ALC-Hospital, Medicaid, & Developmental Disabilities Study Subcommittee
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Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:16
this committee started.
Okay. Okay. Okay. We're talking about today
Speaker 15
2:39
or on Monday. Let's do that next week. Okay. All right. Yeah. No, I thought that
Speaker 17
2:47
sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
3:02
welcome to uh the subcommittee this morning appreciate everybody
showing up here today i know it's a monday it's early in the week and i just want to tell everybody i appreciate your interest and your input here today i'm really excited about the work of this committee i think it's going to make a real difference in our state all the things that we're looking
at is um it's a big topic that we're talking on today and when we start with DHS. So Senator English, do you have anything you want to
Senator Jane English
Unverified
3:28
start the day with this morning? Fine. Thank you very much, everybody, for being here. It's really
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
3:33
important work. Okay. The first thing that we're going to look at today is our interim study by Representative
Deanne Vought. So Representative Vought will let you proceed with what you'd
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
4:03
like us to look at in the subcommittee. thank you madam chair thank you for committee um so i know that we had a builder in session that
talked about raising our asset limits um and i want to do an interim study for us to look into what the benefits are if we do this or if we don't. Texas just raised theirs to $5,000. Oklahoma has no limit, Florida has no limit, and Louisiana has no limit. I'm not saying let's have no limit, but I am saying let's make it easier for families to save a little bit of emergency money, be able to have some reliable transportation um because right now we punish them if they have those things and and
everybody knows that a refrigerator can go out at any moment a flat tire can happen at any second and those things would hinder people from being able to get to work or be able to feed their families or things such as that but the way that we do it right now we are punishing individuals This would also reduce the churning of administrative burden. Low asset limits often force families to spend down to the eligible amount of money to be able to receive their benefits.
I've even heard of people who will not take a pay raise because they're too scared that they can't make it with the pay raise and not have the supplements of their SNAP benefits or assistance that they're receiving. my phone keeps dying sorry this does not drive higher program enrollment evidence from TANF programs show that increasing or removing asset limits does not significantly change overall
caseloads or application volumes so I think that's something else that we could look at in these states that maybe have a higher limit than what we do or have no limit what their numbers look at compared to our numbers um i just after hearing that bill during session and then knowing of a 98 year old lady in my district who lives a mile and a half out of the way of being able to get uh services from our senior citizen centers um she has no vehicle she has nothing
and she's a mile and a half out of the area it made me stop and really think about what are we really doing to help a lot of our seniors in in our state because they also have a limit on them as to what they can have in their savings and and their vehicles and all of that also so i just think if we took a broad look madam chair at this maybe we could come together and figure out if there's something that we can do to better help those in our state who do need these services
especially with inflation like it is right now and uh gas prices and food prices so with that i'll close does anybody have any questions they like at this point okay um
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
7:07
without any objection we'll accept this interim study into our committee and we'll
look into the details i think it's really important to find out the facts i think there's a lot of what ifs and unknowns on this i really want to get the specifics on this so i think it fits into what we're doing so without any objections we'll accept this interim study into our committee thank you madam chair thank you committee thank you okay members uh the next thing we're going to
is we're going to hear from dhs remember we've broken down dhs i'm going to show you guys our great little spaghetti map so with all this that we have in dhs we're trying to go to each little circle and find out what's going on in each one so we can have a better grasp of what's happening with DHS in our state and so before we bring Tiffany up here right she's on our way up here you guys can come up DHS can come up we've got Secretary Mann Tiffany Wright and Laura McDonald if you guys will come up there I want to I just thank Representative Rick Beck I asked Rick who as my seat man I know he knows really in-depth the matrix of our public education system I think anybody that
understands that might have a little grasp on mathematics so I asked him to come up with a template for us that we could give to DHS for them to have kind of a template so we know when each section comes up here we're gonna have same template so we'll be able to compare and contrast what's going on in each section of dhs um so you'll see as they go through we want to know how many constituents they're serving how much money they're spending and um just really have a template that we can compare each
group with so represent beck i want to thank you for that and without anything else we'll hear from tiffany and janet thank you good morning
Speaker 42
8:39
um janet man dhs good morning tiffany wright division of
Speaker 44
8:45
children and family services director so good
Speaker 46
8:48
morning thank you for um allowing us to present this morning i will do the agency overview and director wright will do some of the details in the report so dcfs is a division comprised of over a thousand employees serving the state with the overall goal of keeping children safe and at home can you pull that microphone just a little bit closer to
Senator Jane English
Unverified
9:07
you yes ma'am is that better that's better and real quick members if you go to
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
9:12
exhibit c they're going to go over exhibit c has everything kind of written for you what they're
going to go over to it might help as they're presenting for you to get your questions ready but exhibit c is what
Speaker 46
9:24
they're going over with the template that i discussed okay go ahead thank you so the division of children and family services is just one piece of the child welfare welfare system it's a very important piece with over a thousand employees to keep children and families safe every day we also in the child welfare system are comprised of the hotline and the court system and then partners within and throughout the state. And at that, I will let Director Wright discuss the details.
Speaker 44
9:49
Good morning. Thank you for having me here today. Moving down
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
9:53
that document, that is Exhibit C. DCFS has federal oversight in various ways. The Administration for Children and Family Services
Speaker 57
10:01
is a key federal partner to us. We are required to submit 11 proximate different ways of reports and review that they review all of the ways that we're serving children in our state. Occasionally, we do have to have performance improvement plans
to improve outcomes and ensure accountability within our division. Our vision at DCFS is that every child deserves a safe, stable family every day, and we bucket that into priorities around preservation and stability, safely reunifying children who have to enter into foster care, and supporting permanency
Speaker 60
10:38
efforts. the front door to child welfare in our state is through the child abuse hotline that's operated
Speaker 57
10:46
by arkansas state police crimes against children division in to state fiscal year 2025 there are
approximately 59 000 calls made to the child abuse hotline and 32 000 of those were accepted 26 000 of those were assigned to the division of children and family services we once in a report is assigned to the division we break that down into two buckets a differential response and a child maltreatment investigation a differential response or dr means um that is a
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
11:21
the lowest levels of maltreatment and commonly how we serve lower risk families
Speaker 57
11:26
historically the division finds approximately 20 percent of our maltreatment reports true for abuse or neglect and then once a call is
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
11:41
accepted at the hotline those are assigned either a priority one or priority two investigation and we have
Speaker 57
11:48
45 days to complete the child maltreatment investigation we have 60 days to complete the differential response dcfs can provide services
through a supportive services case or a prevention case sorry we just changed the term and you can see on your document how many of those we worked this past state fiscal year this is a non-adversarial family assessment approach there is no finding and no offender when we're working in supportive services cases and DRs. We at the end of the year had about 1,500 open in-home cases where we had found Sriwana family, but we were working on preserving that family and serving those children
and parents. That involved approximately almost 8,000 children and youth in our state. In each of these buckets, we have prevention services that we can provide to the family, So we have Positive Parenting Program, an intensive in-home services contract that has multiple providers that goes into the home and supports and enhances the work and walks alongside DCFS. We also have Safe Care.
