to the access of that education and so we're asU childhood Services is really has a two prong approach here to this issue is that we provide direct care we have 10 programs in the delta we have for many many years back when AC Money was the old money as some of you know the old money new money one of those programs is on campus
at the AU campus in Jonesboro.8 of them are connected to a school in some way in along the delta and the newest one is in Newport that was actually made at a request from an economic development commission and so with those partnerships and I think part of what is complicated in understanding is how intricately involved I think we got a good idea of that today and how these funding sources work and how they're braided and blended across partnerships throughout the state to make
quality early education happen and the school readiness assistance is really been very key if not a cornerstone to that. It started in this country in 1990 in Arkansas has been taking advantage of that opportunity ever since so we what was mentioned just previously was that the SRA funds are used for wrapparound care is how we refer to it so before and after school care for summer care so the AC program said Arkansas State runs
doesn't provide childcare for a full day full year for working parents and so those two things are brought together so that we can offer those amenities for families because that's what they need right a school day is not covering their work day but they also one thing that really hasn't come up in this conversation and for really good reasons because the topic that has been at hand and discussed in the last couple of hours is the most important topic and that's getting direct services to children and families so that they can be prepared for kindergarten and to go to work
but the cuts were also made to programs like ours so we provide technical assistance and professional development all over the state in those 50 areas and it's an important component to quality that really is in jeopardy as well and I think there will be colleagues behind me who don't know about this because we haven't been talking about it we've been talking about more what's important to them and what we need to do to support the continuation of care for children but these kinds of professional development opportunities are critically
important to a population who are minimum licensing requirements is that you have to be 18 years of age to have a high school diploma or GED that's that's what it takes to to work in our programs across the state and even the best programs that are represented behind me there's probably a population within their teams that Ginaickckey would say they hired nice and trainin because that's a way we can keep rates low for families because we can't afford50,000 dollars
like K1el. it's not in the budget, right? so we have educated people and some of them will be talking to you next but for the most part we hire nice and train making these training entities absolutely imperative to maintaining quality and on any given day in the states it would be it is a modest estimate to say we're running about a 25% turnover. so there's always new people to hire nice and train and that's in large part again because of the wages that we're
able to offer so that parents can afford care we can't compete with Chick fil A and Dillard's. so we hired nice and train and we have cut that budget as well so there are practitioners behind me, colleagues in other universities and other organizations who we found out last week that we will be taking large cuts to our budgets some of them started the very following day Others will start next week as well so those
are after contracts were signed people are employed plans are made, projects are underway. so they they are involved as well and I appreciate the university wanting to speak on our behalf in this issue
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:20:24
thank you very much members uhpresentative wooten thank you
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:20:30
Mr. Ke and President Kelly when when did y'all find out about this lastst Wednesday
Speaker 335
2:20:41
I I belie I believe it was September 24th September 24th.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:20:47
let me let me ask you if these numbers are correct that I have gotten relative to your programs on the on the pdG grant it was for 916,000 but the effect is going to be of of due to the quickness of it is going
to be between367,467,000 is that right? I don't have the the full budget
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:21:23
number sounds right OK the the next one is the CcDF award reduced from a 7700 to8008,000 or $269,000 reduction
I don't want to confirm that number unless I had the full budget and I can get that
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:21:47
the total loss that that I've been provided
with and I've heard just one side but that's enough I noticed let me ask you this question did did this come from the department ofducation or did you come from higher learning you know he's secretary of both which I think is a mistake which I've made clear before but anyway to get noticed he he
conveniently left before you got up here and I'm not putting
Speaker 337
2:22:17
anything on you or him but no I I don't have the letters of notification in front of me
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:22:26
but if you don't mindpresentative I'll get that to you the notice come from the higher ed division or did it come from secondary? if you don't mind me getting that clarification I'll get it
for you that that I think that's important to know either way he had control of it and either way it's going to impact childhood development,
educations in this state it's going to affect every parent, every child, every provider, each and every university, University of Arkansas ASU and also uaMs and others colleges that participated in the program is that a correct assumption? so would you say that early childhood development is under attack
either at the federal level or at the state level wouldn't
Speaker 337
2:23:23
hate to put you on the spot I wouldn't use that language. I'll use the language of I'm so glad that you're so interested in early
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:23:31
childhood development. thank you thank you madam chairman. I think the point's been made. thank you. you
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:23:39
Representative Mayberry. thank you thank you for for being here and and I I will say one of the fantastic things about all this is that we're at
the capitol talking about early childhood education far more than we have in many many many many many years and I'm hoping that you know sometimes some bad things happen but good things can come out of it and so I'm I'm really excited about the conversation that we have. I had a very sweet friend of mine say something to me I don't know less than a year ago and I want to throw this out there for food for thought because we did pass the access
plan this past term. we passed something you know the Lawns Act, the the the term before that may be in this next legislative session we're really concentrating on a big package dealing with early childhood education and that's what I hope comes out of this in the long long term but I'm throwing this out there for food for thought. this person came to me and she said, Julie , when I go to get my hair done, that person has a license
. When I go to get my fingernails done. that person has a license but when I take my child to an early childhood center for childcare that person doesn't have a license. and do we have our priorities a little out of whack and so I I actually began looking into it some, wanted to bring it up this past session. it just really wasn't good timing but maybe this is something that higher ed can get involved in because to my understanding that there's
actually some funding there to help our childcare workers achieve a certain level of training that maybe could be included to be required. Now with that there comes a cost because if the person has to have training and meet a certain certification then there's going to be a higher cost but just looking for some feedback on that and what we can do maybe in the the future conversations about this
to really make sure that those who are providing the care to our most vulnerable we're talking brand new babies who cannot speak for themselves that there's some level of licensing involved in that in a is the subject matter expert in that I
Speaker 337
2:26:13
mean I would say broadly the more educated and well trained any individual is in whatever
Brendan Kelly
Unverified
2:26:19
endeavor they're entering into we are going to get better outcomes from that we know that at every level of
education and I I'll just use the adult example we trained the professoriat myself included with Phds but we don't we don't teach them how to teach necessarily that's something we do after they become a professor we don't get a chance to do that when at other levels of education so I I think that's critical umpresentative Mayberrry,
Speaker 87
2:26:52
yes we think knowledge skills and ability are absolutely key because the most important
Speaker 330
2:26:59
component of quality is the person that's in the room viding direct care for children. umarkansas has invested in the teach scholarship programme. It too was cut with these cuts and in fact the speaker that's coming behind us has benefited and taken the opportunity from that and has made that available to her staff so I ask them to make a reference to that opportunity and what that's meant to them absolutely and we're also looking at we have entered into
a partnership Arkansas Early Childhood association that we are providing, a department of laborbor approved apprenticeship program of which Arkansas State University provides mentors for those apprentices on site to so so that you've got that hands on engaged learning in real time because that's what real kids need is real time information and yeah that's also those things are ideal. we
also in in respect to the colleagues behind me that don't have those formal pieces of paper that say they know stuff we've been looking really hard at competencybased opportunities for higher education based on what you already know and acquired and learned through real life experience as an opportunity for a stackable credentials
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:28:31
Senator Hammer thank you madam chair and I just want to make this statement then you correct me if I'm
wrong because I came into this meeting thinking we're just going to be talking about vouchers because that's what's you know we've been hearing most about, but what I'm hearing now is there are a lot of components that are going into what is classified as early childhood development, either in direct services or wrapparound services I'll call them which is what I would refer to what you're doing is more of
a wrapparound services for those parents but, but it's coming out of the early childhood pot of money. amm I correct in that? Yes sir.
