ALC-Review
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Speaker 2
0:00
If everyone would find their seats, call the
Speaker 4
0:24
review subcommittee to order. uh first we'll start with the adoption of the subcommittee rules is there any questions
Speaker 2
0:31
there's no questions i'll take a motion by and a second and all in favor say aye all opposed like sign all right we need to uh this is this is not the senate order but a friend says i got to do it this way we got to suspend the rules to uh to take up the supplemental agenda is there any questions on the supplemental agenda if there's no questions i'll take a motion motion and a second all in favor say aye
all opposed like sign we will do the supplemental agenda we'll begin by the methods of finance if you would go ahead thank
Speaker 7
1:13
you mr chair good afternoon members katie walden
Speaker 9
1:15
bureau of legislative research fiscal division your methods of finance are found on item b of your packet first you'll see a letter from the office of accounting a dfa stating that they present the following methods of finance for your review this month and then we have a summary on page two of
each project there are eight items for your review today the first is a method of finance with arkansas northeastern college this is an amended project they're using capital improvement project reserves for an administrative building to have a roof replacement. Number two is with ASU Mid-South. This is a new method of finance. They're using 100% millage proceeds to finance an athletics weight and training room. Number three is with the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences,
and the Arts. This is a new method of finance, and they are hoping to provide some campus infrastructure and accessibility enhancements number four is with black river technical college this is also a new mof they're using delta workforce grant funding and plant funds for a welding lab renovation on the next page number five this method of finances with ua little rock they're using 100 cash funds to finance a mechanical engineering lab renovation
number six also with ua little rock this is a new mof also with cash they are doing a field turf replacement on coleman field number seven with ua little rock this is a new mof using cash funds for a building for their cyberspace operations research and education center and the last method of finance number eight is with uams this is 100 percent funded with private
donations they hope just they're beginning to spend 1.4 million dollars for a third floor healing garden in their ortho and spine hospital thank you mr. chair these are the methods of finance for this
Speaker 2
3:26
month is there any questions from from members seeing none we'll consider these reviewed going to the discretionary grants members if you do have a question you don't have to ask to have a follow-up you just keep going and i'll tell you tell you when to shut it down eventually so thank you on that uh if you would
Speaker 8
3:45
just go on katie with the discretionary grants thank you
Speaker 9
3:49
mr chair the discretionary grants for your review today begin on item c1 of your packet we received four agency requests for discretionary grants the first one is with the insurance Department. They are wanting to give $20,000 to future builders and this is year three of their grant program and this is to educate Medicare beneficiaries against fraud and to bring about awareness and prevention for Medicaid and Medicare fraud. Item C2 are discretionary grants that we received
from the Office of the Courts. These are the Court Appointed Special Advocates programs administration grants it totals 1.75 million dollars and provides for the funding of these volunteer programs item number three is with the department of health there are 14 grants from the department of health for this month the first is a grant to camp alders gate for for a spinal disorders camp for spinal disorder clients number two is to the community health centers of arkansas
this is a 1.1 million dollar grant for the paul coverdell national acute stroke program number three is to the arkansas prostate cancer foundation this is 201 000 for funding for this foundation items number four and five are discretionary grants provided for breast and cervical screening practices in the state item number six is to the to arkansas children's hospital this is for the ongoing administration of the infant and child
death review program that takes us to page six and item C the last of the grants from the Department of Health these are grants number seven through 14 these are all grants administered by the tobacco prevention and cessation program and they are provided to counties across the state this is for evidence-based intervention and prevention for tobacco use among youth
which promotes quitting and eliminating the exposure to secondhand smoke and I also want to mention to the committee that this morning the Department of Health reached out to me and said that they did notice that they made an error in the purpose statement of these grants so I just want to clarify for the committee that the first grant is to Conway Faulkner in Perry County that's number seven number eight is for crawford franklin and sebastian county number nine is to johnson pope
and yale counties number 10 on the next page c7 is for searcy stone and van buren county 11 is for clark hot springs and saline county 12 is for carroll in madison county 13 is for pulaski county and number 14 is for benton and washington county so they did make that clarification prior to our meeting. On page 9 we have grants provided by the Department of Human Services for review this month. The first one is with DHS
Division of Aging Adults and Behavioral Health. This is a grant to the National Alliance on Mental Illness and it's for support for this program statewide. It's a federal grant. Grants number 2 through 4 are to various entities around the state to provide the retired senior volunteer program in its administration. Number five is with the Division of County Operations. This is the Arkansas Single Parent Scholarship Fund.
Number six is to the Alzheimer's Arkansas Programs and Services Program. It's $800,000 to the Alzheimer's and Dementia Caregivers Respite Care Pilot Program, available statewide. The last grant from DHS is with DCFS, and it is to the Arkansas Family Alliance. This is $160,000, and this is to provide assistance to families and children in crisis, and it's to mitigate being placed in the foster care system.
so these are the discretionary grants for your review today is
Speaker 2
8:14
there any questions on the discretionary grants seeing none we'll consider those reviewed we'll go on to the services contracts RFQs if you would Katie thank you mr. chair moving to item d
Speaker 9
8:32
in your packet on the very front part of the packet you'll see a letter
from the office of state procurement director miss jessica patterson she states that all the 236 of the contracts submitted this month were procured legally they also identified the contracts on the bottom part of the letter that were procured under the traditional or the most advantageous proposal method of procurement moving to item d1 these are the requests for qualifications we received two this month for your review the first one under d1 that's item d page
three is from asu jonesboro and this is for the development of a revenue generating business model and a comprehensive marketing plan for the a state innovation system and there is a description from asu jonesbury beginning on page five of item d giving some more detail on what this project will look like on page item d page eight we have another request
for qualifications from disability determination for social security administration and this is for a medical consultant for disability case processing these are the rfqs for the committee's review today.