We have the ability to refer to Restore Hope, 100 Families. We have the WIC Baby and Me. WIC is Women and Infant and Children Program in several of our counties across the state, as well as utilizing Care Portal. in certain also in certain counties in our state
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
13:23
several of the successes that we've had in our in-home cases is more recently having the ability to offer the evidence-based prevention services that allows children to remain safely in their community some of that is you all have
been around but some of that is to your credit you supported that effort seven years ago almost as we started down that path for this service um for dcfs are one of the
Speaker 57
13:49
things that we watch is the re-victimization rate for children and youth post dcfs involvement and we remain below the national average at about seven percent obviously if we're out i'm involved in working with a family foster care is another bucket of our system director right hold on just a minute
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
14:10
So since we've covered a bit right there, let's stop just for a break
before we hit foster care. Maybe hit a few questions and then kind of take a break because I think we've got a lot just right there. So if you don't mind, I was going to take a break. Just a minute I've
got some questions in queue. Okay. So we'll take a few questions, then we'll start right back up at
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
14:32
foster care when we get done, okay? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Senator Gilmore, you're recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Department, for being here. I know we had a discussion at a different meeting regarding how some of those cases come in
and how they're evaluated and all that, and I look forward to continuing that conversation at the appropriate time. I know we're going to have a meeting on that, but I won't get into that here, but just know that that is still present on our minds. But I want to specifically get to, and maybe you can just elaborate, because we went through a lot of these services, And so I don't know, like, what is Care Portal? Baby and Me, like, can you elaborate on some of these programs and just kind of describe what you're doing there and what they're addressing?
Yes, sir. So I'll start with Care Portal since you said that one first. So Care Portal is in a few counties across our state. And essentially what that is is it allows us to engage the faith-based community, churches.
Speaker 57
15:31
It's actually not ran by DCFS. We have a partner in our state, Arkansas Family Alliance, who has the Care Portal model. They've been focused heavily in Sebastian County over the last several years. And this allows churches to engage with Arkansas Family Alliance in the Care Portal model.
So when DCFS has a need or a family has a need, we can enter that need in and a church could meet that need for that family as well as then that opens the door for the church to be able to wrap around those families and provide maybe additional supports or connections they may need to their community. So one example of that would be one we see a lot is families who need beds appropriate beds or new beds and so we could say I have a mom and a child they're in need of a bed and sheets and we can put that in and a local church can drive that need um and get that met
which helps dcfs but also helps that most importantly helps that family um i'm sorry so
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
16:32
really quick so that's great i didn't know that that existed i don't know about anybody else in the committee uh i love that so you said it was limited though certain counties you
Speaker 57
16:46
mentioned sebastian where else sebastian and they recently launched in white county um and they're working on so those and crawford i'm sorry there's crawford county um and uh washington and then
they are working on four additional counties across the state to pick up okay
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
17:04
and they being i'm sorry arkansas family alliance okay so if a church wants to be a part of this so clearly the state's not holding back anybody there there's no criteria that has to be met for a county to participate i presume right it's just based on who wants to help who wants to be involved and they can be a part of
Speaker 57
17:22
that program correct so it rolls out by county because you really need a leader in the county
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
17:27
to manage the church relationships on that local county level
um and so and also i forgot pelaski it's also in pelaski county um and so it really requires like um they just start discuss
Speaker 57
17:37
the leader and his name is matt whitson um he discusses which counties they can go to next and then he seeks out someone who can really be seen as the leader in that community and then and get into the churches and start navigating hey what is care portal and how does that work and then from there a county kind of launches if that makes sense i'm
Speaker 82
17:59
i'm doing this very high level but i can provide more connections
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
18:03
as well that's great i think that's probably what I'm looking for in the sense of you've got members of the committee here that I'm sure would love to see this in their communities. Um, I know I would in Southeast Arkansas. Um, so if there's a way that we can encourage, um, those to participate and be involved, um, I think that would be ideal. I mean, I think from my perspective, that is the role of the church, right? Um, and so we, uh, we tend to fail at that and therefore there's a void that
government is left uh to fill and so the more that we can engage i think we should so uh look forward to getting more information on that maybe to the committee uh and then ways to to uh to to get involved and then maybe even to the co-chairs we consider um asking the organization to come and present if they're open to doing so i think matt would love to come and present to y'all great thank you do you
Speaker 57
18:58
want me to give you some more examples or do you um you mentioned wick baby and
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
19:02
me yes please okay okay so um wick baby and me is something that um dcfs has in partnership with the arkansas department of health and this is what we call a true primary prevention program it does not take child welfare involvement to access this program
Speaker 57
19:20
and so in within health departments in counties in our state a mom can become engaged with the baby and me program and it's a essentially i'm calling i'm calling it a
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
19:33
curriculum it's a curriculum they can learn skills
learn about breastfeeding formula all kinds of different things and maybe parental new parent stress that kind of thing and it's just an engagement that does not require child welfare so some services require involvement in child welfare to access the service this one does not and we're actually really proud of it we just expanded it a
Speaker 57
19:57
few weeks ago to additional counties and i'm so sorry i do not have those counties memorized but i can get that information
but this is um it's it's working parents are and moms and are engaging with this great thank you i'll get out of the queue to allow others
Speaker 84
20:13
thank you chairs real quick before i go on to the next person so um i
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
20:16
had the opportunity to go to a vision tour this past week to uh see 100 families in action and restore hope so i think it'd be great for this for this committee to hear all the things that are going on across our state and how we can get it i want us to see it in every county of course when i got done i wanted to see in perry county as well so it's um a lot of it's done online there's a hope hub so let's we're going to get them here next committee meeting
if possible next month and get some more details on what we can do and how we can spread that across the state and things are working on
there so thank you senator gilmore that was one of my questions so
Speaker 89
20:54
more uh representative richardson thank you madam
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
20:56
chair over to your left oh all the way over here hi way over here so again i'm at a question about care portal but senator uh pretty much hit those and uh i'm intimately familiar with care portal as you and the secretary or mayor be aware uh as they move forward into additional counties do we
have a timetable in how they're moving i know matt has been speaking with you guys uh on the process and a plan to do so uh but i don't know if there's been a time frame of how quickly the move plans to be um i don't i
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
21:26
don't have a time frame um but i stay pretty connected to matt i also want this in my community and so i've been saying how do we get this
Speaker 57
21:34
uh you know connect you to right people um i don't have a time frame but um i know matt and he's a
Speaker 93
21:40
go-getter and so He's going to figure out how it gets across to these additional counties. Okay. Thank you
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
21:50
Thank you represent rich and again, we'll bring him in next month and see if
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
21:58
we can't get all of our questions answered How we can move it across the state representative Crawford you're next. Thank you madam chair.