Speaker 330
2:29:10
The12el% quality set aside that the secretary referenced that's where the contracts come from for people like us at a State childhood Services and others and so those have been equilaerally a cut across the board. OK. and that and that kind of goes to center dismay's
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:29:23
point a while ago about I think really what will help in the conversation is all the various
entities that are dependent upon that pot of money and how those are ut il ized for the overall goal and purpose of developing early childhood development the I guess the question I have and maybe you threw that number out a minute ago but what what's the financial impact to your programs based on what's being proposed think
Speaker 352
2:29:53
the total number was $2 million 280,000 and maybe you don't want to talk
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:29:59
about this publicly but how are you as an institution prepared
to absorb that or is that part of the discussion and now that you heard the conversation in the room today about maybe a 30 dayy
reprieve is that giving you time to go back to talk to your board and to
Brendan Kelly
Unverified
2:30:18
your folks and say we need to get ready for this. that's right uhjoanelli who's our longtime director of a state childhood services is working through that obviously this is new information so operationalizing those cuts is still in process but you know obviously it is a reduction
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:30:34
in those services OK and maybe this is n ' t the question you need to answer but I'm not sure anybody from the department's left in the room to answer this question but you know when it when it got to when when when this program was all set up years ago and and I I'm not sure when did your component get added to the program from the original date when it started or has it always been part of what was given in the way of federal funding or have you just been added on as years have gone by.
Speaker 330
2:31:05
we've been there since the beginning and as as the funds came more more funds came available to the state then childhood services grew in their capacity. right so this
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:31:16
has been something that's been evolving over the years more money has been coming down from the federal government to the state to distribute out and your growth has not has your growth been at the rate of the funds that have been given you to grow your
programs or how much of your pro how many of your programs have been grown not to being dependent upon those federal dollars.
Speaker 330
2:31:43
mo s t 100% of the budget is either reliant upon the quality set aside by the federal government or a portion of the Arkansas bettertter Chagrame that has been set aside for quality improvement. because last thing I'll say madam chair
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:31:57
thanks for the latitude is I'm just what I'm trying to process in my mind
is over the years how much and how many have become dependent upon this federal funding and now that there seems to be a correction that is taking place, now now we have to take the hard look at what's going to survive, what's not going to survive and could possibly you would like to hear this but could possibly some of the money be redirected from what you are doing and moved over to another area that may be more boots on the ground like the vouchers to the parents that are in the
actual preschool facilities or those federal funds restricted to where what you're getting can only be used for what you're
Speaker 330
2:32:47
getting. so the childcare development block grant requires a 1el% quality set aside so that's the only requirement. I don't know if we're met that threshold or we go beyond that threshold, um, but that would give this that but there's some flexibility even within what's defined quality right so the the latitude that states have on how they administer their CCdF
funding is very broad. so there is some flexibility in that and I do think well you didn't have I do think looking at us looking at the cuts and the timing of them my presumption Gina Dickey's is that some money has been moved from the contracts two vouchers, right? which is why we don't necessarily disagree with that but it was not part of a conversation and we were not involved and that's part of the problem I think is now
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
2:33:41
everybody's getting involved to where you have a platform to be included in those conversations. Thank you. Representative
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
2:34:02
Thank you madam Chairman. it won't take but just a second the information I had is
from another university which I won't identify but they just fired their head coach.
so for this is for Senator Desmay if he's still in the room we're up to about $83 million now rather than 80 million. so we've we've got to take a long hard look at childhood education in in this state for the parents the children and the providers like a ASsu and and the other university and atuaMs thank you no more questions I think we can
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:34:48
bring our next testifiers up. thank you guys so much for
being here. So next we'll hear fromrtine Eichler and Doctor Stacy Pipkins
would you please introduce yourselves for the record
Speaker 364
2:35:48
thank you microphone hi my name isrtine Eihler and I operate a family child care home in romance, Arkansas. my name is Stacy Pipkins and
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
2:35:56
I have4 programs in the central Arkansas area. Drctorricruge would you pull your mic up just a
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:36:02
little bit so we can hear you thank you
y'all go ahead have programs in the central Arkansas area right and you guys know which order you're going into go right ahead I'll go first
Speaker 370
2:36:26
thank you Good afternoon. it's almost evening, but good afternoon and thank you
Speaker 364
2:36:31
for allowing me to speak today. Again my name isrttyniihler and I have operated my in-home family childcare program in rural Arkansas for almost40 years.
I've called I have cared for generations of children and now I care for their children also. I hold a national accreditation through the National Association of Family Child Care. I maintain a better beginningarle6, and I currently serve as the president of the Arkansas Family Child Care Association. I'm here today not only as a small business owner and educator but as the voice of hundreds of family childcare providers and educators across our state who are deeply affected by the
recent changes to our early childhood subsidy system. on September 19th we were informed of across the board rate reductions and the introduction of a sliding scale copay for families. with less than two weeks' notice under the new system, even families living at or just above the poverty line will face copays estimated at $100 or more per week per child. for households with more than
one child this cost quickly becomes unsustainable. These sudden cuts some30 to40% are forcing providers to make drastic decisions laying off helpers or eliminating staff, cutting back on menu quality and snacks that aren't reimbursed reducing infant care slots which are already scarce in Arkansas. considering closing doors entirely or refusing to serve
subsidy families because they simply cannot afford to take the cut. and it's not only the direct childcare rates being cut funding for the support system the ladies that just spoke. gentleman and lady that just spoke that gives us free trainings coaching and mentorship. It also is being reduced. These supports are what build and maintain high quality care they give educators the stamina, the knowledge and the
encouragement to stay in this field without them we risk losing not just capacity but quality. Arkansas rightly dedicates about half of its state budget to education this reflects our commitment to children's success butir through age5 lays the foundation for everything that comes after including those third grade reading scores we're so focused on Research shows that 90% of brain development happens in the first
five years of life. Early childhood educators are brain builders when funding is cut from this stage we risk undermining everything the K through1el system is working to achieve without strong social emotional prereading and prewriting skills developed early, children begin school at a disadvantage. playing catch up from day one Family childcare providers are also a lifeline of resources for families helping families
navigate medical and developmental concerns coaching parents through potty training and behavior challenges supporting children's social emotional growth connecting families with community services. we're not simply here to complain. We are here to collaborate on behalf of the family childcare providers across Arkansas, I respectfully ask pause the cuts. Give families and providers time to adjust reevaluate the system with
provider input to ensure sustainability increased transparency and invite stakeholders to the table, protect infant care, rural care and the training coaching support systems that sustain quality early learning. These funding changes are not abstract numbers on a spreadsheet they are affecting real people, real businesses and real children across Arkansas. Mandy and Harrison runs a family child care. she's a level6
bettergins nationally accredited homeme 8 out of her out of her 8 children6 are supported by the school readiness assistance program. She also provides infant care which is rare in Boone County. There are only40 infant spots in the entire county if funding is reduced some of those infant care spots could disappear creating even larger strain on families needing care for their youngest children. Monika in Faulkner County cares for children where half are subsidized through the school
readiness program. She's unsure how she can balance her budget under the new rates and is worried she may have to cut back on services Gwy also in Faulkner County recently used a grant to expand her family childcare home to 16 children opening more infant and toddler spots, but she has already had to let a full-time worker go, a worker whose own children were enrolled in her program. Now Gwen is losing both that worker's support and the income from the children who left threatening the
sustainability of her expanded program Miss C in Pine Bluff runs a nationally accredited program with the level6 status under the new changes she stands to lose3,000 dollars a month. she says it will be a challenge for parents to pay the new copays and a direct loss of her wages when she had the SA funding for her level6 status support she was able to help families in tangible ways like buying diapers for a single mother of twins
this demonstrates what early child care educators do when we have the funds we've earned then we choose to use them to put back into a program and into our families and into our children these are not isolated cases across the state providers are making deep budget cuts scaling back programs or in some cases closing their doors the ripple effect of these decisions will touch children, families and entire communities.
