Transportation, Technology & Legislative Affairs - Senate
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Bills discussed (18)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
SB540
Act 702
· 10 mentions in agenda, chapter, transcript
Matched: “…IAL CARGO TRANSPORTED BY A FARM MACHINERY EQUIPMENT HAULER. SB540 M. Johnson TO LIMIT THE SUSPENSION OR REVOCATION OF A DRIVE…”
|
TO LIMIT THE SUSPENSION OR REVOCATION OF A DRIVER'S LICENSE OR IMPOSITION OF RESTRICTIONS ON … | M. Johnson | Notification that SB540 is now Act 702 |
|
SB96
· 9 mentions in agenda, chapter, transcript
Matched: “…SPOSITION OF REAL PROPERTY BY THE STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION. SB96 C. Penzo TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DETACHMENT BY A REGION…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DETACHMENT BY A REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY; AND TO REPEAL REGIONAL … | C. Penzo | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB492
Act 699
· 5 mentions in agenda, chapter, transcript
Matched: “…ant Sen. Jamie Scott REGULAR AGENDA Number Sponsor Subtitle SB492 J. Bryant TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE RELOCATION OF UTI…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE RELOCATION OF UTILITY FACILITIES; AND TO AMEND THE LAW … | J. Bryant | Notification that SB492 is now Act 699 |
|
SB258
· 4 mentions in transcript, chapter, agenda
Matched: “presenting Senate Bill 258 to you several weeks ago. We've worked with the Arkansas Se…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS DIGITAL RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, AND TRUST ACT. | C. Penzo | Died on Senate Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB496
Act 700
· 4 mentions in agenda, transcript, chapter
Matched: “…T OF FEDERAL REGULATION OF CERTAIN TYPES OF DIESEL ENGINES. SB496 Caldwell TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PERMITS FOR SPECIAL CA…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PERMITS FOR SPECIAL CARGOES; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING … | Caldwell | Notification that SB496 is now Act 700 |
|
HB1798
Act 531
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ION ON AN ARKANSAS DRIVER’S LICENSE OR IDENTIFICATION CARD. HB1798 Nazarenko TO ESTABLISH A GREEN ENVELOPE PROGRAM. HB1845 Hol…”
|
TO ESTABLISH A GREEN ENVELOPE PROGRAM. | Nazarenko | Notification that HB1798 is now Act 531 |
|
SB561
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ING THE RELEASE OF A VEHICLE THAT HAS BEEN TOWED OR STORED. SB561 M. Johnson TO ALLOW FOR THE ISSUANCE OF AN ADDITIONAL TEMPO…”
|
TO ALLOW FOR THE ISSUANCE OF AN ADDITIONAL TEMPORARY PREPRINTED PAPER BUYER'S TAG IN CERTAIN … | M. Johnson | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB562
Act 704
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…E USE OF AN EXPIRED TEMPORARY PREPRINTED PAPER BUYER'S TAG. SB562 Hill TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE OFFICE OF INTERNAL AUD…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE OFFICE OF INTERNAL AUDIT; AND TO REPEAL THE REQUIREMENT … | Hill | Notification that SB562 is now Act 704 |
|
HB1606
Act 922
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…estrictions designating areas as 'Members and Staff Only'. HB1606 Steimel TO ALLOW A LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO AUTHORIZE THE OPERAT…”
|
TO ALLOW A LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO AUTHORIZE THE OPERATION OF A UTILITY TASK VEHICLE ON … | Steimel | Notification that HB1606 is now Act 922 |
|
HB1666
Act 656
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ICIENCY STUDY OF THE ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION. HB1666 S. Meeks TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ARKANSAS SELF-FUND…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ARKANSAS SELF-FUNDED CYBER RESPONSE PROGRAM. | S. Meeks | Notification that HB1666 is now Act 656 |
|
HB1688
Act 710
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…GOVERNMENT'S JURISDICTION SUBJECT TO CERTAIN REQUIREMENTS. HB1688 Cavenaugh TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING THE USE OF A DEA…”
|
TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING THE USE OF A DEALER'S EXTRA LICENSE PLATE. | Cavenaugh | Notification that HB1688 is now Act 710 |
|
HB1796
Act 711
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…S LAW CONCERNING THE USE OF A DEALER'S EXTRA LICENSE PLATE. HB1796 Beaty Jr. TO REQUIRE THE DISPLAY OF GENDER INFORMATION ON A…”
|
TO REQUIRE THE DISPLAY OF GENDER INFORMATION ON AN ARKANSAS DRIVER’S LICENSE OR IDENTIFICATION CARD. | Beaty Jr. | Notification that HB1796 is now Act 711 |
|
HB1834
Act 816
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “AGENDA (Revised 04/01/25 @ 7:55 PM) Added HB1834 Senate Committee on Transportation, Technology, and Legisla…”
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TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING THE LICENSING AND REGULATION OF MOTOR VEHICLES. | Holcomb | Notification that HB1834 is now Act 816 |
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HB1845
Act 926
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…RD. HB1798 Nazarenko TO ESTABLISH A GREEN ENVELOPE PROGRAM. HB1845 Holcomb TO ALLOW THE ELECTRONIC ADMINISTRATION OF DOCUMENTS…”
|
TO ALLOW THE ELECTRONIC ADMINISTRATION OF DOCUMENTS RELATED TO THE OWNERSHIP OF MOTOR VEHICLES; TO … | Holcomb | Notification that HB1845 is now Act 926 |
|
SB330
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…N OF MOTOR VEHICLES. DEFERRED BILLS Number Sponsor Subtitle SB330 J. Scott TO AMEND THE CONTENTS OF THE WRITTEN DRIVER'S LICE…”
|
TO AMEND THE CONTENTS OF THE WRITTEN DRIVER'S LICENSE TEST AND THE DRIVER'S INSTRUCTION MANUAL; … | J. Scott | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB447
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB447 J. Petty TO REQUIRE PERMITTED COMMON CARRIERS TO SUBMIT REP…”
|
TO REQUIRE PERMITTED COMMON CARRIERS TO SUBMIT REPORTS DETAILING SHIPMENTS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES INTO THE … | J. Petty | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB478
Act 738
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…DETAILING SHIPMENTS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES INTO THE STATE. SB478 G. TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS DIESEL ENGINE FREEDOM ACT OF 2025…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS DIESEL ENGINE FREEDOM ACT OF 2025; AND TO PROHIBIT STATE ENFORCEMENT … | G. Stubblefield | Notification that SB478 is now Act 738 |
|
SB541
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…A DRIVER'S LICENSE OF A PERSON WHO HAS SUFFERED A SEIZURE. SB541 G. Leding TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE TOWING OR STORAGE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE TOWING OR STORAGE OF A VEHICLE, IMPLEMENT, OR PIECE … | G. Leding | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
Machine transcript
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- October 2, 2026
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
0:10
isn't in the neurology specializes in adult neurology, so we'd like to present Senate Bill 540, and I promise you we'd do it quickly, uh. The Senate Bill 540 Representative in it and I've been working on this and Representative Furman, who's had some experience with this problem has joined us as a co-sponsor. Under current law, the Office of Driver Services
may require a driver to submit to evaluation by hearing officer when the cost the possible that they might be suffering with seizure, uh, basically what we're doing is And I, I got into this kind of interestingly. We had a doctor the day. It was a neurologist that I talked to about it, and she pointed out that it's important that people be able to maintain their ability to drive because epilepsy and other such seizure disorders can be
controlled by medication and she even, she felt that the one year period was probably too long and the reason was that she said, Someone might lose their job after a long period of time if they couldn't drive and that I'm going to let Ms. Cox talk about the neurological side of it, and then I'll wrap up on what we're going to do on the legal side of things, so you push this button I can do that. When it OK, when it's green. Perfect.
Speaker 6
1:44
Good evening committee. So I'm Olivia Cox. I'm a nurse practitioner. I've been, um, practicing for the last 8 years. I specialize in adult neurology. The goal of this bill, SB 540, is to align Arkansas state law with evidence-based practice regarding driving restrictions and persons who have suffered from a seizure. Um, current policy requires a 12 month seizure-free interval, um, SB 540 will reduce that to a maximum of 6 months, which is In line with the majority of other states, um, difficult
conversations are commonplace in my specialty, where many diseases that we treat are chronic, progressive, and often have few treatment options. Um, that said, I can tell you with certainty that the most difficult and dreaded conversations I have with patients always pertains to persons who have suffered a seizure and how it impacts their ability to drive. Um, unfortunately, these conversations occur just about every day. The ability to drive is a key factor in quality of life, and
when that ability is restricted, it's significantly impacts an individual's autonomy, their ability to work and to care for their families. Um, the, these are the trends that we see in the literature, states with mandatory reporting and prolonged seizure-free interval requirements such as ours do not reduce the risk of seizure-related motor vehicle fatalities. Um, compared to shorter seizure-free interval requirements and in fact, longer seizure-free interval requirements and mandatory
clinician reporting increased the likelihood of an unlicensed driving and patients withholding information about their condition from practitioners. Uh, SB 540 will bring Arkansas closer to the American Academy of Neurology and American Epilepsy Society. The recent position statement that was released earlier this month that is aimed to balance public safety with the rights and quality of life of individuals with epilepsy. I have a uh several patient-specific examples of how
the 12 month interval has dramatically and negatively impacted their quality of life for the sake of everybody's time, skip over those. I'm happy to go back to them if we would like to discuss them each, but you know, situations like this where we're having to restrict patients from driving that should be able to try again, the data says that a 3 to 6 month period of no for epilepsy patient is sufficient, is safe, right? And so SP 540 is a step in the right direction to align Arkansas law
with clinical evidence and national trends, 38 other states have a 6 month or less requirement for seizure-free. Um, and ultimately this bill promotes the personal independence and well-being of people with epilepsy, which affects over 333,000 Arkansans, and we're doing
Speaker 5
4:35
that without compromising public safety. Thank you guys all for your time. I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
4:54
Seeing no question from see no questions from the committee. Is there anyone here to speak for or against the
bill? That's her so no one is the will of the committee. Motion to pass Senator Scott, secondly Senator Bryant. All in favor, say I. It was the same time. Congratulations, enter your bill passed. Thank you.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
5:19
You want to go ahead and run Senator Caldwell. Thank you. Thank you.
We find it, Mr. Chairman. Here we go. This is Senate Bill 496. Go ahead, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mark Johnson, Senate District 17. This is Senator Caldwell's bill, uh, it, it
Cleans up the law regarding permits for special cargoes and primarily we're talking about farm machinery hauling. And it changes one word and a 2 or 3 places. It changes the word. Dealer to holler. And this is just the actual entity that's hauling the piece of farm equipment rather than the dealer because sometimes that's a third party or someone that is contracted by the dealer. This has to do with permits, uh,
my understanding from the senator from Senator Caldwell is that our dot is good with this. They can get some annual permits rather than it being case by case thing and it cleans it up administratively both for RAT and for the haulers. I'll be. I will try to answer any questions. Thank you, Senator Johnson. Any
questions? Seeing none, is there anyone Senator Bryant. Do
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
6:48
you know if it, if it, this hurts a dealer.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
6:58
Like we're changing from a dealer to a hauler, so if I bought a piece of equipment. from a dealer They could do this, but if we're going to change the name to a holler, does that mean that dealer has
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
7:11
to haul hire a hauler. Well, no, no,
sir, it means that the dealer is a hauler. Not all hollers, not hollers or dealers, but all dealers of this type of equipment are haulers, so it would, it would cover those that are existing dealers that do the hauling plus a third party contractor or someone that
would be doing the hauling. That's my understanding of it, Senator Bryant. Any other
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
7:35
questions? Saying no, is there anyone here to speak for or against the bill. Center, are you closed? I'm
Speaker 22
7:43
closed. What's the will of the committee? Motion to
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
7:47
pass Johnson II by Senator Bryant. All of the paper say I. Oh, congratulations. OK, now we're gonna get back on track. Sandra Bryant.