Hi ladies. Hey, thank you for being here I'm so excited about all of this Sebastian County is my district Matt Whitson is a friend and a hundred families started in Sebastian County too so I just had to plug that so yes they're great programs my question I want to go back to on page one where
you're talking about under the priorities of DCFS, and number three says, safety support, child permanency, well-being, and development of culturally safe, lifelong relationships. I have people who work with children in my community who have contacted me, and they want me to work on a bill i want your opinion okay some people when the when their adopted child
and i want to know how much how much of this is happening in arkansas when they adopt a child and the child gets to be a teenager and gets to be a problem they bring that child back that's ridiculous and what how much of that is happening in Arkansas and what can we do to help stop um
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
23:37
yes ma'am it does happen in our state um I can and it have it's happening all across our
Speaker 57
23:43
country um that children and youth are when they're growing older um and have been adopted that they have complexities from the trauma that they experienced um and so i can i believe i can pull you the data on how many um adoptions are failing in our state or have failed um that doesn't necessarily mean that that child came from ark it was adopted from arkansas foster care just just so you have that caveat a lot of it is around behavioral health they're struggling
with behavior complexities with some of these kids and so it it does happen it is happening and we as child welfare just navigating it though some of those youth do re-enter into foster care and we rework a permanency plan for them okay do you
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
24:43
is this the right place madam chair maybe I need to go somewhere else as far as
maybe doing an ISP or something
to look at this to where parents adoptive parents would not be able to just take their kid back and say i don't
Speaker 101
25:01
want them anymore so i'll i will give you an
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
25:05
opinion um i i struggle with this it's very hard um but the other side of this is we have
Speaker 57
25:13
to recognize that adoption is also very hard um and that when kids who may have been adopted when they're three at 15 realize they were adopted that's hard that's hard to process right and so I also while I don't want adoptions to fail
I also struggle with if the child is not wanted in that home is it best for us to force them to keep that child or is the best answer for that child to re-enter into foster care and it's a very fine line to walk because I have seen people that I know from the community who have struggled and we have to sometimes meet them where they are and I'm not saying that's right or wrong it's a it's a heavy situation to watch unfold and I also don't want to put a child or a family
Speaker 102
26:05
in a place to be unsafe right because many families have more than just one child. Representative Crawford if
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
26:12
it's okay with you I do have some adoption things I'd like to bring into an
isp maybe you and i can work together and bring it to children aging and youth into that committee and we can work on that together i'd be happy to do that with you that'll
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
26:23
be great thank you thank you for your time
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
26:30
yeah senator low thank you thank you madam chair um
so um good morning ladies i i wanted to go back to the arkansas family alliance just just a curious question so do do they do we have a contract with them through dhs like how does this how does that all
Speaker 74
26:54
work so um dcfs has a very um small purchase order we do not have a contract with
Speaker 57
27:01
them for one of the counties and then dcfs actually used the remain our
remaining ARPA funds that we had to do a sub-grant with them to expand to additional counties. Otherwise, there's no funding
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
27:15
for that from DCFS. So Arkansas Family Alliance has to do fundraising to support that effort. Okay. Tell
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
27:25
me this. So what do they receive reimbursement for? From DCFS? Yes.
Speaker 57
27:36
It's not really reimbursement. We're helping them run the, I would say, the platform essentially, but not. So we're paying
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
27:43
for the care portal? I'm just trying to understand. I'm not trying to, just not a gotcha or anything. I'm just trying to
Speaker 118
27:53
understand. So care portal is a platform. okay
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
27:56
so are we we're paying for the we're funding the platform
Speaker 113
28:00
or we we're just again so um what we were able to support with
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
28:05
was uh to use the rest of our ARP funding to support expansion to
additional counties which could include um finding someone to support in the local community to work within the churches it could be a piece of the platform it's it's
Speaker 57
28:18
really a mix um a mixed bag of kind of how that's supporting okay and so did so
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
28:24
was that like an rfp that we procured them through or like how did this it
was how did this come about it was a sub it's a
Speaker 60
28:33
it was a sub grant a one-time sub grant
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
28:36
okay all right and then you said they provide they provide just like basic
essentials for families that are in the foster care adoption space no sir um
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
28:46
they're they provide support and on the prevention side I'm sure if there was a family a foster
Speaker 57
28:53
family that needed them they would support but it's really on the prevention side so preventing foster care and in meeting pop like on poverty needs of families in the community so like I'll give you I'll give you another example a family needed a refrigerator and so that request went in on the
platform and a church was able to secure a refrigerator for that family to have so they could have their food not in coolers or a bicycle you youth
Speaker 123
29:24
in the community really wanted a bicycle they supported a bicycle for um that child all right so you said the prevention you said they're
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
29:35
on the prevention side yes sir so explain
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
29:41
that to me so prevention is the work that child welfare
does to keep children from entering into
Speaker 57
29:47
foster care to safely keep them in their communities also it may be to some of our the involvement we have with families is around poverty so how do we support them in different community resources to move them from crisis to essentially stabilization and poverty right connect them back to resources some the families we work with become very isolated when things are not going well in their life and they need people to connect to them and so that's really the kind of advancement of care portal okay all
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
30:22
right I might have other questions um baby and baby and me curriculum is this now is that through the latter-day saints is that the piece through latter-day saints or is this something totally different than something totally different all
right uh madam chair i'll get back in the i'll get back
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
30:39
in the queue okay thank you representative beck you're next
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
30:44
thank you madam chair uh my question i'm a numbers type person and the problem with being a numbers type person is that whenever
you get a number it almost wants you to drill down just a little bit more to maybe break that number down so I was looking at this reviximization rate for children and youth post one year you said it's at seven percent and I know we can't do that you probably don't have the information here but I would would like to get that information which would be could you break down that seven percent in terms of like the programs and and and just give me more details as where's that because that
seems to be really good information i mean if we only look at what we do great right or what we're doing well it's it's it's it's better to look at well maybe something we could do better that could help maybe that taking that number down
and then the other thing would be a bit of a trend is is that number
Speaker 57
31:44
trending down or trending up or um staying the same um so i report that in my quarterly reports in my annual report cards that i present to children and youth um and so we it's it's it's
staying for like some some months some quarters it's six percent some seven so we're staying pretty um even on that number i'm not sure on a way to drill down into the seven percent so i'm off to do some digging further on that for you like i need
Speaker 123
32:09
to know if i can pull the case numbers to do the research so i need to think about
Speaker 135
32:15
that just a little bit all right that'll be great and Did
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
32:18
you just send it back to the committee? Yes, sir. Thank you.
