State Agencies & Govt'l Affairs-Senate

Members, please be sure to use your mics and uh anybody wishing to speak for or against the bill, you need to sign up on the sign-in sheet. Where's it laying? right over here by this gate. So if you want to speak for or against the bill, please sign up for that. Uh, we have some pages here. If y'all would stand up and be recognized when I call your name Madison Cox. She's homeschooled and she's out of Senator Rice's district. Zion McDaniel. He is from Little Rock, Southwest High School, Senter Love's District, Marilyn Martinez. Welcome all of y'all. She's from Little Rock Southwest High School, Senator Love's district. Deonte Mitchell. He's from Little Rock Southwest High School. Senator Love's district. Grace Finley. Grab at high school and John Stone, Columbia Christian Academy. Welcome to all of y'all. Appreciate you being here. All right, Senator Flippo is not going to be in the chair until after he gets done presenting the bill, but he was kind enough to join us so we could have a quorum and get started, uh, Senator Hammer is not here. Let's see here. I think letting has something to present. SB 489. Go ahead and invite them up, they can introduce themselves and be recognized. Oh Senator Leading, you're recognized to present Senate Bill 489. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Vice Chair, members of the committee, Senator Greg Letting District 30. I'll let my guests introduce themselves real quick. Melissa Moore, Superintendent of Charleston School District. I'm Alan Wilburn, executive director of communications for Fayetteville Public Schools. Go ahead. You. Thank you. Uh, some weeks ago, the legislature passed Act 251 of 2025. This was a bill by Representative Fran Kavanaugh to place a monument on the Capitol grounds honoring Hocky's School District's contribution to integrating public schools in Arkansas in the summer of 1955, the school district voted to integrate their schools, and they faced a significant but ultimately unsuccessful legal challenge during discussion of that particular legislation, the communities of Charleston and Fayetteville both came forward to point out that a year prior to that they had each already voluntarily integrated their public schools. Fayetteville is often credited inaccurately as being the first. I believe they voted on September 10th. Charleston actually had done so on August of 23rd, just about two weeks prior to that, but had done so very quietly and obviously this was long before social media, so there wasn't a lot of coverage of these things, but regardless, both schools voluntarily integrated their schools about a year prior to Hocky, and not only were they the first two school districts in the state. They were the first two school districts in the South, so both Communities there were discussions with Representative Kavanaugh as her legislation made its way through, but both communities ultimately felt that they certainly honor and appreciate Hoxy's contribution to integrating public schools in Arkansas, that if we're going to honor that story, we should tell tell a fuller story, and so both communities are here in support of this legislation. Senator Stubblefield was in here earlier, I believe he might have talked to a few of you about the legislation as well. I will say Representative John Eubanks, who represents Charleston, is not listed as a sponsor on the bill only because he did not. text me back in time, but he is supportive of the legislation and with that I would allow the people here with me to say. You recognized. Thank you. I appreciate your consideration of this bill being a leader and the superintendent of Charleston now, I have a lot of respect for the people that came before me and my dad was actually in Charleston and and graduated in 1965. These, these children who integrated came in 1954, and so he was a student all the way through. And I've, I've many stories from him and from others in the community. Sadly, the generation that made those decisions is, is almost not with us anymore. Very, very few and far between, um, do we have any of those, those folks that actually um was on the school board or the superintendent, the, the leaders of that town, but I feel like that the decisions the community. It was a unanimous decision in a board meeting and I can just tell you as you all know as legislators, there aren't many things that are unanimous anymore. um, but that was a unanimous decision supported by our community, and I would certainly like for the historic event to have the opportunity to be memorialized as well. Thank you for your testimony. It was lights out. You're recognized, sir. Thank you, sir. The vote by the favorable Board of Education on May 20th, 1954 is a proud moment in the history of the district. We were fortunate in 2004 to reenact that event using high school students who represented the six men that were on the board that year and I actually had two of the members of the board that were there that and they talked about how it was a foregone conclusion. Yes, we knew it was working its way through the court system and that the Supreme Court was going to rule, and we were prepared to take those steps, but as was mentioned, It's been 71 years since that decision, and so many of the people that were involved that were there at that time are no longer here. And so we think it's an important memorial to remind of some important decisions that were made that year in '54 and 55 all across the state. Thank you. Uh, so Senator Leyding, is this gonna be part of the same monument that Representative Kavanaugh proposed, or is this a totally separate site, separate monument? What, what exactly are we talking about here? So there were discussions as her legislation was working the way through that maybe we could make this one monument, um, she was determined to move forward and so once that legislation passed, communities of Charleston and Fayetteville decided they would like to introduce their own legislation. So at this time this would be a separate monument. I suppose it is possible though that with this legislation to pass that All three communities could come together and collaborate on one monument. If I'm not mistaken, there's a monument committee or something like that that has to do a site selection and so that's not things that we discuss on your bill, is that correct? That's my understanding. We don't discuss the location or site satisfied are you that we have found the earliest record and there's no more hand raisers or arguments out there. Been going to Branson for many years and the bald knobbers show and the Presley show both argue about who was the first show in Branson. And so I just want to make sure that Before we put up monuments that we know how many we're going to put up. That's a fair question. I would never wade into those waters, but on this matter I am fully satisfied. OK, is there anybody in the audience that claims their town was earlier. OK. Anybody have any questions? First standard letting Senator Clark. Understand that we've already passed the one bill. Uh But Doesn't make sense regardless of. Uh The representative's feelings, uh, that we have one monument. I think it kind of Devalues Not to do one. Uh, mentioning The Those I talked through with Representative Kavanaugh while her bill was making its way through the legislature. I've talked to her in the time since then, and I actually talked to her just this morning to let her know that we were still moving forward with this with the goal of perhaps there's still being one monument at some time in the future, but as now with that bill being the only one that has passed, I believe that monument would only recognize Hacky's contribution. But that's not yours. Say And your bill is another monument. I see what you're saying. Our bill does not include Hocky's contribution. And it and it said only Fayetville and Charleston. That is true because I think we've got a better chance of doing the right thing if we have a bill that does the right thing, then two separate bills that are diverging and do something else, and I realized you, you can't force them, but you can. Put it in. Yours, OK, whether anybody's willing or not, right? Because you don't always get your way. Representative Kavanaugh doesn't always get her way. I certainly don't always get in my way. I would say she probably gets her way more often than either of us, but yes, that's true. Uh, but I just, not just speaking to you, I was speaking to the committee that I think if we don't fix it and. As a legislature and and start toward the right direction that we're messing up. Wouldn't you agree? I would agree that if we included Huxley in this legislation, then yeah, there could be the potential of two monuments in Hoxy being recognized in both, but we would have satisfied our concerns by honoring the fuller story that we're trying to tell here with the one monument, and I think it should be told. I'm glad that there's more than one. Uh, but, but I think that's the story, not two stories, or 3 stories, so alright, thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Clarkra Tucker, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator, have you visited with the Secretary of State's office about this? I have not. OK. I'm just curious if they would. If If this bill passed alongside Representative Cavanaus so they would understand that there would just be a single monument for all three schools or I just don't know. I didn't know if y'all had that conversation or hadn't it certainly planned to if the legislation advanced, but wanted to see where we are with this legislation and what Other things might come up during the discussion. All right, thanks. So on the funding side of this. Can you explain, is it all going to be private funding private funding just as with the previous monument after it's there, then the maintenance becomes The state's responsibility. Once it's on the Capitol grounds, OK. Any other questions? Where everybody signed up. To speak for against this bill. I don't think so. Seeing none signed up, you want clothes for your bill? Well, I don't want to put him on the spot, but I did notice that Senator Stubblefield stepped into the room, and I don't know if that was for another piece of legislation or if you wanted to say something on this, if he's good, I'm certainly closed. Senator Stupplefield, would you like to OK. What's the will of the committee? So I see motion and a second do pass. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Congratulations, your bill passed. Thank you. Senator Hammer, did you want to present 293 concurrent amendment? Absolutely. Have a seat. Introduce yourself, bring up your guest and you'll be recognized. Kim Hammer, state senator, District 16 presenting on Senate Bill 293. it Good morning, Mr. Chair. My name's Chris Madison. I'm director for the State Board of Election Commissioners. Thank you. You're both recognized to present. Amendment for Senate bill or concurrent amendment for Senate Bill 293. Yes sir, you want an explanation amendment or is that what you asked for? I'm sorry. You can present however you want to present, but yeah, the amendment is the topic, OK. It already is adopted. Thank you. I'll let Chris explain be quicker. Real simple. This was incorporating Senator Tucker's comment for the Penn site for the crossover voting. We agreed to amend it on the House side. We added that in. It's past there, it's just back here to grieve for that. I think it's on page 2 line 1314, somewhere down the. where we added the pin sight fly 23 where we added the pin site for the specific crossover voting prohibition that you would ask for. Any questions from the committee? everybody in the audience that signed up to speak for against this amendment. Senator Hamburg, you want to close for the minute? Thank you. I'd, I'm closed. I'd make a motion to pass as amended. The motion is to concur in the amendment, the House amendment. That's my motion. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Oh, did you want to discuss it? I thought you were OK, we got a motion in a second. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Congratulations we have concurred in the house of moment. Thank you. Senator Johnson here, did he? Hickey. To prevent any committee members that need to present. Senator Sullivan, which one will you be presenting? 536. OK. Senator Sullivan, you recognize the present Senate Bill 536. Senator Dan Sullivan, District 20. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, just, just a bit of history on this, you know, I had a bill filed 184. And it passed the Senate, but we held it out of the house because some people came to me with better legislation and better ideas. I think this is really a good bill. It's very comprehensive. It brings about accountability and some innovative improvements. One of the things that the Senate, our primary jobs is oversight not only of services, but money and resources, and that's what this bill does. It brings some innovative approaches and aligns our library system with our Department of Education. So what is this about? It's about oversight, innovation, accountability, and opportunity during the transformation a few years ago, we had 42 cabinet level agencies 200 boards and commissions, and we reorganized that into 15 cabinet positions, no services or functions, etc. were eliminated. So that's pretty much what we're proposing right now. Um, you know, I think most of you are aware the original bill had AETN in it, and that board when I had some changes, I asked them to make and their functions. There was a phone call, a meeting, a handshake, and written in in writing with the changes would be, and I brought that same opportunity to the library board. I met with them a couple of weeks ago and had 2 requests, very simple request. One to come up with a written statement on how they were going to protect children from sexually explicit material. Some members at the time said we already do that, and my response was fine. This shouldn't be very hard. And the second one was that they disassociate with the American Library Association, and I want to go into that just a little bit. The American Library Association a year ago, 2 years ago, their CEO director said proclaim personally she was a Marxist intending to cause trouble. Those are her words, not mine. Uh, they are heavily involved in DEI and if you looked up on your computer ALA and DEI, you'll see it is replete with those statements. The, the ALA even is essentially boycotting. With their conventions and activities they're boycotting states that don't agree with their principles. That's in writing. I have that document. Uh, so if you have stand your ground laws, they're opposed to that. If you have bathroom bills, they oppose that. If you have boys and girls sports, none of those align with what the ALA says as part of their mission. Uh, so they're boycotting us, yet we're standing firm with them. And by the way, there are 10 or 12 states that have ended their affiliation with the ALA. When these things happened, I never heard a word from our libraries, not one librarian that I'm aware of ever stood up and said we disagree. I take that back. We had one that called me. She called the ALA and they told her they didn't care. That was the end of that, but when all these things transpired and they've been transpiring since 2016 through 2019 through 2024. All these things have occurred and not one of our librarians or li bra ries has said a word about that. I spoke to a number of those library directors before this meeting about 2 weeks ago and gave them those two conditions if they would do those two things which seemed rather simple, I would pull the bill down. They voted 4 to 3 not to do