OK. And then emotionally, and this, OK, we've got a No, we never go to that. I
Speaker 35
8:06
know, but we're gonna have a new amendment that's gonna incorporate that, so we have to expunge the vote by which it passed Monday night. He didn't have the amendment amendment did, OK, we
Speaker 38
8:17
got, OK, so explains the vote. You got it down what you're supposed to do Joshua Bryant, Senate District 32, like to make a motion to expunge the amendment. The adoption of the amendment motion there.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
8:31
To expunge, do we have a second? 2nd, all those in favor say aye oh same sign and then we got a thank you now
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
8:44
we have a new amendment. And while, while that's being passed out, um, the utilities and our dot met and Me. I guess it would have been yesterday. At yesterday morning and spent a few hours both both entities got got comfortable with this language. All sides are good.
All sides are OK as far as I know there's 0 opposition. SB 492. So uh at the appropriate time, I like to make a motion to adopt the amendment. And or
Speaker 38
9:15
to explain the minute we have a motion to adopt a
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
9:20
seconded by Senator Johnson, all those in favor say a whole same sign. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank the bill
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
9:28
as amended to explain the bill as amended. We did remove the language for any type of withholding of permits, um, we
cleaned up the language about civil penalties to make sure that civil penalties started at the appropriate time that the utilities could agree with change the uh reporting statements to every 2 months instead of every month and left the existing language that was adopted previously in the previous amendment intact that way all parties were satisfied. OK. Any questions from the committee? Saying no, is
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
9:59
there anyone here to speak for or against the bill.
Speaker 38
10:07
Center, you're free to close. I'm close. It's been a good process. I think we've got a good product, so with that I'd make a motion do pass as amended. I have a motion to
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
10:17
pass amended, seconded by Senator Scott, all those in favor say aye, same time. Since your bill passed. Santo Penza. Yeah, I
do want to announce before he gets down there if anyone is here, I got to this at the beginning for a house built. We will not be hearing house
bills tonight. We're gonna hear all house bills Monday.
So if you're here for a house bill. Just wanna make sure everyone's aware
Speaker 35
10:49
of that. And we've got an amendment on 996 1st, OK, I got a house. In. Senator Penzo, are you
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
11:03
starting with the SB 96 SP 258 is probably quicker. OK.
Speaker 52
11:10
And then, then we can do SB 96. We've got an amendment on that
Speaker 37
11:16
one too. Oh, this one's going to be faster than the other one, I, I
Speaker 56
11:23
believe so. OK. We need to do the amendment first. Good. Passing out an amendment, so you'll need to Present your amendment for adoption.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
11:44
motion to adopt. We have a second. So Got a second there. Senator Penzo, I would like
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
11:55
for you to discuss the amendment though. OK, I I'll let him introduce himself and kind of explain the moment he's worked on it more
Josh Bryant
Unverified
12:04
than I have, so. Oh Uh, hi, my name is Josh Bryant. I appreciate the committee having me back. I'm from Northwest Arkansas and happy to present the amendment.
Speaker 68
12:16
OK, um, over we're not gonna go page by page to the bill again if that's OK with the committee, but we have worked extensively with multiple parties after
Josh Bryant
Unverified
12:26
presenting Senate Bill 258 to you several weeks ago. We've worked with the Arkansas Securities Department and FINRA. We've worked with the Attorney General's office. We've worked with TechNett who was here speaking against the bill last time we were here, worked with the National Insurance Crime Bureau, several other who have come out and said they have concerns of broadband had
some concerns with it and so the amendment that you have in front of you right now. Addresses all concerns that we're aware of except for one. The one sticking point is on a 60 day cure period whereby if the Attorney general became aware of a um A violation of
Speaker 68
13:06
the law that they would have to give notice to the offending business and then they would have 60 days
Josh Bryant
Unverified
13:13
to cure that, um, and then have to jump through some hoops to show that
not only that they have cured the problem, but that they've taken steps to make sure that that problem doesn't happen again. When we first drafted this bill and presented to Senator Penzo, it had a 60 day cure period in there, and Senator Penzo very wisely said, Hey, if the Attorney general is going to have to enforce this, we want to make sure that they have a chance to look at it before I file it and In the red lines that came back from the Attorney General's office, they did not want the 60 day cure period. Uh, the, the comments we got on that was that it was a administrative headache to do a 60 day cure period and that ultimately if there was a
violation of the law in Arkansas, consumers were being harmed. The Attorney general wanted the authority to act, and so we removed the 60 day cure period. Now there's some big tech companies across the country who would like that 60 day cure period reinstated, that is not in the amendment before you and I think Ultimately from my perspective, the vast majority of Arkansans have decided Tim Griffin is the right person to be in that office. His office does not want the 6 day cure period, and I think that deserves a little bit of deference,
but every other concern that has been raised to us regarding, for example, the sale of personal data and how we define that regarding the lawful basis for processing personal information not being anything similar to Europe. We've we've backed all of that out of there. We've made substant changes all of the AI stuff is gone. All of the
Speaker 68
14:40
biometric stuff is gone, you know, this, this will, this amendment will give the bill a good 15 page haircut, uh, so
Josh Bryant
Unverified
14:49
with that I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the amendment, and we can go from there. Remember as you heard the explanation of the amendment. They've already adopted the
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
15:05
amendment, we've already adopted it, so for that, so send your Frida. your bill now then. Well, we, we have people to sign if there's no questions from the members, we have 2 people. You got anything
Speaker 35
15:14
else you wanna say center? I mean, I, I think we went into
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
15:21
pretty deep detail on this last time, so if
there's not any questions, I would just go ahead and close and ask for a good vote.
No, we got, we got somebody here to speak for and against. Oh, we do. Yes. OK. I'll reserve the Jennifer McCool
Speaker 8
15:34
speaking far. Hello, my name is Jennifer McCool with Northwest Arkansas.
Speaker 74
15:52
I'm a compliance privacy and operations consultant, so I work with businesses on a regular basis for privacy needs. I view data privacy as the cornerstone of modern compliance because data itself is what we need for modern technology, but I started compliance in banking where that's accepted that that data is protected And Healthcare data is protected. We
need to think beyond that. And understand that with the growth of technology. comes the need for more and more data and guardrails on how that data is used, how that data is obtained and that the people have a right to say what happens to that data. I've talked with many software engineering managers, project managers who have said that's my data. No, it's not. It's someone's data, and you get the privilege of
using that data, and I think there's a big distinction. So I think we need something like this on the books and what these states that have already passed this are looking for are those guardrails to protect this information. Thank you. OK. Thank you for that. Is there any questions from the committee? See
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
17:08
none, thank you. And we have Katie Butler. Katie, I know you're an attorney
because it says that here, so,
Speaker 82
17:29
but let's keep it short. Yes sir. Um, good evening. Good to see you all again. I am an attorney. I am represent a generally small businesses in data privacy and cybersecurity compliance, smaller businesses than Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, those kinds of businesses. Um, my clients often are um they're not concerned with complying with an Arkansas privacy law because we don't have one yet, but, but they're concerned with complying
with the laws of twenty-ish other states. Um, and generally they make the decision to provide the same rights to Arkansans that they provide to everybody else. So, um, I represent a base of small to medium sized businesses, um, that are that are volunteering to to um take on privacy compliance obligations for our on behalf of ourkansans that they currently don't have to. Um, and I just thought it's such a strong juxtaposition to some of the um companies that um
have come out in opposition or or common offenders of privacy rights and that um that opposed this bill, um, so I just want to kind of make the, the point that there are so many companies that are doing that, doing things really well and that are really trying to protect consumers out there, um, and they are not the companies that are currently being sued by our attorney general for for for data mishandling, um, and in fact, the companies that oppose this bill are the same. companies that are currently in
litigation with with our AT right now, um. So I support this bill because it it brings Arkansas into the kind of the same, it provides Arkansas, Arkansans with the same rights that many, many state state residents already have. Any questions the committee? Singing none. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
19:30
Center, you're free to close and while you're closed, if you'd remind me how many other states are
Jess Askew
Unverified
19:40
doing this. There are currently 20 states. That are currently doing this. Thank you. Thank you.
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
19:46
I'll I'll go ahead and close and ask for a good vote. What is the will
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
19:54
of the committee? Motion to pass. Do we have as amended.
Do we have a second? Have a second Basin Bryant. All those in favor say aye. Oh same sign.
Jess Askew
Unverified
20:14
Century bill passed. Thank you committee. And uh, have someone here to come up for Senate Bill 96. We have in the moment. Thank you. There we go.
happened Thank you We Have we adopted this amendment? If not, OK. My name is
Jess Askew. I'm a lawyer for the city of Hyville. I practice here in Little Rock.
Speaker 97
21:17
Thank you, Sandra, if you would present your amendments. OK, if you will I have been
Jess Askew
Unverified
21:24
explained him in. I'm happy to do that. The original
Speaker 99
21:28
Senate Bill 96 would have struck much of the 2023 Act 769 that allows a regional airport to detach from a city, and of course that's what the issue is between the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport and the city of Hyville. The airport is within the city of Hyville and wishes to detach.
So in 2023 there was a bill that was passed that allowed a regional airport to detach. This amendment. backs way ratchets down the original bill by simply going at the escrow provision. The escrow provision as this committee may recall is something that applies immediately upon the filing of a petition to a detach from a city.
And on the filing of that petition to detach. This the bill as passed 2 years ago. Automatically freezes all sales tax revenues collected by the city. And requires that they be escrowed to pay bonded indebtedness. The existing bond agreements that the city has for its sales taxes allow the city to collect the sales tax.
Pay the debt service out of the sales tax. Uh, water revenues pay operating. Depreciation and maintenance expenses, sales tax pays the debt service, and then there's plenty of money left over. And the bondholders have agreed with the city that the city can use that money for any lawful purpose. What This escrow provision does is turn that back around and it bottles up every nickel. of sales tax revenue that the city collects.
There was um. I mean, there's no process. There's no court hearing. There's no court order. Simply filing the complaint to detach in county court is enough to create this escrow. The no city can function like that when a single citizen can file a lawsuit that takes away all sales tax. This amendment would let the city and the airport operate.
Business as usual while they work through the detachment process, it would not take away the detachment process, so the airport could still detach from the city. They just can't bottle up all the escrow uh sales tax. This amendment would also strike a portion of the statute that prohibited the city from filing a contract impairment lawsuit, uh, which is something that the circuit judge in Benton County
has already said he thought as unconstitutional, so this would clean that out and I think you've got the amendment before you, and I'm happy to um. Speak more specifically to it, but this is Vastly different, much narrower than the amendment
Speaker 101
24:36
that was originally proposed as Senate Bill 96. Thank you for that explanation of the amendment. Any, any questions on the amendment for the committee.
Michelle Allgood
Unverified
24:54
Say no, what's the will of the committee? Yeah, but that this is just on amendment. OK. Oh yeah, this is only
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
25:03
the amendment. We're just motion to adopt amendment. I got a second. All in favor say I same time. Enter you're free to present your bill as amended. All right? I
Speaker 99
25:15
think it's to me again, I'll be very brief. Uh, 2 weeks ago, this committee asked Hi Phil in the airport to meet and come up with an agreement.
We thought we did. The agreement that the Highfill agreed to was that of the $2 million of sales tax, Highfill would take 900,000. And all the rest would go to pay bond debt whether the principal and interest on a monthly basis or an escrow that would pay additional monthly uh or additional principal and interest. When Highfield got the document back the next morning. The 900,000 had changed to
$250,000 because the airport sent back a document that said you get 900,000 but you have to pay. The $650,000 worth of principal and interest on the bonds out of that, and then you can keep what's left and everything else. Goes to pay the bonds, and that's not what the deal was, so we are here to try to get this escrow provision. Taken out of the bill that the airport. had, you know, got passed two
years ago because that escrow provision is really a, well, it's just a, it's. I hate to be too graphic, but it's like standing on the neck of somebody. This city cannot survive without those sales taxes. No city can, and I'm not aware of any instance in Arkansas law where the mere filing of a lawsuit means that a city cannot use its Sales tax revenues for agreed purposes that are agreed with
the bondholders. The bondholders have no problem, and this is the agreement that the bondholders made. So That's it. In a nutshell, we're trying to get to a point where the city can operate business as usual without this threat of imminent financial catastrophe. Uh, while we work through the detachment process. Thank you. Any questions from the committee? And right. Like you, did you happen to
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
27:30
bring copies of the November proposed. Versus the March 17th proposed. Yes, I think I do. I may have to
Speaker 116
27:36
fish around for them in my file here because I I looked
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
27:40
at the difference of the two, and I didn't see the things I saw in the march order were exactly as I left that meeting thinking as they would be. And so when you say they proposed 250,000. I mean, the order I saw was it proposed 900,000 12 payments of $75 of what what was uh sent in
Speaker 99
28:03
March actually says that of the sales tax revenue, the first money that comes out pays the principal and interest. That's 650,000. So now we're at 900 minus 650. That's the 250. Is that different
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
28:15
than what was proposed in November. Absolutely. Oh.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
28:22
in November for 747,000 and then they substitute that for 900,000 the city never
Speaker 100
28:28
agreed to that entire framework that X and a presented in
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
28:34
November or in March. So the meeting was, we don't agree to it unless the money went
Speaker 99
28:40
up to 900,000 of the 2 high field gets 900,000, more than half of it goes to pay the bills either front end monthly debt service or escrow at the back end. That's what, that's what the city agreed to. I just want
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
28:52
if you have, you don't, you don't have enough copies for members. I mean, the, the issue about that
Speaker 99
29:05
November and March document. That was a proposal from XNA that the Highfield never agreed to. Would you, would you get that. I'll have to fish it out. I apologize. Well, well,
Speaker 116
29:17
he's digging for that. I, I, I know that.