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
32:23
All right. Senator Sullivan, you're next. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's going on page four. It lists under agency expenditures, board payments, $70 million plus.
So those payments are for what? Those
Speaker 113
32:33
are all of the board payments, room and board to care for children in foster homes with relatives in different placements all across
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
32:42
our state. Okay, so the board then, if I understand it correctly, the
board takes in the revenue and the board makes a decision on what items are reimbursed or not reimbursed. What's the function
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
32:54
of that board? Oh, no, sir. Board payment means like room and board. Oh.
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
32:59
Room and board. Yes, sir. Okay. Could we get a better breakdown of what those costs look like?
Madam Chair, maybe they can send that to you and you can, I'd like to see just an example of that. I think we should be
Speaker 76
33:12
able to break it down further into that. We can
Speaker 57
33:15
bring it. We should, please don't quote me, be able to break it down into like foster home payments, adoption home payments, that kind of thing, if that's what you're looking for. Is that
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
33:25
how you have it broken down? I need to
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
33:27
double check. Yeah, I'd like to see the breakdown. However you break it down, I'd like to see what you're looking at to break
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
33:33
that down. Yes, sir. Thank you. Senator Sullivan, are you wanting something like an average per family?
Like we had two children or one child. What were they getting on the
Speaker 146
33:41
average, that family? Because it's like a room and board, like
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
33:43
you'd pay for a college. Yeah, I'd just like to see whatever the agency is looking at to make those determinations, to make sure the money is spent appropriately. They're looking at some data, and whatever data they're looking at, I'd like to look at. Great. So maybe
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
33:57
you can join us next month when we bring Restore Hope and those guys in there to talk with us with Care Portal. Would
you mind coming? Maybe bring those numbers next month with you. Sure.
Speaker 80
34:06
Okay. And we have it broken down by placement type, how much we pay each placement type.
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
34:11
So we should be able to do that. If we'd like to look at it
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
34:16
further after seeing that, we can dig deeper. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you
Senator Dave Wallace
Unverified
34:22
so much. All right, Senator Wallace, you're next in queue. Right over here. Good morning. You know, when I heard that you said that some parents would, adopted parents would bring the children back in their teenage years, first thing I thought of, hey, that's a pretty good deal. I might have done that because I have two wonderful adopted adult children that we adopted when they were very young.
But the parents that adopt, they adopt children that could have been adopted by others. That's correct. And they have a very strong responsibility to raise those children. And I didn't realize that that was happening. Do you have the numbers on how many children that come back to us in their teenage years? I believe I
Senator Dave Wallace
Unverified
35:14
I would like to see that. Any idea of what the percentage is? Not off the top of my head. I'm sorry. I understand. I'd like to see that. When you adopt a child, you're making a commitment to that child for the rest of their life, not just for a short-term gain of any type. but thank
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
35:38
you yes sir senator Wallace maybe we could bring some ISP and some stuff to our children age and youth committee and kind of deal deeper into
that thank you sir representative Rye you're next
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
35:49
thank you madam chairman got one for you it's a little bit different than what we've been dealing with but the kids that are from 13 to 16 that's a terrible terrible age for kids especially on drugs and there is a school i'm having trouble remembering the name but it's in north little rock it's church cry school but i mean they can do a job uh it's a three month
program and the the rate of success is something like 80 percent so just wanted to throw that out there to you yes sir thank you i would i would be
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
36:28
interested in the name if you can think of the name yes ma'am okay thank you
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
36:33
thank you madam chairman thank you so before we move on i
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
36:36
have some of my own questions real quick before we i'll let everybody
else go first because senator gilmore did ask about hope hub and all those in restore hope and we'll bring that up next month but when we get at the very very beginning when
you're talking about we have uh uh someone calls
to the hotline has a report can you tell me give me something you know who determines it's a call or it's not a call and what is the training level of that individual that receives that call and who actually makes the determination this is a call we want to pursue and there's something that they're not.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
37:11
So I'm just kind of curious. Am I making sense with that question? You're making sense. I'm going to try to answer
Speaker 57
37:17
it. If I don't answer, just ask me again. So the hotline, there are hotline operators at the child abuse hotline, and there's a structured decision-making tool that is utilized
to make those decisions about what's accepted or not obviously that's cross-referenced with the child maltreatment laws on what is how we define abuse and neglect and then I can't speak exactly to what their training is at the hotline that would be a question for ASP which I think we'll have that further conversation and so it's a hotline operator and the supervisor
who make final kind of decisions after they use the tool to determine abuse or neglect and to send it through in which route to send it okay it's such a to
Speaker 63
38:07
be in such a huge decision I would hate to for somebody
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
38:09
to fall through the cracks which I'm sure we're human beings and some
might follow through but we'll follow up with that next when we have okay next week thank you so much okay All right, we'll move on. I'll
see. Representative Laysman, we'll let you have a question before we move on. Thank
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
38:25
you, Madam Chair. I'm over here in the corner here.