Speaker 2
10:00
Is there any questions on the RFQs? Seeing none, we'll consider those reviewed. Go on
Speaker 9
10:12
Chair. Item D2 of your packet are the construction
related contracts for your review today. Number one is with the Department of Education with Pettit and Pettit Consulting. This is for on-call engineering services. Number two is with the Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism with HALF Associates. This is for on-call engineering services. Number three, also with Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism with McClellan Consulting Engineers. This is for on-call engineering services as well as specific engineering services for projects statewide. Number four, with Department of Parks, Heritage,
and Tourism is with Pollution Management Incorporated and this is for construction as well as a of a Petty Jean State Park wastewater treatment plant. Numbers five and number six with Department of Parks Heritage and Tourism are with two architectural firms for on-call architectural services for projects statewide that takes us to item d page 15.
Speaker 9
11:27
public safety division of arkansas state police also with pettit and pettit consulting engineers this is for on-call professional engineering design services for the state police locations number eight is with dtss building authority this is for on-call architect services number nine northwest arkansas community college with core architects this is for architectural and engineering professional design services
for the nwac properties that were damaged in the tornado that happened about a year ago on may 26 of 2024 number 10 with ozarka college with c and s contracting services this is a new contract for general contracting services on campus number 11 is with southern arkansas university for on-call architectural services and beginning with item 12 all the way through item 17 these are all going
to be construction related contracts for the university of arkansas these include on-call architect services for facilities management engineering and design services and that takes us over to item
Speaker 27
12:49
d page 18. the last construction related contract
Speaker 9
12:54
for Free review today is with the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff with Lewis, Elliott, McMorrin, Vaden, Ragsdale, and Woodward, Incorporated.
This is an architectural firm, and they are chosen to design the new hazard gymnasium renovation project. So these are the construction-related contracts for your
Speaker 2
13:17
there are 18. If you have a question, just tell us which one, 1 through 18. uh representative kavanaugh you're recognized thank you mr. chair mine is on
a d1 with department of education so someone from the department here
just state your name and who you're with and you're recognized thank
Speaker 41
14:04
you mr. chair greg rogers department education
thank you um thank you for being here greg on this is an on-call engineering contract for two million dollars so
are we projecting this is going to be the two million dollars over the life of the contract which is apparently like four years or is this just two million dollars until you use it and come back for another one it's it'll be two million
Speaker 45
14:28
dollars annually and if i need to do an amendment to it to increase the amount then we
would have to come back for that okay why do we think we need an on-call engineering for two million
Speaker 45
14:39
dollars a year so um for we have bringing on blind and deaf school those facilities as well as us owning the four capital mall and number three capital mall we have different things that at that time there It can be an emergency process or a renovation process that we need to move pretty quickly on. So that's why we've had the on-call contract.
We had one for seven years, and this one we just went through the RFP process again.
Okay, so I'll make sure I understand. But those projects that you have going, are you not going to have architectures and engineers that will be working on those specific projects that we'll have to pay a fee to? It
Speaker 45
15:15
could be, but that's included in that $2 million with the on-call engineer. if it rises to where the on-call engineer does need an architect or does need someone else then that is included with that two million dollars okay
so you're saying two million dollars a year
they're going to work on the mall properties they're going to work on the deaf and blind schools only if
Speaker 45
15:34
we need only if we need to only at those times that we have something going on with either the hvac or any other any other structure we've got going on with having this on-call contract we can
move a little faster with it okay and my understanding with on-call contracts
is if you don't use them they don't get paid correct okay and in the building of the new school and the
renovations that we'll do into the mall property um is engineering going to be figured
Speaker 45
16:06
in to that so oh yeah anytime that we need to use this on-call engineer their fee would be included in all that. Whatever projects were going on, whether we needed an architect or his engineering service or whatever, included in that $2 million. Okay, but what if the
people that are doing the mall or the school is not this Pettit and Pettit Consulting? What about that?
Speaker 45
16:29
That would be under Pettit and Pettit as a subcontractor that they would have to work with and it would
be in their fee as well. And
Speaker 2
16:41
it would be under the $2 million? dollars yes ma'am okay thank you there any questions on those construction related contracts saying none consider those reviewed and go on to the intergovernmental contracts and that's on page 19 thank you mr.
Speaker 9
16:58
chair item number one is with the Department of Agriculture Arkansas Natural Resources
Commission with the University of North Carolina this is a for a water and wastewater rate data and financial data survey relating to Arkansas water and wastewater rates number two Department of Commerce Insurance Department this is with UAMS and this is relating to the update and enforcement of a data submission guide which includes onboarding secure transmission file intake check and data validation on information received that is health related for the department of insurance that takes us over to item d page 21 with the department of
education in the university of oregon this is one of a few vendors that you'll see that is providing an online college and career readiness system for school districts to access and allow their students to use number four department of health with little rock ambulance authority this contract is for the establishment and operation of a call center and coordination and communication networks for the arkansas trauma system number five department of health with uams this is a contract
for a senior physician specialist number six department of health also with uams this is for technical services for the implementation of the women's infant and children parenting program number seven department of health with uams this is to contract with a medical director for the department of health office of health information technology and the state health alliance for record exchange number eight department of health with uams this is to facilitate a real-time access imaging for
arkansas trauma patients and also to expand the trauma image repository for the trauma system number nine Department of Health with UAMS this is to continue the contract for the Arkansas Department of Health newborn screening program number ten is with DHS with UAMS this is to add funding and revise performance indicators for education and training for DCFS staff as well as foster parents and students who are looking to be employed with DCFS number eleven DHS
with uams this is for to continue the sexual rehabilitative program diagnosis assessment and outpatient therapy for dcfs clients number 12 dhs with uams for family treatment service incest offender treatment and non-offender caretaker treatment services number 13 dhs with ua fayetteville this is to administer the autism waiver program number 14 is on item d page 26 also with DHS and UAMS. This is for diagnosis and treatment as well as nurse practitioners and
infection control for the human development centers. Number 15, DHS with UAMS. This is to provide assessment of children with special health care needs. Number 16, DHS medical services with the Department of Health. This is for the implementation of a patient center medical home. Number 17, DHS with the Oregon Health and Science University. This is to continue the Medicaid Evidence-Based Review Project. Number 18 is DHS with UAMS for financial reporting and analysis for Medicaid programs.