Jess Askew
Unverified
29:38
Josh and I were. Senator Bryant and I were both sitting in the same meeting, um. The way
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
29:48
I understood it and I realized we may have understood it differently, uh, was because I asked the question. $900,000 just to spend. And the risk goes to pay. The bond. And it's That's how I stated it and they're like, yeah, it's more complicated than that, there's a waterfall process.
But $900,000 will go into the water account $900,000 will come out. So I'm like, OK, whatever the Mechanism that has to go through as long as There's $900,000 and it's interesting because we all can still have these conversations and they're like, yeah, that's what's happening. And I'm like, but. But that's not what's happening because if, if, if it's a double barrel bond and there's money coming in from two revenue streams.
They're saying that there's state law that says that it has to. All be the water system has to pay for the water system. And this is, I mean, he can maybe elaborate more on that, but. My understanding was 900,000 went to the water account, 900 can come out to be used for lawful, uh, I forget how it's worded exactly purposes lawful municipal purposes. So my understanding was they had $900,000 to operate the city.
The rest of the $1 million plus would go to paying off the, the bond debt service and accelerate. The bond payoff. Um, that's how I took it now, and, but if we have this conversation, everybody agrees that's what was said, but the the framework of what happens in that waterfall system, uh. Gives two different outcomes based on my understanding and and other people in the rooms
understanding, so I, I, I see how first I
Jess Askew
Unverified
31:47
couldn't understand why we are all saying the same thing, agreeing. Hey, this is great. This was, this was way too easy. And, you know, if it's too good to be true, a lot of times it is too good to be true, so, um, but, but, you know, maybe
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
32:04
I misunderstood, uh, maybe they misunderstood, but. I guess it's just it's a, it's an unfortunate situation because the. My understanding was, and even
even Senator Hester was quoted on 4029 state and they had $900,000 to spend. You know, on The city, um, and the rest went to pay bond payments, so I don't, I don't even think he understood the ins and outs, and I'm not really sure who he talked to to get that information when he was, you know, speaking to 4029 on it, but
Jess Askew
Unverified
32:39
um if there's there's any questions I. Be happy to explain more.
Speaker 99
32:47
And if I may, this the senator mentioned a double barrel bond. This is a bond that's based on water, sewer, sales tax and general revenues. The revenues that have come in are water and of course sewer is part of the water bill, and Sales tax. The water system revenues pay for operating, maintaining and depreciation on the water system. The debt service of principal and interest on the bonds is
paid by either the water revenues or the sales taxes, and the city has historically used the sales tax revenues because it did not have enough water revenues to pay the debt service. And the bond documents give the city that option. I apologize, Senator Bryant.
Speaker 132
33:32
I saw you hit the button. No, I don't know,
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
33:38
wait for that, maybe wait for those documents, but I guess the question that I'll, I'll I'll propose is
we passed, uh, exact 605 2021 that dealt with water rate studies, and if you're gonna Pool water rate study and add in the debt service into that study to come up with your water rate. Is that, is that something that Heiel did? To get the water rates where they were. And if they did, then that revenue. Coming in on those water rates if I'm a ratepayer. would be dictated that they're going to go to pay for the purposes which the rates are the
way they are. And so if you're saying they're going to have a revenue that pays for operations maintenance. And all things that go around a water, but the rate study says, oh, in addition to that, I also got. X amount of millions of dollars out. And so I need to average that out and bring my water rates up, but then I'm gonna take a million dollars and I'm gonna pigeonhole it over here and surplus. But then I'm going to take this money and plug the hole. I mean, that's, I don't think that's
what the law intended. I don't think that's what the rate
Speaker 99
34:49
study intended. Well, and that's not what Highfill does, and these bonds preexist that statute, I believe, Your Honor, Senator, these were refund bonds in 2018 and 2021, and the original bonds predated that and as I say, they weren't just water bonds, they were sales tax bonds. And The bond agreements allow the city to use its discretion to pull money out of sales tax or
water or either not for all operating expenses, but just for the debt service. And so that's, that's the disconnect. This is not simply a water bond. Well, yeah, and I'm not talking
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
35:31
about the bond. Forget the bond. I'm just talking about a water rate study, yes, and to that regardless of when the bonds were. We acquired if I'm talking about a water rate study and I said it's cost this much for trucks. Me and equipment Uh, maintenance and a bond.
And I consume 400 or 4 million gallons a month and I'm going to make this rates and now it's 8 cents a gallon or whatever, you know, not that much, but 3.8 cents a gallon. Like that, that money where it's not. The water system is not Designed to make a profit, yes. So if there's a profit held over because the rates had the bond in it and the the water rate should be paying the bond.
Speaker 114
36:18
Yes, and I don't, I can't speak directly to that. It's my
Speaker 99
36:22
understanding from the city that the city's water rates have been reviewed under the 2021 Act, and they comply with the 2021 Act, and I would suggest that maybe the idea that the bond debt service is part should be part of the water rates is not accurate because the bonds are written on sales tax in addition to water. But we don't, but I'm out of my depth
Speaker 132
36:49
at that point that I litigate constitutional
Speaker 140
36:56
questions. I don't do bonds. But you in here.
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
37:06
You weren't in here. Any other questions the committee? And, and after that exchange right there, you can probably understand why I walked out of the meeting. Not understanding what. Uh, X and was intending by. Um, the waterfall and the complications of the bonds and things like that. It was just stated 900,000 would go to the city. The rest of it would have paid
bond payments and I took that as, you know, the bond payment would also include the debt service. And members what
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
37:37
was just passed out is uh what Brown was asking about the very start. And the The attorney would like to
Speaker 38
37:43
elaborate a little bit on this. The first, the first handout was March and the 2nd handout is November of 24. OK. And uh page 3 paragraph 3 of that handout.
Speaker 99
37:59
This is where the 900,000 shrinks to 250,000. Paragraph 3 says the city will get 900,000 annually, 75,000 a month, and first it has to pay the debt service, principal and interest. That's the that's paragraph 3A. And then the remainder in paragraph B, if any, shall be used for any lawful municipal purpose. The city walked out of the meeting Monday two weeks ago, thinking that the city got
$900,000 and everything else went to debt service. This Beans that the city gets $250,000 and everything else goes to debt service, and that's just not something that the city can work with. Now it gets 2 million. In sales tax revenues, so and I'm not here to try to negotiate an agreement or anything like that. The purpose of the amendment is simply to allow business as usual so the parties can work through this. Detachment process.
And try to resolve it. At the end of the day, the detachment statute as it exists doesn't really say that absent an agreement by the city. That the city loses a nickel in in sales tax. It's only this escrow provision. That's kicks in at the beginning of a lawsuit without any any process, uh, that says that the city can't use its sales taxes for anything but
Debts are bond payments, you know, escrow for the bonds, and that's Take a city that's using sales taxes for normal operations and making it hit a brick wall. OK. Thank you. Any other questions? Saying none.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
39:50
Thank you, uh, for your testimony there. We're gonna speak for and against. We're gonna start with the against with Andrew Andrew Brant, 6 and 8.
Speaker 144
40:06
Please identify yourself with the record. Yes, sir. Andrew B C 00 X N A. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Speaker 145
40:14
Um, this has been a long process. I don't want to take a lot of everybody's time. Uh, we're opposed. We're opposed to the amendment. The amendment effectively, if we, if we understand it and our our counsel has explained it to us. I'm sure they understand it. Uh, would allow them to continue issuing new debt and would extend the sales tax. Forever Um, I think that the, the bill that was passed in 2023 was
effectively a tax cut for the citizens of Northwest Arkansas and passing this amendment would be extending or delaying this tax for however many years. It's effectively a tax increase on the citizens of Northwest Arkansas. And so we remain opposed to it. Happy to answer any questions the committee,
Speaker 38
40:56
Senator Bryant. Can you tell me when, when
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
41:00
XNA issued the November. So they handed out March.
Whenever they handed out in November, did they send it back with Any
Speaker 145
41:15
type of counteroffer or counter asks or there was a there was a counteroffer, um, I believe for 1.3 million. So we offered 746. They counted 1.3. We agreed to the 900 in the meeting. I'll give everybody the benefit of the doubt that maybe the way the waterfall and and municipal finance works is not the easiest thing. But ultimately, as as you pointed out, if, if they comply with the 2021 law, they are
charging the water customers for the debt service on the bonds, so that money is in the water fund. So when you put the 900,000 in, To pay the bond payments. Yes, you're right, you have $250,000 but you've also freed up the $650,000 approximately that have been collected from water customers, of which X and A is one. All that money becomes kicked out, so effectively you'd have $900,000 roughly available for any lawful purpose. The balance of the money for the agreement would go to retiring
the debt. But it's basically you're charging the water customers for the debt payment, not using the money for that. Then also taking the sales tax and using it for that it's effectively taking the 900,000 to 1.5 million. Until 2 years ago the city never saw that kind of sales tax revenue. And again, we we're able to account for roughly 1.85 million of the 2 million last year collected was collected by businesses at the airport that the, the city doesn't support or
provide any infrastructure for. Do you
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
42:43
know, do you know in your research and your dealings if uh because you're you're a ratepayer. Do you know if your rates that you pay? Hypo weather in or out, I guess you'd be still considered in in the limits for in-rate water in city water rates would we, are we paying that now? Yes, I believe you know if your rate includes the bond payment.
Speaker 145
43:11
So I, I would assume as everybody else in Arkansas does that the water systems are complying with state law, and the state law requires that. And I believe I wasn't sure exactly from the answers, but I believe they said it should. Certainly, uh An illustrious member of the General Assembly. Sponsored that bill in 2021. It requires the debt service be in the rate base, so I'm assuming we're paying it. There is a, I believe the last couple of years, the water system did show a positive cash flow, so I'm assuming they're collecting everything.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
43:43
OK, and I guess maybe a question for question for you, and he might be able to respond, but do you know
if if there is an active Active bond with additional revenue, you know, double barrelled paint it with the rates that still require the full. The form out of the bond to be presented within the water rate study. Are, are you asking if they, if they're
Speaker 145
44:05
required to have the full amount of the bond in the rate study, I believe so. I would defer to Senator Love, but I believe that was the intent of the legislation.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
44:29
OK. Senator Love. You don't have a question, OK, I thought you did. Any other questions? Seeing none. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And now we're going to go to Jess, just ask you. for the bill. Oh there you are, OK, uh, Chris Holland speaking for.