Yeah, I wasn't aware of this problem of them bringing children back when they become teenagers. Can you bring your child back if they're not adopted? Because I've got three sons. but no seriously during that time when they become teenagers children it's a difficult very difficult time for them and probably every child goes through a lot of issues and I can understand why parents if they have a safety valve that they might take that to bring a child back
thinking that they can't cope and get through that so but my question is when this happens are there any programs to help the parents and the child cope with that? I mean, because normal families have those same issues, they just can't take the kids anywhere. So are there programs to help maybe get through the problems, the issues that are
Speaker 57
39:31
child, if the child does reenter into foster care,
we would provide services to that to those parents and that child just like we would a normal foster care case obviously this is more intently around likely mental health treatment what's going on and how do you how do you reunify that family back together I will say some parents do go that route with the division and navigating that and some will terminate their rights to those children as well um and so it just depends on each case and situation and I think I was going to say um I
while we talk about it as like the number of failed adoptions I think it would be also fair for you all to see um some of the history and trauma and um when we're stepping in to get involved around these children and youth are experiencing some of this that's bringing a family to their like I can't do this anymore so I want to be able to share that with y'all you know to protect personal information but share kind of what that looks like so yes we
would we would provide the services just like we would we also use that intensive in-home contract I mentioned we use it on the prevention side we also use it we try to use that on the side with the failed adoptions as well um and sometimes it works and sometimes it does not thank you all
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
41:03
right senator love wanted to come back in on that
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
41:12
conversation senator love thank you madam chair and actually um representative ladyman kind of touched on
what I wanted to ask Tiffany and so I have talked with families in regards to the fact that you know they kind of reach families they have foster and adopted they have reached a breaking point has the agency thought of and I guess the best way I can say it is kind of sort of like some continuing education for for parents because um like i said i've talked to multiple parents that have said you
know if they would just have provided me with a little more um help then i could have possibly kept that child and so i'm just thinking in my mind uh because i know that i mean you you know my current situation and sometimes a child it's just delayed I guess the things that will come out but the training you know initially when I went through training that was some some of what was covered but the additional assistance as far as kind of like hey continuing education let's just
put it like that because I don't know what else to call it or continuing training for parents that do foster, that do adopt, has the agency had a stance on possibly having those type of wraparound services to assist and possibly prevent children returning or children being returned? Because I'm on the same line as everybody else. I don't think, I mean, like when you adopt, I don't think you should be able to. However, I do understand that sometimes the issues are a little more delayed
and a little more, I guess, complex than the family thought
Speaker 113
43:15
that they would be bringing on. So as a foster family, you are required to do so many hours of continuing education.
Speaker 57
43:25
If you're a family that adopts and then closes your home, I have no oversight or avenue to continue to require or make a family take advantage, which is why we really talk to families about when you adopt, you can't just shut the door.
like you need to keep your support system around you you need to keep people who know you know other adoptive families other foster families I will say that my assistant director and my adoption manager have been working really hard with several community key community partners within that across the state to figure out like what is the solution what can we do and so they've been exploring that um and trying to gather up some ideas i think that the kids i just i'm
promised y'all like i feel i feel a certain way about adoptions failing too but i think that you have to really understand the kids like this is not just um you have to really understand the kids and so i want to be able to show you all with identity protected what that looks like because i think you all would be very surprised about some of the things kids are facing and why this is happening so
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
44:43
so let me ask you this so going back to my question though are there are there
support services out there that could be offered to families that adopt i mean i understand that the state doesn't necessarily have to pick up the tab or need to pick up the tab what i'm what i'm asking is are there just say support groups are there groups out there that a family could just say for instance if I just say my daughter gets to eight years old and there and there's just something that just was totally unseen happen is there support family support groups out there
that I could then join to say hey I'm dealing with this could you help me could you assist me could you i mean i mean you see do you understand what i'm saying i mean i understand a closed
Speaker 57
45:40
adoption yes but i think the answer to your question is yes we have many partners across our state who would step in and support to the extent in which they have so for example the call arkansas baptist children family ministries um compact you know they're all over the state
um and i think they would step in and support a family to the extent in which they can and they do right now we know i know of um the call does he has a huge offering across the state around post-adoption um it's just more complex than just saying go to a support group or do this continuing education class
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
46:16
yeah i get it now i understand i get that i understand that but what
i'm saying is that i guess the the thing is is are those readily available number one and number
Or two, are we actually, I guess we could still, I know that the adoption is closed. What I'm saying is us to open our minds to possibly every year sending out something saying, hey, you know what, these support services are still available if you need them. I mean, yes, I think we could
be open to that. Yes, that's all I'm asking. Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Senator. I think it's a
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
46:53
great topic. Thank you so much. All right. We'll move on to foster care. Thank you.
Speaker 113
46:58
Okay, so obviously foster care is designed to be a temporary
Speaker 57
47:06
living arrangement for children who can't remain safely in their homes with their parents or caregiver. It's the most restrictive option and our goal is always first is reunification and then another permanency plan or concurrent plan with that family. And so that could be different depending on each case.
We, at the end of the state fiscal year, had 3,390 children and youth in foster care. And the top three reasons that kids entered into foster care were neglect, substance abuse, and parent incarceration. But it's important to note that in this data, children can enter into foster care for more than one reason.
Speaker 123
47:49
and typically we do see more than one reason for a child to enter into foster care. When a
Speaker 57
47:58
child does enter into foster care,
our first goal is placement with a safe
Speaker 113
48:03
and appropriate relative, and we are doing that at 42.4% of the time. That has come a long way from where we were and have been.
Speaker 57
48:14
And then 43% of children and youth who experience foster care reunify with a parent or a caregiver. And then 30% of our children exit foster care for permanency with adoption with a relative, a foster parent, or through a recruitment option.