Number 19 is Division of Youth Services with Jefferson County. This is for programming and coordination with the Jefferson County Juvenile Justice Center. Number 20, Department of Public Safety, Arkansas State Police with UA Fayetteville. this is for crash data processing services for the arkansas state police highway office number 21 department of veterans affairs with uams this is to continue providing occupational physical and speech therapy to residents at the state veteran home in fayetteville number 22 department of veterans affairs with uams this is for a medical director for the fayette
bill veterans home and finally item 23 with uca and uams this is for an employee assistance program For UCA employees and their family members. These are the intergovernmental contracts Members are 23 If you have
Speaker 2
21:26
a question, just let us know which one it's on Senator Bryant. Thank you. Mr. Chair item number one for Department of
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
21:34
Ag You're recognized They may need to
Speaker 2
21:41
be up here with somebody from the Department Ag
Just state your name and who you're with and your way Senator Bryant can ask his question
Speaker 72
22:14
push it push your button Debbie Dixon Arkansas Department of
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
22:16
Agriculture thank Thank you, Ms. Dixon. Just could you give us a recap of what this contract will do,
how it will tie into the rate studies for water and the one we just passed for the sewer, and then how our local
Speaker 72
22:33
municipalities are going to interact with it? So the water dashboard currently exists. It was originally created using a grant through Central Arkansas Water. The utilities will be able to provide their rates, whatever their current rates are to be displayed on the dashboard, whether it's water or wastewater.
So all the utilities can then go out and compare what's going on in their region, similar in size. It's an outward facing to assist them in seeing what everybody's doing. It also compares their rates to their median household income, which impacts our funding, what makes them eligible for some of our funding
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
23:13
programs. okay is this the same contractor that designed the current system yes okay
Speaker 2
23:19
all right thank you mr. chair there's any other questions seeing none we'll
consider those intergovernmental contracts reviewed next we're going to the out-of-state contracts on d4 yeah Katie's gonna do the suspended the supplemental contract first Thank You mr. chair committee members if you look on the very back of your
Speaker 7
23:46
packet there should be a separate packet that
Speaker 9
23:49
says supplemental agenda it's behind the blue sheet I believe so this is the item that
we received from DFA requesting review the first thing you'll see under a one is a letter we received from secretary Jim Hudson stating the imminent need for this contract to be heard by the subcommittee today and behind that letter you'll see the actual contract summary this is an out-of-state contract with department of finance and administration revenue services division with idemia identity and security this is the company that provides the actual encrypted card stock for the real ids and you'll see in the letter they state they've
had a vast influx of people trying to get their real ids for various reasons and so they're Requesting this contract to be amended and increased to accommodate
Speaker 20
24:44
the demand now moving back Is there any questions on
Speaker 2
24:56
that supplemental See no questions. We'll consider that Adam reviewed and go on to the d4 and the regular agenda
Speaker 9
25:06
thank you mr. chair under item d page 31 you have the out-of-state contracts
the first contract is department of transportation for garcia and hamilton and associates this is for an asset manager for fixed income investments number two is with the public defender commission this is a contract attorney and you will see many more of these in the in-state contract but this particular one is located in Texarkana and it just happened that this particular attorney is based out of Texas number three is with ASU with
paychecks of New York for payroll management services this is an original contract number four is with ASU Mid-South with ABM industry groups this is for building maintenance and facility services number five also with ASU Mid south with juice box this is for the development of a new website item d page 33 is number six with the insurance department and company nurse this is for a workers compensation telephonic nurse triage number seven with department of corrections satellite tracking of people this is
an amendment to an existing contract for the monitoring of offenders through radio frequency monitoring and satellite monitoring number eight department of education with anaca technologies as i mentioned previously this is another vendor that was selected to provide the online college and career planning system software number nine department of education with deloitte consulting this is an amendment to enhance the child care applications for the department of ed
as they're bringing the office of early childhood into the department of education they're still updating and accommodating their software system to fit their needs number 10 department of education with embrace software incorporated this is an amendment to an existing contract also for the college and career readiness tool tool number 11 is the same service with cooter incorporated this is an amendment to an existing contract another selected provider for the on online college and career planning system number 12 is department of education with mindset labs
just prior to the meeting the department of ed came to me and asked to pull this item down for consideration for the month so we're striking number 12 from consideration for review this month number 13 department of education with power school holdings this is amendment number five to this contract also another provider of the online college and career planning system number 14 department of ed with triand incorporated this is for the k-12 electronic transcript program