Speaker 163
45:05
Thank you, Kim. Man, for letting us be heard again today, uh, to, to answer some of your questions there, Senator Bryant. We did have a rate study done
Speaker 165
45:16
by his name. Uh Had a rate study done that was per law uh Mr. Coy. was one that had done our rate study, so we're following that. We get audited every year on our water on our water system, and we pass all the audits. We're not violating any state law
there on on any water audits, uh, like I said, we're, we're, uh, we're following all state laws on the water study with, with the bonds of how they're, how they're wrote because when, when high's water system, when we bought it back in the early 2000s, we only had like 13 customers, so the water system couldn't pay for itself. You know, that's, that's the reason our bonds are set the way they are, you know, so it takes water and sewer and also the sales tax to pay for all the water and sewer bonds, you know, so
that's why when I was here a couple of weeks ago. The whole time we've been asking for more time, you know, the city will grow and the city is growing right now, but the problem is if you shut everything off. Then, then we won't be able to grow. Our, our city will just eventually just die, you know, they're, they're. We don't have no sales tax to be able to go out and get new loans for for water and we're not asking to extend the, the bonds or anything of that nature like,
like a, like just got said. The airport passed this in 23. And they're stated it's business as normal, business as usual for the next 14 years. 2036, 237 is when our bonds are paid for and that's all we're asking is just give us that time and in that time, We will be able to grow, be able to to to get the income, the more businesses, the more citizens into our town to be able to absorb the sales tax that we're going to lose. That's all we're asking for. Airport, we're not asking them to stay.
This our amendment isn't changing that at all. They can still deannex out, they can leave and do whatever they want to do. All we're asking is just hold them to their word that they passed
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
47:21
this thing in 2023. Thank you. Any questions the committee, Senator Bryant.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
47:30
Yeah, so I just wanna, I just wanna make sure to your knowledge, your water rate study. Encompass the entirety of the bonds, the two different bonds, 2018 and 2021 bonds that you have acquired. You place that in
your water rate study to Get your water rates to come in.
Speaker 169
47:49
Yes, uh, to, to my knowledge, yes, because I remember Mr. Copy talking about if, if this escrow takes effect, we're gonna have to come in and redo our race study because
Speaker 165
47:58
the rates will skyrocket at that point in time. You know, so in order for the system to survive, the rates will have to go up high, uh, to, to my knowledge. Now I wish, I mean, I'm not as uh versed on it as, as you are, you seem like you're, you're,
you're up on your. So, but if you're, if
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
48:17
your water rates have the bonds in it to cover the payment plus your maintenance and your overhead. Why, why would they have to go up?
Speaker 173
48:25
So it goes back to our system is still little. And like I said, we're growing and
Speaker 165
48:31
our system will take care of itself eventually, but right now we're just not at a good place, that's all I'm asking for is just more time. I know, I know you're, you're fixed. I mean, Rogers, Bentonville, Lowell,
Solomon Springs, Centerton, they've all been established entry, I was just barely had its water system for 20 years, you know, so we're still growing. We only started growing in 2023 roughly that's when we basically had our first subdivision come in. You know, our population was 500 and some odd people, and that's all rural area. You know, but now we're 3500, 3000, somewhere in there. I, I, I don't don't hold me to it, but that's all I'm saying is what you're saying, yes, but we have
to grow. And we just need time to grow. And by taking the escrow out, it'll give us that time. We're not asking to keep X and Ian. We just need time.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
49:28
Do you charge impact fees for new customers growing in. We're we're having
Speaker 165
49:32
a study done by Tislerias at this moment in time to to research that, yes, last question, do you know what
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
49:40
your fund balance is in your in your do you keep your water
system separate than your your books. Do you know what your what your fund balance is. What it was like savings or yeah, so you're operating expenses and your and your general revenue, you know, from revenue minus expenses, what you're not.
Speaker 169
49:57
I would, I wouldn't be able to tell you the
Speaker 165
50:00
truth on that, Senator Bryant, but it's, it's on our website. You can easily look on it. I mean, I know what we got in our savings and stuff, uh. Because we, we had to go in when we left here in 2023, we have water and sewer tap fees. So in order to get some of these
projects done, we had an 18 inch sewer line that needed to go in up north of our city. So in order to afford because like if you remember when I told you guys last week that we went to try to get a loan and they just denied us on the loan, so we had to think outside the box, and we went and got uh We talked to the developers and we've done a if a developer went in and bought 50 taps at one time, they would get a discounted rate on them tabs. So in order for us to build that fund up to be able to
do the project up north. So we've got I think $1.5 million in there, but that money is earmarked to pay for a water lift station upgrade that we're having engineered at
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
51:05
this time. Love. Now this is where it is going to kick in itself,
but you, because you are charging, I will say this your adding customers, so therefore you're in charge of connection fees, different things like that, which is
generating revenue. To me, I mean to have an overage is not a big thing because you have to have deferred maintenance built into your water system, but you also have a sewer system. Yes, sir. OK,
and, and have you had a right study done on that as well, OK? We have water
Speaker 185
51:37
and sewers both had rate study, correct? Yes, sir. And so you're
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
51:40
collecting your deferred maintenance on that as well. And at this point in time,
Did you keep your deferred maintenance? Separate from your other water
fund or is it all together at this time it's all together, sir. OK. I mean, it's just, it's
Speaker 191
52:04
just one account. Uh, now we do have a, uh, you know. Can I, can I He's, yes,
Speaker 165
52:13
yes, yes, he's our water sewer operator. It's Dustin Carl. He can answer some of it because we do have
Speaker 177
52:17
an account that's a, a maintenance account that's so so much a percentage of the money goes in this maintenance account please introduce yourself for
Speaker 193
52:25
the record. Dustin Carl public works director for the city of Hyville. Senator Bryant, the rate study was done, but it was done according to the way the bonds were written. The bonds were written that the tax revenue on top of the water revenue would pay for. For the bonds, so that's where you're seeing the disconnect is when the rate study was completed. He was taken into account that the excess tax revenue would also be paying for those bond payments, and that still put us at a 1 to 1 or 1.1 ratio of debt
to coverage. So the rate study was done lawfully, but it wasn't taken in to just effect of just the water and sewer paying for those bonds. It was taken into effect that we could use the excess tax revenue as lawfully stated in the bond documents to make those bond payments. So without that in there, uh, the recommendation was that we would have to raise our rates close to 75% to our rate users. With the tax revenue in there, we only had to raise over the
next 5 years 3% and pass that on to our
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
53:31
ratepayers. OK, so what you're saying is your, your system is not producing enough money without the without the sales tax. It's not producing enough money because you don't have enough connections. So you're not producing enough money to actually pay for the for the bonds themselves and
so with the sales tax revenue plus what you get from your, your regular water rates, you can pay, you can pay for it. I got it now. OK, because the way the bonds were written
Speaker 193
53:54
and the way Jerry Coke looked at the
rate study was that any excess tax revenue can be used for bond repayment and satisfying, you know, the needs of the department. I got you. OK. We can discuss. In Iraq, just to just to add in there, you didn't pick
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
54:13
an arbitrary number. Do you know what number the rate study was given as far as how much money needed to be used out of water revenue before they went into the sales tax revenue. I, I don't think that was a requirement of Act 605. I
Speaker 193
54:29
think the Act 605 was to make sure that we had a 1.1% coverage ratio, and that was looked at according to the bond documents of the, the water and sewer revenue plus the sales tax. So again, do you know out of your expense
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
54:42
category. How much of your expenses are paid to service debt. I, I do not know. So you key in every month to
pay, to pay, to pay, to pay. I'm not sure what the move the debt,
Speaker 192
55:00
the bond out of the water and sewer accounts, correct? Did we move that So the, the, the water
Speaker 174
55:07
in Syria used to pay the bonds, but also the sales tax had to help pay. The water because the water and
Speaker 165
55:13
sewer is not big enough yet to pay everything. So the water and sewer, I think we had to shove in about $400,000 a year just into water and sewer to break it even. You know, after it paid the bonds, so with this new bill we've had to open up another account and we
Speaker 169
55:26
started paying the the bonds out of just the sales tax only.
Speaker 165
55:33
So now the water department is, is, it's, it's, it's standing there but it's, it's not it's completely self-sufficient. That's why, that's why I keep on going back is all we're asking for is just time. That's, I mean, that's, I mean, eventually we will be big enough to stand on our own 2 ft, but right now we're, we're, we're still trying to get our legs underneath us. I tell you
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
55:59
Go ahead. So the reason why the bill was
written like that it's because of the because because cities were not keeping enough deferred maintenance, and so I think you I think you hear what he's saying is that this system was just not big enough to support itself, so with the sales tax revenue, it's now and you can support yourself with the sales tax revenue, but With 605 we had them separate all that because they deferred maintenance was what was, what cities kept coming back to the state for, and they weren't raising their rates.
And when they weren't raising their rates, they were saying, hey, but the state can come and pay for it. And we were like, no, you have to, you have to raise your rates before the state will
come and pay for it. So that the city, the cities would take on some of that. So I, I understand exactly what you're saying. Thank
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
56:53
you, sir. Thank you. Senator Bryant. So I'll ask just on your general overall city budget. Uh, we passed 2023. What, what you need more time, but there's
plenty of time to take, you know, abrasive action, what action has been able to start to shed loads of, if not just in the water system because you want to grow it to ensure that you get good growth in the city. Is there any actions been taken
Speaker 165
57:21
to reduce, uh, yes, there has. So when I took over office, uh, from the previous, previous administration, I think our reserve and our whole budget was nothing. I mean that administration probably will spend every dime we had as of right now, I think our reserves like 6 $650,000. I'm very conservative person,
um, so my goal when you got when we left here in 23, you told us to go back, start getting businesses, start preparing your budget for this. That's uh for this detachment that's gonna happen in in 14 years roughly at the time. So that's exactly what we did. We went back, we've already explained, you know, we've got a Mexican restaurant, we got a dollar store, we got a brewery, uh, we got a Sonic coming, we've got all these other things coming but also at the same time, you know, our city is growing like I've said, our property taxes went up, so we,
we've I've started, I've started having that cushion. So right now, 2 years into it, I think it's pretty good that we got like a $650,000 cushion, you know, the money that's, that's not spent on anything that's there to prepare us for this. sales tax drop off. So my goal is to, if the airport says they're providing us $1.8 million and we can't get accurate numbers from DFNA about it, then my goal is to by the time this ends to have $1.8 million in reserve. That's not
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
59:59
21, if the if the entirety of the tax base of sales tax was a million dollars. And nothing's changed. You've already had your bonds out and you're doing what you do and then 22 goes up to 1.2, 23 the fall, the fallout, XA is going to detach, but sales tax is going up. What's the difference between now that you see there's 2 million. But 2-3 years ago it was 1 million. Like, where, where is, why can't you make what the offer was work
now based on making it work 3
Speaker 165
1:00:37
tax, don't quote me 100% on this, is either between 1.6 million and 1.7 million that we we received for the total city year. It was 2.65 or 2.85 last year in 24, I don't quote me once again. I'm roughly I'm close there. I do believe um in COVID. We figured on the 3 months that the airport didn't have any passengers whatsoever if you
take them numbers, we're looking at about $227,000 that the city is supplying its own sales tax. We didn't have a dollar store. Only thing we had then in highville was 500 residents and a gas station. That's it. Now we've got roughly 30,003,500 residents. We've got a brewery, we've got a Mexican restaurant, uh, we got a Dollar General store. We got more of this, but the point I'm getting to is our city sales tax isn't still $227,000.
You know, I, I think our city sales tax is up higher than that, but I don't, I, I, I don't know that because we've tried to get DFNA to give us just and we didn't ask them for specific. We just said, hey, give us, here's the business that's on the airport. Just give us the numbers. Because if we had them numbers then I could intelligently tell you a lot easier. Hey, I could give you a time frame of maybe when when this could all take place, but without them numbers I I can't, I'm just guessing in the dark, so um.
Our property taxes went up because we're adding more residents, uh, you know, our, uh, you got the pointed pointed liver cell, so when, when citizens order Amazon and trust me, my wife orders a lot of that so I think that's a big majority of our sales tax in HFO is, you know, so we've seen an increase as our populations went up, so is our sales tax, and we, yeah, a bunch of it is from the airport.
Speaker 177
1:02:27
We don't think all of it's from the airport, but we don't know that answer. And love
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:02:38
I think Senator Brown just prompted this question for me. So If you let $900,000 from your sales tax revenue. Flow into The water. He paid the bonds out. You get a difference of $250,000. If you let So I guess the, the, the
agreement is $900,000 of sales tax revenue flows into I guess this pot of money. And then you pay, you said there's $650,000 that you collect
through your water rates, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is the agreement that it's $900,000. Plus the $650,000 that you collect, I guess whatever amount that you collect in your water, or is it just $900,000 total and that includes the
That includes the bond. The bonds have to come out of that, so I mean if the water money is separate from your sales tax money. I'm trying to figure, I'm trying to figure out what the agreement is. Um Are you talking about the agreement that we had on that we tried to come
Speaker 169
1:04:02
to on Monday, I'm trying to figure out what I specifically asked the question.