that. Didn't ask why, but I did call most all the board members prior to the vote. I've also since then, when I after I filed the bill, spoken to a lot of people, directors, matter of fact, my home director at the Craighead County Library sent out a letter opposing the bill. Well, saying she was afraid of this and afraid of that, clearly opposing the bill, and when I talked to the board director, he had not even read the bill. That was true of a number of library board members that I spoke to. They oppose it without reading it. I spoke with Ashley County, Baxter Regional, um, many others. If you look on many of the websites for your libraries, they have the ALA as part of their policy. If you go to the cow's library website, they just take you directly to the link for the American Library Association. Others have just cut and pasted that those things in there. Um, talked to a lot of people who have gotten a very similar letter that I got from my local library from their regions. When I called them, many of them have not read the bill. I talked to a lady this morning who called and was upset. You're taking our funding, and I actually read from the bill and what it does about funding, and she said, you're a liar and I don't trust you that conversation didn't last very long. Um I'm still wondering why some of our People, people of great concern have not spoken to the board members. Why did they turn that down on such an easy opportunity? I do want to go through the bill real quickly. I don't want to take a lot of time, but there's some critical points because the bill does some really good things. Some innovative ideas and also some accountability and folks from my estimation, that's what this is about. The libraries, the library, local libraries want to be independent. They want to take state money with no accountability. That's pretty much what I hear, and as, as our one of our primary jobs is accountability and distribution of funding. Those are all important things. And by the way, I think our Department of Education has done a great job in managing the Lears Act and access and those bills which, by the way have DEI in them and the legislature has stood up against DEI strongly in the past, yet we're our libraries refuse to make a. statement against that. So on page one, Of the bill, you'll notice it abolishes the state library. That's where most people stop reading because it then re-establishes all those functions, and if you read underneath that, although it abolishes that all the authority functions, records, contracts, personnel, personnel, personnel, and expended balances of appropriation allocations, other funds, including the function of budgeting and purchasing are transferred to the Department of Education. So some of you are business people, been in business, you know, often businesses sell, and when they sell, they transfer everything stays. Leadership changes, that's essentially what's under here, and I think most of you know the library is already under the Department of Education. This is not something new. They're under the Department of Ed, but there is a library board. In there that kind of is a buffer of sorts in between there. And if you'll read line 32, except as otherwise provided in this act, the Arkansas State Library statutory powers duties. Again, it repeats all of those things that remain, so they're not gone. On page 2, abolishment of the Arkansas State Library. Again, it just goes under the Department of Education. There's no big changes. The rest of it is pretty much just stricken until you get down to page. Uh, 7. And again, one of the complaints is Um That we're going to lose services. I'm sorry, page 8. On line 22. Arkansas code is amended to read the following depository of federal, state, and local documents. So they are still the archive, which is really their main function. And in line 31 of the Department of Education may transfer assets to help pursue it, so you could read all those, the depository of library programs, library eligible, so they're just switching who's in charge there. If you look over in page 9, line 15, and state and local government publication Clearing House. So when you talk to people who are opposed to this bill. They don't read or didn't understand that these all these are just transferred over to the Department of Education. They're not done away with. If you look over on page 11, You see in line 1110 and 11 state library stricken, and that is now referred to as the Arkansas State Archives title change, state library agency, another title change, the library in the state designated by the Secretary of the Department of Education. So it just we're just transferring that oversight responsibility to that group. I'm on page 12, uh, again, the same thing. The state archives. Uh, this is a big one, line 17 and 18. A lot of people are concerned we're going to lose the digital library that is really used a lot. And this mentions that right there, the Department of Higher Ed and the Arkansas State Archives shall maintain it's already been developed, shall maintain a digital collection of information. That's old language. That's not new language. We've just changed the title there. Down at the bottom section 17, uh, I'm now on the top of page 13. Uh, you know, when, when Act 372 went before the court, the court struck out a couple of parts of that, and I disagree with them. However, the court did lay some frameworks, so what we needed to do differently, and that's laid out here. So one of the things the court says that you can segregate material to protect children. That's not against the law. The federal court said you can do that. They disagreed with how we did it and said it needed to be more specific. That's what this does. Age-appropriate material means, and we lay out the context there. The subheading line 8, sexual contact is defined by US code. 2246. It talks about and that code contact with human genitalia, age appropriate material does not include educational material. One of the recommendations from the court separate educational material. This bill does that and leaves it up to the library on how they do that. Again, there's a lot more language there. I'm just trying to highlight some of the things I know the court said, and I know the opposition's going to say. I'm on page 14, sexual education material means age appropriate information, and if you read down through there, it talks about I think 16 years of age. So one of the things the court said you need to have some plugs in there or gaps in there that distinguish what's appropriate at different ages. You can't just say 18, although we do all the time, the federal judge said do it differently, so we did it differently. Um, if you get down to line 13 on page 14, a state plan. Now notice that is new language. So apparently there's not, they've not had to have a state plan before. A document that includes without limitation, folks, this is what accountability is. And if you want to have a quality program, you have to have accountability. Line 18, it's just oversight. Yes sir, assurance from the establishment of the state's policies, priorities, and criteria. So when we say we have stand your ground laws. We protect children in bathrooms and sports, all the things DEI, all those policies that we have. This is our, this is the part of the bill that says we have oversight over that and if the ALA or others are going to say we don't want your oversight if the state library board says we're not, we don't recognize your oversight. That's why that's new language in this bill. If you look down at uh uh. Line 33 provides specialized services to individuals who are blind and individuals of physical disabilities. Again, that's underlined new language. Page 15, line one, assist with the establishment and development of county library systems. So when people say you're putting our library out of service. That's not what the bill says. The bill says we're to assist in keeping you going and regional. Conduct in line 7 people complain, Well, we're going to lose all our our resources. Line 7 conduct educational programs to develop or improve. Uh, courses and library instruction, regional library leadership. All that's in there, uh, line 15, take steps to fulfill the actions under US code and to utilize federal grants, so the goal there is to help our libraries, just the opposite of what you hear. I'm down in line 29. The Department of Education, this is a big one, they promulgate any necessary rules for the department to fulfill its obligations under this subchapter with the requirement of Arkansas administrative procedures has called oversight. That's what we do. Um, the next few lines, uh, add to that. I'm over on page 16. shall administer a program to distribute funds appropriate to the General Assembly. So right now it's a capitated rate and people get the money based on their population, folks, I think that's a bad idea. We've got a library that has the highest village in the state, 4.3. They also get $500,000 plus, about 1/10 of the money the state allocates 5.8 million. They get almost 10%. of that are uh yeah, 10% of that goes to one library who hires social workers and who has a library of things. Now is that what our libraries, is that their primary responsibility or is it education? Now I don't know why no one has addressed that. It's in the law. They didn't have a choice, but they could have come to us and said it's time to change it. Well, I'm ready to change it. state aid may be made available to public libraries that satisfy all of the requirements, accountability. We're not going to give out state money and just say you have no oversight, which has been how they operate. And you can read down through there what that list is, but it sets out some pretty good things, including prohibiting access to age inappropriate materials to a person who is 16 years or older. Tell you, just, just the thing I saw in research. You know, the bill 372 was kind of killed over the judge saying it was inappropriate and the part that was inappropriate was harmful to children. Guess what cos has on their policy about posting material on their bulletin boards. They will not post material that's harmful to minors. Yet they sued the state over that. I'm on and that's true in multiple policies around the state. I'm online 15 on page 17. United States Department of Education Council for Higher Education, you know, one of the things that we passed Senate Bill 81, which said a librarian didn't have to have a master's degree or you could take the master's degree approved by ALA. Well, I had a lot of feedback from librarians that said we should be a professional organization. OK, valid point. I put it back in there. A master's degree in library of science would be necessary. However, it doesn't say approved. by the ALA, it says approved by the Department of Education or Council on Higher Education accreditation, and then it outlines staff development that I believe might be new. So when they complain when complainers said this is a bad bill. It gave back to them something that was very critical to them. I thought it was critical. Nobody called and said, I like the bill. I hate the bill except for this. I'm on page 18. Again, it continues with the director of record is actively pursuing minimum qualifications. So if you have a problem hiring somebody, then it lays out a time period and a pathway to get that accreditation. Uh, line 10, the public library under supervision, so there's supervision there, accountability. I kind of don't blame people for not liking have to be accountable. Uh, line 19. page 21, I'm sorry, page 19, line 22. A long range plan developed for the purpose of guiding the public library administration to the attainment of goals and future planning and approved by the governing board. How unique. A plan That people oppose. Um I'm on page 20, determination of eligibility so they can appeal the process. I'm on page 21, the Secretary shall consider all available information. So if you appeal, uh, this is great. This is what I'm really love this one. 32, page 21, 32. Each qualifying library receives the same base allocation, which they do now. Uh, except as provided under subdivision of this section, the department may establish an incentive program to improve a public library. Incentive program. Now what might that be? Might that be a million dollars for libraries to hire someone trained in the science of reading, and we give out. $500,000 in grants for libraries to do that and rather than handing out fishing rods and have gardens and have social workers that were actually focused on reading and we're giving out incentive grants to do that. I mean, how can we have a library of things. And have a library that doesn't have people specialized in the science of reading. You know who has one of the largest staff development databases in the state, the Department of Ed. I already talked to the Department of Ed. Right now you have to be a licensed teacher or in a school to access that. They're ready to change that. They're ready to allow libraries. Homeschoolers, charter schoolers to access their database. Wouldn't it be great if they had some online courses in the science of reading. Nobody's asked for that. And maybe you have some people testifying in a minute they'll tell you why. I'm on line 22. Um Line 2 is consistent with the public policy of the state, you know, this is why I got involved with this. They have the public policy of the state, it doesn't appear our state library held anybody accountable to the policies of the state. Um, stand your ground, DEI, that whole list we've gone through several times. Those are policies of the state. And yet the library board did not hold our libraries accountable in any way for that. That's what oversight is. I'm on Page 23. State and local government clearing house on line 13, uh, line one of 24, the Arkansas State Archives may include its online database, so all these things that people will testify that you're putting our libraries out of business. It's just not true. The publication of annual benefits reports, so the reports that are due. Of course, that's old language. Uh Flying Page 26, line, line 6. Again, old language but more oversight. Uh, last thing, page 28. This does have an emergency clause to it, and folks, we need an emergency clause. Things are not getting done at that level. When I offer the libraries and I called them individually and said if you'll vote to do two things. Tell us how you're going to protect children. Well, we already do that, they said. OK, then just write it down. How'd you like to have an assignment like that? And two disassociate disaffiliate with the ALA who deny state policy and fights against state policy, agree or disagree with state policy. It's state policy. And why would we do business with somebody that does that. We won't let Chinese nationals on farmland in the state. But we'll let a Marxist be the leader of an organization that works against the state of Arkansas and boycotts the state of Arkansas. I have got, I'm not going to go through any of it. But I got a ton of DEI stuff. I've got the financials for everybody. So when people say someone says we don't have enough money to do whatever it is they want to do. We know how they're spending their money and folks, it's not, it's been on things like the library of things and other things, to my knowledge, rather than what we're doing for the science of reading or things that promote that. Uh The presidential orders to continue the reduction in the elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined or unnecessary. One of those is the Institute of Museums and Library Services. So they're going to start defunding those and people are afraid, and rightly so, that we at