number 15 department of education arkansas school for the blind with community rehab associates this is to provide occupational physical and speech therapy services at the school number 16 department of energy and environment oil and gas commission this is for well plugging services it's an original contract number 17 department of health custom data processing this is for the implementation of the online wick ebt program in the state number 18 department of health with encore healthcare solutions this is for the removal and disposal of hazardous material
number 19 department of health with q source this is for the aid department of health trauma section with ongoing assessment of the quality of care provided through the arkansas trauma system this takes us over to page 39 and item d i want to draw the committee's attention to number 20 this is the department of health contract with soltran you'll see that this particular contract was procured using a special procurement by request of the department of health and you'll
see in your packet there's a blue letter where we provided to you the information from the department of health of why they needed to do a special procurement for this program but generally it is for the electronic benefits transfer claims program for the wick program number 21 department of health with the gel group this is for drinking water testing number 22 begins the dhs contracts the first one is with ata services and this is contract nursing staff for the arkansas state
hospital number 23 also with dhs with medsphere systems corporation this is for the arkansas state hospital electronic health records and patient billing number 24 dhs with memphis pathology lab this is for laboratory diagnostic testing services for the state hospital 25 department of human services with opt-in behavioral care this is for therapeutic counseling services 26 with dhs and republic services this is an amendment to an existing contract for waste
pickup and removal at the state hospital number 27 dhs dcfs this is an amendment to an existing contract for specialized and private licensed placement agencies that provide foster care services in family home settings for foster children number 28 dhs with health management systems this is an amendment to a contract for support of the medicaid asset verification
Speaker 13
30:39
system number 29 and 30 are both with dhs dds number 29
Speaker 9
30:45
is an amendment for nursing and medical
staffing services for the human development centers as well as number 30 number 31 dhs with dental power international this is dental hygienist services 32 is DHS with EGA Associates for a school psychology specialist which will work at the Conway Human Development Center number 33 DHS Division of Medical Services with Guidehouse Incorporated this is for preparation training and review of the completion of the Centers for Medicare with their CMS
financial reporting system number 34 Department of Public Safety Arkansas crime information system with computer aid incorporated this is for the national fingerprint file update number 35 state police with dana safety supply this is for the purchase and installation of equipment and first responder vehicles while utilizing the tips cooperative contract number 36 dps with the state crime lab with bode cellmark forensics this is for
processing of the dna sexual assault kits number 37 also with the state crime lab dna labs international also with the sexual assault kit processing services number 38 dtss building authority with dothan security incorporated this is security services for the bg hendrix building in fort smith 39 is department of veterans affairs with higher energy for contract nursing services for the Fayetteville Veterans Home.
Contracts number 40 through 43, beginning here at the bottom of page D47 and taking you through page 49, these are all investment contracts for the Department of Highway and Transportation Retirement Programs. And one other thing I want to mention to you about these contracts is number 41 with levi rye and shoop incorporated was chosen as a sole source by justification vendor and so i also included in your blue packet the letter explaining the need for
it to be a sole source by justification contract since this is the first time this committee is seeing it number 43 is with northwest arkansas community college with asb sports acquisition also known as game one they are nwac is just beginning an athletic program so this company will provide uniforms and equipment number 44 is with southern arkansas university for custodial services on item d page 50 this begins a number of contracts with social security administration
for disability determination these are all for contract medical examiners so that's contract number 45 through 50 these are all individuals who will provide case review services using their medical expertise that takes us over to page 52 on item d with contract number 51 this is the University of Arkansas with the Siegel Company, and they will do benefit consulting services for
all university benefits programs. Number 52, also with U of A, with ZRG Partners. This is for executive search services for an associate vice chancellor for facilities for the university. Number 53 is University of Arkansas at Little Rock with strategic marketing innovations. This contractor will provide federal government relations services for U of A Little Rock. number 54 in the last out-of-state contract mr. chair is with the university of central arkansas with eab global and this will be for student recruitment marketing and enrollment management
services and programs thank you
Speaker 2
34:47
mr. chair thank you katie uh the question by representative Kavanaugh on number eight the Department of Education probably somebody come down Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Greg Rogers, Department of Education. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for coming back down. This is really dealing with
your contracts on 8, 11, and 13 because they're all dealing with the online college and career planning system. And I'm going to ask this question because we had a discussion about it earlier. We talk about that you've got three vendors, my understanding is, that can be chosen to use, correct? Is that correct?