Speaker 113
48:32
Something that we are proud of is that we are less than 200
Speaker 57
48:37
children and youth available in our state with a goal of adoption. That has been a number that we've been working to significantly decrease safely and appropriately. and that's all because of a partnership with Project Zero and the work that they do for the division alongside the division. And then, again, Arkansas remains below the national average on reentry into foster care within 12 months of permanency, so when we're reunifying, more times it's working,
the families are returned, kids are returned safely, and that reunification was successful. um
Speaker 113
49:14
so barriers to services um obviously we still in our state continue to struggle with recruitment of foster homes
Speaker 57
49:22
we are grateful for the partnership that we have with every child arkansas and all of our private agency providers across the state who are out there working day in and day out to recruit and train and support foster families um we also know that we call
it a barrier because when we remove a child and there's not a foster home or relative in that community we have to move those children sometimes across the state to find a safe and appropriate home for them to stay in while they're in foster care and
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
49:57
so we consider that to be a barrier and because that requires that it leads to other inconsistencies so we know regular and appropriate family time with parents and their kids leads to successful permanency of reunification and so
Speaker 57
50:09
when you're in one side of the state in washington county and you're placed in little rock that's
hours on the road to see your parents or vice versa whichever way we're deciding to drive kids and coordinate sometimes in our more rural areas of the state we struggle with substance abuse treatment and access to mental health services but we do navigate that for each parent who might need that or each child who may need that service and continue to work on it right build new relationships connect to new community partners lean on our sister divisions across DHS to support us in that effort I'm gonna take a breath if there's
Speaker 95
50:51
specific questions about foster care thank you
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
50:59
representative Crawford thank you madam chair one of the things that you haven't mentioned and I don't see it in the notes is you guys are doing something new with kids who age out of foster care what age is that and how many kids are in that and how's that going
Speaker 113
51:19
um so we so um for our kids who uh no they're
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
51:24
not kids children are for our youth sorry who are 18 and over so you can remain in foster care until you're 21 for our
Speaker 57
51:32
youth 18 and over we have something called supervised independent living programs across the state
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
51:38
so that gives them the ability to have they tier it out tier one tier two and that is dependent upon their supervision level
Speaker 57
51:46
that for those kids and I think it's going well sometimes given that we only have a few partners across our state it is strategic
around do they really want to move like across the state if there's an opening in that program because they might be rooted and connected for example in Little Rock but do they want to move to get real in Fort Smith or do they
Speaker 113
52:08
want to move to um Searcy it just really depends um so did I
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
52:14
answer your question uh kind of do you know how many are in this
state um like what i see in fort smith is there are apartment buildings i guess yeah that you guys
Speaker 57
52:26
have purchased no they're not ours no so we have a contract called supervised independent living and these providers have went for this contract to offer this service to our 18 to 21 year olds in foster care
Speaker 70
52:39
i think there's seven or eight in the state but don't i can give you that information Okay,
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
52:45
and I would like to know how it's working, if we could get some information on that, your success rate in that and helping kids as they get older where they're not kicked out at 18.
Yes, yes, we can definitely get
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
53:04
some information. Senator Petty, you're next. Thank you, Madam Chair. so uh i'm going to put a plug in for for sebastian and crawford county but i wanted to verify a number you said there are less than 200 children uh in foster care system now is
Speaker 80
53:21
that what is that okay uh less than 200 children with a goal of
Speaker 57
53:26
adoption so those are those are children and youth that we're actively seeking a family
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
53:31
for their forever family um and historically we have
been three and 400 and we have been trending downward. And,
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
53:38
and so what would, what would the total number be just approximately, uh, that are in the
Speaker 78
53:45
foster care system? Oh, 3,390 at the end of the
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
53:49
state fiscal year. Okay. And, and this is the, the, the plug, which I think all the legislators need to, uh, to hear. And this kind of goes to, uh, what I'm hearing a common theme, And that is the private sector, like 100 Families Restore Hope, was started in Sebastian County because they were the highest in the state at some extraordinary level.
And with the advent of Restore Hope, those numbers have been steadily coming down. Is that a fair statement?
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
54:21
Yes, I actually gave a presentation about this on Friday. So I have the numbers, approximately 1,000 kids at
Speaker 57
54:27
the end of 2017 in Sebastian County alone. And last week they were trending somewhere about 357. Right. And that's
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
54:35
primarily, although there is funding, and you're going to get to page four in a minute, but that's primarily driven by the private sector doing what they do at the 100 families and the care portal and so forth.
Correct? I mean, there's only so much that you can do. the private sector has to step in and i heard somebody say you know that's the role of the church a little earlier but that's that's what's uh leveraged up the resources that the the government has has available uh and then tapping into the private sector
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
55:06
yes sir i would i would plug away as well and um the success um while
Speaker 57
55:11
we have a lot of work to still do at dcfs and we're not perfect that much of our success is credited to people who are joining us and walking alongside
children and families in our state to achieve permanency finalize adoptions recruit foster homes and prevent foster care and so we would not be where we are today without the faith partners and other private sectors stepping up to walk alongside us
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
55:38
right and those periodically come in for very very little
in relation to what they that they produce funding and so when those come in i think i'm saying this more so for the legislators it's important to know that these
resources are being utilized and there is a difference we went from a thousand to three hundred uh for just a very little uh amount of money uh and and so it's getting used and put to good use so thank
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
56:12
you thank you uh representative beck has
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
56:18
a question yeah sort of a statement of sorts i guess a question but but uh i'm hearing a little bit of
a recurring theme already related to the great programs but they're here here and here and not here here here
here type of deal so i would ask you not not today but to put your thinking caps on and think about this what could we do as a legislatively speaking what could we do that would help you fill in those gaps i know one of the things you said was having volunteer to support the program in that county and so on and so forth and i don't i don't i honestly don't have the answer for you but but i would like to hear just maybe maybe you could go to some of the the people are currently
providing those services and say okay what do you think would help us to do this so that would give us some some actionable data that we might be able to help you guys out with
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
57:21
so all right senator love back in queue thank you madam chair just one last question Tiffany what percentage just on average what percentage
of kids do we have the parental rights terminated on average do you know that no but I can I
Speaker 82
57:37
I can pull that out and give that to you because some
Speaker 57
57:42
kids could have their rights terminated, but they don't want to be adopted. And so they're in foster care with a different permanency goal of what we call APLA, which stands for another plan, permanent living arrangement.