In conclusion , I entered this profession so I could stay home with my own children I stayed in this profession to make a difference because every child deserves to have high quality care. Family childcare homes like mine are small businesses but together we form the backbone of early care in our state thank you for your time for listening to the concerns of providers and families and for your commitment to doing what's right for Arkansas's youngest
learners. We stand ready to work with you to ensure you that every child from birth to5 has the strong foundation they
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
2:43:41
deserve. thank you thank you doctor I've been in the early childhood education field for over30 years. I hold a doctorate in education with an emphasis in organizational leadership I've served on the board for the central Arkansas affiliate of the Arkansas Early Childhood Association for several years and am now the president. I've
contributed to multiple advisory boards. I feel like I know this industry. I've dedicated my life to nurturing children, empowering teachers and supporting families through community partnerships. I own4 child care centers in the central Arkansas area. We serve between300 and400 families each year with about 120 to140 of those that received the SRA subsidies at a time. I'm here today because the coming change to the SRA
reimbursement system threatens the foundation of early childhood education in our state. this shift from the current tiered reimbursement model to a baselevel market rate model will cut over6,000 dollars per week from my program's funding. that's not a minor adjustment. It is a financial cliff and we were given se business days for that. Under the new model, many programs like mine will be forced to close their doors
The market model which is what they were saying the new system is going to be based on it assumes that what providers charge reflects what it costs to deliver care but that's not true Many of us keep our rates low to remain accessible to families our budgets are built on a cost model. what it actually takes to provide safe enriching high quality care a market rate model ignores that reality the cost model accounts for the
real expenses of running a childcare program wages, benefits, training, curriculum, safety standards materials it reflects what it takes to meet licensing requirements, achieve quality ratings and support child development. The market model on the other hand is based on what families in our areas can actually afford or what providers can charge in a competitive environment. this is often below the true cost of care
if we base reimbursements on market rates we're essentially asking programs like mine and these ladies behind me to operate at a loss that's not sustainable and it's not fair to the educators, the children or the families that we serve the current tiered rebos reimbursement system acknowledges the importance of quality the higher the quality level of program achieves the higher the reimbursement rate. This system allows us to invest in better
materials, offerfer competitive wages and benefits and retain qualiative qualified passionate educators it's a model that works for children, for families and for providers and I believe that you asked the question about your your hair lady. I want to mention that under these new reimbursement rates, I was a better beginnings provider before these rates the the reimbursement rates came in and we struggled just to make ends meet. I lived week by week under
that system but when this the quality system came into place it pushed me to try harder to get quality levels to achieve that and now because of the the tiered system that we're under I am able to afford higher quality teachers in our programs. I have many staff members that hold master's degrees, bachelor's degrees, associate degrees I think we figured up we have6 right now dena had referenced that earlier the Te program is a scholarship
program that allows women, people that are working in early childhood settings to go to college on this scholarship it requires that providers like myself pay 10% of that and these higher reimbursement rates is what allows me to be able to do that so I can pay higher quality staff members because of that in 2023 Arkansas was ranked number one in the nation for early childhood education. That ranking was based on access and quality which are the two things
that they say they're doing all of this for is to increase access and quality. the tiered reimbursement system helped us to get there. why would we dismantle the very system that made us a national leader these funding cuts don't just affect the children who whose families receive the subsidies they affect every child in our program. when we lose funding we lose the ability to pay these competitive wages to have those qualified teachers that you were talking about it means
losing them we lose the ability to invest in high quality materials and curriculum and enrichment activities we lose the ability to maintain smaller class sizes and individualized attention that means lower outcomes for children. middleclass families who may not qualify for subsidies, they still benefit from the quality enhancement that those subsidies make possible when we're funded adequately we can offer better care to every child in our program. but when
funding is cut, quality drops across the board that's not just a subsidy issue it is a community issue some may ask what is the long term cost of keeping the tiered model? The answer is simple it's an investment, not a burden. The cost of maintaining the tiered model is a commitment to child development to work for stability and community health it supports better school readiness stronger family outcomes and more resilient early education workforce. the cost of eliminating it
program closures and we're already seeing thatgras all across the state we're hearing from providers that are they're already planning to close their doors when these cuts go into effect. This affects everyone not just the subsidy families. this affects every child that's enrolled in these programs we this is going to lead to educator turnover. you know my dissertation was actually on staff retention and the childhood industry and I I focused on Arkansas because of the gains that Arkansas has made
in early childhood education but these cuts are gonna they're going to take all of that away it's going to result in a reduced access to care as provider after provider is forced to close their doors which is going to lead to lower education outcomes you know these children that are having to pull their kids families pull in their kids because they can't afford it anymore. they're going to put them in in illegal daycares and legal inhome daycares private babysitters and things where they're not getting that high
quality education that they receive in these programs ultimately this is going to be a reversal of the progress that made Arkansas a national leader I'm asking you today to reconsider this shift, maintain the tiered reimbursement system. This is not just about funding it's about the future of early childhood education in Arkansas it's about the children who deserve safe nurturing environments in the early educators with the knowledge, skills and abilities to prepare them for secession in kindergarten and in life
it's about the families low income, middle income working class, it doesn't matter. all of them rely on us every single day and these cuts are going to impact what we are able to provide for them you know we talked a lot about putting a pause on this but I'm asking moving forward that we we stay with this cost model because the the market rate is it's not a it's not
we can't survive under a market rate. The cost model system that we're currently under it's based on what it actually costs to provide ha high quality care and when that funding is gone I cannot maintain it. My teachers, my staff members that hold master's degrees, I will have to let them go after this, I will not be able to afford the teachers that I have that's going to cause the quality of my programs to plummet. So I'm asking you please to consider early childhood education. we've
put so much focus on young children. We put focus on families in our communities as we should but it's got to start with providers because quality really starts with us. It starts in our programs we're the ones providing the service that provides stability to our workforce. It was important during COID and it should still be important now thank you we've got several questions thank you guys for sticking with us
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
2:52:44
Representative Mckenzie thank you madam Chair. I have a few questions. Doctor Aler are you on the left? Yes.
OK. a few questions. so you did a great job of eliminating your percentage of the size of your of your facility the size of ss students what is your private pay tuition for families not on
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
2:53:05
SRA? well that goes back to market rate and what's affordable because my my programs are spaced out over three different cities it varies but on average I would say that our infants probably those
spots are around 195 a week down to 175 for our pre-K children. and it's a little different depending on which city the program is in. because we base those rates off
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
2:53:28
of market that's roughly 0 to650 dollars a month. Yes sir what amount of copay on average and this is on average you4 facilities across a big wide swath
of area amount of copay do you collect? Well becau and and this is not the
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
2:53:42
case I know for a lot of people but because the
tiered reimbursement rates are higher than what my private tuition rates are. we don't collect copays we eat that cost as a loss because we're already getting above what I would charge them as a private pay facility so we don't charge our families in our
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
2:54:05
program for the copays is there any other subsidies any other government programs any other philanthropy grants that you received for your four facilities and the
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
2:54:13
only thing that we get we're on the the child nutrition program so we
Speaker 375
2:54:19
receive reimbursement for our food costs. some of our food costs Miss Hess
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
2:54:26
so in your facility how many students do you I'm licensed for 10 but
Speaker 384
2:54:35
right now I have4. that's great and I was really interested to hear
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
2:54:38
that you have an athome facility because I think I don't know if I'm not supposed to say this but I think that the state has done a hard job of making at home facilities
feasible and that I do believe that that is a way that we're going to deal with the the crisis which I don't think it's necessarily a crisis and it's illuminating more of the problem it's not a crisis it's it's a market failure childcare is a market failure. We have 218,000 students in the state of Arkansas that qualify under ive years and under that would require some form of child care from 1 to 1.1% or to 1.1 FTEs of a family member that needed to do full time work. this program represents 22,000 people.
roughly when we start talking about attrition in the 25% rollover. private pay are all four of your students currently on S All
of mine are private pay yes do you receive any other philanthropy subsidy government assistance the only
Speaker 364
2:55:36
other thing that I do receive is CEFP which is our food reimbursement which provides a an amount for food. How many other facilities are there
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
2:55:44
like yours in and around within like 20 miles of romance.