I think there's five. Five. I'm seeing three. So in this one, they've got five. so that complicates it even further so we've got a contract we say that the contract here is supposed to be for four million dollars or say it's authorized for seven we've paid four million to this one this um other one 11 it looks like we've paid i think four million two but the one on 13 we've paid over eight million two but the total of the project says it's going to be seven
million dollars by my addition just in those that's 16 million but you say that there are two more besides that so my question is when we do these contracts and we say that we're doing the total project for seven million dollars and we do each one of these contractors seven million dollars so that's really if you've got five what is that 35 million dollars that you've got contracts worth but they're only supposed to go up to seven million dollars between all five of them is that
correct yes well we've already gone over that but that's i'm sorry so how is that policed and how do we catch that the program is actually going over what was authorized because i understand why you put the maximum for each vendor but because it's one people you know they can choose from which one they want to go to correct but how
do we know as a legislative branch that you've not gone over that total seven million dollars well because each
Speaker 45
37:26
one of those is authorized up i thought it was a
million dollars for each year that each one are authorized up to but that is also limited by the appropriation so we have to districts have to tell us in advance before they use it which one of these vendors they're going to use and we have to make sure that it stays within our appropriation allowing item that we that we have we're limited by that there's no way i could go over okay but
you've got a contract with this one for seven million dollars you've got a contract for the other one for seven million dollars and if all five of them are seven million dollars i don't
i'm not seeing all from that that's 35 million that got authorized by the contracts so as a legislator when we're looking at this and you're talking about your appropriation but how to what what checks and balances I guess I'm asking for is that you don't in all this process when we got all these multi-contracts and it's not just you it happens in other agencies also that there's a way that we know that they're not going over what that total project should be because you may have it in your appropriation and don't take this the wrong way there's a lot of fluff and appropriations
and so there's extra money and that's why I'm always drilling down into people's appropriation how do we know because when i look at this
this one is already eight million dollars so between these three we spent 16 million dollars so each one of them is authorized up to
Speaker 45
38:49
a million dollars each year and over the seven that would be the seven years you're getting to on that i believe and that each the line item appropriation that we have in public school fund is limited i think we only have an appropriation line item of 1.8 million dollars in there so if we tried to go
over any one of these contracts for that million dollars I would have to come back here not only to extend that contract up to amend that contract I would also have to go over to ALC to request additional appropriation to do that so we have to know when those call when those schools sign up for which vendor they're going to use how many students are going to sign up and which one they're going to use at that point there I would know which vendor was either most popular that might get close to that million which ones are less and that way I would have to come back here to either amend that contract or at least ask for additional appropriation where at that point there
you would say why are you back
here asking for appropriation okay well on number 13 which is power school holdings you had amendment
number four and it was for 5.7 million dollars so that's well over the million so and
Speaker 45
39:53
that is the power school one's a little different because that is app scan so you're seeing that uh contract there was a different things when we're using amendments that we have to make for our app scan system that is in that contract as well so that's why you're
seeing that amendment there okay so power school is doing more than just the online college correct
okay all right because for me that's been one concern as always want to how are we going to make sure that they're not going over the total amount that's really been appropriated yes ma'am and this one
Speaker 59
40:25
there is a line i'm in public school funding just for this and it's limited to that 1.8 million dollars anything other than that
Speaker 45
40:31
I would absolutely have to come back to y'all okay I
Speaker 8
40:39
appreciate that thank you representative Andrews do you have a question on this or some other
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
40:46
is it not on try it now thank you um mr.
Speaker 102
41:02
chair item 44 the sau custodial contract someone here
Speaker 23
41:09
sau or higher ed someone's on their on their way
Speaker 102
41:16
Thank you. yourselves and who you're with
Laurie Burks
Unverified
41:48
and you're recognized. My name is Laurie Burks. I'm with
Speaker 106
41:54
Southern Arkansas University. Kyle Newton, Southern Arkansas University. Go ahead, Representative Andrews. You're
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
41:59
recognized. Thank you. Why is a firm from Knoxville, Tennessee going to come to Magnolia to mop the floor? What happened to AYS? Why aren't we using a local vendor on this? Can you talk through the reasoning of picking an out-of-state
Speaker 109
42:16
firm for this? Yeah, sure. So we put out an RFP because it came up.
After looking at all the packets that we received and looking at all the opportunities that other companies that were able to present to the employees that are there now, we figured that At Your Service didn't offer a lot of those. They were quite a bit cheaper than using At Your Service. at your service, increased their cost and not any additional benefits or anything like that. We felt it was better to go with a company
that was able to offer benefits that the employees have never had before at a lower
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
43:07
cost. So, but is this out-of-state company, Where is the labor force
Speaker 109
43:16
coming from? The workforce is coming from Magnolia area. Okay. We're not, yeah, the new company that's coming in will be hiring all of the employees from the existing at-your-service contract.
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
43:30
Okay, so it's local labor still? Local labor. Okay, just an out-of-state firm managing these employees? Yes, with
Speaker 109
43:37
a better benefits package and a lower cost. Okay.
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
43:40
How how much difference between the bids were it was there approximately three hundred thousand
Speaker 109
43:45
dollars? Okay Okay, thank you It's all
Speaker 2
43:54
I need Is there any other questions on that one? seeing none representative Kavanaugh on
36 and 37 public safety someone with public safety come down Crime lab and public
Speaker 19
44:09
safety Same thing, just introduce yourself
Speaker 114
44:42
who you're with. Karen Perry, Department of Public Safety, Chief
Speaker 115
44:46
Fiscal Officer. Jennifer Beatty West, Arkansas State Crime
Laboratory. Thank y'all for being here. My question is just, well, it's really twofold. You know, we've talked about the DNA
sexual assault kit processing because it had been such a backlog and we had issues with that. I think we even passed something that required that you get them caught up to date to a certain date. But when I'm looking at the contract, it actually says that you're not adding any money to the contract, but it just says you're amending it for increased
pricing. So does that mean that we're going to get less sexual assaults processed for the same amount of
Speaker 118
45:22
money? No ma'am, that's not what it means. So at this time we are able to process the sexual assault kits within 60 days. This contract is kind of our emergency clause if we do start seeing that backlog increase. We have this contract in place to help us get those numbers down but at this time we are using any federal if we have excess federal funding that we can put
towards it that's what we're going to do with it but we are really lucky at this time we've been able to maintain that