Speaker 216
1:04:07
It's our bonds being paid, and then we get $900,000 on top of
Speaker 169
1:04:14
that, and yes, that, that was, that's what. That's what Senator Kenzo heard. That's what, uh, Senator Hester heard that he got quoted in the news about uh that's, and I specifically asked also I said if you're talking about paying the bonds out of the $900,000 like that don't leave us very much money. I can't you I can't physically, financially do that at this time and then but is
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:04:37
but is your, is your water revenue going into the same account? Into the city sales tax, so
it's. So if you have the, I guess $650,000 right? And then it's
$900,000. I guess I, I, I guess I just need to, I just need to figure out if that's the agreement that you all have, because that's the question that I have. I think that's You know You know in
regards to in regards to this, this whole X and A for agreement. I think
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:05:17
that's the that's the question I have, what was your question in
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:05:23
that the question is because they're they're saying we we talked about the agreement, right? And the agreement is we talked about this water revenue that they're raising. And I'm, I'm just trying to figure out is the $900,000 the total sum of the agreement which they have to pay the debt service with, or is it? Or is do
they have water revenue. They're collecting water revenue separately and then having the $900,000 flowing to that.
Speaker 176
1:05:49
That's, that's, that's. That's the agreement that the city council passed on that, uh, that night or that or on Tuesday was. The bonds will be paid,
Speaker 169
1:06:01
the waterfall and everything would be paid and then the city would receive $900,000 on top of all that. That was the agreement. I've got the resolution that was the agreement the city council passed. That was the agreement that I thought we left the room down there with agreement on and then when I sent the paperwork to us,
the $900,000. would pay all the bonds and all the all the stuff
Speaker 165
1:06:25
out of there and then we would, if any, would receive what's left. So both sides. passed a different agreement.
Speaker 169
1:06:34
OK. All right. Thank you. Thank you. You know the
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:06:41
question Daun. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you guys
Speaker 230
1:06:54
against now we have Michelle all good. Please introduce yourself for the record. So my name is Michelle Allgood. I'm an attorney
Speaker 231
1:07:12
with Mitchell Williams law firm and our law firm was engaged to assist XNA with the legislation and the process. I am a municipal finance attorney. Most of you don't know what that is, but we carry around books
like this that have a lot of paper in them and it's a long process. For issuing bonds. So when we were engaged by X and A, one of the questions or one of the first things that we were asked was how do we detach without impairing the bond issues. Because when you detach, there would be a decrease potentially in the sales tax. We knew that
the sales tax was part of the pledge for the existing bonds. So, The legislation was drafted to avoid default. And to avoid an impairment on the bonds. So one of the things, I have a lot of things I want to share about my paper, but one of the first things I would like you to do is to look at the amendment that has been proposed. And if you look at some of the language on the 2nd page, Part
B, so about the middle of the page right before section 2. So what it says is that after the petition for detachment has been filed. The municipality. As permitted by the documents relating to the debt obligations. Shall use? Or escrow, all pledge taxes and revenues to pay off or prepay the debt obligations and shall not use the pledge taxes and revenues for any other purpose.
So saying that we need to delete that language in order to keep the status quo is not how I interpret the law because the law right now says that you should use the money. To pay the bonds as the documents require. The bond documents currently require that you use your water revenues which are not impacted by detachment in any way. And to use your sales tax revenues.
To pay only the debt service on the bonds. So what this, the legislation unamended. Permits. The use of the sales tax to pay the debt service on the bonds. So this legislation is not needed. This amendment is not needed to keep the status quo with regard to the use of the sales tax in connection with the payment of the debt service of the bonds. Part A of this, the intent there
with that language is to maintain the status quo. While the detachment process is working its way. You've seen the legislation, it is a pretty detailed process. It doesn't happen overnight. And this prevents the issuance of additional bonds or the refunding of bonds that would essentially extend the sales tax forever. It allows her to.
Maintain the status quo. Work out the the details of the detachment. And then move forward. So I'm against the amendment. Um, there has been questions. One of the things I want to address and I share the frustration of the mayor in this regard. Some of the numbers are really hard to come by. So back in 2023 whenever this legislation was originally
intended, the information that was available was a 2021 audit. For the city of Hafel that is still the most current audit that is available for the city of Haffel. Um, some of the other information that we have looked at that is available, so in connection with the outstanding bonds. Federal securities law requires the city of Havill to file an annual report each year that identifies information with respect to the bonds in the city
of Hafel has done that. The most recent, um, filing was in June of 2024. And it identifies the amount of sales tax that has been received for the last 5 years from the from the city. So the most recent year that is in this and I don't know if we want to share this, but I have a copy of that report and then there is a, um, an older report that goes all the way back to 2012 to show what the sales tax revenues were. So, The math.
Senator Love, one of your, your points, the math, the amount of sales tax only in recent years is at a higher level. So in 2021, it was 689,000 in 2020 it was 405,000 in 2019, it was 746,000. It was lower numbers generally in the years prior to that. So if the debt service.
Is 650,000. And they're using their sales tax to pay that, then, for example, in 2021 when there was only 689,000, that would only mean an excess of 39,000. And sales tax. So there is obviously some money that is coming from the water revenue. In order to satisfy their debt obligations and looking at the The financial information, there
are water audits, the most recent water audit that is available is from 2023. And if you look at the transfers in. Which It's been a minute since I had an accounting class, but the transfers in. To the water. System are about 400,000. That's not exact. But it's not, it doesn't look like. From the audits that are
available on legislative audit that the entirety of the That service is being paid from sales tax. I'm gonna, I'm gonna interrupt you here for a second because we've got a lot of stuff
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:14:04
to do tonight still. Is there anything else you want to tell us besides just throwing numbers out to us because without me looking at them and I'm a banker, you're just throwing numbers out to me and I'm happy to provide the copies if that's what we need,
Speaker 235
1:14:16
but that's one of the points that I wanna make is that
Speaker 231
1:14:23
I agree with Senator Love, there is money that should be flowing through the buckets. And out of the water revenues. And you're accurate in saying that the difference is that Highfill wants 1.5 million. Because they want that amount available and what XNA is proposing is 900,000. And if we look back at the numbers.
But I understand you don't have in front of you, but I can provide copies of what we have, we're not gonna do that tonight. Then the 900,000 appears to be more. Than what has been available previously. Thank you. Any questions
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:15:10
from the committee? So are you, are you saying that That
the proposed agreement is $900,000 in sales tax revenue. So the proposed agreement from
Speaker 231
1:15:25
because I did work draft or assisted with the agreed order. It's not quite that simple because you have to follow the bond documents. We have to follow the law. It starts with 900,000. That we would be used first to pay the debt service. So 650 would pay debt service, which to your point, should free up 650 of water revenue. So after all the buckets overflow.
There's a 900,000 that is a mix. of sales tax revenue and water revenue, so, so, all right,
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:16:03
so I have a shrimp. OK, thank you. So that is the proposal
Speaker 231
1:16:08
from X and A is it's a mix, 900,000 at the bottom of the waterfall. And what Hale wants or what they proposed was. 1.5 million. I don't know if it's a mix or not, but at the bottom of the waterfall they want 1.5 million and XNA has proposed 900.
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:16:35
Any other questions? Seeing none. Thank you. anymore. are. Number 4.4. John Becker with Mitchell Williams as well. Are you gonna
Speaker 239
1:16:47
say anything different than your counterpart did something different
Speaker 240
1:16:51
to say OK, well, you got 2 minutes. Thank you. I'm an attorney for X&A. I've been defending them in a lawsuit for the last 17 months that was filed against them by the city of Highville over your legislation you passed in 2023. They want in their lawsuit.
They wanted a court to invalidate this language here on the top of the 2nd page of this amendment and the court refused. The trial court hear evidence. About why this case or this language was unconstitutional and the trial court rejected it. And then it did more than that. It said that the court that the city had not proven That this statute in the filing and the locking up of the money for the for the bondholder's benefit was going to be some sort of irreparable harm to the city.
The court said you didn't prove that. The court said and received evidence that the city has other levers besides sales tax to raise revenue for their needs, and they haven't done that. Senator, you mentioned development impact fees. This city of Hoel has never adopted them. Every other city around them has them. And they've got all these lots that they are dreaming and saying that are coming online. They don't even have development impact fees that feed their city like all of their other sister
cities have, and the court noted that. And this idea, they haven't raised their franchise fees since like the Reagan years that the court noted you have other levers as a city to raise revenue if you need it if this revenue, the sales tax revenue is locked up for the bondholders to protect them. It's not the end of days. You have other options. And that's what he ruled, and Senator Johnson, you mentioned it last hearing. What we're really being asked to do is second guess what a judge has already ruled on.
And, and this, this legislation has been upheld. They lost at the circuit court. They lost at the Supreme Court. And now they want you to come in here and save them again when the judge has already made it clear they have other means to save themselves. This is not some financial calamity that's coming their way. I mean this was, this was after days of evidence. That's all I want to say. The whole premise of this thing is wrong. Thank you. What did you say? I have some questions for you.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:19:13
I'm trying to speed up Senator Johnson Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Counselor, I appreciate your being concise and I I, I feel for the situation.
I appreciate the mayor and I know he's a relatively new mayor that's trying to clean us up and all that, but We're not a circuit court and we're not the Supreme Court. We passed a law and you the city and the airport are trying to work things out within that, and that's my dad who was
on the Supreme Court once said this is why they built courthouses. That's not what the Capitol's for. We're not here to work on this. Would you agree? Yeah, I do, and, and. You
Speaker 244
1:19:53
know, when the judges looked at it and said, look, this law is constitutional Supreme Court held the same way. And
Speaker 240
1:19:59
the and the court said you guys can figure out other ways to raise revenue if we have to protect the bondholders and lock up some money for just a few years until those bonds are paid off. This isn't forever. This is a locking up of the money for the bondholder
protection only until all of those debts are paid off, which most estimates are 4 to 6 years max. So the city can either cut expenses, this is what the judge said. Raise alternate revenues. To get through this impasse. It's not end of days, and that's what the judge held. And so this idea that, I mean every other, think about this every other city in northwest Arkansas, nobody has this sort of large yes of tax money that comes from this huge economic engine that's
X and A, and you know what, every one of those towns survives. Every one of those towns has a budget that works. Every one of those towns provides services and it keeps their employees employed. How is it that I feel Cannot live. Supposedly if it loses this money for a few years, of course they can live. And that's the reality of it. Now, yeah, they're going to have to make some changes. The circuit court said that, but This is, this is not in today, and, and I think they've lost in court and now they want you to
come in at the end and try to repeal your legislation. You just passed it two years ago to save them from something that is imminently solvable by themselves doing it. Thank you,
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:21:28
thank you Central. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And we have Ry Burke speaking against for everyone's
Speaker 248
1:21:40
time in this committee plenty from every other, every other person that's
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:21:46
spoken today I had to all that. Thank you, sir. Senator Penzo. Before we go to you, I'll make sure, is there anyone else that did not sign
Jess Askew
Unverified
1:22:05
up that wants to speak. are against Say none said her. Thank you, um, made a few notes on my phone here while we were uh while I was waiting. I didn't have a pen handy, but um you you're right, we're, we're, we're not a court, but,
but we created this mess two years ago. We, we passed legislation that said if this detachment was filed, 100% of their tax revenue. Had to go into escrow. Now that I, I don't know if you all realized when if you voted for that bill, that that's what we were doing. Which gives 100% of the leverage. 2 X and A. Someone came down and said, uh, oh, this is a tax cut for For citizens
And they can raise impact fee, you know, impact fees and they can raise this rate here and this right here to offset it. Well, how's that a tax cut for we're, we're shifting, we're shifting. Revenue stream from people coming
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:23:05
in and out of state, they're coming to Walmart and spending money in Northwest Arkansas, that's where that tax revenue is coming now. Now we want to shift it to the residents of Haifa, that, that, that,
Jess Askew
Unverified
1:23:16
that kind of upset me that they're trying to pitch this
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:23:21
tax cut for for citizens in Northwest Arkansas and then say that we're going to raise fees on ourkansans when most of those tax fees are probably coming from people out of state that are. Visiting the businesses in Northwest Arkansas. We all
Jess Askew
Unverified
1:23:36
probably have different ideas on How harmful should run their business? And we we affected that two years ago with a piece of legislation. XNA board members have an idea. The Hville mayor, the city council all have a different idea. Everybody around this
table has an idea of how they probably should run things. The judge has an idea. We can discuss double barrel bonds, waterfalls need improvements, deferred maintenance reserves, audits, offers, counteroffers. Let's not conflate what's being discussed here. This amendment. Is about getting rid of the escrow portion of this contract that says they have to put 100% of their tax revenue. Into escrow.