I'm gonna say3 and then large scale childcare enrichment facilities we are currently I
Speaker 364
2:55:59
believe we were just under 200 in the state thank you very much Representativeoughugt thank
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:56:10
you madam Chair. thank y'all for being here. You both did an excellent job. I want to thank everybody out
there that's here also that doesn't get to speak today I do want to correct a couple of things though.
and I'm on your side but I want to correct you. we're not cutting anything right and I I want all of y'all to hear that your stories that you read just a second ago, those all need to be sent to the congre or Congress delegation. Every one of y'all out there should be MLing our Congress delegation because we're not making a cut but if somebody's just watching online and they only catch part of that they think that we're the ones that
are making the cut here in Arkansas. But I want to make it very clear we're not doing this we can' t we can't keep a tear that's not actually our tier. it's the federal government's tier. So I want to encourage y'all, again you did an excellent job. I think everyone sitting out there in that audience should let their voice be heard to our congressman, senators and and our representatives up there because they're the ones ultimately who was in charge of trying to
get this push through for Arkansas. I value what you do. I believe y'all do a good job at what you do but I just want to make it very clear to anyone who's watching online that it's not us making these cuts. but thank y'all for being here. question no
Speaker 389
2:57:48
worries no worries Representative mayrry thank you madam Chair.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:57:53
thank you for for your statements. I just
I want to ask you a few things. One
, I think many people are hearing, oh well this is going to affect parents, those with young children and really only those on on vouchers who are using vouchers but this is a much larger issue because there are some facilities that also use vouchers and the private private pay at the same time and if they're not receiving that
same amount of money that that daycare, I mean you've said that some of them are might close
up. but even bigger than that there's probably many who say I don't have children. you know this is not an issue to me but they own a business or they're working here at the capitol or wherever and suddenly now they don't they have an employee that they've been relying on coming to work and now that employee can't come to work because they don't have childcare. Can you kind of share a little bit about
really the bigger picture of how this affects the economy as a whole I mean during COVvid when everything
was shutting down, childcare workers were essential employeesok? do you do you mind sharing a few thoughts well
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
2:59:17
As I stated with with me having that higher reimbursement rate it allows me to keep my private pay tuition down but it's going to affect the only
way that I'm going to be able to survive is letting go my highquality teachers and raising tuition rates across the board for everyone and so that hurts everybody because it even the families that don't receive subsidies it's going to stretch their budgets to a point that they're not going to be able to afford childcare and when they can't afford childcare they're going to have to pull their kids but programs are gonna have to close. you know they're not going to be able to to make it because our budgets
are already established so my budget of70 to90% of budgets usually fall back on wages for for staffing and my budget's already set based on these reimbursement rates so what I'm having to do in seven days is readjust a budget where I've lost40% of my funding and I don't know how I'm going to do that without hurting people that I care about.
Speaker 392
3:00:32
I was just gonna say this is really going to affect spots we haven't
Speaker 364
3:00:37
talked a lot about about about slots where you know facilities do not have open spaces for infant and toddler. there's none out there. so that is a difficulty they talked about opening up spots for for more families to be on you know, SA where are they going there's notoping there's not anything open and if we're having facilities closed because
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
3:01:02
of this? where are they going? and and you mentioned infant and toddler and one thing that I I've
kind of learned through the years it's just how much more expensive it is for any childcare facility to even offer infant and childcare. I mean infant care because the cost is just that much more do you mind
Speaker 394
3:01:21
the cost is much more because of the
Speaker 364
3:01:24
ratio. If you have infants then your ratio I'm licensed for 10 but that depends on the ages of the children. I never kept 10 kids
because I didn't have 10 kids over the age of3. so I always have kept families of usually an infant and a toddler and a preschooler. So I have kept all the children of that family and so that that's what reduces your rate of of children so that's why usually infant care costs more and that's why there are a lot of facilities that don't take infants because it is it's a much difficult yep babies are are tough. I
Speaker 370
3:01:56
mean they're the best but they're tough. You don't really make any income off of
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:02:05
infant spots very little because of that ratio when you can only have5 in a classroom to 1 teacher versus a pre-K classroom where you can have 12 to1 teacher it's it's a lot harder to offer infant care. and
Speaker 364
3:02:18
again I'm I'm family home and she's center so there is some differences in our ratios so that that is I'm by myself I don't have employees so you don't you don't want me having a lot
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
3:02:31
of infants did hear one critic just just say you know, well if the they
must have an awful business model if this much of a cut
is going to make them go out of business and I sit there and say you don't know anything about early childhood education then because it really many to my to my understanding, many are not making lots of
money on on any of this. they're just barely getting by and and really see themselves more as providing services that are are there definitely agree. I mean
Speaker 364
3:03:06
I I believe it's definitely a calling but I don't think it's something that we all want to do for free I mean we we do this because we love it, we stay in it because we love it. we we have a relationship with these children. we have a relationship with these families this is we're part of our community and I mean I go to games to basketball games football games I go to baseball games and you know kids that I've had from years back will come and want a picture. So I mean it's it's relationships and it is something that it grows and
it's it's just it's deeper but we don't want we we can't do it for free and I kind of feel like that's where we're expected to to go is we'll we'll eat those costs or we'll do it out of the goodness of our hearts and I wish we could that's not sustainable Representative Cooper Christine, thank you for being here. really appreciate your
Representative Cameron Cooper
Unverified
3:04:10
testimony and thank you for providing early childhood education services and our rural area of westerny County greatly appreciate that could you share with the committee give us some insight on the the differences and the difficulties of providing care in a rural area. I mean Hebrew Springsari those are the nearest towns to us quite a distance away you're providing a great service for families that work in the small towns like rosebud and Mount Vernon. So do you give us a little insight on the differences and the challenges and how these changes in funding
Speaker 364
3:04:41
would make that even more difficult for you. again this does not I do not have any Sr children right now SRA children, I'm sorry but yes it is it is difficult there are a few other providers in my area but again they're in the same situation as me there's only a certain amount of spots that they can open difficulty is if we close, we don't have anything our school has
has an AC has an AC program within the the school we had a head start and it has not been opened in some time now so as far as rosebud kids there's a there's me and another provider in rosebud and then there's one in the Mount Vernon rosebud area and that's really about it now we are we are licensed and so now I don't know about other people that provide care that are that are you know friends and family or are unregulated I don't know the
numbers of that but the difficulty is we work long hours we work when our parents need us sometimes that means opening your door at4:3ty in the morning if they work in a factory in Sersey and need to be there that means some evening care if if necessary that means opening if a family needs you in in certain situations sometimes their families live out of town and sometimes you're the closest one there. So but
there's there's just there's difficulties in in diff in many ways as far as sometimes it's difficulty not having a support system so having a support staff or having a support system like a state and curricula concepts and different people that give us support and mentoring we rely on that we need the support entities to to give us training and to give us just mentorship so
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
3:06:48
I hope I answered your question OKpresentative Steele adam thank you so much madam chair it's quick very quickly doctor you mentioned that the economic impact on your facility it's been about6,000 a week is
that all your facilities combined sir and how many do you have again that's tough. how long do you think you could
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
3:07:33
sustain that type of to be honest don't even know it it without making
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
3:07:39
drastic changes not long. you you mentioned you had
some some workers with bachelor's and master's degrees how much more do you have to compensate them for their
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:07:49
education experience. have you know we base our we have a wage scale that's based off of experience and education and so Id I have teachers that do make $13 an hour but the more education they have you know it goes up to where I have some staff members that are making $25 an hour. they're on salary they receive PTO paid vacations we we offer a comprehensive insurance program like she mentioned with the
teachach program I've got um6 teachers that are getting college education through that and I'm responsible for 10% of their tuition as a teach provider so all of that extra stuff is allowed because of that tiered reimbursement system but when that's taken away I won't be able to do any of that anymore both of you provi
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
3:08:43
provided us with an excellent presentation really do appreciate that madam Chair if I may I'd just
like to ask the audience how many of you feel you're in a very similar predicament than than these ladies who are testifying thank you so
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
3:09:08
much thank youpresentative p re s ent ative Wwooten thank you madam Chairman and thank you ladies for being here and doctor you proud to
say you're in my district with one of your facilities and we're we're thrilled about that
is is is is a detriment due to the fact that we pay a higher voucher rate in Arkansas maybe it's based on cost versus the market is that a disadvantage? Absolutely absolutely the market rate
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
3:09:36
doesn't even come close to what it actually costs to run a program. And
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:09:42
if we revert back to that programs are not going to be able to maintain quality classrooms there's no way so it is a positive advantage that we
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
3:09:56
pay more that ensures that we have
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
3:09:59
quality educators in our classrooms like Yeah. Uh, my next question is have you heard any rumors of a group by the
name of Louisiana Educators involved in in the childcare in Arkansas no where do
we rank compared to Louisiana? I'm not really sure. OK.