60-day turnaround time okay so on either one of these contracts we're not because when you say that you're increasing the pricing but you're not raising the price when i do the math it's just that i can't get the same number of you know kits looked at if i don't if they're increasing their price so how are they increasing their price and we're getting the same
Speaker 118
46:16
amount well um again we're not sending any sexual assault kits at this time to them um it's just kind of a backup plan if we do have to send any kits to them and both um bode and dna labs international have increased their cost of processing sexual assault kits okay but if we did
have to send them we'd get less yes that's correct okay who's doing the original who's doing the current processing of those is that being done it's a state crime lab yes ma'am that's correct
and we're able to get the turnaround within the 60 days you
Speaker 118
46:50
said yes ma'am we're we're hitting that
right now okay and do we know how many we have to get processed in
Speaker 118
46:57
that 60 days do you have any idea well i know currently we have less than 100 unassigned sexual assault
kits active sexual assault kits okay we appreciate that because you know why it's kind of important for us to
Speaker 2
47:12
get that done appreciate that thank you so much thank you any other questions on any of the other 54 seeing none we'll consider those reviewed we'll go to in-state contracts the first
the first 38 are all public defender contracts uh there's any questions on those are public defenders all over the state i'm going to consider those 38 to begin with is there any questions on those 38 seeing none and we're going to consider those uh first 38 reviewed and then we'll we'll move on from there go ahead katie thank you mr
Speaker 29
47:49
chair that takes us over to number 39 in your
Speaker 9
47:53
in-state contracts that's on item d page 72 this is with department of agriculture with the communications group this is amending an existing contract for public relations services for the department of ag number 40 is department of corrections with justice advocacy llc they are the auditor for the prison rape elimination act implementation in the state number 41 department of corrections with summer nash patent this is the agency dietician number 42
with the division of correction with tommy's flying service this company provides aerial application services for the tucker farm number 43 department of education with management services for education data this is for the ongoing implementation of the migrant education database number 44 department of ed educational television division with abc solutions for janitorial services contracts number 45 and
number 46 are both for process server services with dfa child support enforcement number 47 with dfa management services this is with the arkansas information consortium this is for web support and maintenance development services for the dfna website number 48 dfa management services with p p industries this is for messenger services number 49 department of finance administration with the arkansas information consortium
this is for the r star online motor vehicle tag renewal registration program number 50 department of health with health care pharmacy and this is to continue services for the aids drug assistance program and the ryan white part b program number 51 department of health with stone and ward incorporated this is for the development and implementation of a media campaign for to promote maternal health in the state contracts number 52 and 53 are with department of health
state board of nursing these are both for nursing investigators to investigate claims statewide that takes us to item d page 77 this begins the dhs contract and if it's okay with the committee i'm going to group some of these by the general nature of the contract number one is or number 54 is with erisa health this is for therapeutic counseling services and number 55 also with dhs with arkansas medical staffing this is for skilled nursing and other medical personnel at the arkansas
health center beginning on item d page 79 and contract number 56 through contract number 69 in this section these are all contracts with the department of human services division of aging adults and behavioral health services with different providers for therapeutic counseling services statewide that takes us over to page 90 and contract number 70 in item d
this contract is with dhs dcfs with easter seal society this is for specialized rehabilitative services for severe needs patients in the state number 71 dhs also with erisa health this contract is for therapeutic foster care services for dcfs clients number 72 with arkansas baptist children homes this is for specialized private license placement
for foster care services in family homes for children who cannot be maintained in their own homes the next contract is 73 through number 88 this is another group of similar type of contracts These are all with DHS, DCFS for various providers around the state that are providing special services to foster children in the state. So one type is for developmental disability services for DCFS children.
Another is specialized development disability emergency shelter program services. So these are all similar in their type, emergency shelter, therapeutic foster care services. that takes us over to page 99 and item d page 99 we're at contract number 89 this is dhs division of county operations with express employment professionals this is for temporary staffing and clerical positions in the dhs county offices number 90 is dhs dds with able therapy
this is for physical therapy services number 91 is with DHS and the area Area Agency on Aging of Southeast Arkansas this is for day treatment facilities contracts number 92 and number 93 are with DHS division of developmental disability services these are both for special medical providers the first is a psychological examiner and the second one is for physician services for residents in the Southeast Arkansas Human Development Center. Number
94 DHS DDS with Pharmacy Care of Arkansas. These are pharmacy services for the residents of the Human Development Centers in the state. Number 95 DHS Division of Medical Services with Friendship Community Care. This is for the revision and the budget of performance indicators for therapeutic counseling services for people without insurance in the state. Beginning on contract number 96 and taking you all the way through number 102 these are
all Department of Human Services contracts with the Division of Youth Services with various providers around the state who all do juvenile justice community-based re-entry and vocational and career support services and these are assigned by Regions. This takes you all the way through contract number 102 and contract number 103 is with DHS, DYS with Smacky's BBQ and Catering. This is
provide meal services for the civilian student training program. Number 104 is DHS DYS with the Southwest Arkansas Counseling and Mental Associates. This is another one of those that is juvenile justice community-based reentry programs as well as 105 this is with United Family Services and again it is juvenile justice community-based programs for region six number 106 is with the department of parks heritage
and tourism division of heritage with mangan holcomb partners this is marketing and communication services for arkansas heritage 107 also with parks heritage and tourism with quality service incorporated this is for security guards at the old state house and the other museums around the the area. Number 108 is with the Department of Public Safety, Division of Arkansas State Police with Cranford, Johnson, Robinson, and Woods. This is for advertising and marketing services for the
statewide highway safety media plan. Number 109, that's on item D, page 111. This is Department of Public Safety, Division of Emergency Management with Motorola Solutions. This is for AC to DC backup power system conversion. Contract number 110 is with the Department of Transformation and Stared Services with Aptis Financial. This contract is for a new program that the state will offer its employees to help. It's almost like case management to help the state employees
navigate the public student loan forgiveness program. This is going to be administered by the employee benefits division number 111 is with the department of transformation and shared services building authority as well as it's going to be contracts number 111 through 116. these are all with the same provider antonio dashun more and these are for janitorial services for different buildings all around downtown little rock area that are all owned by the state