the state level are going to defund them, but folks, they've got a choice. They can be under the accountability that we are sworn to uphold, or they can choose not to, or they can go to their local county and raise their property tax. Again, I don't want to go through all the documentation we have here, but there's just tons of it, uh, on, if you go to the cow's library page and you look at their policy, it takes you directly to ALA. If you go to other, and I won't mention the counties, they may be here. I don't want to embarrass them. I think it would be. It's just cut and paste for ALA. The only thing I can assume. It can't be that hard to write a statement how we're going to protect children if you already do it. The only reason I can think of that they would not vote for that. It's their affiliation to the ALA American Library Association is greater than their affiliation to the state of Arkansas. With that, I'll take any questions. Thank you, Senator Sullivan. So the American Library Association, how much money do they put into the funding for Arkansas libraries? I have no idea. They have a $55 million budget. To, I don't know. I think they give out some grants. I don't have that on my financial sheet. I do have how much money we've given to them, which isn't a lot, you know, several, maybe $10,000 12,000 dollars we were given to ALA OK and what was the you referenced fishing poles. Yeah, what was that about? I think I'm not sure, maybe one of the people who testifying can do that, but I think the the game and fish may have a program that they allow libraries to hand out Game and fish materials we have some giving out garden equipment, uh, rakes, chainsaws, lawn mowers, loaning it out, giving it out. Well, they check it out at a library, a chainsaw. One has a large garden. I don't know, don't hold me to do chainsaw. I know they give out lawn equipment and lawn things. Maybe people testifying can testify to what those things are. I've been amazed that nobody calls and asks the people that call me, you're shutting us down. Well, what about the library of Things and people have large gardens and listen, if they're getting grants to do that, how about it? If their county wants to pay for that, how about it? If the state's going to pay for it, I want to know. Senator Clark, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Sullivan, tell me again, uh, I didn't quite catch it. What were the two things you asked the board to do and they voted not to do it and this was with each member of the board. I said, I'd like for you to have a statement, non-binding because the board cannot find anything. 9 non-binding statement on how they will protect children from sexually explicit material. OK. And the goal there, Senator, just to be clear, the goal was if they make a statement and that's part of what we do, then. In the summer we can call libraries in and the education committee and say, so do you have a statement? Why or why not? And then in the fiscal session next year to maybe hold people physically accountable. OK, so that's the first thing. And the second one was just just affiliate with the ALA, and that was just the state board. And the state library didn't apply to any county libraries at all. And without and with if they had done those two things, you would have pulled this bill. Yes, sir. Thank you and you were, you were clear about that. Very, they it's on, it's on video. They said at the meeting, uh, Senator Rapert made several motions close to these, uh, members of the board restated them. And if I remember correctly. A member, at least one member of the board said we already do those things. Uh They still voted 4 to 3 not to. So when people say Dan's taking away Book ban Dan is taking away their library and killing their library. They chose that path, not me. And again, just for the record. When AETN had all their financial problems and we called them in and had hearings and went through all of that. Uh, when they had their significant problems and the governor was appointing more people to the board. I met with multiple board members. I called the director and I called the chair of the board, the chair of the board and I met for about 2 or 3 hours. 2 hours, but on a handshake, we agreed on what they would do to improve their function. I expect them to keep their end. I'll keep my end, and I have the amendment on 184 striking the AETN from that bill and it's not at all in this bill, so they'll stay functional. OK, thank you. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator Clark. Senator Tucker, you recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Cha. I know there are a lot of people who came to testify, and I don't want to take their time, so I'm just going to ask you a couple of questions. Have you visited with Secretary Oliva about this and what, what's the ADE's position on this. I'm not going to speak for him. You'll need to speak for him. I feel confident that they can do all that in this bill. OK. If there's anyone from at the appropriate time, Mr. Chair, if there's anyone from ADE in the room, I'd like to just invite them up and so so they can is there from Department of Education that can answer his question. Hm If you would take a seat and introduce yourself, and you'll be recognized to answer Senator Tucker's question. Oh Daniel Schultz, general counsel for the department. I obviously the education committee goes on at the same time, so I was asked to cover this this morning, this is a pleasure to be back. The Secretary in giving that direction, told me that he is confident that the agency will be able to fully fulfill the goals, uh, set out in the law, but currently and is reconstituted and will will be able to fulfill the obligations set forth by the ADE. OK. I expected that to be the, you know, at least part of the agency's answer, which is that if this is the law, we will comply, right? Um, to the best of our ability, does the agency have any position on whether this is good for libraries or in the agent, the agency, I don't know that we have an official position on the bill, but I do know that we, uh, we believe efficiency is good with protecting children is good and uh. The bill's been reviewed and we're comfortable with it, OK. All right, thank you, thank you Daniel. Thank you. While you're here, let me see if anybody else would like to ask a question. Everybody else, any other committee members have a question? Alright, thank you. Thank you, Daniel. Yeah I was of that, I'll respond to that also, you know, my experience is when you need something good done well, give it to somebody who's doing good well. The Department of Education has been doing some great innovative things, uh, school choice, um. Charter schools. Funding they're doing some really good innovative things in the state. It's time that the libraries came on board and started being more innovative with what they do in the with the focus of what they do. Our focus in our library should not be on gardening or those other things if they want to do that, fine. Our focus should be on reading, and I wonder why we don't have any libraries using funding to hire people trained in the science of reading. I'm wondering why we don't have databases. With that training available, which the Department of Education can do and that folks, I would not give an agency something I hadn't talked to and they can't do. Last thing I want is them to get up here and say Sullivan's promises and stuff we can't do. I know what they can do. They know what they can do. OK, thank you. So the emergency clause takes effect on July 1st, so the effect of that is if library a library in Arkansas isn't fully compliant. If this were to pass and a library in Arkansas is not fully compliant with it as of July 1st, and they could lose funding at that time, correct? If if people don't fully comply if they haven't fully complied, if they haven't, that will be up to the determination. I mean, you can read the emergency clause and you can read what's in the bill. They have an opportunity to appeal. So if the Department of Education makes takes action that they don't like, they can appeal that. So if they're not ready and they appeal the process and they, the secretary says, Why aren't you ready? And they said, We don't like your oversight. We quit. Or they say, look, we had people sick and out. There's all kinds of reasons that people could not be ready. It would be justifiable. OK, so there's a process in the bill that they wouldn't necessarily lose funding on July 1st, OK. All right, there's 11 compliance piece I want to ask you about, and then, then I'll defer my time. It's starting on page 16. OK. Subsection B starting on line 5. That's where it says state aid shall be made available to a public library that satisfies all of the following requirements. One of the requirements On that same page online 16 and 17 is prohibited access to age inappropriate materials to a person who is 16 years old or younger. And then we're still in the same, actually, subsection B, if you move over to page 19 of the bill. And it's subdivision 5B of subsection B on lines 5 and 6, and it says, The collection under subdivision B5A, which is just the general collection of the library, shall not include any materials described under. Arkansas Code Section 568-5012. And I've pulled up that, that section on my phone, and that's a definition in the criminal code of what's harmful to minors. And so anyway, that's a long way of saying that in the bill. Libraries are prohibited from having in their collection anything that's That's harmful to minors. And that's, that's different than, uh, This is what I'm trying to understand. Originally I thought we were moving at segregating materials where minors don't have access to it, but this seems to go, and I may be misreading it. That's why I'm asking. Uh, this seems to go a step further and says the collection under subdivision B5A of the section shall not include any of these materials. So are we now removing them from the library entirely? Or just segregating them from areas that children have that segregating it the rest of the bill talks about segregating material for children for age inappropriate material. Again, if you look at the policy of most of our libraries, including Cal's, they use that exact same language. So if one says it can't have it in here, then you need to go to most every library in the state of Arkansas, and you can start right here with yours and tell them to take it out. OK. OK, your position is that it's, it's segregating material. OK. That's not the way I read that section, that section says the collection shall not include any materials, which to me says it can't be included at all. And so that may just be a difference in interpreting that interpret interpreting that language and we're disagreeing again. OK. Alright. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Tucker. Any other questions from committee members? All right, I think we have several members of the audience that would like to speak, so we'll just start the top of the list here. Misty Hawkins. Director of the Arkansas River Valley Library System. You're gonna be speaking against. Yes. 5. You wanna make a motion? OK, Ms. Hopkins, you recognize, introduce yourself, please, for the record. Pull that microphone close. They're not very loud today. OK. I'm Misty Hawkins and I'm the regional director for the Arkansas River Valley Regional Library System, and I serve Franklin Johnson, Logan, and Yale counties. OK. You're recognized to speak against 536. OK, thank you for the opportunity to try to address the committee today. I've dedicated over 15 years to Arkansas Public Libraries, but until this year, I never felt compelled to attend a legislative session in person. Now, this marks my 8th visit to the capital. And my 3rd time speaking before committees. All to encourage and build a deeper understanding of libraries in our state and to ensure our legislative body is well informed. SB 536 would have a direct and negative impact on every library in Arkansas, regardless of size. There is no real benefit to this legislation, and it creates far more problems than its claims to solve. This bill exemplifies a wicked problem for several reasons. The issues SB 536 attempts to address our non-existent. This bill imposes a necessary bureaucracy where local governance is already effective. The bill lacks measurable objectives, making it impossible to determine whether it achieves anything meaningful. Instead, it creates ongoing uncertainty and compliance burdens. Once implemented, its consequences will be impossible to reverse. Loss of funding, whether due to compliance or lack thereof, will permanently harm local libraries, especially in rural areas that already struggle with resources. A one size fits all solution does not exist. Our Arkansas libraries serve communities with unique needs, small and large libraries face different challenges related to funding, staffing, and community priorities, a blanket policy will not work for everyone. SP 536 overrides local decision making and impact stakeholders. Parents, educators, librarians, students, and community leaders all have a stake in library services. This bill undermines their ability to work together to make decisions that reflect local needs. Rather than imposing broad irreversible restrictions based on false statements, please support solutions that strengthen libraries and expand opportunities for all Arkansans like early literacy interventions, preparing children for school. Workforce training programs helping job seekers gain skills. Partnerships and economic development connecting local businesses with resources. As Senator Sullivan mentioned several times, libraries already play a vital role in positive impact through our programs and our services like gardens. Feeding the homeless, serving as a food pantry. Providing social services to areas that may not have them. Instead of attacking them, Arkansas should be investing in an expanding these successful community-driven initiatives. Today I urge you to vote against SB 536. But beyond this vote, I ask you to do one more thing. Actually visit your library firsthand. See for yourself the impact they have on people and your communities. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Are you prepared to take questions? I believe so. OK. Uh, so I'm gonna go first. You made some statements about this bill would be detrimental to libraries. This bill would do can you demonstrate any of that? Can you give us exactly how is it going to do that. So, I, I serve 4 counties. I will not be able to sign my name. And say that in good faith I can follow this piece of legislation. It I cannot what part of it, what part of it? Well, number one, it has an emergency clause to make this to where I would have to go in and I have 7 library locations, so that means all of our library locations. We will have to restructure our Our books or do we need to do that? Like it doesn't say. Well, I'm sure that Senator Sullivan hadn't visited all 7 of your libraries to point out which book needs to be moved to where, but do you not have some, a librarian that knows and catalogs all your books. That's the point we're trying to make. We have been doing this all along. We do not need a law to tell us that our things are in age appropriate materials or 16 years and older, that's not how we categorize books. So you disagree with the premise. Not that you can't do it. You just don't want to do it. No, it's that we legally cannot do like how are we going to do this? How, how do we decide what book is for a 16 year old and what book is for a 15-year-old, which book is for a 17-year-old, and what, and then if we choose to put this in an area that is not accessible. That's also illegal because We've seen that happen across the state right now. We, we are literally between a rock and a hard place in our jobs, so you have no standards. You're not used to having any standards that you don't always have standards, absolutely. We have different collections. I'm Senator Hammer for a question. OK, actually, Mr. Chair, you're hitting on what I'm going to ask for, but I, I'm going to ask this of everybody that comes in instead of instead of speaking in generalities as far as this bill. Leave it open ended, be specific with specific examples. I think that would help us as a committee understand instead of just a broad net but a specific one that. Anybody that comes. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for? Ms. Hawkins, go ahead, Senator Clark. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first question. is the two things that Senator Sullivan As the state board to do. Uh, let's begin with number one, a non-binding statement. A policy to protect children, uh. Is that something you think they shouldn't have done. They did. They did. They, they did. So Senator Sullivan's not telling us the truth. That's up to, I mean, Senator Sullivan, but they did create a non-binding policy. During that meeting. OK, Senator Sullivan, would you respond please? That so you're recognized. Thank you. Yeah, the board voted. It's on video. The vote on those two motions, the board voted 4 to 3 to not decline to do those. Now they may have done something subsequent to that, but I've not received anything, and the board vote is of record. Thank you for that input. Yes, it is. It is of record, Ms Lupe de Pina. Um, she's the one who made the motion for a non, like a non-binding policy and created the collections like she did, she said she did it based off of her conversation and what needed to be stated. Right then and there like based off of her previous conversations with Senator Sullivan, so I mean that's on Video, so I can't attest to ALA though that decision wasn't made. On the video. OK, because you're against this bill, but I'm not sitting here. You're not sitting here. If If that was done. Absolutely. We've said that from the get-go though. Like I've, I've talked to Senator Sullivan on many occasions, and I told him, we have no institutional membership. The state library has no institutional membership. They've stated that on multiple occasions in board meetings. No, no, no, no, no. If we're this much against the bill and the board's this much against the bill. And the two things that are presented. is all that had to be done. To make Senator Sullivan happy. Uh You, I can tell you that if I was on the board, I would have not only if I was going to do them, I not only would have done them, I would have communicated very clearly with Senator Sullivan. That they were done. Uh And I, I can't see, I can't see that that's been done. OK. The If I may continue, Mr. Chair. Yes, continue. So Direct and negative impact. What's the direct and negative impact of this bill. Senator Hammer talked about being specific. OK. So if we immediately Dissolve the state library. The services that are currently provided. We do not know if they are going to be continued. Right We don't know. It appears to me that it says here in the bill. That they are going to be continued. I mean, that's what I read. Is that not what you read? That's not how I read it, no. But it's Well, again, then reading becomes an issue. Uh I think interpretation does. There are a lot of, there's also shells and maize in the bill as well and page 14 and 16 where it says the ADE may distribute funding, and we shall do our part and they may distribute funding. That's an issue. OK, so that leads me to think that I probably you have an issue with the trust of the Department of trust and the Department of Education. Absolutely, OK, but, but again, it looks to me like Star Trek, you know, we, we pick you up over here and we beam you over here. It looks like it covers every single thing. And moves it from one location to another location, uh, moves it from one authority to another authority, but still does all those things, does it not appear to do that. I think we've really misunderstood the complexity of our profession. I don't misunderstand. My dad was a librarian, so there's no need to speak down to me nor I think any of the rest of us, or Centra Sullivan, uh, unnecessary bureaucracy. You said unnecessary bureau it was going to add unnecessary bureaucracy. What unnecessary bureaucracy is it gonna have? So, When we are As a director, I am now doing more to get the same funding. I have to ensure that my libraries are in compliance. In order to get the same amount of funding. I think Senator Sullivan phrased that as accountability. We already have standards though we do have standards. And he's made it sound like we don't, and we do. We've, we've always had standards, and I'm sure you have for state aid and procedures that we have to follow. I'm sure that you have the fact that there's accountability somewhere else, is that a problem? It's not necessarily, I have I have respect for the Department of Ed. That's not my, my statement and all, and I please understand and I, I hope that that is not coming across that way, um. Because we have been, I've been very vocal and very much trying to get partnerships and be an ally and try to get um Cooperative Partnerships in all of this. I just feel like this is very reactive. Rather than allowing Something that could have been worked out. To be more thoughtful, and I don't believe that. With the bureaucracy aspect of it, some of us are only, we have librarians here that are serving entire counties. They're, they have one person and so this one person, we aren't the people who need the accountability in the most we've we've been doing our jobs. How will it hurt libraries in rural areas? So Knowing that if we do not Do what is being asked. Um, $180,000 is what my library system, so 3000 square miles, 7 libraries, 88,000 people. It's really $180,000. That's the amount of money I received for state aid. And We get that based off of, you know, our population size and geographics and being a regional system. I already have 4 county boards and a regional board. That I work with. I know that like we are going to have to, we will already have to rework our Interlocal agreement. Because our innerlocal agreement currently states the previous code, which is now repealed if this passes. And new code is implemented, so I have to go back through and we have to have 4 County Corum Courts. Approve and redo it. It will take me 4 months just to have That's, I'm not going to be compliant, just By July the first, OK, I think you misunderstood that I asked about how difficult it was to comply when I asked how would it hurt rural that's how it will impact me. I mean, I will lose $180,000 by not being able to comply by July the first. The false statements you said. The state library board has already complied with one of the requests that was a false statement. OK. The please understand uh that I'm an equal opportunity skeptic. I'm just a skeptical but uh thank you, thank you for your leeway, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Clark. And going back to one of his questions, you, you answered that you had. Concerns about the use of the words may or shall, uh, at the top of page 16, it says the Department of Education shall. Administer a program to distribute funds appropriated by the General Assembly to the state aid is, is that one that you would rather say may? No, I had a concern for page 14, page 14 is where it says May. OK, well, I mean, this is very clearly saying that they shall distribute funds that are appropriated by the General Assembly I thought you said page 16, so I was just scrolling down it's 1 through 16 they switch. They, they go back and forth from maize and shells, Senator Tucker, you recognize her a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to follow up on that exact point on page 14, it says the Department of Education may administer state aid to a public library. That's, that's what you're that's the language you're concerned about. OK, and then I'm looking at a story from the Arkansas Advocate on March 13th, and I'm just the opening paragraph of that story says the Arkansas State Library Board approved a motion to create non-binding policies to protect children, end quote, in the state's public libraries at a special meeting conducted via video conference Thursday afternoon. Is that the motion that you're referring to where they adopted the nonbinding policy to protect children. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Tucker. Senator Sullivan, you recognize for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So one of the things you stated was that you did not like a one size fits all. Isn't that your current funding system? No So you're, you're funded on a capitated rate by the state. And every different group has a different Different population, but the formula is a one size fits all. It awards, yes, it gives just like you were mentioning, um, there are kind of not bonuses, what did you said there's a different word incentive, that's the word, um, so there were incentives. So as we receive $180,000 not because we have a robust population, but because of being in a regional system, there's a little bit of an incentive in that and because um I carried the MLS. I carry, um, OK, the point, but in fact it's a one size fits all. You get if you're this, you get this money, if you're this, you get that money. That's a one size fits all, um, you know, the reason the May is in there is because there are conditions. And that's what oversight is called. So to say we shall would strike all the conditions and the oversight is what we do. Is it possible for you to raise funds at your county level. We are extremely blessed. In my system and so I've already like, I hate to say that too because at the the climate that we're in, I'm just trying to get to the point is I don't think we're underfunded. We don't have enough money now. No, we, we will survive on our, on our county funds. I mean, we would have to like if if state aid were to be cut, we would have to rely on state aid or our local funds. So You The way I'm hearing you is if your state funds are cut, could really severely hurt your budget. It would, it would hurt mine, yes. OK, and a recourse would get your local counties to supplement that. So if one of the maids came down and you Did not receive state funding because of one of the the criteria that you have to meet that you appealed and it failed. Your county could supplement that. Am I correct? They could. They may I guess we're talking about people's paychecks though, like I mean like this is. Well, I get it, but you know, the money, where does the money come from that the state gives you? Well, it's, it comes from different areas like the I'm talking about the state libraries, right from the state of Arkansas, right, the taxpayers from paychecks also. OK, well that's to say it comes from paychecks in one place and not paychecks in the other is not being intellectually honest, when you um make the comment that You know, you can't get it done. By a certain date because of the emergency clause. Have you read all the appeal process? I did, and there's also a point in there where it says that we may not, um, Do something. I mean, it was, we shall not make contact for 30 days and like we have to notify the department, but we have to wait 30 days. I mean, again, that's what accountability is, is what we do for just about every program, you know, our schools are accountable. They have a strict and you talk about reporting, golly, they get millions of dollars. And they are accountable for it and when we as a state legislature appropriate money to the libraries. My Take from talking to the librarians that they consider themselves independent. I have several emails from people that says let us have local control. Several phone calls. We want local control. In other words, we want the money. We just don't want to be, and I would agree, is it going to be hard? Yes. Is it possible? Yes. Are things going to have to change? It's time. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Hammer, for you're for a question. Thank you, Mr. Sheer. You've made a comment a while ago and I'd just like to expand on it and if I misinterpreted what you said or I didn't hear you right. Just correct me. I think the question was about did you trust the Department of Ed? I think you're response was no. Did I misunderstand that? Oh, I, I tried to make myself right. I mean, I, I do wholeheartedly, um, Like, have confidence in the department of ed. We have been under the Department of Ed. We are still under, we are existing under the Department of Ed. But we provide services. So many other services we are not a K through 12 entity. Our services are not education education and education alone. The governor's own framework, the McKenzie report, like specifically stated that that we did not align with the Department of Ed. That was on page 200. It's, it's stated that we did not fit within the Department of Ed. OK, you're just for clarification though, you're working relationship under the areas that you are partnered with the Department of Ed. You haven't had any trouble that would. cause you not to trust them. Is that a fair statement? Oh no, sir. We, we work with our early childhood programs, our local leads, we are partners already with our like our education co-ops, um, these are programs that we already we're already doing these things. What's your current fund balance my regional level, like I'm a, I'm a system, so I have Like my, my regional system. We can start there. Do you know what you're, you know what your fund balance is that I have about $600,000. And what's your annual operating cost? 450. OK. and of that 175 is what you're dependent upon 188,000 is what I get from the state, OK, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to add one to additional request. When they come and testify. They go I think it's mine not staying on when when individuals come and testify, specifically not general. Um What are, what are the general issues that they have with the bill #1, 2, if they represent a library, I'd like them to come prepared to state what their fund balances are and what their annual operating cost is. Some of them may need to sit on their phones and send somebody to get that information, but I'm gonna want to know what the fund balances are in the libraries, please. OK, thank you. Any other questions from the committee? No. All right, thank you. Who's next? Uh, Deborah Hall. Yes, you're. Can I ask Senator Tucker a question through the chair. I think he said something a while ago, I'm trying to find where the may is on page 14, and I can't find it, and you referenced it a while ago. Do you know where the May is in the bill? 29 page 14, line 29, 29. Thank you, sir. Oh Ms. Hall, if you will identify yourself for the record. My name is Debbie Hall, and we're full transparency, I am an employee of the Arkansas State Library. I'm not here as a representative of the state library. I'm here on my own time. But I believe that my 39 years of employment gives me the insight and knowledge to address this bill. Yes, ma'am, you may proceed. This bill will destroy a state agency that is performing well. The state library performs its duties efficiently and to my knowledge with no complaints as to the programs and services provided by the state library to destroy an agency that works like a well well oiled machine with a dedicated knowledgeable and talented staff would be disruptive, chaotic, and expensive, not to mention many of the programs and services provided by ASL. Would not be continued