Well, let me share with you we rank in the upper fortiess and they're in the lowest40. so I wanted to make that point would you agree that poverty is one of the if not the major one of the major issues facing Arkansas think that's the
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
3:10:47
case with a lot of our families that
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
3:10:51
we serve so what we're doing and early childhood training of your
people by the university and by ASsu anduAMs and we're we're taking working toward solving that problem of poverty which is one of the greatest problems in my opinion that we face as a state is that correct sir and believe that early childhood education she
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:11:13
mentioned the im port ance of it because so much of a a person's brain development occurs in those first few years everything that's poured into them in our classrooms has a direct impact on who that child is going to
become later in life. We lay the foundation for the kind of student that they're going to be and the outcomes later and high quality care it's been proven to improve poverty rates incarceration, there's all kinds of areas that that's been linked back to high quality care in a market rate model is going to take away the ability to provide high quality care that's going to affect generations to come.
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
3:12:00
it's gonna fix affect society for generations see I see a conflict between the AdE what they say here and then want their action is why would you change a program that does what this does then then they want to blame it on the federal government it's a problem that needs to be confronted either by by the legislature or the governor but together we can solve this problem
I mean if we can spend450 million dollars on private school then we can solve this problem of $80 million if it's if it's what it is. thank you thank you Mr chairman thank you bothir that's why we're here thank you Senator Hammer thank you I wanna I want to go back and ask you
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:12:57
a couple of questions regarding some of the numbers that threw out some of the
statements that you made to get an understanding of something first of all, doctor, are you profit or nonprofit profit and you're in home so I'm sure your profit too also, right? not registered as nonprofit OK. and one of y'all made a statement a while ago that you do not take the copay for the vouchers did I understand that correctly? sir right so in a scenario where you're charging 195 a week for infant how does it play out as far as what the voucher would pay
toward that is a parent paying the 195 themselves out of their pocket and then what you would have received in vouchers you're just not paying or walk me
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:13:43
through that if you would please our private pay parents would pay the 195 and then the the student the SA subsidies pick up the tuition for the children that received the subsidies and we're actually reimbursed higher rates than what our private pay is. So for example, instead of getting 195 for an infant I might get
256 for an infant so there's quite a difference in what the subsidy provides but that excess income from that subsidy spot doesn't just benefit that subsidy child it benefits every child in the program. you know because the money is going towards increasing quality in our classrooms which all children benefit right so does the parent that
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:14:26
is receiving the voucher then pay 195 out of pocket what do they pay out of pocket?
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
3:14:34
They don't those that are receiving the subsidy don't
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:14:38
pay. all right so you only take of you could take $256 of the voucher allotment for that scenario but you only take 195 of that? Am I confused or give me help help me clear up the gray. I mean where they have a copay
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:14:52
it might be $20 a month a week you know it varies depending on the child and there's not many of them I don't know the figures because
we like I said we don't require the copays but it's it would be a small amount that they would have to pay that would be their portion and so the amount that we get the that copay part would come out
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:15:18
of that hus the sliding scale effect because those parents are goingn up where they may have paid $20 they're now going to have to pay whatever the sliding scale adjustment is is that in my understanding that correctly? Yes,
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:15:29
and under this new system because the voucher rates now or this I'm sorry the school readiness assistant subsidies
are lower than what our private pay is in addition to the families now having to pay that copay, they're also going to have to pay the difference in what the subsidy pays up to our private pay rates you know we've never had that as an issue before so parents are not only gonna have to pay that copay but now they're gonna have to pay the difference in the subsidy in our private pay rates and and as much as program providers love their families and would love to say we're not going to do that it's not financially possible to not
charge them we've had multiple text messages just
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
3:16:09
today of parents that are already saying today is their child's last day. because they cannot afford it tomorrow. OK. Msehlert you have a
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:16:18
a home center did I understand you say a while ago that you don't take of the four you have you don't take any of the vouchers none of
Speaker 364
3:16:28
those children are are subsidy children no not at I
Speaker 373
3:16:30
have taken substitute children at it in in the past so so all yours are private pay
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:16:38
and they pay whatever you charge right? OK. so in
what capacity because this is not going to affect you at least here and now unless you start taking children who have vouchers attached to them. is that correct? this will affect everybody. This will
Speaker 417
3:16:54
affect everybody. It is not directly affecting me at this moment but
Speaker 364
3:16:58
I have children that are on my waitlist and some of them have have I I don't know their income but some of them have made out and they've
asked if if I take you know the the voucher system or take the voucher and and I do I'm set up to take it I just don't have any children that have ever been eligible to take it lately so that you know can that can make my
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:17:31
decision that's whether you take them or not yeah OK and then the last question the the cost versus market I'd asked the secretary a while ago
do you in another area like in in Medicaid that we now have set up where anybody receiving any Medicaid funds has to go through a rate study. that was alluded to a while ago for example assisted livings have to go through it nursing homes everybody has to go through it. So the cost study I think doctor that you referenced a while ago, do you have a do you have a study that is a costtu or did I misunderstand what
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:18:09
I meant was that the current tier reimbursement
system that we receive our funding on is based on a cost model and Gina Dickey's already left but she probably could have answered that better but they determined she's here she's running to the table
Speaker 350
3:18:26
I was just reintroduce yourself for the record
Speaker 87
3:18:48
Ginaickckey consultant for our AU childhood Services. question about cost model and market rate
Speaker 330
3:18:58
so another cle two things that I was thinking while you were asking the question is if you recall the secretary said we're paying75% of the market rate so this is not the market rate we're paying75% of the market rate? so that's different, right than what the feepaying parents
would pay in that market so it's less than that is what we're moving to what we were basing our reimbursement rate is a cost model which is considered best practice um, because it does reimburse at the rate in which it costs to do the extended quality which this these ladies have mentioned those are there the original cost model was done by UAMs he mentioned them doing the market right but they before we move to that reimbursement rate based
the s the the six levels of the quality rating improvement system are not dictated by the childcare development grant but they do ask for a state to have one, OK? so what the state has and how they do it wildly different across the 50 states. We chose as a state to attach the subsidy rate the childcare reimbursement to those levels of quality to incentivize is a word we use
often it is incorrect. it is reimbursing you for what we ask you to do and what we ask you to do is based on best practice of early childhood development and what would most ready children for school so they're they're connected in that way that the state went through rules and regulations the promulgation process for what is in our quality rating improvement system but us choosing to spend our money and allocate it that way connecting those things together is not
and so when we chose to do that as an opportunity to improve quality across the state in 2010 when we initiated the quality rating improvement system. we ask for it to be based on a cost model so that we could reimburse people for what they were asked to do that that didn't happen initially but it did later and so doctorctor Loorrae
Speaker 355
3:21:08
Mcelvey did that cost model at UAMS right and and if you offer the better beginnings then I'm just
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:21:14
trying to get my mind around it. we're asking you to
do something such as better beginnings to raise the expectations of the standards of the quality education that children get in preschool programs that offer such as better beginnings but now we would be saying we want you to continue to do that we're just not going to reimburse you for the cost to do that that pretty accurate place where we are not going to pay you either and they're not going to pay us either I'm sorry and we
won't be paid for that quality either. so you have the choice of either continuing on that path absorbing the cost
or abandoning those programs which those programs are by your choice to choose to implement them and do them otherwise you would be a preschool facility that may have great people doing great things but they're not gonna be that you're not going to have that stamp of approval of being a betterginnings program trying to get my mind around
Speaker 413
3:22:18
it thank you thank you senator RepresentativemcGder
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
3:22:30
thank you madam chairir. want to thank you ladies for all the
work that you're doing and have done as I stated earlier'm father of6 so all of my children were involved in early child care some came to homeme daycares and some are able to go to AC programs I would also like to reiterate make sure we're reaching out to our not only state legislators reaching out to our legislators who represent us in the federal government. our
congressman and our senators they need to know the issues that we're facing I know we are frustrated about this but I want to get an understanding how difficulty is it how difficult is it for you all to get
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
3:23:18
certified or trained staff. a lot of time, effort, energy, money to make sure that
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:23:24
our staff is prepared, our classrooms are prepared. there's two different parts of that you have the environmental rating scale which
assesses your classrooms, your teachers and things like that but there's also the pass model that they score you on and this is your business practice side of things and so they're looking at your wage scales, your benefits family support systems, family engagement activities, your staff qualifications. all of that is factor factored into your past score. So the without the higher reimbursement rates there's no way to score high enough
on these at these levels to be able to afford to
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
3:24:14
maintain the quality and with the high infant mortality rate and lack of highly trained professionals in education and in childcare we're preparing for a bad outcome in the next 8 to10 years if we don't get this problem fixed quick.
