ALC - Occupational Licensing Review Subcommittee
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Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
0:00
All right, I'll go ahead and call this month's meeting of the Occupational Licensing Subcommittee to order, and I don't have any comments, and Senator Wallace has indicated likewise. So we're going to go ahead and jump on into this.
So without objection, all entities scheduled for the July meeting have been moved to today. So we'll have four entities that we will be reviewing today. And we'll go ahead and jump into this. The first entity we'll be looking at is the State Board of Acupuncture. So if those representatives would have a seat at the table.
That'll be Exhibit C1 colleagues in your packet. And then when you gentlemen
get settled in there, if you would introduce yourselves to the committee.
Speaker 10
1:07
Matt Gilmore, Department of Health. Russell Burns, Director of the State Board of Acupuncture and
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:15
Related Techniques. Okay, thank you, gentlemen. Any opening comments that you
Speaker 7
1:19
have for the committee? I think Mr. Burns has a few comments and some things about the board he wants to speak to, and then we'll take
Speaker 10
1:28
any questions y'all have. All right, sounds good. Mr. Bernson. The Arkansas State Board of Acupuncture and Related Techniques was created by Act 816 of 1997. The purpose of the board is to protect the public from those persons
who are untrained and unqualified to practice acupuncture and related techniques, license those individuals who meet the qualifications for licensure under the Act, and hear and resolve such disciplinary matters as may come before the board currently the board is composed of four members and meets twice a year additional meetings are scheduled as needed to address issues such as voting on licensure addressing complaints and rule promulgation
the board offers one type of license and there are 41 active licenses as of this time This reflects an average growth rate of one additional license per year for the past five years. The board encourages growth in the number of licenses by actions such as reduced fees for the past four years, developing plans to implement online licensing, working with stakeholders and association to assist and provide technical advice and processing licenses as quickly as possible
I thank y'all for your continued support of the acupuncture board and we'll do our best to answer any
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
3:00
questions you may have okay all right thank you gentlemen only question that I have is I'm not overly familiar with acupuncture could you give us some examples of some things that acupuncture helps with the
Speaker 16
3:13
benefits that it provides? Well, we have several modalities that involve the application
Speaker 10
3:18
of heat or cold. Also, the insertion of needles into different areas of the body.
We deal with a lot of joint and muscle pain as well as flexibility issues. There are outlying but good
Speaker 16
3:31
parts of acupuncture that deal with other type of mental aspects, I think we've hit the gist of it okay all right colleagues any questions on
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
3:40
this one okay all right seeing none without
objection we'll consider this review thank you for your time and for being here today thank you folks okay next up we have the State Board of Pharmacy
I think looks like Mr. Gilmore is going to stay down there but if you would please introduce yourself to
Speaker 27
4:10
the committee and then. Yes, sir. I'm John Clay Kirtley. I'm the director of
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
4:14
the Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy. Okay. And then any comments you
Speaker 27
4:18
have about where the board's at? Absolutely. Just as a quick overview, Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy was originally established by the legislature via Act 50 of 1891. Interestingly, it was at the push of physicians in
the state that were trying to protect the public health and welfare of the citizens of Arkansas by ensuring that legitimate distribution of medications and legend drugs will be done by qualified pharmacists. The board's made up of eight board members. We have six pharmacists and two public members. One of those public members is a senior citizen representative for the state of Arkansas. The board meets in full sessions that are regularly scheduled at least three times a year and oftentimes has additional called meetings and we'll have anywhere from three to seven of those a year depending on the needs of the board especially in questioning applications that we