including the areas down in riverdale this is janitorial services and supplies for all these buildings this takes us to contract number 117 with dtss building authority miracle window cleaning this is for glass cleaning and all those buildings across the state as well as supplies number 118 with dtss building authority with sharp property management this is janitorial services to the natural resources complex in the state crime lab number 119 department of veterans affairs with
one-of-a-kind in-home care this is for temporary nursing staffing in the north little rock veterans home as well as contract number 120 this is also for temporary nursing staffing in the north little rock as well as the fayville veterans home number 121 is with veterans affairs and t scott simmons this is the medical director for the north little rock veterans home number 122 and number 123 are both for the highway and transportation department this is with their retirement programs
both are related to the investment and actuarial study of the retirement programs number 124 is with sau tech with strictly business this is for mowing the grounds of sau tech number 125 through number 140 are all with ddsa these are all contractors as i mentioned before in the out-of-state contracts these are the in-state contracts or ddsa for medical case review consultants so again that takes us all the way over to contract number 140 that's on item d
page 122 the next contract is number 141 that's ua little rock with jan pro of arkansas for professional cleaning services for all the dorms at ua little rock as well as the university village apartments number 142 is with u u of a batesville with the white river health system this is for student
Speaker 14
58:51
mental health counseling services these are the out of state or in-state contracts mr chair
Speaker 2
58:58
thank you i have a few questions uh senator rice thank you mr chair number
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
59:06
39 department of ag if i have an explanation someone in the department notice you gentlemen were standing i was going to let you have a seat
Speaker 132
59:28
introduce yourself and who you're with and senator rasher recognize your question thank you mr chairman
Chair
Unverified
59:42
i'm scott bray department of ag plant industry division director and
Speaker 134
59:47
who says i keep fiscal officer department of agriculture
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
59:51
thank you gentlemen for being here and just a quick question i haven't noticed this contract in the past and where it says public
relations service can you give us a a short synopsis of what this is does it have variance or consistency from year to year what what does it do
Chair
Unverified
1:00:09
yes sir excuse me this contract is between the soybean promotion board and the communications group that it has been uh in place this current cycle for one year now we're going into year two the soybean board has contracted with the communications group I believe this is going on 15 years so they've been through two or three of
the seven-year cycles through procurement the communications group what it does offer to the soybean board is social media management website management creative production video production media placement event planning public relations marketing content development and they target high school students college students consumers and other soybean farmers okay that answered my question thank you thank you representative kavanaugh thank you mr chair you're you're
dismissed thank y'all thank you Department of
Speaker 2
1:01:21
Transportation is shared services someone with transformation and shared service here there they
Speaker 132
1:01:37
come introduce yourself who you're with and you're recognized representative
Speaker 142
1:01:40
Courtney trailer chief of staff at shared services Amanda land deputy director
of employee benefits division thank y'all for being here so I just want to make sure I understand
this contract this contract over the life of it looks for about three years it's going to be 2.1 million dollars and that 2.1 million dollars is going to be used to help state employees figure out the best way to repay their student loans so you want
Speaker 144
1:02:15
to go start this contract was we were trying to find
ways this was we looked started looking at this about a year ago to find ways to attract and retain good state and employees and this was a benefit that we've heard from a lot of employees is hard to maneuver you can apply for it but then there's a lot of follow-up work and we just kept hearing how difficult it was. We heard about a vendor that could help with this, that help state employees navigate through that process. We did a few test cases with them, and they did
indeed help pay. It paid off for some of our state employees that did a test case. We then did an RFP to find out what all vendors were out there that could offer this service, and that's how we selected the current vendor that we have on the
Speaker 145
1:03:10
contract today. May I add to that as well? Yes. This is a program that was enacted by President George W. Bush back in 2007. It's a federal program. It's using all federal funds. So what state employees do is they apply to this federal program.
They submit it on federal forms and what have you. as long as they're involved in public service, whether that be a federal job, a state job, or a qualifying nonprofit job, and they make 120 qualifying payments, meaning you make the full payment that you're required to make and you make it on time, 120 adds up to approximately 10 years for most, you are eligible to have the balance that is remaining on your loans forgiven. So it is a very complicated process just to read and understand whether or not you're even eligible
for it. So this contractor would assist as essentially an advisor to help look at the data of your student loans, look at your service. Sometimes people have multiple employers that they've been with who might qualify for this. And just make sure that you've dotted all your I's and crossed all your T's so you can take advantage of that program.
Well, I appreciate all that but the working citizens at state of Arkansas aren't getting any help trying to figure out how they can get their student loans repaid except making the payments and we're spending
2.1 million dollars of money for a program for someone to figure out the best way to pay their student loans or get through a federal program something they qualify for the federal government has ways that they can communicate with them and they can call. It may be difficult. I'm not saying it's not. But I'm saying we're going to spend $2.1 million for a contract like this when the rest of the citizens of state Arkansas don't get that benefit. And if I'm not mistaken, just in the last legislative session,
we raised the salaries of the state employees $130 million. So we do appreciate our employees. and we do provide incentive to have good employees. We've gone to a merit pace so that we can attract and qualify quality employees that will stay with the state. But here we want to spend an additional $2.1 million for someone to figure out if they owe a student loan or not.
The bottom line, that's what this contract
Speaker 43
1:05:52
does. yes or no uh yes but i thank you okay with
that i have any questions i have a
Speaker 80
1:06:02
motion at the proper time all right thank you representative kavanaugh uh senator mark
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:06:11
johnson thank you mr chair this is on item 108 department of public safety division of state police there's someone here
Speaker 154
1:06:18
that can respond to that. You're dismissed. Hi, I'm Bridget White. um with the highway safety office of the state police go ahead senator johnson hi miss white
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:06:52
i'm over here okay thank you for being able to respond to this um this this has gone up a half million dollars from the fy 2025 budget and i'm wondering if this is 100 federal through it's uh has doge looked at
Speaker 154
1:07:17
this yet i'm not sure but uh the highway safety office received some additional grant funds from nitsa uh one grant was to address pedestrians and bicyclists
and another grant was to prevent roadside deaths and those two grants amounted to five hundred thousand dollars that's why the increase in this contract okay so this
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:07:42
is going to to an advertising
public relations firm so what are they contributing is this a develop media advertising are you buying advertising TV radio yes okay now
so this is this is paid paid ads that your agency pays for with this federal money? Yes, sir. This is not what we call PSAs, which are contributed by the radio or television stations, for example. Is that correct? No, that's correct. Okay.