which brings me to my next question before I was blessed to serve as a legislator I was the PPc president at my school district which was a very difficult task because you're bringing teachers together and a lot of people want to complain about issues instead of coming up with a a a fix for a problem. So uhpresentative Wooten talked about it earlier we need to figure out a way to fix this issue. how can we bring everyone to the table
across the state so that we can work on fixing this issue. I know we were this75 counties in Arkansas and umm I know we can't have75 people in the room talking but we need people from every area so we can know the difficulties and frustrations that they have which in their area, especially when you're serving people from a low socioeconomic background and you do have other communities that have more affluent people in there but we need to know what problems you're facing and how we can fix and resolve these issues so I'm asking how would
it look trying to bring everybody to or bringing people together to work on how we can better fund or work on our childcare issues here in the state of Arkansas. that's a
Speaker 333
3:25:52
great question that's a great question because I think we've been asking to be brought to the table
Speaker 330
3:25:58
but we haven't really given an indication of what that would look like Two things came to mind. one is we have different associations Arkansas Early Child Association represents 1200 providers currently Family
Childcare association which we work very closely together as well as others like home visiting so there's sort of the there's different groups of us within this group and we have professional organizations so that's an opportunity. The local leads that's been established through the Learns Act there are now 26 I believe local lead captains. They cover every state and they're partly charged with getting to know every program in their in their geographic area so they could either do things locally at that
level and kind of town hall maybe bring some people together I think could be lovely or representation from each of those areas that come together for more of a council kind of thing I think there's a lot of ways we could do it but we have a way as you see this is a pretty good audience for a Tuesday afternoon we know how to find each other so you tell us who you want we '
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
3:27:01
ll find them. OK my last last thing madam chair this is a statement I don't know who organized all of you being here today but that same person needs to be organized and you all
contacting our US delegation also. thank you thank youpresentative Senatorhammer and missed your follow
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:27:18
Thank you ma'am chair and you know as a
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:27:23
legislator we get in a position where we have to get educated about things because nobody knows everything and this is a really good educational process today and and sometimes we ask questions so that we can give you a platform in order to respond in a public manner because this is
being broadcast live in the media's here. in in the assisted living world and I use that as an example they came to us and they said hey we need higher rates because of xyz and so for a long time we we've battled that back and forth until finally a piece of legislation was passed that said OK we're going to do a cost study of what it actually takes to deliver service and so my question is both of you have said that you're for profit. my
question is that in order to determine what is a true cost because that may vary you may pay your employees 13 whereas one down the road may pay 11 dollars, 1 may give the benefits 1 may not and we're trying to get to what is a true maintainable cost because y'all don't like market studies, right? You don't you don't like to market study approach right? So I guess my question is
would you as a private owner be open to opening your books and participating in order to help
us to know what the true cost is so that when we say the cost to operate should be this because the variables are going to be so wide that how are we supposed to know what the middle of the road true cost is and I'd like your reaction as to how you would feel as a private forprofit preschool because how are we supposed to know what true cost is if we can't see what it
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
3:29:07
actually takes , I I think that I'm pretty much willing to do whatever it takes to help
get us a system that works because that's
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:29:19
you know we got a pot of money and nobody likes what's being handed down to us but
we got to deal with what's being handed down to us and either we got to look at the state budget and say we need to contribute more money because the feds are doing what they're doing and and we got to merge the pots but we're limited because federal government says you supplant we're gonna take money away justs too convoluted for one thing but if we are to look at how can we make the money we've got go
further than and and there needs to be a cost to study then we need to determine true costs that everybody can live with. The only way I see do that is where gonna sit on a table and people open up and say here's my data let's let's put it all in the same pot. So as these conversations happen I think that's a variable that needs to be included in the discussion would you agree? thank you thank you senator Representative McKenzie thank you madam chairir.
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
3:30:14
just one question you you mentioned Doctoreichler that you you
reached out to families and you the family said that starting tomorrow we're not gonna send our child. so you did do some work to update your per rate your your daily rate or weekly rate that you shared with them is that correct? I'm not sure who are you addressing I'm Miss Eichler this is doctorss sorry sorry long day been a long meeting yes it has you mentioned that you you said you you have parents already reaching out to you saying if this were to be go into effect tomorrow we're not sending our kids so you did the math, you figured out what the no haven't
Speaker 377
3:30:48
we we basically gave them the letter
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:30:51
that the department of Education gave to us to give to them which really doesn't say anything other than you're gonna have to start paying a copay and you can get more information from your provider which we don't have so we just let our families know that changes were coming that there would potentially be copays responsible we gave them the chart that the division had posted on the website so that they could kind of figure for themselves where they would fall
in that but that's really we that's really all until we receive their actual authorization forms from the division whenever or the, I keep saying the division history but from the department of Education right until we receive those we really aren't sure what to tell them. so you're having parents balk at any
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
3:31:38
cost. they're saying we can't we won't be able to send our kids here if it's a dollar think that
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
3:31:44
there's think that the majority it's more it's it's more than a
dollar and I think that you know they're looking at that chart that we provided and kind of guessing for their self
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
3:31:57
where they're going to fall and based on that chart they're they're just assuming they're not going to be
Speaker 157
3:32:05
able to afford it OK as a follow on Doctor Pickens is that correct? Pipkins
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
3:32:11
that's your I'm so sorry from AU I would love to know more about the this class we're going from a better beginnings framework or structure to
Speaker 330
3:32:21
class you might have to hit your button though yes she referenced the two internationally adopted tools across the country and the world for ERS was is thevi rating scale and the program administration scale. we've been told now that we will move away from those two indicators and will move exclusively to class which is based on adult child interactions. it's delivered in a little bit
different way and currently the intention is to have it done sometimes internally where the provider would do their own evaluation and then with an external evaluation but it is a very different tool than we've used previously. Do you have a value judgement on it?
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
3:33:10
I mean have you been hands on yet? do you
Speaker 330
3:33:14
I am not certified in the class. Yeah my experience mostly with childhood services is around organizational management
business practices. OK. so any is a classroom tool for curriculum and adult child interaction.