shifting all these programs and services to other agencies would be an undue burden on those agencies. The Arkansas State Library serves as the information Resource Center for state agencies legislators, legislative staff provides guidance and support for the development of local public libraries and provides the resources, services, and leadership necessary to meet the educational, informational, and cultural needs of the citizens of Arkansas. This is the mission. An invaluable project is the traveler database statewide databases. Thank you. Here we go. The traveler databases are provided to libraries of all types as well as all the citizens of the state using geolocation for remote access. Overall, the state library's subscription to travel or resources saved Arkansas schools and libraries over $53 million. The state library calls for travelers 850,000. The library for the blind and print disabled serves Arkansas citizens who are blind, visually impaired, physically unable to hold a book or turn a page and those with reading disabilities. Three readers advisors complete over 2000 transactions per month with their patrons. The state document depository maintains a central permanent and publicly accessible collection of state documents and publications housed at the Arkansas State Library. The state library is the only regional federal depository library for Arkansas as a regional depository, the Arkansas State Library receives copies of all publications distributed by the the government printing office. The only patent and trademark resource center in Arkansas. Helps inventors search the patent database to determine their invention has not already been patented and helps those seeking a trademark search to make sure their name or logo has not been registered. In our library loan services are available for state employees for state agency work. ASL provides reference services for state employees, libraries, and citizens. Library consulting provides direct consulting with public libraries, answering questions on a variety of topics including construction, budgeting, weeding, and programming. Board of trustees training is available to all public libraries. The continuing education project. Provides professional development opportunities at all library employees. The Arkansas library Leadership Institute, which began in 2015 is open to library employees from all types of libraries. The rate project director assists public libraries with the acquisition of robust broadband internet access to support patron and staff technology use. Arkansas Public libraries consistently request approximately $1 million per year. to afford robust broadband connections and up to-date internal connections equipment to provide internet access and Wi Fi to library patients. The Arkansas Center for the Book promotes literacy to citizens of the state through several projects. If all Arkansas read the same book, The Arkansas of the Year selected book. Presents at different sites around the state. Some of these sites would not normally have an author visit because they're too small. The book cub program provides book sets to 50 participating public libraries with another 50 on a waiting list. This is an extensive popular project, and I don't think another agency can take this on at the level of service currently provided. Youth services provides materials and workshops for the summer reading program. This is an important program that helps students maintain their reading levels over the summer. ASL promotes reading through the book awards to Charlie May Simon Award, the Diamond Award, and the Teen Book Award. The above programs were reported annually and the library services and technology grants to states report. We received $2.1 million to carry out the purposes and priorities of the Institute and Museum and library service, and I understand Mr. Senator Sullivan already Mention that they have been done away with. Well, not yet. They're still there and we still have money. As LSTA coordinator, I honestly cannot imagine how splitting up these programs and services can efficiently be carried out and maintained. With state aid, ASL wants to raise the level of library services statewide but doesn't want to make it so hard to qualify for it that the communities that need it the most can't qualify. This bill goes a long way to regulation of local library services, and the state's relationship with public libraries, unlike ADE's relationship with public schools has not been regulatory. It has been one of support, yes, there should be requirements on qualifying for state aid. But they are, they are codified into law, they cannot, they become much less able to respond to emerging technologies to the economy and to events in the local communities. It is better to leave them as rules, something not so hard to change. While regulation makes sense in public schools because they might be striving for a level of consistency and what all schools learn statewide, public libraries are responding to the very specific needs of the local communities they serve. And standards may look very different in a community with an agricultural economy than one with a tourist economy. I believe the state library is one of the best agencies in the state. ASL has been serving state agencies, libraries, citizens for 90 years in the 39 years I have been at the state library programs and services have only grown and improved to meet the needs of the state. I would like to thank my colleagues for helping me with these comments and to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak. Thank you, Ms. Hall. Are you preferred to take questions? Sure. Senator Hammer, you're recognized for a question. Thank you. Um, and maybe you want to address this or not because I'm not sure you, I kind of think you hit on it in your testimony, but I'm not sure, but the previous testifier made a comment about the May on page 14, and I, I read a little deeper about all the things and first of all, the education may That shouldn't be interpreted that they're not going to do it if you don't do these things, but it does allow them permission if you don't, and I've got to reading a list of things that are required, and are you familiar with that list of what she was talking about as far as state aid for the state aid, yeah, for the state aid that I am a little bit, you know, do you know if those things Do you know if those things are not currently being done by the libraries or by the library board because they all seem to be like the things that you would want to be getting done, and I'm just curious if you know. Some of them at this time are not being done. OK. Correct. are not being done right, some of them, OK, because there are standards that are being followed, um, the state library in um I think it was Mr. Peyton. Who had done a bill and we were working on rules. We were changing the rules, and they did not get any further than ADE. OK, I would just so they have not been promulgated, OK, and it said take steps to fulfill the actions as existed on January 1st, 2025. I, I've just was trying to rationalize. It seems like all those things. Either would be already getting done or should be getting done so it wouldn't be that heavy of a lift to add whatever's not on the list, and I was just what's your opinion? I think it's an undue burden that is not required, and that if there were proper rules. That were promulgated. That go along and expand the current standards that I think that would officially fix what some people think is the problem, OK, and to that point it says on line 29 at page 15, the Department of Ed may promulgate. Any necessary rules for the department to fulfill its obligation under subsection, so the, so even though there's emergency clause, they're still going to have to be rules that will be promulgated, and that's a process if it's codified those other Items are codified, then how can you put them into rules, then the rules would not override being codified, but if they're not codified, then the rules could be put in place and if there were any changes down the line, it would be much easier to change the rules of state aid than have it codified. Well, how about Senator Sullivan when he gets ready to close, he could address that and bring some understanding to that, but final thought. is on What On the May part, it gives a list of Of what would be expected in your testimony is that some of that's done but not all of that is currently done. Is that correct? Yes, sir. OK, thank you. Thank you, Senator Hammer. Any other questions from the committee? Thank you, Ms. Hall. We appreciate your testimony. Senator Clark, you're recognized, Mr. Chair, we've got a lot on the agenda today. I'm going to make a motion that we limit testimony to 3 minutes. I have a motion that we limit testimony to 3 minutes. Are you talking about per person or per person per witness. Is there a second? I have a motion in a second. Can you? Yeah, how many we got signed up to sign on? I think there's 2 more. Let's see here. 3 more. 3 more. OK, thank you. Alright, we have a motion on the floor and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? No. Motion carries. All right, so next we have uh. John McGraw Come on up and take a seat and state your name and who you're with and you'll be recognized for 3 minutes. And then there might be questions from committee members. Hello, thank you for allowing me to speak with you today. My name is John McGraw. I'm the regional director of the Faulkner Van Buren Regional Library System. Last year we had 430,000 visits. We returned $3 in library goods and services for every dollar that was spent. We are a 3 college town, so we have a lot of nontraditional students. We have a lot of small businesses. We are a hub for both of those things. We're also very accountable. I'm currently in the midst of the giant report to the state, which I have to do every year in order to receive state aid. I did a quick count yesterday. I'm somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 questions into this report, and I'm just waiting on data from some branches so I can complete the thing. I've never been done by April 1st, and I was really hoping to hit it this year. We are also an innovator. We are one of those libraries that does gardening and things like that. We're also a library that focuses heavily on the science of reading. We got deeply into that most recently after a convention we all attended for the public library Association, which is a subsidiary of the American Library Association. We do not have any real contact with the ALA per se. They do not really influence our policies, our procedures. They do offer us the opportunity to go to conferences quite often that have been revelatory for my staff and it made me a much better librarian. Um, I have several concerns about the bill. There are some things in there that I think are against local control, I think putting a requirement of 30 hours of operating time is not going to be very easy to do for some of those tiny libraries that are at the bottom of our cheer. I think in a library alone is a great service, but I think it is a costly service that if you can't afford to do it, it is a great service, but putting state aid. Attaching having interlibrary loan service as a requirement for state aid sounds like something that is a bit of an overreach and, uh, the standard of life I was last year speaking to your colleagues about standards for library and directors, and now I see that we've reversed everything on that, so I'm quite happy to have more standards for library directors. I stated at that time that I thought that a degree was important for regional directors, and I'm glad to see you that's back in the bill, but at the meeting there was a lot of talk about the ALA and the former president of the of the association. She's not the the the leader of ALA. It's more like being the fair queen. You take a lot of, a lot of photos and you make a lot of speeches, but you don't actually influence actual policy of the ALA. I believe at the one time there was in the committee meeting then there was some suggestion that the president of LA had some sort of discretion over the curriculum of a accredited libraries. The President of ALA is a Sioux Indian, but I do not believe they're teaching cataloging classes at the University of Alabama in Lakota. It's a, it's a ceremonial job. Everything that happens to ALA is done in committees. They're even more so than the Methodist Church, the ALA loves committees. They have committees on committees and everything that happens in ALA happens in the committee level and not from whoever you've elected as president, finally out of time actually, but we do have somebody who wants to ask a question. Senator Hammer, thank you very nice for your question. Thank you. I think you hit on a couple of things. Just give me the top three specific things you've got problems with on the bill. Well, I think it, I think we already have accountability. I think we already have innovation, and I think that what you're putting into the bill is not going to create or or or anything on the terms of innovation or on the terms of accountability we have tons of accountability. This report I'm doing right now is monstrous, and it takes up most of my work life for about a month. There's also just the the I don't know that if I'm DOE and I'm sitting here in the thing, I'm going to definitely tell you yes, we can definitely handle this, but I, I'm worried that there's going to be an interruption of services moving all of this over to DUE for no actual reason. I was part of a group that came to the state library some years ago and said that we needed to reach readjust funding for smaller libraries that weren't able to have a village or had no property tax or things like that. Those rules went DOE 3 or 4 years ago, and I think there's still in whatever part of the digestive tract of rules promulgation they were in probably years ago. I, I think with IMLS staff being furloughed literally yesterday there's going to be a huge disruption at the federal level, and I don't know that DOE, on top of it, all the other things it has to do is is prepared to simply seamlessly take over funding for all libraries. I was supposed to give you my fund balance too. My regional fund balance is, I believe, somewhere in the neighborhood of $178,000. We received 260,000 per year currently in state aid because we are a very populous county and what you receive from your county support for your library, you know, county support between the two counties is probably close to 3 million, that may be high, that may be a little high, but your fund balance right now is 178 at the regional level, yes, the region, the regional li bra ry system has about $178,000 that pays for literally the software that we check things in and out with, it covers summer reading programs for children. It covers the courier that takes books from one place to the other so that if you are in Mount Vernon, Arkansas, you have the same access to all the books you would have if you were in downtown Conway. It covers our, our, our e-book consortium. I was at the table when we went to the state library about 8 years ago and said we should be sharing all these e-books, and please, would you please administer The e-book collection, which now has most, I believe most of the counties of Arkansas in it and checks out over a million titles a year. I'm not sure exactly how we're going to do age appropriate collections when so much of my collection is ebooks. I'm not sure how, if I have a small single room library, how I'm going to prevent uh how I'm going to ensure that there's no age inappropriate books that are accessible to children. They're accessible if they're in the