Speaker 93
57:56
So I can work on getting that for you. Sorry. I'm trying to be clear on all the acronyms because child
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
58:03
welfare has so many. okay um so are we saying like you said an alternative plan so once the parental rights
are terminated are we are we unifying them with family are we unifying
Speaker 113
58:19
them i mean like so if we terminate parental rights their goal um is adoption typically um
Speaker 57
58:27
some kids do not want to be adopted um depending upon their age um our older kids typically and so then they're in foster care and we're essentially working on another plan um with them which could be um subsidized guardianship which we don't try to terminate if we do subsidized guardianship
um it could be that they're going to be in a supervised independent living program and eventually age out of foster care it's just different based upon um kids and then also um we have terminated on kids that we've re-found their parents and reinstated their parental rights years later
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
59:08
okay all right okay thank you representative crawford thank
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
59:19
you madam chair i'll hurry um on the uh
you have something about sibling groups how many homes across the state do you have for that I mean because and the reason I ask that is we had one in Fort Smith I'm not sure the young home if it's still just doing the sibling group but that was
great when it started is it continuing yes it's still there and they take siblings um
Speaker 57
59:52
so we do have some of our partners
who have homes for large sibling groups that have foster parents and they take large sibling groups we have some of those across the state but most foster parents when we recruit them they based on their home size or based on what they
Speaker 80
1:00:07
feel like they can do that is um you know up to them so if they can only take two kids and I have a sibling group
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:00:18
of four then I have to split siblings do you have those numbers of how many times you
Speaker 113
1:00:23
have to split it I do in my quarterly report which I can provide to the committee it
does say the percentage of children and
Speaker 57
1:00:30
youth who are placed with their siblings and I can
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:00:38
share that with y'all thank you okay looks like we're
Speaker 134
1:00:42
good to move on to barriers and workforce thank you yes so um in june um we saw our
Speaker 57
1:00:48
average workload um decreased to 17 cases um the workload has improved within the last few months at months as staffing has um kind of stabilized um across the state but just so you know how we count a workload because
when my staff see that number they're like that's not right um that that's not right and so we have to remind them that how we count caseloads is for an investigation that's one case but for a foster care case with three kids that could be that's counted as three because foster care cases require so much additional effort and work and you may be going to multiple places to see kids and parents so that's just a little bit about our current workloads on the workforce we continue to
have turnover in areas of the state obviously that turnover impact impacts caseload management and service delivery as well as you know what we've learned is that when a case worker is on a case for the life of the case the family is more successful versus it being reassigned multiple times we have seen significant improvement to our turnover for my frontline workers um it's improved 19 percent so um at one point um a few state fiscal years ago we were at 60 and
70 percent and that is decreasing um which is a good thing um and um we are currently working and focusing on how we improve um new staff training for our supervisors and all of our frontline staff i'm good to keep going i
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
1:02:29
think yeah i think okay okay
Speaker 57
1:02:32
um and then um now we're getting into kind of the finances so um you can see there our annual operating budget for the division which is a mix of 48 federal 47 state general revenue and five percent other and then
our expense breakdown 30 of our expenses are for budgets and salaries followed by maintenance and operation and professional contracts and then the rest of our funding is spent on caring for children in foster care clients parents adoptive services and family support and then we do have some rental expenses um so for the our main operating our state office downtown um you can see we spend approximately seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars for that
and then we have cost allocation across the division to pay for our staff in the county offices so I have staff and county offices all across the state and then also in transparency I have two storage units because we are full in county offices and have to have a
Speaker 113
1:03:36
place to store kids and parents things and belongings and so we have two storage units and gratefully some of our partners have
Speaker 57
1:03:45
let us use some of their space and so we've actually decreased
that usage and then DCFS also pays for crimes against children division investigators in some of our county offices once you finish the finances and then we'll take
Speaker 212
1:04:01
questions okay and then well then the last
Speaker 57
1:04:05
page is just an appendix and a breakdown for you all to see okay representative Springer you're next
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:04:14
good morning thank you madam chair I
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
1:04:20
just want to compliment you all on this information very good information we need data in order to make our decisions here though so thank you very much thank you
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:04:34
senator Payton thank you madam chair just a simple quick question under the agency expenditures contracts is 58 million what are what type of contracts are those? So those could
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
1:04:43
be substance abuse contracts. I mean, everything I do is on a contract. I think sometimes they tell me I have the most contracts than any other division. So
substance abuse treatment, um, we have contracts for placements. We have, um, contracts for drug screens. We have contracts for parenting, uh, mental health counseling, all kinds of things. I can give you
Speaker 57
1:05:05
a, I have a breakdown. It's probably easier instead of me just listing
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:05:10
random things well I was just trying to categorize it in my head as to whether it was actually services or like legal contracts for legal representation or or contracts for office space or office furniture or you know IT stuff I was
just trying to categorize it in my mind we
Speaker 113
1:05:30
will get you a breakdown it's a it is a lot so we'll get you a breakdown for
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:05:39
the committee okay thank you thank you you Madam Chair. You're welcome. Does anybody else have any questions? I think Senator Sullivan already gave his question. Okay. All right. Well, I really appreciate so much the questions. I think we'll have you back next
month if that's okay. Oh, thank you. Representative Crawford
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:05:55
has a question. We'll finish up. Madam Chair, I just wanted to say thank you to, and especially for
the acronym list that you guys gave us this has been helpful in our homework so you're doing a great job thank you
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:06:15
for that i know that took hours thanks representative rye thank you madam chairman i wonder if you have a figure on the amount of percentage of kids that are say 13 to 16 and what percentage of those children wind up being incarcerated down the line
Speaker 82
1:06:35
let me take that question back and and see if i can if i have something similar
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:06:44
to that information okay because you know what you guys are doing are very very important you're catching them at the very important part of their their age if we can get these things straightened out It can affect a whole lot of things, including the jail situation and things like
that. So thank you. You're welcome. Yes, ma'am.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:07:05
All right. Again, thank you for the information. We'll get prepared next
month to show people how we can spread some of those good things that are going on in Sebastian County across the state. So thank you for your time. And before you leave the table, if you want to go ahead and do, if it's all right, committee, we're going to skip down to Section E so that
they can leave the table and let Janet give us the discussion on living
Speaker 46
1:07:28
choices awarded there. and get that information to us on section e okay good morning and so for section e I have the alpha report and I think it is exhibit e1 in your packet it to
summarize this is the second year of cost reporting so we are continuing to work on that with the alpha facilities the contractor is in the process of completing that rate we have met with several providers that brought in some questions on short-term and long-term requests and so that we have taken the short-term back to see if how that will impact a rate in the long term we will continue working on and reporting on to this committee and then also attached is the listing of any facilities that have closed
recently we did have a facility that indicated closure that they gave us closed without notice to dip squad and it was not a medicaid facility but it was located i believe in west memphis area and i know i summarized but at that i would any questions yeah let's
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:08:33
do you have representative crawford
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:08:36
here has a question thank you um what does chow mean on transaction
Speaker 46
1:08:41
type it's a change in ownership so they um they will submit paperwork to transfer the ownership but also the rates
and so that's a process that goes through our long-term care office okay thank you any
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:08:59