Speaker 154
1:08:21
Do they do that anymore? Yes, we do develop PSAs, or public service announcements, and we have those distributed through the Arkansas Broadcasters Association. Okay. Are they
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:08:30
often the same message? There are oftentimes different
Speaker 154
1:08:36
messages most of the messages that we pay ads for are geared towards our mobilizations and like click it or ticket and drives over get pulled over where we have enforcement efforts alongside
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:08:50
those okay so when you see these flashing temporary signs along the highways uh now rdot puts those up don't they yes
Speaker 154
1:09:00
sir they put those up and those are considered earned media for
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:09:06
us okay so they they don't get any of this uh 2.850
Speaker 154
1:09:11
million right no they contribute those uh the
signage for us as earned immediate but they don't charge
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:09:18
all for that no sir okay they do not all right it just seems like an awful lot of money for basically slow down or fasten your seat belt and And any time I see these things, what I call the common sense, advertising, and don't even get me started about the tobacco settlement, because I think if we, since that's another, I won't bother you, that that's not in your department. We'll deal with that another time.
But I just was curious exactly where all this went. The amount of money kind of jumps out at me. But it is what I thought it was. This is, like you said, the clicker ticket or, you know, get pulled over. Okay. Thank you, Ms. White.
Speaker 80
1:10:04
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. You're dismissed.
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:10:09
Representative Painter. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is contract number 89 for the Department of Human Services Division of County Operations.
Speaker 72
1:10:17
If they could come to the table. hi laurie mcdonald dhs sarah cunningham dhs mary franklin department of human services thank y'all for being here i just
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:10:51
have a question here how many temporary staffing
positions are we providing here is that has that also increase from last year representative i don't have a specific
Speaker 176
1:11:10
sorry you're all right i don't have a
Speaker 175
1:11:12
specific number with me but i can get you that number but i can tell you we use this when we need extra assistance in the county office this one we use mainly actually in the jefferson county office which is where we have our scanning
center a lot of incoming mail it has to be scanned into our system so that it launches workflows across the state so someone gets the work and takes care of the
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:11:37
work so this is just really concentrated in Jefferson
Speaker 175
1:11:40
County pretty much this particular one we can use it in more than Jefferson County but we tend to use it mainly there to make sure that we have enough staff there to keep the workflows going with a lot of our return mail going there or even incoming work with people mailing applications
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
1:11:56
in and hopefully do you guys think with
us giving you know raises and stuff like that and having better employee packages that maybe this not say the contract will go away but maybe less use of this where we're actually hiring full-time employees instead
Speaker 175
1:12:12
of hiring contract temporary employees yes that it would be my goal that we
Speaker 2
1:12:20
would need fewer contractors over time definitely okay thank you mr. chair yeah the questions on that one seeing none thank you and you're dismissed so we
representative Kavanaugh do you want to you
have a motion I make a motion that we review all the items as presented except item number 110
Speaker 2
1:12:45
and I make a motion we do not review all right I have a second on that second by representative painter all in favor say aye opposed like sign all right those are all reviewed except for 110 next we'll go to the the reports the service
contract amendments without material change reports thank you mr. chair as
Speaker 7
1:13:19
the rules of the committee state we received two reports for the sub committees review they are the contracts without material
Speaker 9
1:13:25
change as well as the executed contracts that were under the spending threshold these are the two reports are provided provided for the subcommittee
excuse me we did the switcheroo any questions members seeing none with that those are
reviewed and members no other business before us we are adjourned You
Agenda
A. Call to Order - Comments from Chairs
B. Methods of Finance
C. Discretionary Grants
D. Services Contracts for Legislative Review/RFQ Approvals
E. Reports and Communications
F. Other Business
G. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — ALC - REVIEW, May 19, 2025 | Agenda | 2 | Official source ↗ |
| A.1 Review Rules - Proposed 5-19-25 | Exhibit | 2 | Official source ↗ |
| B. MOFs | Exhibit | 3 | Official source ↗ |
| C. Grants | Exhibit | 11 | Official source ↗ |
| D. Contracts | Exhibit | 123 | Official source ↗ |
| E1. Services Contract Amendments Without a Material Change Report | Exhibit | 69 | Official source ↗ |
| E2. Executed Contracts | Exhibit | 37 | Official source ↗ |
| Supplemental Agenda | Exhibit | 3 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Speaker 2
Speaker 4
Speaker 7
Speaker 9
Speaker 8
Speaker 23
Speaker 27
Speaker 14
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Chair
Unverified
Speaker 41
Speaker 45
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
Speaker 72
Speaker 20
Speaker 13
Speaker 59
Representative Wade Andrews
Unverified
Speaker 102
Laurie Burks
Unverified
Speaker 106
Speaker 109
Speaker 19
Speaker 114
Speaker 115
Speaker 118
Speaker 29
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
Speaker 132
Chair
Unverified
Speaker 134
Speaker 142
Speaker 144
Speaker 145
Speaker 43
Speaker 80
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
Speaker 154
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
Speaker 175
Speaker 176