Speaker 333
3:33:34
I keep poking you like it or do you not like it? you know I came here with Doctor Kelly and I feel like I'm representing the university today and that is not something I'm prepared to
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:33:45
say. OK, thank you very much but we can Senator Loven I've just a reminder that we've
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
3:33:49
got one more speaker now it's it's just a quick question because I want to go back to something that senator Hammer said in regards
to kind of opening up your books and just
to the degree that that you all may or may not understand what he was saying he was like having your books open so is there any information just say within your financial records and books or whatever that possibly
should not be open to the public and and I mean I ask that because you
know with any it with just say with any other
company that receives incentives from the state. I don't we don't ask them to open their books so I'm just because of you know there might be some things in your records in your books that you just cannot or would not
Speaker 330
3:34:44
disclose so appreciate that question because I had the same concern one thing that's really different and I I feel like it's obvious but not always obvious is that we are now part of the K-1el system but we are a group of individual
organizations that range from faithbased to nonprofit forprofit schoolbased and really what holds us together loosely is of a sense of a code of ethics that we share together and we all agreed to meet minimalizeding requirements so asking things of these organization is different than asking a school district who is absolutely accountable to their department what I had intended to tell aen hammer after the meeting was the
original cost model took data we had from Louisiana they're a neighboring state with a very similar economy at the time they collect this sort of business data cost modeling data for their, group. Those were put into a a beautiful for anybody who geeks out on spreadsheets the most beautifulforma that was given to us by a colleague that's nationally recognized for her work in this area then we Doctor Mcelvey and I took this to providers that we knew had high
quality programs but weren't accepting vouchers, asked them to bring their budgets with them. We set, I believe in the second floor of the 1st Presbyterianhurch in LittleRock. we asked them we put up there what we thought to perform a this is what we think it cost you for rent. this is what we think it costs you generally for utilities correct our math as a collective group but the way the performance created is where any individual program could put in the variations for her own
rent, her own utilities and give her an idea of what it would cost her to have infants we've mentioned that before mostst programs we talked about not making any money most are losing money in the infant room they use the money they make in the four year old room to offset the loss so they they operate these classrooms at a loss all of that is in that performer that doctorctor McKelly created all right thank you senator hammer yeah and and thank you because if anybody walks out of this
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
3:37:05
room with the impression thatenator Love and I appreciate him putting it on the table. I'm not asking for you to, when I say open your books, what I'm saying is participate in de exactly what you said and that is that the providers would how much is your rent? how much do you pay? what's the classification justification all that assimulation of information so we can get true cost and arrive at what is the average Some are going to be higher, some are be lower, some are gonna like it, some aren't but we got to get to
that at that cost level. you know and the comment about the infant, I know some daycare centers they take infants almost at a loss but it's a part part of their business model because if you take that infant you've probably got that infant all the way through the sec through the one year old the two year old three year old, four year old that's like investing in your future and and so you know as far as taking infants I I just think that's part of the savviness of of business
model is yeah we want to take them and we got to say in our 1 to5 ratio we can't go to our 1 to12 but you're playing the long game instead of the short game. So a lot's been said about infants. I just wanted to throw that out there. and once I was an infant
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:38:23
too. thank you thank you for clarification thank you laddy so much for being here and and
for answering all of our questions appreciate it thank you and our last speaker today is McKinley Hess
conway cradle care please introduce yourself for the record. hi, I'm Mcinley Hess. I'm executive director of Conway Cradle
Speaker 446
3:39:08
Care. We are a nonprofit that provides affordable high quality infant and toddler care as well as
mentoring to adolescent parents so they are able to continue their education I want to speak to you today about the sudden changes that have been announced by the Ad. These changes made with no warning are already beginning to unravel a fragile system. if they continue the outcomes will be devastating not just for families but for our entire state. Highquality childcare is not babysitting it is the foundation of early education, workforce participation and community stability.
yet with the reduction of financial support to families in childcare providers in Arkansas, we are facing a crisis that spans our entire state. Most small centers operate on razor thin margins. Now many are announcing classroom closures, staff layoffs intuition hikes that push more families out of reach for nonprofits like ours, it can mean the difference between being open and closed. while we can subsidize by offering private pay client
spots. our mission drives us to help these teen parents first in our program relies on these SRA funds to make sure these moms can stay in school. When support for affordable childcare ins families are left without safe options.liccensed childcare is already s scarce in Arkansas, especially for infants and toddlers. Every closure means a longer wait list . Parents forced to leave the workforce and children losing access to early education. in the children will lose the
most.90% of brain development which you have all heard and all discussed happens before the age of5 when they miss that critical window, they fall behind before they even step foot in kindergarten. Research shows that first grade readiness directly ties to higher graduation rates in lifelong success. this is not just a childcare issue. it's a workforce issue. it's an education issue and an economic issue. Without childcare, businesses lose employees, productivity
falls in Arkansas's economy suffers. c cor ding to the US chamber, Arkansas loses nearly 800 million every year in earnings productivity and revenue because families can't access childcare. let me bring this a little closer to home. On February5th, providers across the state were informed that the ADE would be implementing a waitlist starting February 15. However, at that time we were informed that we popu there were populations that were exempt from this light waitlist
and teen parents were at the top of this list. Since August 18th we have been providing free childcare to 10 teen parents so they can continue their education and not have to drop out. we were informed on August twentyinth that they had made changes to the exemption list in teen parents were no longer exempt. so now they are currently sitting ducks on this over 1200 person waitlist
and not being able to receive these funds did you know that Arkansas is almost double the national average of teen pregnancies in only about50% of those in our nation that have a child in their adolescence will receive their high school diploma by the age of 22. at cradle care since 2006,86%cent of our teen moms have graduated. 100% have graduated in the last four years. when we invest in childcare for
teen parents, we're not just lifting one generation. We are changing the trajectory of many. let's look at the bigger picture . In Pinkiran, Arkansas cost anywhere between $8000 to 10,000 dollars. That's nearly30% of a single parent's income of less than30,000 dollars. infant care is almost more expensive than a fouryear instate college tuition in Arkansas. these are not abstract numbers. These represent families
struggling every day to hold it together.ear after year we see the value of affordable early childhood education and how it propels families to success while families who lack access continue to struggle. Their children typically perform more poorly in school and they become susceptible to highrisk behaviors. the support we invest in childcare today is not charity it's a direct investment in Arkansas future. National research shows that for every $1 invested in high quality early childhood education
that generates up to7 dollars in long term savings in economic returns. That's money saved in remedial education, public assistance in incarceration. That return comes in the form of stronger families, healthier communities in more competitive workforce. Childcare is infrastructure just as vital as roads, power grids and broadband. Arkansas is as a at a crossroads as I see it. We can sit back and watch the dominoes fall. Childcare closures, parents leaving the workforce
childrenldren falling further behind in our economy losing ground or we can demand better . We cans insist ADE rescind these changes. Create a responsible plan and bring transparency into the process. I'm asking our state leadership to stand with providers, families and children and restore the support needed to keep childcare accessible, affordable and sustainable for Arkansas families. thank you for your time and attention to
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:44:56
this matter. thank you so much we do have a
couple of questions Senator Love thank
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
3:45:06
you madam chairir. first of all I'm gonna say wow that
testimony was powerful especially knowing I mean I I I haven't even thought about you know teen teen parents and
then the impacted early childhood programs had on them directly so wow right so
let me let me go because this is miss madam chair this is where I'm kind of confused. I'm not gonna ask you a question
directly but I do wanna I do want to ask you so tomorrow it seems as if ADE is going to move forward with the the part of the parents paying the copay. I'll I'll have an announcement for
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:45:53
that in just a minute they had to go to another meeting so so
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
3:45:58
so you have an announcement for that so I'm gonna I'm gonna then hope my
comments and then I'll get back in the
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
3:46:08
queue once you make that announcements Representative Bo madam chairir, thank you madam chairir. Great testimony.