have. We have three specific individual permits or licenses for different human applicants basically. We have pharmacists, we have interns that are student pharmacists in colleges of pharmacy, and we have pharmacy technicians. You can see from some of the data we've had constant growth in that. If we go back to kind of a 10-year look to 2015 to current, our pharmacists have grown by 30 percent. Our interns have shrunk just a little bit just due to a decreased class size in colleges of pharmacy and our pharmacy technicians have grown by 47 percent overall permit numbers for
those three over that 10-year period have grown by 35 percent the board does have a a big point that we have not raised any fees since the mid-1990s in any fees for any of our applications or licenses we've also actually removed some of the legislative or regulatory barriers to get rid of some permit fees and some endorsements that were required and we've also tried to institute some real time-saving things such as online applications to help expedite the process for people to get their permits. Another thing that we've really done to try to help drive pharmacists
and help, especially in rural Arkansas, was the establishment of a rural loan-slash-scholarship program through the two colleges of pharmacy. Those loans have given out over $2.17 million over about the last 10 years to student pharmacists going into their junior or senior year that intend to return to practice in rural areas of the state they do that for 36 months that book becomes a scholarship run the loan if they do not meet criteria they pay it back and we will give it to someone else be happy to answer any questions that you
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
6:40
have okay now looks like we've got a few senator
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
6:43
Johnson you are up first sir so I'm not on yet there we are okay thank you mr. chairman uh mr currently thank you for work you do i have a issue that i am concerned about and i just want to get your perspective on it from from state board of pharmacy uh we have a high cost of drug problems we have a high cost of health care problem especially in rural areas and all the
things we brag about about arkansas and where we are on cutting taxes and school choice and all these other things i'm proud of uh we got an obesity problem and i remember uh our former congressman vic snyder who is a doctor uh during the medicare part d debate i visited with him and he said you know medicare will pay uh if you have diabetes and you have to have your leg cut off they'll pay the in those days about thirty thousand dollars to have your leg cut off but they won't
pay for the drugs to keep you from having to have your leg cut off and he thought that was rather foolish i did too nowadays we we have a tool in fighting obesity and it certainly has a lot to do with diabetes is our glp1 drugs and i am very cognizant and paying close attention to anything that i think hurts the availability of those because again let's let's save the leg and you know help people if it helps them lose weight and many people testified to that fact it was brought
to my attention that at one time a clinic that was prescribing the GOP ones or we're dispensing them directly to the consumer and they stopped that and said that it was at your office and I And they didn't say you, they just said the state regulators said we can't do that anymore, and now they're getting mail order in lieu of that. And I don't know if that's any better from a regulatory standpoint or not,
but can you enlighten me on exactly where you are on that? And I'm not saying let every clinic hand people medications out the door, But this is, again, a problem that is – there's a lot of – this is almost like a snowball going down a hill. I mean, if we could cause people to lose weight when they need to, then there's no telling what the savings, not just in their health outcomes, but to our Medicaid bill and things like that.
Speaker 33
9:25
Could you bring me up to date on that? Absolutely. I'll do my best to answer it, and
Speaker 27
9:32
if you need any further expansion offline, I'd be happy to meet with you about that. And I'll tell you, it's really easy to always blame the state, no matter what the situation is. We know that when we take these jobs. Absolutely. We're in the same boat with this. And I don't know the very specifics of maybe that specific issue. But I can tell you that with GLP-1s, you know, our greatest concern is that people have a reputable, safe supply of it. Yes. There are also regulatory criteria for the state of Arkansas, both statutory or rules,
not just with pharmacy board, that limit possibly how those medications could be delivered or dispensed for the patients to take home. Some of that deals with we have had several pharmacies or non-pharmacy entities that look like pharmacies and say they're sending products that they're not legitimate products or they have not done the work to get a license to distribute into the state of Arkansas. So we've had several instances where we have sent a cease and desist order, and then we will work with those entities if they are a licensed pharmacy somewhere else to get them licensed in the state of Arkansas to appropriately distribute those drugs here.
We've also had instances where people that are in clinics that receive those drugs, if they're repackaging those to then dispense to patients, there are federal guidelines or nationwide kind of standard of care policies that when you repackage those drugs, they're supposed to be done in a sterile environment so that you don't put that patient at risk. So we've had various conversations about that, but we do have several pharmacies in state and out of state as well as outsourcing facilities when they could produce those that are licensed in good
Speaker 38
11:11
standing and able to send those products into our state.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
11:15
Well, and I have no complaint whatsoever about you doing that, and I encourage you and thank you for doing that. But I'm very knowledgeable. I'm not knowledgeable. I'm trying to become more knowledgeable on particular and sometimes unexpected impediments to this. And, again, sometimes it's a fine line, and I appreciate you. You're the one who has to straddle that line sometimes. But in the case that was brought to my attention, you know, this was a clinic where all the clinicians there were licensed by the state of Arkansas
and either the doctors or nurses or whoever. and i just want i want to make sure that we're not that we're encouraging people to for healthy outcomes as opposed to discouraging them so i look forward to visiting with you absolutely outside this venue and i appreciate your answer mr
chairman thank you for the opportunity to ask a
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
12:11
question hey representative carolyn brown you're next thank you
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
12:18
mr chair um mr curtley my question is kind of along the same lines um excuse me um I received a questionnaire this week
that was asking me all about compounding pharmacies and maybe even out I don't know I can't I don't have it in front of me even out of state compounding pharmacies that are selling GLP-1s um I just thought that compounding pharmacies were licensed just like any other pharmacy is there some distinguishing something that distinguishes them other than the fact that they do their
Speaker 27
12:54
compound their meds i would say there's two potential things that are slightly different that um that
get confused as part of this and one is you have traditional compounding pharmacies which you may have one down the road from you that does some very minor compounding making things such as the the oral antibiotic for your you know small child that they can't take pills they need a liquid or customizing a formula with a different flavorant to help with ease of administering that to your child or to your pet, then you have larger volume pharmacies that specialize in sterile compounding specifically. Now in the state of Arkansas, we put both of those under one permit.
We don't have a secondary permit they're required to get to do sterile compound, but we do inspect them at a higher level for the quality measures of that. Some states have a completely separate permit or an extra application and endorsement process if they're going to compound at that level. And then you have what are known as 503B facilities, which are outsourcers, and they're able to make duplicates of commercial products that are in short supply, which we saw a lot earlier when
we had severe shortages of GLP-1 products. They are held to a much higher standard as far as they They are FDA-registered, FDA-inspected, and generally the state that they're in would also do a higher-level inspection for them. Well, I think you answered my question.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
14:20
It's just that this questionnaire just went on and on and on, and I thought, well, maybe there's something mysterious or dangerous here that I'm not getting. So that's why I asked you the question. Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. Okay.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
14:35
Representative Bentley, you are next. Thank you all for
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
14:39
being here today. A couple of quick questions. I was looking at your answers as far as complaints and answering those complaints. Have we removed any pharmacist's license that you're aware of in the past few years? I was just curious if we had to get to that point.
Speaker 27
14:54
I believe I know the question you're speaking to, and we did have one instance where there was someone claiming to be a pharmacist that had never met the minimum criteria to be a pharmacist. They had not passed their board exams and had not become fully licensed,
And we did remove them from practice and had a hearing based on the fact that they had been involved in the filling of prescriptions without a pharmacist present in the pharmacy. So we have had one instance of that. We really try hard with our website being able to validate licensure as well as we have a very strange answering system at the Board of Pharmacy. We use humans to answer the phone instead of computers unless we're all on the phone. So we've had a couple instances where we've headed off instances of people coming in the state and trying to act like a pharmacist that we're not as well.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
15:42
Great. A quick follow-up, Chairman, if that's okay. So I know that you guys are very diligent to inspect these pharmacies and make sure that our constituents being well taken care of. Can you tell me what's your timeline and how often are you inspecting these pharmacies and what's your protocols? I believe it's pretty
Speaker 27
16:00
stringent, but I'd just like to know. Sure thing. Right now, I just asked our inspectors previously this week. Right now, we're at about a 12- to 15-month turnaround time on our retail pharmacy inspections throughout the state, and that includes pharmacies that may or may not be doing compounding.
Our retail permit covers pretty much all pharmacy activities other than hospital operations. So if they are compounding, if they're doing long-term care, if they're even mailing prescriptions, that's all under the retail, and we're at 12- to 15 months. Thank you, and I appreciate
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
16:29
us allowing our pharmacists as much as they can take care of our constituents. Thank you,
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
16:36
John. Yes, ma'am. Have you all had any issues along those lines, like a malpractice where something wasn't done correctly or wrong medicine? Do you deal with that?
Speaker 27
16:45
We do have complaints on that, and we have some fairly stringent criteria of how staff handles those to bring them before the board, whether that is a misfilled prescription, which is probably the most common thing we have, or if someone got something they weren't supposed to and looking at going back to try to do a root cause analysis of not only how did this happen, but how to
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
17:07
prevent it in the future. Okay. All right. Representative Steele, you're next. I
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
17:13
need it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could you allude more to the prescription by mail
and kind of where we are? It's been a little while since the session. I know there was some debate about that and dialogue. Where did we end up after everything, after the dust was settled, And where are we now as far as the ability to actually send prescription drugs to people by mail, especially in rural communities? So
Speaker 27
17:38
on the, we would call it home delivery. I believe it was in 2023. It may have been in 2021. I'd have to go back and look. The legislature passed a bill to direct the Board of Pharmacy to promulgate rules for home delivery standards, which we did.
We've implemented. And part of our home delivery standards, it includes clauses such as the fact that, I mean, it has to be a licensed pharmacy with the state. So we validate that they have a license in their home state or permit. We will look at their inspection for whatever their overall kind of class of work of what they're doing and then get it here. and part of those rules they have to they're required to reach out to the patient and get approval from the patient prior to the billing filling or mailing of a prescription to the
patient so the patient is involved in that process and understands what is being billed to them and sent to them and when they could expect to have it a couple things the legislature did which are unique and I think very progressive for Arkansas is if there is something that in that mail process us if the patient is not going to be able to receive that care in the timely manner they need to continue their care, that out-of-state entity would have to have a plan on how that patient could get that prescription either from a local pharmacy or another source in a timely manner. So we wait
to see if there would be complaints on that. We've had a few that we've had some mainly education and kind of rethinking processes to straighten that out, but there is a very clear ability for patients
Speaker 37
19:07
to receive those medications through the mail with those
Speaker 63
19:11
guidelines. Well, one follow-up, Mr. Chairman, if I may. What's the
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
19:15
percentage of patients taking advantage of that? I'm just sitting here talking to Representative Barnes. Not very many I know in my district are even aware of it, let alone taking advantage of it. And I apologize.
Speaker 27
19:28
That's not something that I'm necessarily privy to. When I generally hear it, it's because of a health plan that either directs or pushes patients towards that. You also have things like TRICARE and some of the Medicare plans that push that, or VA, that that is
Speaker 37
19:43
their main benefit area. But I'm sorry, I
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
19:46
don't have the data to tell you a strict percentage on it. I ask because we provide transportation. It's the health department, Duke, under Medicaid, to go to the doctor's office. Yes. But oftentimes there's no assistance at all to going to actually pick up your prescriptions.
Speaker 27
20:01
I would say we do have in Arkansas we are blessed that we have a lot of pharmacies in different communities that deliver directly to their patients so instead of using common carrier mail FedEx or UPS they have a delivery driver I mean the pharmacy I worked at here in Little Rock we had delivery driver service and we had several shut-in patients we had patients with different disabilities we had a blind couple that there was no way they could drive to the pharmacy and and we took care of them through those methods.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
20:33
Sure. Okay, Representative Gonzalez, you're next. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Gordon Watkins
Unverified
20:38
Well, I just had one very simple question, but then talking about some of this other stuff brought up another. So impersonating a pharmacist, is that criminal? And if so, how did y'all bring them before the board if they didn't have a license and they're not licensed under the pharmacy board, what authority did you have to bring them in front of
Speaker 72
20:56
y'all? And then did it get turned over to the prosecutor, I guess? And I'll answer the last question first.
Speaker 27
21:04
Yes, we did turn that over to law enforcement. I don't know that anything else happened with that. But many years ago, the legislature for, as I understand it, several health licensure boards actually did give us the ability to take action against unlicensed people for the illegal practice of pharmacy or medicine or something else. This specific example was unique because the person had been a licensed intern with the board, and we could also take action on that internal license that they had and had an application with the board to be a pharmacist.
So we're also taking action on that application in and of itself. All
Gordon Watkins
Unverified
21:40
right. So what actions can you take against someone who doesn't have a license, period? Well, in this
Speaker 62
21:45
instance, since they did have a license. Yeah, I understand that. the but
Gordon Watkins
Unverified
21:48
you i think you just said you had authority to bring people who are unlicensed in front of the board but i was just wondering what what authority
Speaker 27
21:57
i believe in that instance the main authority that the board had and i would defer to our legal counsel for any further clarification was the board would consider whether or not they would take any future application
from that individual after they had impersonated a pharmacist
Gordon Watkins
Unverified
22:11
illegally okay all right um other my original question was about pharmacy techs are they licensed or certified
Speaker 27
22:18
or The technical term is registered with the Board of Pharmacy because they do not have necessarily a required professional education besides or beyond a high school diploma or GED. They're registered
Speaker 38
22:30
with the state. So some people use licensure interchangeably, but the technical term would be registered.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
22:37
Okay. Thank you. Sure. Last question that I have, and I ask this of most of our folks, is where are we at with pharmacy? You talked about the growth in the number of pharmacists in the state, which is encouraging. Are we where we need to be? Is there still more growth that is needed to make sure we're taking care of our citizens? And then anything you're doing, I think you already mentioned some things you're doing to try to promote pharmacy in general within the state.
Speaker 27
23:05
I can give some general comments, and I would forewarn that if you ask five different people in leadership positions in pharmacy, you're going to get about seven different answers on this.
I would say that we are very fortunate in our state that we do have a permitted pharmacy in every county of the state. And a few years back, we had a county that did not have that. We do see closure of some pharmacies, especially in rural areas where there seem to be some potential staffing issues for those specific stores. But we do have a healthy supply of pharmacists in the state. We have a lot of pharmacists that are doing things other than working in just a pharmacy. You know, they're working in other areas of health care or assisting in clinical capacities in hospitals or in even medical clinics.
But we, I believe personally that we do have a good supply of pharmacists, but we've got to keep that supply going through our colleges of pharmacy and attracting people into that profession.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
24:00
Well, it looks like we have a last minute question from
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
24:05
Representative Bentley. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate the latitude. So I guess my curiosity is going now. So do we have a uniform training system for registered pharmacy techs since we're allowing them to give immunizations and different things, which I appreciate the ones in my pharmacy. I think they do a great job. I'm just curious if there's a uniform training that we do that we say in Arkansas, our pharmacy techs can receive this many hours before they do this specific task.
Speaker 27
24:27
Or I'm just curious now. That's a fun one because we have their minimum qualifications for overall registration with the board. it's passing the criminal background check, showing proof of a high school diploma or GED equivalent, or they have been to college and we can basically vet it through that process that they have that level of education. If they want to do what we would call kind of an advanced activity, such as administering immunizations, there is a program that is uniform that they would have to get that training for the administration of medications,
much like we would do with physicians or nurses or pharmacists.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
25:07
Great. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate that. Sure. Representative Garner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I wasn't going to ask a question either until we started talking about GLP-1s. But that brings up an interesting question, I think, in that we've talked a lot, or there's been a lot of talk in the news lately about other peptides as well, and just wondered how you guys are relating to that information in Arkansas.
Are we, do we do anything with MOTC-3, whatever it is, Um, or that can that be distributed into Arkansas? And that
Speaker 27
25:42
is an extremely difficult question unless you start naming a very specific peptide that you're talking about. And then you have to dig down into, um, I'm, I'll say this frankly, see if I get in trouble later, but the federal bureaucracy around the approval of those products is, uh, has become quite convoluted and confused due to social media, I think, saying this is now available when
technically it may not be. So the concern that I would have from the Board of Pharmacy perspective of protecting public health and welfare is no matter what the status of that is, you have to have verified chemicals that are suitable for human use, consumption, injection, or treatment in order to make a legitimate medication to be used. And right now, and people will get mad at me saying this, some of the peptides don't really have a legitimate supply of those drugs under the FDA federal framework, but that is what is going through the federal government right now working towards that.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
26:38
Okay, great. Thank you very much. Okay, colleagues, any last-minute questions? Okay, all right. Seeing none, gentlemen, thank you for your time and for being here today. Without objection, we will consider that reviewed. And next up, we have the auctioneer licensing board. And then ladies, when you get settled in there, if you would just introduce yourself to the committee and then any opening comments you might have.
Speaker 95
27:15
Lacey Kirchner, counsel for the department. Kelly Black, director of the auctioneer's licensing
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
27:22
board. Okay, please go ahead with any testimony
Speaker 96
27:25
you have. I don't really have much else to say other than I am open to answering any
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
27:32
questions that anyone has. Okay, Representative Puryear, looks like you're up first, sir. Let's get you turned
Representative Chad Puryear
Unverified
27:37
on. There you go. So I got a constituent that had his auctioneer license and was an auctioneer. Back in 89, I guess the state made it where you had to have a license.
Somewhere in that process, his license lab due to like a scheduling conflict, the old number, I think it's the AALB number. So is that old number that he has, is it dormant or has it been reissued? It has not been
Speaker 95
28:06
reissued, but it would not be able to be reissued to him. Okay, and why is that? With our new system, anything that isn't migrated over, then the license number didn't come over. And we cut off any of that from, I think it was 21, which was when we migrated to the new system,
Speaker 96
28:27
so that all of the new numbers matched the new system. So it's impossible
Representative Chad Puryear
Unverified
28:32
for him to get the old number reassigned based on the way the software works? Yes. Okay. Well, that's not the answer I'd love to hear. But, you know, because I look on number 10, you know, You talk about the license would lose value, reducing the professionalism and the reputation. And I would think you would want the folks that have a lower number license for that to reflect their, you know, years of experience in the industry.
I understand that. You know, so there's no way your system will allow that to happen. Correct. Okay. Thank you.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
29:07
Thank you. Okay. Representative Bentley, you're up. I'm going to get turned on here. Thank
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
29:12
you, Chairman. Thank you, ladies, for being here today. I didn't see in here what your annual expense is and that you have $60,000 in reserve. So is that over and above what you need annually for your expenses? Or are we thinking about any scholarships for this leftover money? I'm just
Speaker 95
29:26
curious what's your... Yes, ma'am. That would be enough for us.
There is no excess funds. And I'm sorry. What was the rest of your
Speaker 96
29:33
question? No, I was just curious. I didn't
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
29:36
know what your annual expenses were. But if that covers it and there's not a bunch left over, that's what I was curious
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
29:45
about. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. okay uh looks like
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
29:51
represent or excuse me senator johnson you're next thank you again mr chairman uh i just had a question about kind of who's licensed and who's not and make sure if i haven't done anything it violates the law or anything uh sometimes uh
non-profit organizations raising money will have uh have items donated to an event they're having and there'll be an auctioneer that will auction off these items, the money goes to the organization, doesn't go to the auctioneer or anything. If someone that is not licensed and just kind of say, hey, would you auction this off, is that person in violation of our regulation or is it if they're not being paid,
they're not hiring themselves out except for a charitable situation like that, is that allowable? Yes, sir. That's
Speaker 95
30:39
correct. If they're not taking any money for that, and they are doing the auction for the nonprofit, they do not need a license. Okay.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
30:46
Well, it makes me – I'll sleep better at night knowing
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
30:49
that. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You say you're not feeling guilty over there, Senator. Okay, just check. All right. Representative Gonzalez, you're
Gordon Watkins
Unverified
30:59
up. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So that was kind of my question, or one of my questions, I guess, was getting into the exceptions for licensure.
I see that we, if you're a livestock auction at an auction barn, you don't have to be licensed. Yes, sir. And then it says there are other exemptions as well. So charity auction is one. What are some other exemptions? The other exemption is your own items. Okay. So you can auction off your own stuff. Your own items. Yes, sir. And why, I know this probably happened a long time ago, but why the sale barns, why did they get? I don't know the answer to that. Okay.
Speaker 98
31:37
Interesting. Thank you. long before me. Okay. Um, so same
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
31:41
question. Uh, how are we doing in the field? Do we have enough
auctioneers in the state? Is this something that needs to be promoted? Just kind of what's the state of the occupation?
Speaker 95
31:51
Um, I think we are set as far as our numbers, we can always increase. We definitely don't want to, you know, tell anyone not to become an auctioneer in the state. Um, I think with the online auctions, it's definitely increased our numbers. So I think we're right where we
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
32:06
need to be okay sounds good all right colleagues
any last-minute questions all right saying none thank you for being here without objection we will consider that report filed and one last one motor vehicle
Commission and once you get settled in if you'll introduce yourself to the committee and then any
Speaker 113
32:32
opening comments good afternoon director Daniel Pace Arkansas Motor Vehicle Commission and you have my report and questionnaire I can just give you a brief description of what we do for those of you that are not as familiar the Motor Vehicle Commission is responsible for licensure of all franchise dealers in the state and that is for automobiles motorcycles
off-road products RVs commercial trucks and also LSVs and we're also responsible for the licensure of all manufacturers and distributors that sell and distribute those products in the state okay with that i'll
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
33:04
take any questions all right thank you uh so first question that i have is
uh being in faulkner county conway area uh in your report you talked about the issue going on up it's a superior rv um
Speaker 112
33:19
what's the what's the latest on um on that
yes superior rv so uh the commission actually held an administrative hearing
Speaker 113
33:25
in june uh to address some issues at superior rv um it's one of the rare times where we've had to revoke a license uh in this instance um the gentleman mr block is also facing some felony criminal charges from faulkner county over some of the similar issues that his license was revoked for uh he was also issued a fine uh will we be able to collect that i don't know but he no longer has a license with the commission so has that business
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
33:52
just been shut down completely then at least for the time
being or would have to be sold
Speaker 113
33:59
or my understanding is is it is shut down at the moment but um also we'll be on the lookout for him potentially opening up a different business uh from what i've heard so we're we are paying attention but uh regardless he still has a four thousand dollar fine and in order to be licensed he would have to come back to the commission and basically prove to the commission why he should have
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
34:20
a license so and does what do you are they required to take any kind of tests to or get inspections to get that license or
is it just fill out paperwork but pay your fee and
Speaker 113
34:33
are significant facility requirements that the Commission has that you have to meet and also since it's a franchise dealership you're also going to have requirements that the manufacturer and distributor place upon you as well beyond what we place money so there are facility requirements service requirements uh obviously manufacturer warranties that sort of thing but there's no test okay
Speaker 116
34:54
all right uh senator sullivan you're up sir thank you do you license boats senator sullivan
Speaker 113
35:02
we do not currently license boats no sir that is done through dfna at
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
35:11
this time thank you thank you mr chair okay um any other questions okay so
um i i'm guessing i know the answer to this but kind of like the the last ones uh where are we at as
far as having enough um i guess motor vehicle uh locations across the state to make sure the needs are being met given this is a different kind
of market i'm sure we're good but just your thoughts on the state
Speaker 112
35:36
of where we're at with that yes sir i think those in the industry would tell you we would always welcome more dealers and
Speaker 113
35:42
manufacturers and distributors in the state i think we're in a pretty good spot with that i I think from just feedback I hear from dealers on a daily basis, what they would tell you is the real growth area that we need is in service and repair technicians. I would say in that instance, what I hear all the time from them is it's a very high-demand profession and a low supply.
And that's part of what we do with our grant program is to try to help grow that in the state. But that's what you'll hear from a lot of dealers
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
36:15
is that they are short of technicians to work at the dealership. Is that something you're doing through high schools, through
Speaker 113
36:25
you focus that at? So it's high schools and colleges that have eligible automotive service tech programs. This past year we awarded 12 different programs, both high school and college, $250,000 in grant money from our fund.
And we intend to do that every single year that we can, as long as we can keep that going.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
36:44
But, yes, it's high schools and colleges. Okay.
All right. Thank you. All right, colleagues, any last-minute questions? Okay, seeing none, pretty painful. Thank you for being here. Without objection, we'll consider that last one reviewed. Again, colleagues, after reviewing all these, if you have any recommendations on any changes to include in our final report, please email those to our staff. Our next meeting will be Thursday, September 17th at 1.30.
Nothing else on our agenda? We are adjourned. Thank you.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Comments by the Co-Chairs
C. Review of Occupational Authorization Entities:
D. Other Business
E. Adjournment
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 10
Speaker 7
Speaker 16
Speaker 27
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
Speaker 33
Speaker 38
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
Representative Tracy Steele
Unverified
Speaker 37
Speaker 63
Gordon Watkins
Unverified
Speaker 72
Speaker 62
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 95
Speaker 96
Representative Chad Puryear
Unverified
Speaker 98
Speaker 113
Speaker 112
Speaker 116