A normal detachment. would be business as usual. the bonds are paid off. That's how it would be. If we hadn't have muddied the water two years ago. That's why I think that Eliminating that portion of this. You know, we're not, we're not arguing about. This off that offer. I sat down with the two attorneys thinking, hey, maybe we can get somewhere with this. I just want the two attorneys.
We're gonna, we're gonna sit down, talk about the bonds, see if we can come to something. They both had different ideas of if it goes to litigation, how it's going to come out. There's different ideas of the bonds. Like I said, everybody's got an opinion here. But all I'm asking is to undo the The part of the legislation we passed 2 years ago, if they want to detach, let them detach. But to undo the portion of the bill that gives 100% of the leverage. To the airport
And the city is just asked to comply. We did that. That's not how it would normally work in a detachment situation. And there's a lot of history here
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:25:45
that took place and a lot of hurt feelings, but I, I like people on both sides. I've got friends on that XNA board and I've got friends at the city of Hyville and, and I've got a lot of friends that are constituents of that area and I love the fact we've got that airport in Northwest Arkansas. I love to see it grow, but let's not
Jess Askew
Unverified
1:26:04
conflate the issue like I said. This is just about. The escrow portion. Of what we passed two years ago. Let them work out the detachment. Let the bonds pay off like they normally would if we hadn't have muddied the water two years ago. With that
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
1:26:21
said, I'll close and ask for a good vote. Thank you, Senator
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:26:28
Penzo. What's the will of the committee? Emotional
motion to pass. Motion to pass as amended. We have a motion about central love. Do we have a
second? Second with Senator Scott. Any discussion Seeing none, all those in favor of a do pass. Say aye. A polling sign. Center, Bill. Thank you committee for your time.
Unknown speaker
1:27:11
Next we have Center Petty, SB 447.
Speaker 26
1:27:43
Please introduce yourself for the record, Senator, and your Clear
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:27:52
it up, present your bill. On There we go. Alright. Thank you, Mr.
Chair. Jim Petty, Senator District 29 members, I know it's late and you've heard lots of bills and we're all just getting started in a lot of ways. I was in here, uh, few days ago. This is the the common carrier shipper bill. The purpose of this bill is
simply to give the state a two year gauge of the volume of alcohol being shipped into Arkansas, as it stands now, we really don't know, uh, with a few exceptions, it's currently illegal to ship alcohol into the state, but it is happening, uh, SB 447 requires the common carriers like FedEx, UPS, DHL file quarterly reports with DFNA documenting the amount of alcohol they're bringing into the state and who shipped it. does not create a sting operation on the consumer, the
quarterly report, uh, would not provide specific information about that, like the name or address. It just requires the zip code where the alcohol was delivered and the company that fulfilled that order. We worked with the Arkansas Trucking Association, had some amendments there. uh, we had a late amendment by FedEx. I worked with them and their government relations team to satisfy them, and there's no known opposition at this time to
this to this bill, 18 states including Texas and Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Louisiana have similar shipper reporting laws, and again, FedEx, UPS, DHL. currently have software that create these reports. The uh It, it will just essentially give us a gauge of the volume of alcohol shipped into the state and then after that DFNA can determine if there's anything else we need to do regulatory wise or enhancement of collections of any lost revenue.
With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Any questions for the senator? Sing none. Is there
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:30:01
anyone here to speak for or against the bill? Please introduce yourself for the record. Yes, sir. I'm Bill Pasco. I'm here
Speaker 262
1:30:13
on behalf of, yeah. I'm Bill Pascal. I'm here on behalf of uh the United Beverage
Speaker 263
1:30:22
Retailers Association, we, along with the wholesalers met with DFA months ago to talk about this bill and why it was needed, um, we work with DFNA on the front end, ran this bill by them and as Senator Petty has mentioned, we ran it by the Truckers Association and then when FedEx had some issues with it, we work with them and so we have agreed upon language now and uh. I think Senator Di Sma asked me once why do we need this bill?
We need the bill because a legal shipping is taking place every day in Arkansas, and we don't know if it's 36 cases, 300 cases, or 3000 cases a day or shipments a day, so we're trying to all this does is allow the state to grab data so we know how much is coming in and then we may be able to back in and figure out if we're losing tax revenue if people are not paying Arkansas taxes when that's shipped in. We suspect that's not that is happening.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:31:34
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Pascal, this is really
an attempt to get to gain data to decide if we as the state need to pass something to. Capture this revenue or stop the shipping or whichever direction we want to go that's really that's correct and
Speaker 270
1:31:52
I remind you that it is illegal to ship alcohol
Speaker 263
1:31:56
into Arkansas with, with my, with an exception we have an exception that you can ship wine from a winery that a person is
Speaker 272
1:32:05
established a relationship with 24 cases, glad to know that because I would be breaking the law if you hadn't told me that and that that law looks like it's going to be amended some that even make it a little but it's still going to be just
Speaker 263
1:32:20
a wine from wineries in the US, but yes, all this is doing is collecting data to give the state a better sense of where we are in terms of how much alcohol is being shipped in because I can tell you here representing my retailers, we know that it's being shipped in every day
because some of our folks have ordered it just to see if they can get it, and we're pretty certain a lot of that is not being taxed as it comes in, so that hurts us at a local level because One, our folks have to have a license to sell it in Arkansas, which they have to pay for. They have to, you know, go through the process to get that and then 2, we have to pay the taxes. So if that's being shipped in to the state illegally and they're not paying taxes. They have a price they're being put
Speaker 273
1:33:01
at a competitive disadvan to mention the taxpayers are not receiving
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:33:07
the revenue. That's exactly right. What we're going to try to do with this is to find
Speaker 270
1:33:13
out how much that is. That's all we're doing, trying to gauge how much the volume. alcohol that's being shipped out. That's all this bill is. Thank you, sir. Thank
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:33:23
you, Mr. Chairman. Andrew Scott. Motion at the proper time. What is your motion? Do pass a second although any discussion. I don't know, I was gonna ask the oh
Michelle Allgood
Unverified
1:33:33
or make a comment and I'll, we'll allow you for that.
Speaker 38
1:33:40
It went fast. Thank you. Um, I was just, I, I, I'm
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:33:43
still not supportive. I still feel like it's The big brother. to me and, you know, the conversation I had with FedEx, whether they're good with it or not, it was a good conversation and I just, I guess I agreed with it's not their job to uh Not their job. They receive it and they they ship it and that's it, but I was looking at Uh, the provisions of the common carrier reported if they don't do these reports, they'll be
subject to penalties under 23 13 234 just to see what it, what is that, what would that look like and it, it kind of goes from a common carrier that needs to have a, uh, permit or certificate from the from our dot to operate. And then it flips over into a person. does not If any person violating the provision of any other term or condition of a certificate permit or license, I assume that would be kind of where this would fall under, so with the
penalty of $100 go to the driver? Or the carrier of which doesn't really provide provisions
Speaker 206
1:34:49
for the carrier. If they don't prevent that. So this bill's
Speaker 276
1:34:52
focused purely on a licensed carrier, CCL license, so it would go to the whoever has the CCO license. Even though the
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:35:02
the the CCL license doesn't have a provision to uphold this it falls under a person. That makes sense.
Speaker 279
1:35:12
It's going to fall into the corporation. The corporation will be $100
Speaker 272
1:35:17
but not more than $500. That's correct. And we're not trying to be punitive with it and we had that discussion with FedEx.
Speaker 263
1:35:23
It's we're just trying to incentivize them to do the report. We're not trying to. go after the shipper. We're trying to find out who's shipping it and how much is coming in. And eventually we'll back in to see if they're paying their taxes. That's all, that's all this bill is doing. It's, it's really simple. It's not a hard bill. So
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:35:43
let's follow that. You get a report and it says there's 10,000. It miss a day.
Speaker 281
1:35:49
It'll it'll be a wait now. OK, so what's
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:35:52
next? We gotta do something. We want to find out now. That's
Speaker 263
1:35:57
going to be up. That's going to be up to you as policymakers in DFNA once we've collected enough data that you can see what's going on, and then we'll
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:36:06
be who's doing it, who's who's not self-reporting that they received this. Now it's in the shipment into the state. That's, that's where this would hit.
Most likely that's where this would go is once the data comes in,
Speaker 263
1:36:20
so you know the way, the way this probably plays out is, you know, if you guys pass this law and it goes on the books, DFA will collect this information for the next 2 years, and they'll come back to you in 2 years and say we got a real big problem or we don't. And we have a big problem. If
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:36:35
we have more, more coming in that's not accounted for, that's, that's when we'll have to decide to be Big Brother's right. That's when it will be up to you as policymakers to decide
Speaker 272
1:36:46
if if there's a law that's needed here and I don't want that to happen. I'm gonna stay
Speaker 263
1:36:53
against the bill. Well, remember we've got folks out there that are being put at a price disadvantage. Both the wholesalers, not just my liquor retailers, but the wholesalers as well because they're doing an end run on the three-tier system. Yeah, and I guess
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:37:05
yeah. So you're not trying to be punitive, but
a penalty is the definition of being punitive. I mean, for not doing something
that you otherwise wouldn't have to do without a state law. It's a
Speaker 276
1:37:20
it's a minimal penalty for them not filing the report, that's all. They,
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:37:25
they didn't I wouldn't they didn't quite the way you characterized it. OK, that's I mean, I'm that's fair enough we're not, we're
Speaker 263
1:37:31
not going after, we're not trying to penalize the people that are shipping it in yet. The only penalty in here is for the only people being penalized for the people shipping
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:37:40
it in. I mean, no, the people that are
Speaker 282
1:37:43
bringing the shipping party that you have
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:37:46
right now, the only people that would be penalized are the people that do not report what you want to be reported to DFA. You're giving them one more task to do. Shippers, and if they don't want
to do that task, you're going to penalize them. That is penalties are penalty, you're right,
Speaker 263
1:38:05
say that again the truckers association reviewed the bill and FedEx, we worked with FedEx and they're, they're good with it. They're not opposed to it.
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:38:18
The Brad. Do you know that you said there's 18 states that do this. Do you is there any feedback from common carriers that say that the administrative burden that you're going to put on us is going to increase my carrier rates into those states. Nobody's brought that up. Did the other states have punitive Most of them have some kind of minor
Speaker 263
1:38:36
fine like this if they don't file the report. Yes, sir. Thank you, Sandra Love. I'm just used to going back and
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:38:49
forth when you right yes sir. And this is both Senator Petty and to Mr. Pascal. Uh Is this Alcohol that's shipped in by these common carriers. Is it contraband? Contraband contraband. It's not taxed in Arkansas. So is it contraband? And we, I mean, I'm not, I'm,
I'm not trying to punish anybody, but I'm trying to identify that the
product that they're shipping is not supposed to be shipped to Arkansas unless Someone self reports and pays the taxes that Would you agree?
Speaker 299
1:39:33
I think that's a fair assessment of the situation while we can argue how punitive or or light,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:39:39
we should be on it as the state of Arkansas and our policy, we're looking at Uh We want to identify is this a measly little amount that
doesn't amount to a hill of beans. It's not worth the cost of our administration to try to
collect it or we're losing a whole lot of money and hurting our local
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:40:03
small businesses. Is that kind of the conundrum that we're in here as an example, Kansas identified nearly 200,000 shipments after they implemented their ship shipping law and Tennessee had 185,000 nearly. You're talking
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:40:16
about poets. Shipments, is there a dollar figure that was figured through
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
1:40:22
that, not available to. They, the point is they did identify there were shipments and and pretty healthy numbers that answers my question. Thank you. Seeing no other questions. Uh,
Speaker 22
1:40:30
is there anyone here to speak for or against the
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:40:35
bill. You had emotional. Senator Scott had in motion. Motion to pass, yeah. had a
Speaker 35
1:40:41
motion. Do we have a second? The 2nd Johnson. Any discussion?