same building. I don't Have a lockbox that I can stick romance fiction into or something like that so that 17-year-old girl can't wander from the teen section, which is literally 2 or 3 ft away into the adult section, which is adjacent to it, so all these small single room libraries which are probably the most, most the majority of the libraries in Arkansas are going to have an issue with what do we do about adult books for adults. That was the issue with Act 372, and I was here 3 years ago saying you're going to run To a constitutional problem with this, saying that it looks like you're going to prevent adult books from existing in the same space as children's books. OK, thank you. Thank you, Senator Hammer. Senator Sullivan, you recognize her question. Thank you. Did I understand you right that you're, you are your library is a member of the ALA. No, I have attended PLA conferences. PLA is one of multiple subsidiaries of the American Library Asociation of the ALA at one point, and in fact I believe there was some discussion at the uh previous committee hearing about standards for library directors that going to a conference. count as affiliation, but so if if attending a conference is affiliation, yes, I have attended conferences, so, um, This bill was filed on the 20th. Did you ever call me to discuss the terms of the bill? I did not when the American, when the library board met and as Senator Clark has pointed out, there were two conditions. Did you ever contact any of the members of the board to express what you felt about what would happen if they don't pass those two measures that the library board would go away and the state library. Did you ever contact them with your concerns? I did. contact them about my concerns because frankly, I did not understand how they were supposed to disaffiliate from the ALA when they are not affiliated with the ALA. I did not understand what their, what their uh issue with making a non-binding resolution about protecting children would have to do with me, where I have a policy on protecting children, and we have policies to deal with reconsideration of materials, and perhaps re-cataloging or removing. There's a lot of people to speak. I want to keep it pretty tight, so the question was pretty simple. Did you contact the board about your concerns? I did not think it was relevant to you, no, OK. Are you aware of any librarians that you spoke to or the librarians that you asked to contact the board. Yes, several. Did you, did the board contact you? Did the state library board contact me? No, they did not. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. OK, and, and I have one question. You referred to a report you're currently working on. Who's that report for? That report goes to the deputy director of the state library who then sends it on to the IMLS, which, as I say, got furloughed yesterday, so I don't know where this is this information is going to go after she compiles it all and sends all off to the federal government, but that report so it's required by the federal government for federal funding. Yes, I'm not going to speak to that because I'm not entirely sure what happens to this report after I send it to. the state, but my state aid is conditional on me completing that report, and for years the end of that report, the last question on that report, is, do you have a long term plan, and do you need help preparing one. I mean, the state library board has been invested in creating long term plans for libraries for years. This is not a new invention either, right, Senator Tucker, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. What was that 30-hour requirement that you mentioned. There was a requirement, I think it was for libraries 10,000 and under. It was one of the smaller tiers, but it said you need to have something in the neighborhood of 30 operational hours per week, which is, I mean, some of my branches, I'm one of the largest library systems, public library systems in the state and some of my branches are barely open 30 hours, but that's because that's, that's the way they operate. That's that's what they need. They they after school spaces primarily. And so it doesn't make sense for them to be open at 9 a.m. when they really need to be open roughly about 2 p.m. until, you know, dark or something like that. A lot of small libraries are not open 30 hours, not because they don't want to help people or because of anything else, they don't have money or staff to be open 30 hours and to say you will not get state aid if you're not open 30 hours is really giving them an unfunded mandate, I think. And in library loan likewise, but to a much smaller degree than payroll and keeping the lights on and everything like that 30 hours a week. Thank you. And my other question is, and this was Similar, one of the questions I asked that Senator Sullivan, which is, I think Kurt, you're, I, I know you would speak to the fact that you currently have policies in your library where you segregate materials that you all have determined or inappropriate for children. The way I read the language of the bill, it goes a step further and you use the term lockbox, and that's, that's more accurate with the way I read the bill as well. You have to have either a separate room or some such thing and given the fact that there are that that every library in the state, every square foot is already used. Not an empty room available for the complete segregation of materials and then in many libraries in the state, as you mentioned, they're single room like most libraries in this state are single rooms. Some of my single room libraries are historical buildings that even if I owned them, I wouldn't be able to go in and just like create another room and and parcel off another room in a historic building. So even if you were all for doing everything that's required in the bill, just as a logistical matter, it would be extremely exceedingly difficult for libraries across the states. Thank you. And impractical. Thank you, Senator Tucker. Senator Clark, you're recognized for a question. The the operating hours Centra Tucker, you discussed it, you brought it up, uh, early in your statement. Um, You think that's a problem for Some libraries. Yes. OK. Uh, and you may be right. The, uh, I'm not an expert. I'm assuming you are. Uh, have you suggested an amendment. Uh For that part of the bill, I would suggest that she vote down the bill. You know I'm a smart buck myself, um. So I'll move on. Uh And take that as a no on the age accessible, uh. I know what I would do. And maybe I would be in violation of the bill. We'll let Senator Sullivan cover that when he closes, uh, but if I had a 10 by 10 room. Had a really small rural library. If I had a 10 by 10 room and I had a children's section that was this big. Uh, I would not have things that were inappropriate. Uh Within that 2-foot section and beyond that, I wouldn't worry about it. Uh, if the bill requires something else, Senator Sullivan will have to, uh, we'll have to cover that. Uh, the, would that be a problem? Well, I mean the bill says access and that's, that's really the crux of the thing. I mean, Walmart allows access to steak knives, but I don't expect my child is going to go on a killing spree in Walmart. I mean, access isn't really the issue, it's actual like do we do we provide a space for children? To find the books that there's appropriate for them, yes. Are there books for adults which are not appropriate for children? Yes. Uh Of course, and so you and maybe Senator Tucker are reading this that if you had huge library. And lots of different rooms that You'd have to locker room. Yes, I mean, I mean that the access issues that are in this are simply recapitulating the issues from Act 372, which the court has enjoined and the attorney General is currently appealing. If, if this is all legal, then why not just let that play out through Act 372. I don't understand why that whole section is in here at all, and requiring state aid to match that if Act 372 is upheld in its entirety and the Attorney general wins on merits, then I don't see that you need this at all. Except that it goes into effect on July 1st, which is, which is I was actually listening to Senator Sullivan's presentation and he pointed out that there were things that had already come out in the case that lays a framework and I would applaud him or I would applaud you for being proactive to come up and say, OK, if we weren't right here, possibly here's what would be right according to the direction we've been given. Is there something wrong with that? Well, as Senator Tucker pointed out earlier, There's the later section that says my collection may not include inappropriate material. My, my collection and even if we had a whole library that's just for children. We have multiple locations and, and I have to serve the populations, the adult populations, cradle the grave for all those communities. Some of them are rural and some of them are living in downtown Conway with 3 colleges within a stone's throw, but I have to meet the needs for all of those with limited dollars and limited space, and we're going to have a mix of things everywhere for everyone. The Uh, you said that. There was no need to disaffiliate from the ALA because we weren't a member of the ALA unless you think going to a conference makes me a member or affiliated in some way. I didn't even know we were talking about you, but Well, in, in the bill where we were talking about the the requirements for regional directors and shouldn't we just allow experience instead of a degree, he made the point that affiliation really could mean a lot of things. It could mean attending a conference, which I disagree with. I think me giving the American Library Association money and them giving me a membership card means I'm affiliated. I mean, when Act 372 went through. There was a whole kerfuffle in Alma where they were getting an ALA grant to get an ADA compliant door so that people who are handicapped would be able to access the library, and there was a lot of consternation if we allow the ALA to give us this door, this ALA, this ADA compliant door, does that put us on the hook to have, I don't know, violent pornography on the shelves. No, there were no strings attached and there's no violent pornography in the Alma library. These are totally, this is a total straw man argument. The ALA does not, the ALA in Arkansas looks more like ADA compliant doors in Alma, and I believe Missy even got some ADA compliant sidewalks and doors. It's a story walk in Monticello. The ADA, the ALA in Arkansas is just helping smallest, our smallest, most rural libraries make a modicum of improvements to allow more people to get inside. It's not putting DEI or Marxism or anything like that until I bra ries onto library shelves. The Report that you, you said takes a month. It takes me a month and who does the report go to? Initially it goes to the deputy director of the state library, and then she compiles every Report from everybody who expects to receive state aid, and she bundles all that material and sends it off to the IMLS in Washington. OK, but so it's you know it's required for the state, uh, you're assuming that it's required for the feds. Oh, I don't think she's doing it for fun. No, I think it's required for the feds, yes, and if that's all thrown into chaos, I think that Arkansas is going to be on the hook to really find libraries in a way it's never had to do before because that money is coming in from the government, from the federal government. Uh, you lost me. I didn't know there was any indication that anybody was not going to. Send the report to the feds. Uh Who, who would you send it to? They're, they're all furloughed for 90 days. If the reports are due tomorrow, there's nobody even accessing their email account in the IMLS for the next 90 days. There's going to be a disruption in federal funding to state library systems. There's going to be a Repeat that there's going to be a disruption. There's gonna be a disruption of federal funds to state libraries, to states for that. The entire staff of the IMLS was furloughed yesterday, so 90 days has nothing to do with this bill. The there's going to be disruptions and the state library handles all that federal money that comes in and then uses that to to fund library services in the state of Arkansas along with the money the state level of money that they receive as well. Did Senator Sullivan or this bill have something to do with furloughing. The folks that were furloughed. No. Thank you. I'm done. All right, Senator Sullivan, you're recognized for a question. Thank you. So you mentioned that that the ALA didn't have much to do with your library policies. OK, so I'm reading from your page. Faulkner County, Faulkner County, Van Buren Regional Library supports the following statements from the American Library Association. Library Bill of Rights, do you support that? I think of the ALA Bill of Rights is more like the Miranda Bill of Rights. I don't know that the sheriffs here support the Miranda Bill of Rights, but they don't want to get sued and the ALA Bill of Rights is more of a thou shalt not get sued because these cases have already been litigated I guess I got confused when you said you had, you didn't have anything to do with the ALA because the library Bill of Rights, the freedom to read, the freedom to view, statements on labeling, statements on those are all almost cut and past. from the American Library Association sort of to make the statement that you're loosely affiliated or not at all, or they have no impact on the state of Arkansas. In my opinion, it's just not true. We can disagree about that, but they don't actually impact my policies. I just do not want to be sued for telling a 17 year old that she can't check out what to expect when you're expecting if she's pregnant or something like that. Well, let's talk about that for a second. So in the bill on page 13, it's very explicit about defining what age appropriate material means. Sexual contact. So you think it's not appropriate. For your library to segregate. In any way, sexual contact with human genitals. I did not say that, no. I'm saying that that the books can exist maybe in an adult space, but if it's a one room library, it is up to the parents to ensure what the children are accessing when they're in the library. We also have a policy on unattended children, so I expect parents to be doing their due diligence when they're in the library with their children. They sign the children up for the library card. OK, what I'm hearing you say is your library has no um responsibility. To in any way. It's all on the parent. To make sure that books that contain graphics of human genitalia. Uh, not including educational stuff. But it sexual contact of human genitalia that is appropriate to be in your children's section. There's no, so you do have a responsibility as the court said. To segregate it as best you can. Yes, but that that falls under the existing harmful to minors statute that was struck down by the court. That's the part that was pulled out, although it's in your policy. No, no, I'm talking about the actual, not, not from AC 372, but the actual it is illegal to provide harmful material to minors in the state of Arkansas, is it not? Well, we thought it was, but the federal court said that was too big, although it's in the, it's in several libraries policy that they say we will not provide harmful material to kids, but it's in policy. OK, well, I just want to get clear, so you know when it says, when it says here that sexual acts as defined in US code are inappropriate for children. And it says that if they're engaged with human genitalia, genitalia to genitalia contact. And that the library we would agree. That the library has some responsibility and accountability to do what they can given their circumstance to prevent that children from being accessible by children. I think I lost the question there, but yes, we, we have policies on on making sure that our collections are age appropriate, yes. Did you send that in to the library board so that they could use your statement? No, you said no. OK. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Hammer. Senator Dodson, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair and First of all, I want to say thank you for reading the bill and actually going through I've seen a lot of uh comments from folks, emails and such, and it's clear that they haven't even looked at the bill. They're just an automatic no. um. One thing Uh, and I think you've answered this, but you didn't. Make any suggestions to the bill sponsor on modifications on how this could be workable if If it does become law. No, no, I did not make any suggestions. I mean, like I said previously, I think re-adding qualifications, minimum qualifications for library directors such as myself is a step in the right direction, and I'm glad we, we disagree with Senator Sullivan's march position today here April 1st, uh, but like I say, we already are accountable. We already innovate. We already do all the things that this is asking us to do. The state library is already under the DOE already. I don't see that this addresses a problem. And I don't see that it has any metrics for determining if it's recommended solutions are improving the state of libraries or making them more detrimental, especially when there's so much chaos at the federal level, which is going to ripple down to what we are able to do at the state level. Well, the federal level we have no control over, um, true, so we're all going to deal with that, whether it's the state library board as it exists today or the Department of Education as it could exist under this bill if it passes. Yes, um. If this passes, then it'll be the Department of Education here at the state level that is making all those determinations, taking the report that you're working on, and you said your 100 questions into yes, how, how many questions are on this? Well, I'm, I'm literally almost done. I'm, I'm close to being a month of your time annually, easily. And you don't know if that's a state requirement or a federal requirement. You're assuming it's a federal requirement. I believe it's both, yes, so. Have you ever looked into seeing how we can reduce those bureaucratic. You know, hurdles that you have to or or things that you have to jump through in order to make that a more efficient process. Well, I don't disagree with any of the questions that I'm answering. I mean, they're they're valid questions. How many programs did you do for children? How many of them focused on coding when the when the governor was really hot for coding. How many programs about Yes, but there's others like how many are about job preparedness. These are, these are questions that we need to be answering and if I have to put a 0 next to how many, how many. programs that we do as far as job preparedness. I mean, at some point you got to think maybe we should be doing more about job preparedness. I mean, these are, these are valid questions about what libraries should be doing, but also giving me a metric to say, well, we did better than we did last year, and that's not just how many books we checked out and how many people came in the door. It's, it's the gamut of things. I mean, I don't understand that report as the director for a system that's multiple counties. It's not for every single library doesn't have to. that report? No, but I'm, I'm the one who's who's pestering every single library in my system saying how many programs did you do for adults? How many did you do for teenagers? Why did you do no programs for teenagers? Do you not think teenagers need some programs about job preparedness or financial literacy or things like that. What are our operating hours? Do we get 30 hours a week or 30 hours a week. I mean, these are, these are all questions. There's no real fat in there. It's just the the breadth of what we do on any given day is enormous. We roughly 1000 people come into a library somewhere in Faulkner and Van Buren County every single day, and they're doing 1000 different things every day. I don't know how this bill is going to go from here passing out of here or not, but obviously this is the first step in the process. Senate committee, Senate floor, House committee, House floor, etc. um. If this does pass and gets through this stage in the process, I would highly encourage you and anyone else to get with the bill's sponsor and before it goes through the House and see if you can make some modifications or suggestions to things that would make it workable if it does become law, um. For whatever it's worth, I thought I'd share that with you. Thank you. I value that input. I tried that with Act 372, and I said this is going to be tied up in the courts, and that's where we wound up, so I may be a little bit cynical about the process, but I think this is unnecessary introduction of chaos that doesn't need to exist when there's already a ton of cows coming down from the federal level right now. Thank you, Senator Dodson. Any more questions? From the committee Thank you, Mr. McGraw. I appreciate your testimony today. Uh, next I have, is there not another one? Sorry about that. Hm OK, Allison Grosselbeck. And uh you'll have 3 minutes for your testimony and then questions if you. But No, one more after that. If you would introduce yourself for the record, you'll be recognized. Turn your microphone on, yeah. There we go. Uh, Senator Hammer, I do intend to answer your question, but I'm going to read my statement for the record. I am, yeah, my name is Allie Stevens Gossein. Uh, I'm the director and I am one of 3 total staff members for the entire Calhoun County library system. Um, I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all today and to share some of my concerns about this bill. The new hourly requirements that SB 536 lays out for my library system to make us eligible for any state funding would be difficult. to meet at best. It will cost more than the amount of state aid I currently receive for us to meet that minimum hourly limit. Our little satellite branch could never meet this minimum number of hours, which then begs the question of whether I should even try to apply for this state funding. It's not clear to me whether every branch needs to meet that limit. If this is a system-wide total or something else. The rules do need to change, I agree, and I also sat on the committee to rewrite those rules several years ago that are still waiting for promulgation in the Department of Ed. Why are we abolishing the whole state library instead of talking about what happened to those rewritten state aid rules. My library is one of several around the state that would already be receiving more money under those new rules. With that increased funding, maybe we could increase our hours to this limit easily, but with this bill, we are caught right in between. If the Department of Ed has not had time to deal with those rules, how can they take on all of these new rules too. Ultimately though, I'm already thinking ahead to the hard decisions that I see on the horizon, because even if I managed to qualify for the state aid, I will still be losing money because I have to account for those extra hours, and that amount of money is my state aid money. So, um, what goes first? Summer reading program or after school snacks for kids. Our local office supply business, copy machine contract or the maintenance fee to the server guy who keeps my computer safe and the internet filter running for children. How will I even hope to continue to meet my community's demand for e-books and audiobooks, which I absolutely cannot afford without state help. If we did receive state funding, would I be putting it in jeopardy if I worked with or received grant funding from the wrong nonprofit organizations that the state has decided they don't like anymore. What if Walmart in the state get in a fight and I can't take their donations anymore. SB 536 leaves me with way more questions than I can find answers for. From my perspective, it creates some more government oversight for what should be local control and red tape around what should be local decisions made by people who know and understand their communities best. Nothing in this bill stands to have a positive impact on my library or on its ability to serve our community. Our rural community is already at a disadvantage when it comes to access and opportunity, and there are many ways forward that serve us all better with collaboration and the best interests of Arkansans at heart, including those of us in very rural areas. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Are you prepared to take questions? I will do my best to answer them, yes, hammer you recognize for a question. I got a question, but I'd like to get Daniel department vet up to the table for a quick one, if you don't mind, please, while he's coming on that. Uh, what I didn't, I never did hear what counties you represent. I'm sorry Calhoun County Calhoun County, OK, we're the most rural county in the state. Yes ma'am. I county funds, how much do you get from county? All right, so I just texted my county treasurer a minute ago to get the latest data for you right now as it sits, my account is negative because I bring in less than 50% a year in tax funding. Amendment 55 ruled our tax mileage back to about 0.4 I asked for in the meantime. This is the first year that my budget for my whole library and our whole county has crossed over $100,000. 126 this year. Um, and my entire state funding for last year was $7100. For the state funding portion for the state funding. I got $7100 yes, which is almost exactly how much it would cost me to increase my main branch's hours to this limit. There is no way that increasing my satellite branch's hours comes on the table without many more thousands of dollars. We'll never get them to 30 hours. They're at 1212 hours a week right now. For the record, Daniel Schultz, Department of counsel. What about the rules that have been promulgated yet. There are a few lingering rules, it's my understanding, the only issue there is about funding and some rural counties, and I can't help but notice that this bill would address that problem and and and resolve it according to uh to my understanding, but there's also some questions about authority and rulemaking. Functions that have been a complication, but I do note that this bill would solve the problem as far as that rulemaking obligation. would render it. The rules that are yet to be promulgated, how are they impacting the libraries and As I understand it a little closer, Mike I'm having trouble here. Sorry. Bring them back closer to me as I understand it and, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, um, I know there maybe there were some meetings before I came to the department. I'm not sure. It sounds like maybe there were. There is an issue. There you go. There is an issue about funding in a rural library and if and millage and restructuring a requirement in their standards which are not rules that the library operates under. And so there is no rule right now. It's a it's a policy essentially and so there's some, there's some authority issues, there's some stated issues, but the The obligation to rule make would be a the issue would be addressed by this bill, it's my understanding. Do you want to say something? I just wanted to say that if those rules have been promulgated, my library would currently be receiving the $18,000 award that we were entitled to because I do have a master's degree in library science, but we currently don't see any of that money because those rules were never put through. So we've only been receiving our per capita. No regional system bonus and no master's degree bonus this whole time. And now this bill would put even that. Out of my reach that appears to be a separate issue. I'm not sure about what that. Say it again, that may be a separate issue. I'm not familiar with that situation. It's all that were rewritten by a committee at the state library. OK, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to get a request regardless of how this goes. Uh, want an assessment from the department about the rules that are outstanding. I think it would be good for us to have that to know what rules are still outstanding because I was thinking there was a law that he passed that said they have to be done by a certain date and why they aren't done by a certain date. We need to get up. We need to get a one pager on that if you would guess so. White page, what rules are still outstanding, what they do. They're, they're on the 595 report, of course there were the report that we have to keep up, we'll get into it. Thank you. And so my question is, the rules that I was familiar with that was being rewritten were at the state library level. Then they have to come through the department of ed, I think there is some question there because the state library is an the board. is the rulemaking authority. And so the staff of the state library is part of the department. The board is, is an independent entity as far as as as you see in other situations, other agencies post transformation. OK, well, a year after I asked that rule or we agreed on that rule to be rewritten. I thought it had gotten done, but it took a year, and now I'm hearing it hadn't got done yet again, I may not have the full picture of what where it was or wasn't done, but I do know that. That language is incorporated in this bill that would have been the rule. The language I'm talking about state aid rules is not incorporated in SB 536, which I have read many, many times and I'm not familiar with what she's talking about what I'm familiar with, I didn't see in this bill either. Well, again, it's a different topic. We don't want to go. Was there any other questions? Dotson, Senator Dotson, thank you, Mr. Chair. If if you happen to know this and This may be unrelated to this, but the report that the gentleman was talking about previously. Um, as a something that goes to the state library board and then or state library and then goes on to the feds for state aid and that sort of thing. That sounds like that's basically a a a state level criteria that are set that then they, the state request the money from the feds based off of off of that and then distributes the funds. So if this bill is to go into effect, that would become the jurisdiction of the Department of Education. If I'm understanding it correctly to. To take those types of reports and then make those requests to the feds for state aid, um. Would you promulgate those rules based off of this bill on those types of things. I think those are separate. I think that report is you described it correctly and that would just simply continue to be uh conducted and, and again that the I don't think there would be an immediate difference on, but I'm saying as as things are You know, on any of those types of things, everything's continuously changing depending on, uh, you mentioned something about coding, well. 20 years ago we didn't have coding probably is something that was a question on that type of a uh a document, so. Let's not forget we have a witness at the table too, so we have a witness at the table too, so I have a question I can ask you, but I mean that. I would assume that if this moves under the Department of Education, the Department of Education would be the one at that point in time that is setting out the criteria within the report asking those questions. To the, again, I