I'm gonna again say that needs to go to Congress. it's very powerful we can't just make federal dollars show up here they have to come here as as much as I wish we could just so we could continue on as we are right now
again though it's very powerful. you definitely need to send every word of that to our federal delegation and anyone else that you know in DC that it might would help push over the finish line to help us get to where we need to be again it's not us cutting and so absolutely wish if we had a tree somewhere we could go pick maybe
Speaker 446
3:47:00
that would be nice. Our programme's biggest issue is that these parents are being waitlisted when they were off of
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
3:47:08
that up until the end of august I did know that about the teen mothers which breaks my heart
because they are the most vulnerable and they do need to get their education and they do need a place for their children to go so I
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:47:22
appreciate your testimony. thank you. thank you madam
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
3:47:27
chairir. Thank youpresentativepresentative Wootten thank you madam Chair and I'll be very quick would you
agree with this statement that the parents, the children and the providers and the universities
are not responsible for the mistake or the error or the overspending or the over budgeting but yet they're carrying the full brunt force of what's taken place and it's easy to set it in a state building or federal building and make a decision but I'm telling you when it comes back down to it hurts a child. the well-being
of the parents and the providers both university and private providers it's it's our mistake but yet we're forcing the public to pay for it would you agree with that thank you thank you madam chairman. I
think that's all the questions and I just I
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:48:31
can't think of a better way to end this meeting then your testimony that I had a little statement and I don't even need to say it I
think we all know that the first three years of life, certainly the first ive are the most important in brain development and that every moment of that love and play and inspiration that the providers and the educators are making certain that our children have is more important than a lot of things that we're dealing with it affects them the rest of their lives and it affects the families and the businesses and
the communities that we all live in we know that's a an issue and we all I think want to make sure that we're doing something to to make it better for for everyone involved. So I do feel like there is some light at the end of the tunnel and that this is the first time in 8 years since I've been here that we're really spending a lot of time on early childhood that's because of y'all and and we're gonna need everybody's
help to make sure that we're all involved in in making the effort to to fix these problems so I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you being patient with us this kind of meeting is a little bit different and so I appreciate y'all staying and and hearing hearing the testimony and supporting us as we're trying to learn about what's going on the department had to they had another meeting to go to so Secretary Leva and
mealsford sent a message that said they will delay the the reduced rates until November the first. but the copays will be implemented tomorrow Obviously we don't have the ways to do that until October3rd that the department will communicate this directly to providers and parents tomorrow. so that's the message that I got from them and I'm sure you guys will let us know if that doesn't happen but I appreciate
so much you being here and just need to ask if there's any further
business for the committee I'm sorry Senator
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
3:50:59
Love thank you thank you so this this is really what I wanted to pose and thank you for giving us
this update is that to providers once that copay goes into effect tomorrow ber one, how many of you are are going to collect it or number 2 can you all even not
collected on behalf. I mean like these are the things that I'm trying to figure out because if you must collect it or if it's a shall be collected then how many kids don't have care after today so these are the kind of the questions madam chair that I'm having because we need to know that if the copay is in
effect then in the kids have I mean and they
have to collect it and families can't pay it then this this is a this is a nightmare it is and and we will I
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:52:00
will make sure that they send us the information that they're sending out to the providers and to the to the families but the rates
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
3:52:08
aren't calculated really would really like to know that before we leave today don't there's no way we can get it today
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:52:17
I don't think no provide us no homes
all right thank you don't know that y'all have a way to know? Can you raise your hand if you think Right nobody knows how much and you won't know until right right so this is something that's gonna
Speaker 453
3:52:39
have to come out from the department. Madam Chair could
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
3:52:45
we just make one exception to have this gentleman just provide updated numbers so that we can have a
Shahid Sheik
Unverified
3:52:53
I mean just a few minutes
Speaker 455
3:53:06
you're not required to Thank you so much
Shahid Sheikh
Unverified
3:53:12
for this opportunity. My name is Shahid sheikh. I'm the president and CEO for Little Martians Learning Center across northwest Arkansas, Benton County and Washington County so my team and
I in the last week or so we have been working on updated numbers and we've gone through and analyzed what the department of Education provided and we looked at what the differences in the rates were for my four facilities that I operate that serve over300 families in that area the financial impact the burden that's being created is in excess of $14,000 a month. this burden will be primarily
impacting the middle to lower income families and in in the format of the copays that you're talking about roughly50% of that is directly impacting them so about7,000 dollars of that is going to go there. I have options as an owner similar to the other ladies who've beautifully expressed their opinions on this and the facts that we have a choice we can either pull the leer of raising tuition rates or we can turn around and try to get our
suppliers and our costs down from this perspective or we end up going back to the families and saying we I'm sorry we cannot serve you because it no longer works. I know some of you were asking about the model from a childcare private paying facility perspective just give you some few numbers to think about we operate on a model of50% of the revenue goes back to our teachers so we set aside50% every dollar that we collect50 cents goes to take care of payroll 25% of our
revenue that we collect goes to take care of administrative rent utilities insurance liability payroll insurance like that myself and my center what I can speak to I have aarroll of in excess of each location40,000 dollars a month so there's over5,000 dollars that is generated every month for paying payroll taxes on top of that so when you look at those costs and expenses and you're talking about the impact to the economics of this the
families who will lose their coverage and and access and then the impact for the teachers in order for me as a provider in order for me to absorb this cost I would literally have to look at potentially worst case scenario and I've shared this with my team that I will do my best to avoid this scenario that's why we're looking at other options but two full time teachers their salary would be reduced immediately to help
offsettracts negotiated you're talking about $2500 a month in savings. The average pay that we have in northwest Arkansas specifically Benton Washington County. we pay over $16 an hour for a full time teacher $16 an hour so you're talking about $2800 a month to3,000 dollars a month when we are when we're evaluating whether the model that we're operating is going to be successful or not and we're happy to share and open up our books from from this
perspective which I just gave you this this model that the benefit that we have being in this organization and this we shared earlier as well in the meeting that we had with Secretaryevvies that you know immediately we have parents who've already communicated to us that they will be pulling their kids we have teachers who have expressed that they're not able to function without we made commitments and we raised wages
based on the intermingling of the funds that took place. this was no fault of any childcare provider that decisions were made by the state to accept federal funds make a criteria of better beginnings and ask us to invest in that and so we made investments on that commitment we did not intermingle those funds that was a decision that was made at the state level and now it's being pulled out so instead of having a plan and communicating that plan and
working together as a team we're just going to go ahead and amputate that's that's what's impacting us so I wanna I wanna kind of conclude with this when we're when we're looking at solutions the the pause for a month is is is ok great we're gonna we're gonna have some breathing room to go back to but it does not solve the the issues that we are faced with some providers are in a better position than others but no provider can take a40% cut and
plan and be able to survive it's just not possible from a business perspective you cannot operate that way it's not even profit it's revenue that's being impact ed so this is a very important thing thank you thank you very much thank you for for all the information and
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
3:58:20
I'm sure we'll be calling on you again to to to help with some of these issues thank you so I'll ask again is there any other business for the committee
Unknown speaker
3:58:34
seeing none this meeting is adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Discussion of Changes to Childcare Reimbursement
C. Other Business
D. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — EDUCATION - HOUSE EARLY CHILDHOOD SUBCOMMITTEE, Sep 30, 2025 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Handout 1 - Early Childhood Acronyms | Exhibit | 2 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 25
Speaker 39
Speaker 52
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
Speaker 20
Speaker 96
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 125
Speaker 130
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
Speaker 138
Speaker 135
Speaker 144
Speaker 148
Speaker 44
Representative Keith Brooks
Unverified
Speaker 165
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Speaker 41
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
Speaker 185
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
Speaker 35
Speaker 213
Speaker 36
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 76
Speaker 61
Speaker 230
Speaker 102
Representative Jim Wooten
Unverified
Speaker 19
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
Speaker 176
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
Speaker 269
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 123
Speaker 291
Speaker 29
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
Speaker 24
Speaker 316
Speaker 116
Brendan Kelly
Unverified
Speaker 329
Speaker 330
Speaker 335
Speaker 337
Speaker 87
Speaker 352
Speaker 364
Stacy Pipkins
Unverified
Speaker 370
Speaker 375
Speaker 384
Speaker 389
Speaker 392
Speaker 394
Representative Cameron Cooper
Unverified
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
Speaker 373
Speaker 417
Speaker 377
Speaker 350
Speaker 355
Speaker 413
Speaker 333
Speaker 157
Speaker 446
Speaker 453
Shahid Sheik
Unverified
Speaker 455
Shahid Sheikh
Unverified