other questions all right thank you for that report and we'll see you next month thank you thank you okay committee we're going to back up to section d so this uh this subcommittee has some specific reports that
we're that we are working on we're giving specific legislation on things that we need to get done so i want you guys to continue to think about recommendations you have as we move forward and present those uh to caitlin so we're going to be um anyway we'll let you guys
get those to caitlin anything you want to bring to us it has to be a committee member that brings those forth and with that i'm
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:09:31
going to recognize senator english on uh something she'd like to
request yes so next uh monday at this time we're going to have our uh subcommittee on um workforce and social services reform so we'll start that process here I expect it to be fairly lengthy but hopefully we'll all be involved in those discussions so I would like to make a motion
right now and move that we authorize the Bureau of Legislative Research to begin negotiating a contract with the Georgia Center for Opportunities to provide audit services related to the study assigned to the subcommittee by Act 145 concerning workforce and social services reform. And basically what this does is it will look at all of the programs, whether it's TANF or SNAP or some of the other, WIOA, these different things,
and look at it from a third-party standpoint just to see what is going on in there and what kinds of outcomes they have, how much money they spend, all that type of thing. so real quickly before
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:10:35
we um move forward and i just want to say we have looked at some other states and just getting some real detailed information will help us really make a better decision um we'll hear from mr wilson next monday on things they've done in utah and louisiana but getting some real return on investments and real detailed reports i think will make us help us make a lot better decision and make a much better report and legislation we move forward so with
that i will take a second on this we've got a second uh okay any other discussion with anybody or any questions for anybody on this all right senator love
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:11:07
thank you ma'am tree I just I wanted to get a clarification on the other motion at now have we already chosen someone to look at this or are we saying that the Bureau of Legislative Research will
then open up an RFP process I'm just trying to understand it I'm sorry
I couldn't so what I'm trying to understand is are we
reopening up the process for Bureau of Legislative Research to work with somebody is there a specific group that they're working with yeah or is it just okay so we've already chosen the group that they're going to work with yes we had had somebody come
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:11:39
forth mm-hmm okay so was that an RFP process
Speaker 110
1:11:42
or was it the sole source who would okay
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:11:46
oh okay all right thank you thank you any
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:12:02
other questions okay Senator Gilmore hi it's Senator Irvin okay sure sorry do you
have the cost and I think the other question was process of how the vendor was selected or who chose or we don't have a cost
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:12:16
yet we're going to look at that and what what the scope of work would be and come up
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:12:25
with that determination okay and then the entity that was chosen if it wasn't through RFP could y'all describe the process which you chose the vendor it was a recommendation okay recommendation by
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:12:42
another state by by people who will be
working with us on this effort we really tried to find somebody who honestly didn't have any skin in the game. Sometimes when you ask for audits to be done people are concerned about whether or not somebody's going to like it. I think this group of people doesn't really care whether anybody likes it or not. We hope to have them give us all the information. It would be a similar thing to what the Bureau
of Legislative Research, I don't mean Legislative Audit did in
Louisiana as they move forward on the same process okay so the chair so I'm assuming
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:13:21
the chairs picked the vendor that is that an accurate statement the chairs y'all pick the vendor yeah just again we've looked at some other two other states that have done that we want
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:13:32
a detailed audit and we could not get it here and so we want to make sure we had accurate information to make sure we can move forward we really want this to be a very detailed
report and moving forward and then we get a return on our investment on what we're doing yes ma'am thank you for the
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
1:13:51
um i just if it's out of an rfp process or out of this committee going through a process selecting vendors i just wanted to know what the process was to get us to the one vendor that is has been chosen because sure sometimes we have like we open it up and then we'll have several people come and then the subcommittee kind of interviews them and the subcommittee then votes so I just didn't know how that process works
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:14:17
thank you and just again we have a time limit with this committee to get
the report done so I think that was taken
into consideration is that we have a specific timeline to get it done and to move forward or we won't make our timeline in the legislation that was brought
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:14:38
forth senator Levo sorry thank you thank you madam she just want one other question do we have a ideal of what we're going to spend
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:14:48
on this contract we're working with BLR at this point and we'll report to you guys next practically next month get your report on where we're looking at on that so so
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:14:56
we don't have an ideal okay so we're voting on the contract we don't have an ideal of how much we're going to spend we're
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:15:06
going to let BLR to move forward and find out that information for us and we'll bring it back to you guys at that point we're just wanting BLR to look and see what it would
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:15:15
what it would look like if we move forward with this does that make sense to you okay so in the contract today what we're doing basically is authorizing BLR to look at scope of work and a cost and
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:15:25
we have we had several other states do the same
thing yes we reached out to several of the states did they and they recommended this no Louisiana
Senator Jane English
Unverified
1:15:35
who's done who whose Bureau of legislative audit did theirs so this would be similar to what exactly what
they did in Louisiana and other states are doing similar kinds of things but they use different entities a lot of them use but our Bureau of Legislative Audit that's probably not something that they do they so that no not yeah okay
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:16:01
I understand I understand that I just want
to I just had a few I mean sole sourcing is not something that I prefer to do right just as a just as a general practice if there's other agencies that that can do this then sole sourcing just would not be my preferred method but um i yield thank you thank you senator and i i agree with you wholeheartedly
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:16:27
it's not something we normally do but with our limited time frame of this to get this report done this committee that's why
we're looking at be allowed to look at it for us okay that will take a vote on that so we're moving forward with uh to let be a lord move forward this contract and look what it would be uh to have this company move forward correct all right that i'll take eyes on this moving forward with this report aye uh the opposite nays thank you all we'll move forward get be alert to study in this and see what we can do to get uh the information we need to make a correct audit for our report thank you
thank you okay does anyone want to bring forward before this committee at this point all right with that we're adjourned thank you
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration for Adoption of Interim Study Proposal 2025-050 by Representative DeAnn Vaught – Requesting the Arkansas Legislative Council Conduct a Study of a Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility Waiver for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefits [Exhibit B]
C. Department of Human Services (DHS) Updates on Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) [Exhibit C]
D. Discussion of Recommendations by Committees
E. Update of Reimbursement Rates Under the Living Choices Assisted Living Waiver Pursuant to Act 213 of 2022, Section 15 [Exhibits E1-E3]
F. Other Business
G. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Speaker 1
Speaker 4
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
Speaker 15
Speaker 17
Speaker 19
Senator Jane English
Unverified
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
Speaker 42
Speaker 44
Speaker 46
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
Speaker 57
Speaker 60
Speaker 82
Speaker 84
Speaker 88
Speaker 89
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
Speaker 93
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
Speaker 100
Speaker 101
Speaker 102
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 74
Speaker 118
Speaker 113
Speaker 123
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Speaker 135
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
Speaker 76
Speaker 146
Speaker 80
Senator Dave Wallace
Unverified
Speaker 151
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Speaker 63
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
Speaker 95
Speaker 70
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
Speaker 78
Speaker 134
Speaker 212
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
Senator John Payton
Unverified
Speaker 110
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified