ALC-Executive Subcommittee
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Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
0:00
Secretary, if you would identify yourself for the record, please, and you may proceed. Yes, good morning.
Speaker 5
0:17
Christy Putnam, Secretary of Arkansas Department of Human Services. Sorry, give me a moment to catch my breath. I apologize. Take your time.
So we are here to present the rule to implement Act 675 of 2023 regarding the broad-based categorical eligibility rule, and this rule adds an eligible definition. It also updates resource limits to $5,500 for households that are in compliance with Act 675 of 2023. All right. Members, any questions? I know I have
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
0:55
one, but I will defer to the committee first if there are any questions.
Seeing none, Madam Secretary, on this rule, what took so long? So the first
Speaker 5
1:08
part of it, and I believe Director Franklin has been here to discuss it as well, this is a complicated issue to understand, but we made it more complicated than it needed to be, just plain and simple. We were under the impression initially that we needed to look for some state match funding. What we needed to do was look for a benefit that could be extended to all households that could be considered SNAP eligible so as soon as we
Received some technical assistance went back and re-looked and got some additional legal clarification on what needed to happen We then went back in Within about a week's time. We're able to identify a benefit that could be extended to all SNAP household eligible households and then go ahead and Do the rule get the rule ready for you all okay uh members any other questions
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
1:58
madam secretary thank you um the one thing i will add is i know this is not the only rule that
we've had that's taken some some time to get done and um if we could let's work to be a little more expeditious on these rules you and i both want that thank you very much thank you um so members without objection the the proposed emergency rule is reviewed and approved with review and approval being effective 12:01 a.m. Saturday, April 5th, 2025. Thank you, Madam Secretary, you're dismissed. All right, next on the agenda, Department of Commerce, emergency rule regarding a community assistance grant program. If the department would come to the table, please.
And if you would recognize yourself for the
Speaker 19
2:50
record, you may proceed. Morning members. Jay Quinley, Director of Legislative Affairs for the Arkansas Department of Commerce. What you see before you members is an emergency rule to amend the Community Assistance Grant Program rules. This was an existing grant program within the Department of Commerce. Prior, it had never been adequately fund. This session, there was an appropriation passed that increased it to $10 million, and the new rule reflects those changes. The two major changes are it increases
the pool of eligible applicants to include certain non-profits and it raises the award cap from 50 000 to 1.5 million dollars i'm happy to take any questions all right committee questions for
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
3:29
the department uh co-chair eaves you said certain non-profits do you have any
Representative Les D. Eaves
Unverified
3:32
kind of examples or what you're looking at there yes sir let me pull up the
Speaker 19
3:39
text of the rule so in this case these would be non-profits that participate in the type of projects that are
covered in the program so those would be community development and assistant projects so these would be ones involving the construction or renovation of community centers libraries public health and safety facilities or non-profits that provide police or firefighting equipment members any other questions all right seeing
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
4:11
none thank you for being here uh without objection the proposed emergency rules reviewed and approved and review and approval shall be effective
1201 a.m saturday april 5th 2025. thank you
all right uh next on the agenda the broker consulting services contract missed there if you would please Thank
Speaker 27
4:39
you, Mr. Chair. Jill Thayer, Bureau of Legislative Research. Everyone should have in their packets a copy of the broker and consulting services agreement between the Bureau and Stevens.
This is based on your approval at your last meeting to select Stevens to be the broker for the new captive program that is currently the legislations moving through the General Assembly. This contains all the terms that you saw in their presentation. It is contingent upon passage of the legislation, and the fees are exactly as we're presented. So I won't go into too much detail because we're short on time. I'll just take any questions.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
5:21
Thank you, Ms. Thayer. Any questions from the committee? Seeing none, what's the will of
the committee? Representative Rice, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Rice, I apologize. I amend both. I'm
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
5:35
happy with the title. I move that we approve the contract and authorize BLR to sign the contract to the Department of Transformation and Shared Services on July 1st, 2025. Committee, you've heard the motion. Do I have a second?
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
5:52
I have a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you,
Speaker 27
6:00
Ms. Thayer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jill Thayer, Bureau of Legislative Research. You also have in your packet a Draft master management services agreement between the Bureau of Legislative Research and Willis Towers Watson who this committee selected to be the captive manager for the proposed captive program Again, this complies with all the provisions that were presented to you in their response to the RFP and their presentation
and is contingent upon passage of the legislation. I'll answer any questions.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
6:32
All right, members, any questions? Seeing none, what's the will of the committee? Please hit
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
6:43
your button. I move that we approve the contract and authorize BLR to sign the contract to the Department of Transformation and Shared Services on July 1, 2025. Thank you
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
6:56
for that motion. I have a second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Ayes have it. Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to item E. There is a report. Sorry, Ms. Thayer. Trying to move us
right along this morning. You're recognized.
Speaker 27
7:18
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jill Thayer again for the Bureau. You have in your packets an addendum to the ACASO Consulting Services report on the procurement study. As we were working towards drafting the bill, there was one recommendation they had made just to clarify some language to do with political subdivisions voting on whether or not to use competitive bidding. some of the language wasn't exactly clear and as we drafted the uh the bill we realized it needed
to be clarified in their report also so this matches the language that's in the bill that's current currently going through it's just an addendum to their report for
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
8:03
um without objection we will accept the addendum for the acoso report unless there's any questions before we do so see no questions then the uh this is
accepted by the committee without objection. Ms. Garrity.
Speaker 38
8:16
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Marty Garrity with the Bureau of Legislative Research. The next item
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
8:21
on your agenda is the initial report from Oldsburg SPI
on their film production and study. This is as a result of a lot of work, a lot of information working with DFA, and Leon and Mira were here for a week interviewing members and persons within the film industry, as well as they went to Northwest Arkansas. There are recommendations in the report, and Leon is here to answer any questions that they might have, that y'all might have.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
8:56
Thank you, Director. Members, we have Ellsberg online if there are any questions for them. So this
would now be the time to, Senator Tucker, you would hit your button once you log in. You're right now, Senator Tucker, for
a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
9:19
know these meetings go quickly, but I just got this right now. Is there any chance, I don't want to be out of order,
but we could ask for like a 90-second overview of the preliminary
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
9:31
report or something? Not at all. I would ask them to present in the most expeditious manner possible that overview.
Speaker 43
9:41
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Senator Tucker. So in a very brief overview, as Ms. Garrity has said, we have now submitted a first draft of the report. It includes all of our findings to date and we had a very successful research trip to Arkansas interviewing over 30 individuals, including producers, business owners, sector supply chain, those working in the training sector, legislators, filmmakers and so on.
And after our visit to Arkansas, we spent some time interviewing investors, looking at the state to bring projects. We also have concluded an initial pass of our economics for the study. And what you have in your packets, I believe, today has the gross economic numbers. So we're undertaking at the moment an additionality survey, which will remove economic deadweight from the numbers and show the net impact of how the Arkansas Digital Product and Motion Picture Incentive is functioning in order to bring productions in.
We don't expect the numbers to change very much because incentives in this sector play a very key role in attracting production. And just finally to wrap up, we also provide a set of key initial recommendations. I think the key thing to underline is that we did find that there is opportunity for Arkansas in this sector. And in order to progress the opportunity, there are four key recommendations, which I'll just mention as headlines right now.
one is related to the reforming of the incentive and there's a lot of detail in the study about that there's a recommendation around linking any extent incentive expansion to an industry development strategy there's a recommendation around expanding the film commission and what it what it does in the sector and finally a recommendation around improving data collection and publication and clarity.
That's a very brief overview of a lot of information and happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Questions from the committee?
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
12:05
Senator Tucker, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
12:09
Thank you very, very much for that, Leon. So you hit basically the high level on the recommendations, which is great. At the same level, can you give us a summary of what you found as at least to the information you have at this point on the economic impact yeah for
Speaker 43
12:25
sure so we and again not to take up too much time but we have a
couple of lenses in which we look at the economic impact one is the overall impact as you you know which takes into account all of the production that has used the incentive between fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2025 to date, we found that incentivized production had delivered $64.6 million in total GVA for Arkansas over that time, taking into account direct, indirect
and induced effects. And that equates to a return on investment of around $4.60 again in total GVA. And as I say, that's a that's a gross number. We're still doing the the work to assess the dead weight so that that number may come down. But there's certainly a positive ROI. We did find there is an outlier production during the time we were looking at one production that spent far in far in advance.
sorry for an excess of typical productions that are made in arkansas so in the report we also break down that production individually and productions overall excluding that outlier production to give as thorough view of um of the impacts as possible was that true detective season three i don't know if we have the if we were given the actual title okay uh of the production in the data set we received.
Speaker 42
14:04
Okay. Thank you all very much for your work, and thanks for
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
14:13
this preliminary report. Thank you. Thank you,
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
14:16
Senator Tucker. All right, President Ledeman, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had a question on your recommendation number three, where it talks about the number of employees in the Arkansas Film Commission compared to other states. My question is, how impactful is that to the overall program? We don't rank very well with these other states.
Texas has 12. We have one. Is that a major component of drawing
Speaker 43
14:44
people in? Yes. Thank you, Representative, for the question. And one of the one of the items we were asked to look at is how does how does the Arkansas structures for supporting this sector compare with sort of state neighbors and state competitors? And obviously, the resourcing assigned to a film commission is a key consideration there because a film commission, as you'll be aware, is a is a key structural component in supporting an industry and supporting its development.
Yeah. And the finding is pretty clear that the the the Arkansas Film Commission is, you know, very much under resourced when compared with some of the some of the competitors, which I think, you know, logically limits the amount of sexual development that can be undertaken. But I would also point out that that is linked to the size of the incentive. You'll see also in the report that you have that the annual cap for the Arkansas incentive is also very much lower than some of the other comparable states.
So those with larger incentive budgets or incentive amounts also have a larger staff function in their film commissions. Thank you. Thank you. President Hester, you're recognized.
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
16:08
Is there an unlimited supply or need for these grants? Like if at some point, if Oklahoma's doing them and Texas is doing them and Georgia's putting out a bunch, if Arkansas puts these up, like, is there enough demand to go around?
Speaker 43
16:29
Thank you. That's a very, very key question, particularly in the industry at the moment, which I'm sure everyone will be aware has been, you know, has had some significant headwinds through the pandemic and through some of the labour strikes in recent years. You know, and there is a finite amount of production. I think we've very much taken that into account. And in the report, you know, we're not suggesting that the opportunity we've found is for for Arkansas to target a huge commitment in terms of investment towards this sector.
But given the fact there is a sector in state and there are opportunities for Arkansas to attract more production, it's about sort of pegging that ambition to what is realistic for the state. So I think there certainly is an opportunity, but it needs to be sort of carefully calibrated to ensure
Speaker 55
17:29
that the state is investing in the right way, I would say.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
17:36
all right any other questions from the committee seeing none thank you for the report presentation and I think we will spend some time looking at it thank you moving on to Senator Tucker
you're recognized so this is the preliminary do we'd have a timeline for a final director Garrity would spoken with Leon and Mira
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
18:07
and the second part will take about two
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
18:16
months okay all right thank you all right moving on to item G members cost a consulting agreement well they're currently working with OSP to assist with rule changes that legislation is making its way through in the process so we you know they're going to be working to do trainings and and all the things related to the original contract and so
we we feel like since the contract expires May 1 that we need to extend this to allow that time to continue to work so with that I will entertain a motion to approve the extension for three months on the terms that cost of contract do I have that motion I have motion I have a second any discussion on the motion see none all in favor say aye any opposed all right thank you moving on to item H
waiver requests Conway School District please come to the
table and recognize yourself for the record
Speaker 59
19:29
please thank you mr. chair and committee dr. Jeff column superintendent of schools for Conway Public Schools and
Speaker 60
19:37
I'm Shastity Wagner I'm the chief legal officer for Conway Public
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
19:41
Schools thank you thank you for being here would you proceed
Chair
Unverified
19:44
thank you chair and as I stated I'm
Shastity Wagner with Conway Public Schools we are here today to request to exceed the cooperative purchasing for construction services aggregate amount in accordance with arkansas code annotated 1911-249-d this request is for a renovation of bob and betty courtway middle school to start as soon as students leave in may and then be finished when they return in august we're happy to answer any of your questions all right representative evans speaker evans you recognized thank
Representative Brian S. Evans
Unverified
20:15
you mr chairman uh dr collins i appreciate you and your team being here today and
just following through um with this process specifically uh as it was laid out by legislative council i think this is uh this is good work in making sure that we're following this process also just want to commend one of your directors eric king who was available to answer some questions that i had and i appreciate the fact that you're using local vendors on this and and helping with the local economy and folks in the conway district i did just have one question
over on the four season service company estimate i noticed that multiple times throughout that estimate it says that like conway public schools will provide materials in labor conway public schools or cps will provide necessary gas piping materials and labor is that something that you typically try to do in these projects utilize just just in-house resources to be able to minimize the expense on these projects yes sir in my
Speaker 59
21:21
four years there our maintenance team has done an
incredible job of trying to pick up the labor parts and our labor actions as much as possible they do a quality job you mix that with the quality partnership with these vendors that works very well we've already delayed this project a full year and in order to get this moving that's why we had to go through this process to get here today well
Representative Brian S. Evans
Unverified
21:45
we understand the the time sensitivity of it being able to do these projects especially in
an elementary school to be less disruptive for students while the project is going on so thank you for presenting this and following
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
21:57
the process thank you Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Any other questions from the committee? Seeing none, do I
have a motion to approve? Motion. Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Ayes have it. Motion carries. Thank you for being here. Thank you. All right. Members, seeing no further business, thank you for your time this morning and we are adjourned.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of Emergency Rules:
C. Discussion of Broker and Consulting Services Agreement by and between BLR and Stephens Insurance, LLC
D. Discussion of Master Management Services Contract by and between BLR and Willis Towers Watson, Ltd.
E. Addendum to Ikaso Consulting Final Report for the Procurement Study Recommendations
F. Presentation of the Initial Report in the Motion Picture Production Study by Olsberg-SPI
G. Amendment to the Consulting Services Agreement by and between BLR and Ikaso Consulting, LLC
H. Consideration of a Waiver Request for Cooperative Purchasing Construction Services - Conway School District
I. Other Business
J. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
Speaker 5
Speaker 19
Representative Les D. Eaves
Unverified
Speaker 27
Senator Terry Rice
Unverified
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
Speaker 37
Speaker 38
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
Speaker 43
Speaker 42
Senator Bart Hester
Unverified
Speaker 55
Speaker 59
Speaker 60
Chair
Unverified
Representative Brian S. Evans
Unverified