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:40:54
Saying none. All those in favor say aye. Against the same thing. I have. Thank
Speaker 209
1:41:11
you committee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And we're going
Speaker 125
1:41:18
to skip down to SB 562. Simply this mind like.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:41:32
Oh, you took it. If you could please identify yourself
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:41:45
with the committee. Ricky Hillson and District 11. You're recognized, Senator.it, this is just a simple bill. It's to do away with the report, uh, it's a report that no one ever looks at and it's just to make, make it a little less report that the highway department has to put together that no one looks at one of the 11 of them that uh Senator Hester brought to us on
a list and said, hey, you know, we can go away some of
these reports. This happens to be one of the ports that that we have to. To make it not to have report anymore. With that, I'll take any questions. This.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:42:33
Are they still going to do the work of the report though, because I do think that's valuable work. Let's get
Mr. Wiley down here and Let them go over it. I think this looks vaguely familiar to me. I would say I've looked
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
1:42:49
at it, but this is one of them that came from from Central history and the governor's office on
Speaker 313
1:42:55
to get rid of. Yes. Jared Wiley, director of RA, yes, we're still working through this, Senator. We're, we've implemented 78 of the 90 rules
to date or 87% complete. We project to be fully complete by the end of this calendar year, so we're actively working in reporting on this to the commission each uh each meeting and we come down to the Howie Commission review and advisory subcommittee and present each quarter as well. I mean, do you feel like
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:43:21
it's useful information for the legislature? Well, this is, this is
Speaker 168
1:43:24
the audit, this is the deals with the audit and the committee has elected
Speaker 313
1:43:27
not to conduct that audit any longer, so this is, this is just dealing with the
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:43:35
audit, not with the report that we're submitting, but it's striking the language I mean maybe there's more language above that I'm not seeing because I don't have the full code section. But it says conduct an annual project review and efficiency study of the Department of Transportation, including without limitation review processes, procedures, procurement projects, appeals, and expenditures. The results of the study, the subdivision of the section shall be reported to the Legislative counsel no later than October 1st of each year. So, uh, is And
What audit, what help me walk me back into the audit portion. There may be again a provision that's I'm not seeing above this
Speaker 318
1:44:24
somewhere. So I turn on his appeal, appeal. right. Thank you, Michelle Davenport, Chief counsel for the Arkansas Department of Transportation. It is my understanding that this is only dealing with the report that comes from OIG, not from the actual Department of Transportation that's presented to Hris.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:44:39
And OIG so they went back and forth whether or not they were going to hire people or spend the time to be able to do
it, and they've decided it's not worthy of the time
Speaker 318
1:44:49
even though it's in legislation. The, the testimony also included the fact that we have um a new internal audit head that has previously worked with the Office of Attorney, excuse me, Office of Inspector General, and that the processes that she follows and those reports that are available to the department satisfy those same requests, so
Speaker 323
1:45:02
they felt like it was a duplication was the testimony that was presented. Thank you.
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:45:10
Do you have any other questions? Not saying none. What's the will of the committee or do
we want to speak for or against. Against For All right, Senators close. We have a motion. Motion to pass. We've got a 2nd. In discussion on the motion, seeing none, although the favor signified saying aye, all those opposed. Motion carries.
Congratulations. I think next up we have the House bill.
Speaker 37
1:45:41
Uh, Senator Johnson gonna run by 65. Senator, you're
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:45:47
running 561. OK. Take your drinks out of here.
And if you could recognize yourself for the committee,
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:46:16
the presentation. Mark Johnson, state senator District 17. Uh
Senate Bill 561 is one of those pills that, you know, you don't get a lot of these where you literally have constituents calling you up and complaining about something, and I would bet some of you have as well, uh. This is to address the problem of the expired temporary paper license tags that people get on
cars, uh, I have seen them as old as 2 years old, uh, they not only are they abusing the system where you get a 60, it was, I think we changed it from 30 days to 60 days, and that was to give people time in some cases to obtain their titles, pay their To do all this stuff. They, uh, people aren't doing it and uh I have actually I've had several constituents that, you know, they call me every now and
then they'd say, Are you going to run a bill on this? And so here, here we are, uh. The uh the bill here's basically what it does. It, it adds an additional 30-day tag. If you're 6, you're near the expiration of your 60 day tag. You can go in and and pay. I don't know if I actually put the amount in the I don't think I did. I'd recommended to DFA maybe $10. You get an additional
30 day tag whatever the covers the cost of doing that, but when you do that, you have to to provide proof that you've assessed and paid your personal property taxes, which is why I think many people may be pushing this thing down the road so they can evade. Obviously they To pay their sales tax when they get their permanent tag, and some people may not have that, but if you don't have the sales tax, then don't buy the car. So the point I'm saying is that
what we do is you buy. You go by car, you get this paper tag you're supposed to within 60 days go to the revenue Office and buy your permanent tags, pay your sales tax, and when you do that, of course you have to show that you've assessed that vehicle in your county residence and that your previous years personal property taxes paid. That's the way we do business and thanks to the way we do computerized now you
get a thing from DFNA saying you're set for our star, and you can go online and do all this online and I guess when you do it the first time, I know that Mr. Hamrick is here to answer any questions about the technicality of how you do it, but what this does is if you don't do it and you're driving around on an expired paper temporary tag, then it gives you a chance to not let it expire if you haven't got all your paperwork and everything
together to go get your permanent tags. It gives you another 30 days, assuming you've assessed and that you Pa your personal property tax on that vehicle, which by law you're separately required to do. Uh, then this gives a mechanism to allow people An extra 30 days, but they've got to show they assessed it and they got to show that they paid their personal property tax. Now think about this. If you drag this out, I've seen, like I've said, I've seen them on cars, people calling me
about. I saw one that was, you know, 2023, 2, so something's 2 years old or or longer those that individual may have totally skipped a year of even paying his personal property tax. With that money, of course, goes to the city, the counties and school districts, so they're not just dividing the sales tax. Or possi and of course the fees for the license, but they potentially evading paying their their tax that goes the property
tax that goes to our schools and our cities and counties. So this is an abuse of the system. I get more I'm, I'm blown away how many when when I knock doors in the campaign last year. I had people, what are you going to do about this? I said, Well, I'll take a look at that. So this is the bill. Now the penalty is simple. If you, if, if there's, if you're fined for driving around with the tag that's expired. It's a $100 fine. But second and
subsequent offenses are $250 fines. That is what the bill does, and I'll be glad to
Speaker 333
1:51:03
answer any questions. Thank you members for any questions,
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:51:08
Senator Love. OK, so, um, um, You said that they would have to assess before going to first of all, let me, let me Let me ask D and to come to the table because I, I, I, I need to. Ask this question before I ask you. Yes,
Speaker 199
1:51:25
go ahead. Recognize yourself for the committee.
Speaker 338
1:51:31
Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator, members of the committee, Ali Austin
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:51:36
Smith with DFA. OK, let me ask you, so there's usually a penalty when you don't renew your or or you don't. Pay your sales tax initially. What that penalty is. The 10%
Speaker 337
1:51:49
or the, the 10%, yes, 10% so it's 10%. Plus interest.
Speaker 342
1:51:57
OK, that that's on the text, as I recall, yes, that's
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:52:01
not on the fee of the uh Yes, on
Speaker 345
1:52:04
a sales tax, I we were talking about an individual who's purchased a car and is needing to
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:52:10
register it. All right, all right, so this is what this is what I'm, I'm gonna ask, is there, so. Senator, you're saying
that they have to assess a personal property. Yeah, they're supposed to assess
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:52:29
within that 60 day period because when you're coming, you've got 60 days to come in with all your paperwork, including your proof of assessment and your proof of your previous year's property tax pay before they can issue the license and collect your
sales tax. So what if they don't have a personal property. Well, now, if you, you can get a clearance from the from the what if this is your first vehicle because I don't remember you you show that you've listed it
for assessment and therefore you're on the textbooks, so and
the and the county is basically saying they're OK next year they'll get a bill for their
personal property tax like you're saying the first car they ever bought type thing. My understanding is the law
Speaker 337
1:53:11
is written that way so that these vehicles are on, on the rolls of the of the counties otherwise, you know, the the year would come up. OK, so the, but
Speaker 347
1:53:20
I thought I I thought that you paid your sales tax
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:53:23
before you assessed. So is that not you you provide proof of assessment when
Speaker 345
1:53:27
you come in to register and pay your sales tax. And of course
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:53:31
that's the state collecting the sales tax, even if it's county portion of the sales tax, but the personal property tax is collected by the counties. OK. Yeah, you first go
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:53:41
assess and then you go and pay your tax. OK, now
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:53:46
those of us are of the age, Senator, we've been paying that personal property tax for a long time, but someone, say a young person buying their first car and all that, this would be the first item that they have that goes on the textbook, so their list they
call it listed, uh, when you, you go into the county assessor, you're listing
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:54:08
it. You assess and then you go and pay the penalty and then you get Tipperary
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:54:15
tag and you just keep. So does the temporary tag is listed as
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:54:20
initially provided by the dealer. So let me ask you this, is there a penalty, so
does the clock start over for them. Because what we're, what we're saying is this is they can extend their temporary tag,
right? For 30 days under this bill, and then so. Does the penalty Are you all still gonna assess the penalty? That I'm not
Speaker 351
1:54:45
aware that the bill changes the deadline for the sales tax
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:54:49
to be 60 days. No, sir, it does not. It only deals with the temporary tag which is issued, the dealer obtains them from DFNA. You buy a new car, they put it on there. And then you've got or even a used car that then you buy, you
go, we have 60 days to clean up all your paperwork, pay your taxes, and pay your fees to DFNA, and this is so then what
is the benefit of of getting a of
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:55:16
getting this tag if you're not going to extend the deadline for your sales tax. Well, that's in a separate section of the code and I didn't try to
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:55:26
address that but do you hear what
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:55:28
I'm saying? It's, it's like I was thinking that we're giving them an opportunity for 30 more days. We are on the registration.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:55:38
I ride dirty. But I'm not aware that the bill changes the deadline. It doesn't change that, and that's in another section of code because that's a sales in the sales
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:55:52
tax law, I think all right, thank you. Inside in revenue and tax, there is a 60 day window to pay your sales tax, and they just extended it 60 day window to assess your car to match because there was confusion. Now we would have to vote that to approve it all, but those things
will be aligned, whereas right now it's 30 days to assess, 60 days to pay sales tax, OK,
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:56:14
but I guess this is what I'm saying is what is the benefit of of them paying for another tag when
it doesn't move well. I mean, that's theoretically, Senator, if I could respond.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:56:24
You, you might not have all the paperwork on your car. You might have some other, and let's be honest, some people might not have the money to pay the sales tax in and they're they're stretching out as long as they can on it. I'm saying we can
give you another 30 days. That's a total of 90 days from when you got the car, but after that, if you you if you're driving around on and that is an expired tag any way you cut it, and I have had a friend who was one of the people that called me that. The police officer had his car towed, had it impounded and towed because he was driving on an expired tag. So this is to give, we're going to give a little bit more grace, 30 days, but after that there's
a fine, and if you do it a
Speaker 337
1:57:16
second time, it's a $250 fine. I think Senator, that he's dealing more with the imposition of the penalty on the criminal side, right? But, but yes, the sales tax is still due within 60 days, and so that would increase the penalty
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:57:28
and interest there. Senator Disban that y'all are working on cleaning that up, that language up in revenue and tax.
Speaker 337
1:57:35
they, they extended from 30 to 60 days, the deadline to assess so that it matches what you guys did last session, extending the
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:57:44
again. If they take this, but I'm not trying to get them to to
get a break on the, I guess it's 10% penalty on that, but I am trying to give them an opportunity to not be driving on an illegal expired tag, and Senator Johnson, do you have a
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:58:02
house sponsor? I believe, I believe I do. I
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:58:08
believe I got, do we have an
amendment on this, Jessica? It, it's uh representative Alyssa Brown,
Senator. I, I may be holding an old copy of the bill that didn't have I
Speaker 358
1:58:31
don't have one here on the in our packet look
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
1:58:34
online representative I will look online to Representative Elissa Brown has agreed to be the uh House sponsor, it is not engrossed if you did.
Yeah, but we, and I don't think we have that rule in this committee, but, but certainly we want to do, we do have a house sponsor. OK. Alright, do we
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
1:58:56
have any other questions? All right, seeing none. I wouldn't like anyone like to speak against the bill. For the mill Seeing none, what's the will of the committee.
We have a motion to pass by Senator Johnson. We got a second by Senator Scott in discussion on the motion.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:59:20
Sinner love you recognized for discussion. I, I guess I, I, I understand what we're trying to do, but I just, I don't, I guess I, I really don't see a benefit in it since I mean we don't, we're not. Pushing back the I mean, because the penalty is there, is, is already, you get a 10% penalty. On not registering your card within 60 days. It's so. I guess we're just adding on penalties. Which are gonna put people
further behind. I just, I don't know. I, I. I, I guess I could have been in agreement with the bill if This was to actually push back that.
For 30 more days to give them time. But since we're not dealing with that. It just seems like a, you know. That would probably need to be
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:00:11
done separately and something that would go to revenue and tax, but Senator, let me remind you that if people are truly doing this to avoid they're not just avoiding the sales tax part
if they do it for 2 years, they're trying to carry this car over into the first year that they assess it or should have assessed it. They didn't, and the and the school district and the cities and counties are not getting the property tax they're entitled to, so you know there's several forms of tax evasion. Going on but because they're they're they're fudging on the dates of when they're supposed to have their assessment and their taxes pay. OK, all right, thank you. Any other discussion?
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:00:55
Alright, seeing none. I've got a motion to pass and second all those in favor signified saying aye, all those opposed Bill's failed. Roll call.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:01:13
Right. Hm Mr. Chairman, I, I'll, I'll drop my best for roll call because a number of people in the room, so if it had any negative, it didn't get right, right. Thank you committee. We'll try
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:01:25
again. Thank you. That patient man in the room. like you have a one-page bill to present, Representative. Yeah, they've been here waiting. So
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
2:01:50
yeah. Come on. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Uh, with your permission, like to have, uh, uh, my guest also here. Yeah, if y'all could just
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:01:56
recognize yourselves for the committee and you'll be welcome to proceeding House Bill 1798. House Bill 1798, and I'm
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
2:02:02
Jason Ezrenko, the representative for District 4, that's Marion County, and then parts of Baxter County. And I'm Ange Pereira. I'm a licensed clinical social worker living in Baxter County in
Speaker 371
2:02:12
Cotter, Arkansas. First of all, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for, uh, committee for making the exception and
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
2:02:18
and being able to hear us tonight. I know An has driven quite a few hours to be
here, so very excited to bring you 1798. You may remember a little over a month ago you had a bill that was the blue envelope program that's now Act 16. This is a mirror image of Act 16. If you look at the language written exactly the same. This is focusing on folks with mental illness, so Arkansans that suffer from mental illness. We know that. Sometimes when they get stopped by the police, there's a chance that that could escalate, and it had this was brought to me from Ange about a month ago. She told
me of a patient that she had that exactly happened to, uh, and it escalated luckily it did not escalate so uh so far that it went beyond a point that they that point of no return, but this bill with the green envelope program would do great steps into helping folks with mental illness. It also protects our law enforcement as well, so that They are, they are protected as well as all those Arkansans. I did speak with uh with the sheriff's office and state police, no issues there as well as DFNA. We spoke with them. You
can see there is a fiscal impact. What it is is exactly the same as Act 16s. There's actually now that we're putting a green envelope and a blue envelope, probably not going to cost twice as much, but I'm sure it will have a small additional cost, so, uh, with that, uh, um, as I mentioned, the police, there's no arguments there and this would be a great step forward for our folks that have mental illness. I'm open to any questions. Thank you, members, if you have any questions? All right.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
2:04:00
Senator Johnson, you were going to ask for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the DFNA analysis representative, uh, it, it says that may benefit from an amendment to add a definition for mental illness to establish qualified illnesses for the program, and it also says it might benefit what documentation an individual must present to obtain that. Is that addressed separately or is that something to be done by rule or
what? It was something that would be done more by rule and then as the licensed clinical
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
2:04:30
social workers. As they work with their patients, they would be, you know, providing them with something that they could go to DFNA or up to their
Speaker 243
2:04:41
motor vehicle when they're going to get that that documentation. So your intent is to be done by rule. OK, alright. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You go ahead
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
2:04:52
and describe so DFA won't just Promulgate those only direction. What, what maybe the witness could elaborate on what's
diagnosis would they be seeking to be
Speaker 377
2:05:05
in the world of mental health we have what's called a DSM, and we're now on the 5th version of it. So it stands for diagnostic Diagnostic statistical manual, and it's a tried and true, um, booklet oftentimes the mental health professional calls it, calls it the Bible, um, and it does outline every single Milton. Mental illness that is acceptable today. It gives us criteria. It gives us a symptoms to look at. It gives us
severity, frequency, duration, and so we have to use that whenever we have a patient or a client in front of us that is presenting with a mental illness, we then have to diagnose them, and we diagnosed them for many reasons, most of all because they need that diagnosis and then we also use it, of course for um billing and insurance purposes, so the mental health professional would be the one that would diagnose them through the DSM-5 and would write a letter to the DFNA or the the
Local motor vehicles stating that this person does in fact meet that very stringent criteria to be considered mentally ill with the diagnosis. It doesn't create any
Speaker 378
2:06:13
loopholes for someone that does something inappropriate, I
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:06:19
mean. Recently, and I don't know why, you know, you get stuck on the internet some nights or whatever, and there was a video, there's a viral video of a guy, and it's essentially the title was this is not how to respond to an officer.
And in the video, in about the 1st 30 seconds, it was very clear to that. The officer didn't know he was antagonizing someone with mental illness, but that person had a mental illness. And there's a 3 minute video. Or longer And I just think if someone had known like, hey, It's not quite right. Then it could have all been de-escalated, but it almost got to a point. That it was a very bad situation. I mean, and so ironically, like I didn't know
you had this, but I was watching that video going, man, it's so if someone could have just said even the passenger could have just said, hey. This is a trigger or you know this
is whatever you I mean because it was clear that the officer had pinpointed in on how to get a response, and he was getting a response over and over from that individual. And almost enjoying part of it because clearly it made it online. Uh, and that didn't just happen on its own. Um, but anyway, so I appreciate what you're bringing. I think it's valuable, can be very valuable, um, again, we're not,
no one's going to get away with something because they have a green card. It just may prevent something else from happening.
Speaker 377
2:07:48
So It's really a win-win situation for mental health individuals. This gives them a better way to um communicate with more respect. It gives the law enforcement officer, a better way to communicate and know what's happening. The end result is we want both parties to go home at night to their families. That's what we want. And so it
does give pause to both sets of individuals. You had mentioned, Senator, about even a passenger saying something. The clients that I am referring to, there was a passenger that said something and it didn't matter. So there's, there is a visual way to be able to let law enforcement understand and be able to take a pause. We know from statistics the 1st 45 words out of a law enforcement individual sets the tone, and
Speaker 381
2:08:41
especially if he's walking up to the car with his
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:08:48
hand on his gun. All right, uh, members, do we have any other questions? Aren't anyone in
the audience like to speak against House Bill 1798. 4, seeing none what's the will of the committee, we've got a motion passed by Senator Scott, seconded by
Senator Johnson in discussion on the motion. You're not
Senator Jamie Scott
Unverified
2:09:11
The one that says push. OK Seriously. Um I think this is a really good bill. Thank you for bringing it to us because I think sometimes our law enforcement get a bad rap and if you can put some tools in their hands to ensure the safety of our Kansas who do have mental illnesses and our law enforcement just interacting
with them. I think that's a win-win for everybody, so I just wanted
to echo what you said, so that's why I was OK with not saying nothing if I
Speaker 377
2:09:54
couldn't get the song. I did kind of want it in closing, let you know that Arkansas will be the only state that has this, so, um, that just proves to the innovation that our Arkansas has as well as their thought and going forward with individuals with mental illness, and I also do want to just put a shout out to Margaret
because she is a very remarkable woman, and without her collaborating with me, we would not be sitting here. Just in time, Senator. Last bill. We're about
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
2:10:24
to vote. All those in favor signify saying ah. All those
opposed. Motion carries. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, members, I think we that that wraps up our business for the night unless
anybody wants to run some house bills for some members.
We're good and everybody, I think Senator Wallace, I'll go with that, we are adjourned.
Agenda
Call to Order
SB492 J. Bryant TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE RELOCATION OF UTILITY FACILITIES; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ACQUISITION, CONDEMNATION, AND DISPOSITION OF REAL PROPERTY BY THE STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION.
SB96 C. Penzo TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DETACHMENT BY A REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY; AND TO REPEAL REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY DETACHMENT.
SB258 C. Penzo TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS DIGITAL RESPONSIBILITY, SAFETY, AND TRUST ACT.
SB447 J. Petty TO REQUIRE PERMITTED COMMON CARRIERS TO SUBMIT REPORTS DETAILING SHIPMENTS OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES INTO THE STATE.
SB496 Caldwell TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PERMITS FOR SPECIAL CARGOES; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE ISSUANCE OF A PERMIT FOR SPECIAL CARGO TRANSPORTED BY A FARM MACHINERY EQUIPMENT HAULER.
SB540 M. Johnson TO LIMIT THE SUSPENSION OR REVOCATION OF A DRIVER'S LICENSE OR IMPOSITION OF RESTRICTIONS ON A DRIVER'S LICENSE OF A PERSON WHO HAS SUFFERED A SEIZURE.
SB561 M. Johnson TO ALLOW FOR THE ISSUANCE OF AN ADDITIONAL TEMPORARY PREPRINTED PAPER BUYER'S TAG IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES; AND TO CREATE A PENALTY FOR THE USE OF AN EXPIRED TEMPORARY PREPRINTED PAPER BUYER'S TAG.
SB562 Hill TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE OFFICE OF INTERNAL AUDIT; AND TO REPEAL THE REQUIREMENT FOR AN ANNUAL PROJECT REVIEW AND EFFICIENCY STUDY OF THE ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION.
HB1798 Nazarenko TO ESTABLISH A GREEN ENVELOPE PROGRAM.
SB540
Adjourn
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — TRANSPORTATION, TECHNOLOGY & LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS - SENATE, Apr 2, 2025 | Agenda | 2 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 5
Speaker 8
Senator Ricky Hill
Unverified
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
Speaker 22
Speaker 35
Speaker 38
Speaker 52
Speaker 37
Speaker 56
Senator Clint Penzo
Unverified
Josh Bryant
Unverified
Speaker 68
Speaker 74
Speaker 82
Jess Askew
Unverified
Speaker 97
Speaker 99
Speaker 101
Michelle Allgood
Unverified
Speaker 116
Speaker 100
Speaker 132
Speaker 114
Speaker 140
Speaker 144
Speaker 145
Speaker 163
Speaker 165
Speaker 169
Speaker 173
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 185
Speaker 191
Speaker 177
Speaker 193
Speaker 192
Speaker 174
Speaker 176
Speaker 216
Speaker 230
Speaker 231
Speaker 235
Speaker 239
Speaker 240
Speaker 244
Speaker 248
Speaker 26
Senator Jim Petty
Unverified
Speaker 262
Speaker 263
Speaker 270
Speaker 272
Speaker 273
Speaker 206
Speaker 276
Speaker 279
Speaker 281
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
Speaker 282
Speaker 288
Speaker 299
Speaker 209
Speaker 125
Speaker 313
Speaker 168
Speaker 318
Speaker 323
Speaker 333
Speaker 199
Speaker 338
Speaker 337
Speaker 342
Speaker 345
Speaker 347
Speaker 351
Speaker 355
Speaker 358
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
Speaker 371
Speaker 243
Speaker 377
Speaker 378
Speaker 381
Senator Jamie Scott
Unverified