can't speak conclusively on that. I do know there are federal obligations and I do know that under the bill are those grant programs would continue to operate. So whatever questions the feds you pass through the operation. I don't think anything would change in that regard. It's my understanding based on the reading of any any state level questions, then you would promulgate the bill sets the standards for the state level. I think you're just, you're just. Taking the standards that are set out in this bill and matching the amount of funds you appropriate. And as far as how you're setting those per capita versus that that kind of a. Policy-based thing, but the the bill sets out the parameters, so the rulemaking that's left is very narrow and it's just basically making the policy choice of how you allocate that total dollar amount that you all appropriate is the way I see it. OK, so this policy of what you got to do is in the bill. We wouldn't be adding more hoops to jump through. It would just be applying the bill based on the money we get. OK, thank you. Answer the question that was up there. Yeah, make it quick. OK, thank you. On page 2, it says the orders rules directives registration, licensing, or standards of the Arkansas State Library shall continue to be in effect until they are mended or repealed under the authority of law. That same standard holds true for the state library and the and the board the new authority of the board. OK, thank you, Senator King. You're recognized for a question before you do, does anybody have, have both of y'all on the list here. Do you have a question for Miss sorry, Goelvi, I do. OK, can we relieve we can relieve him if y'all don't have a question for him, OK. I guess I just maybe want to make comments. Some represents a rural district. I appreciate you bringing a real perspective about funding because it's very critical, you know, this, this, the whole boards and commissions and to decide a lot of funding up here has changed in my almost going back 18 years up here about from urban versus rural issues, and, uh, so I do appreciate you talking about that. I'm more for a lot of our funding going into more funding formula where it gets out of, you know, boards or agency heads, and I think that could be a more Or better avenue to make sure that our rural districts get funding and more local decisions get made. So I appreciate you making that comment, so. Thank you, Senator King. Senator Clark. You're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ma'am, how do you pronounce your last name? Go Go Gosselin, I want to thank you for being here. Uh, thank you for the job that you do, uh, I know, uh, rural areas can be much more challenging. And I also want to thank you for making us aware of the problem with these rules not being Implement and bringing out, you know, how it's, you know, a real challenge, that much money for a rule. The library system is a lot of money. It's my entire discretionary budget for programming for books, for new computers, for anything I might do that's above and beyond, opening the doors and turning on the lights. That's my state funding. And I understand why the state library board. Uh, is against this bill, or at least part of the members are, uh, But 2 years ago we had Uh, was it 2 years ago that we had the the library bill or 4 years ago, 2 years ago. And You know, one of my local librarians, uh, county librarians, uh, which I have 4, got with me. About some things they thought really needed to be changed. We sat down with Senator Sullivan, uh, and had an extensive discussion and made lots of changes enough to make that librarian. Uh, I can't describe what we do here as ever making people happy. It's making us all unhappy, but to a point that we have some agreement, uh, and I found that Censor Solin was very cooperative in that, uh, and I don't think you'd be here without Convers conversations with other librarians, uh, etc. uh. Why have we not seen that on this boat and I'm not suggesting that there needs to be a lot of changes, but if there's changes that you feel like ought to be made, uh, because I think there's some good things in here outside abolishing the board, uh. And no one's gotten with their senator or gotten with their representative or gotten with Censor Sullivan and said, here's, here's what we think the problems are. I will tell you that I have repeatedly contacted my own elected representatives, and I have yet to get a response from them on this or any other issue that I've contacted them about this year. I personally have not contacted Senator Sullivan because he is not my my representative and also because This was an ongoing promised retribution for a lack of action at the state library board level. There have been threats for over a year that if the board did not do what one or two people wanted done for the whole state that this would be the outcome. So I didn't feel like my contacting him and saying, hey, this is bad for my specific library would matter because it was pretty understood that this was not great for libraries. That wasn't its point. Its point was not to make things better for libraries, which is why I'm here because that's the only thing I really care about. I, you know, people are offended by books in the library. I'm, that's, that's on them, and I'm sorry, everybody has to parent their own children in a public space. We all agree on that. My ability to provide services for my community should not be on the line for these reasons, and I think you uh from what I know, are representative of the the biggest number of librarians, I do. I have others that I'm not quite as friendly with, uh, The Did it occur to you or anyone you know. That what, however, if they had bad manners or had good manners that people who were threatening if we don't do this, don't do that, might be speaking for a lot more people than just themselves. Perhaps, but I don't know that that will still overrides the law and my Mandate to hold space for my entire community, including their viewpoints. They are no more outcasted from the library than anyone else is. No, we again, regardless of center Sullivan's bill one way or the other, we want you to be successful. We understand the importance of libraries. I know I do. Uh, I hear that a lot, but I don't see it play out in legislation very often. We love libraries, but Which parts? Because I don't feel like it's the whole thing. Well, I'll tell you, and then I'll shut up, Mr. Chair. The Love libraries. Love most librarians. Uh, but I was sent here by 90,000 people. To Make sure that we do certain things and make sure we have accountability, and it seems that there are, there have been a number of people who have just flipped their middle finger. Uh, and they're not just flipping their finger at the Center Sullivan or me, they're flipping it at 90,000 people who I represent. You think all 90,000 people are a monolith, that they have the same beliefs about what should and shouldn't be in their library. Because that's, that's the, the conundrum for me is that I'm trying to serve 90,000 people, well, 5000 people in my community is very, very tiny, but all 5000 of those people have completely different ideas. Do you think that belief. Do you think that I want a book removed from your library. Do I think that what a book removed from your library. No, not necessarily, but I don't know what you think about any specific book I may or may not have. I don't know what anybody thinks about any book I may or may not have, and I promise you there are plenty. I personally disagree with too. Well, and there should be books in your library that you disagree with and that I disagree with. I've never heard any question brought up here though, except appropriateness for children at certain ages, and I would, I had another librarians set right there 2 years ago, uh. tell me that that according to the ALA and to what she believed that The that you could not protect a 3 year old, uh, that that was against the law and against the rules, and I can't tell you how fervently I disagree with that thought and how fervently my dad, who was a librarian, would have disagreed with that thought. I think we absolutely are getting caught up in some semantics here because not a single person sitting behind me would tell you that you do not need to protect a 3 year old from certain things inside of our libraries, but that is apparent, and you can't make a whole library very acceptable for a 3 year old. No, and I don't, and I think there maybe is some things being lost in conversation, nor would I expect you to. My entire, let me explain to you, my entire library, all 30,000 books would fit inside of this room. Bathrooms included. We don't have a meeting room. I don't have an office because we have a storage room instead. It would fit inside of here. So I need a definition for access. Or I can't let anyone that's under 16, whatever the age is, inside my doors. Because if access is the books on the shelves, I can't move them. So and and I read it different from the way you read it, but again, that's where I would have gone to Senator Sullivan had I had that problem and said, what is access mean? Uh, am I gonna be able to be compliant? Am I not going to be able to be compliant? I would like to ask you to come spend one day with me or with any of us, see what we do all day. I would love to have the time to contact people and talk about how to make legislation better, but I'm not a politician. I'm a librarian. I'm a, I'm an almost solo librarian who's across the front desk from the poorest of the Arkansas public all day every day. I am too busy helping them with their immediate needs for resumes, job applications, phone help, um, divorce applications, Medicaid applications, vaccine exemption forms so that they don't have to get their children vaccine. I have to do that all day every day. I, I'm not, my job is not to contact legislators and make sure that they understand the things they're making laws about. My job is to do my job and to take care of my community's needs that are within my power to help. That's what I want to be able to do. I think you're a great advocate for librarians and for libraries, however, you are here today and I am missing. It is hard to be here. We got a big book sale next week. You do not understand how hard it is to have missed this day of work, I spent a lot of my young life. with my dad in the library and thankful for all that time that I got to spend there. uh, but again, I think there's a lot of miscommunication and a lot of battle lines drawn, uh, I understand it, and I thank you for being here. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator. Clark, any other Senator King, We're back in. Yeah, I just want to say again thanks, you know, it's just like the local control issue about flexibility. So many times we're making laws out here and we don't know really what's going on. And I mean, but I will say this, as much as I am for that, it's like, you know, a lot of boys abolishing these boards and commissions are not, you know, really flexible and doing a thing and that's why I'm typically that, but I do want to come over with the funding for you, but it seems like on the state library board, some members are for abolishing it and in some are against it. Is that right on the state library board, do we? To members of the board. Is there any members of the board for abolishing this board. I, I don't know, they've clearly stated that in the recordings. Jason Raper has said this sport would be abolished. Well, Jason Raper's 4 abolishing his own position since I've known Jason, that's probably the best decision I've ever heard. I'm sorry. Just being honest OK, let's stick to the bill, please. Uh. Any other questions? Thank you so much for your testimony. We have one more. Claire Graham. And just to remind you, your testimony is 3 minutes and then we may spend forever on questions. If you would take a seat, pull that microphone close, introduce yourself, and you'll be recognized. Hello, my name is Claire. Oh, hit your button there and turn it. There you go. Thank you so much. My name is Claire Graham. I am the regional library director for the Mid-Arkansas Regional Library System, which serves Celine hot spring, Grant, Dallas, and Grant Counties. So I'm here before you today, not just as a librarian, but someone who has dedicated their life to serving my community. Libraries are not just building fields with books, they are lifelines. They are where children discovered the joy of reading where job seekers find the tools to build a better future and where communities come together to learn, grow and thrive. Senate Bill 536 threatens to unravel all of that. Arkansas is fighting hard to improve literacy rates and libraries are on the front lines of that battle. Our summer reading programs and after-school initiatives don't just keep kids engaged. They change lives. They combat learning loss, foster curiosity, and set children on a path to success. SB 536 risk kneecapping those efforts. We are critical to workforce development, offering job training, technology access, and career development resources. These aren't just abstract ideas. They're real programs that change real lives. Well, state aid funds, essential services like our bookmobile that travels 5 counties and visit nursing homes, schools, and daycares. This bill imposes unrealistic mandates that libraries cannot meet. Putting these programs at risk. I will mention from my library to get a library card, a child has to be 16 years old, so their parent does have to sign off on that. We also have unattended child policies. Where no child under 13 can be in the library without a parent. We also have age appropriate sections. My children's library is innocent. We are there to guide parents in selection of materials for their children. Senator sending Sullivan may say that funding won't be lost, but funding isn't just about numbers. It's about autonomy. The Arkansas State Library provides grants, professional training, statewide resources that libraries depend on. This bill dismantles that infrastructure, shifting control to the state government. How does eliminating the very agency that helps libraries thrive, make them stronger. And let's talk about local control. Arkansas values independence and innovation. Yet this bill imposes a one size fits all approach that stifles creativity and flexibility. Libraries are already governed by their local boards that know their communities best. This bill takes that away, replacing it with centralized oversight that doesn't understand the unique needs of each town and city. Beyond that, this bill removes the definition of state of a state document. The Arkansas State Library has long been the steward of crucial records, historical archives, legislative materials, and official reports that ensure transparency and public access to government information. This bill will disproportionately, we're at 30 minutes, so cut it off. I'll give you a couple of seconds if you want to wrap it up. I did bring some support letters, not specifically for this bill, but I have a copy for each of you. It really just shows the broad support of our library and also the impact we make. Let me see if anybody has questions for you. Do what. A copy of what she's carrying, OK. Uh, yeah, we'll need to bring that to the staff, I think, and they can distribute it and have a record of it. Wonderful, and my cord is attached and I'm happy to share anything I can. So I love libraries. I love what we do, um, and we make Arkansas better anybody have any questions? Ms. Graham, we appreciate your testimony. Thank you. All right, Senator Sullivan, you're recognized the clothes for your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the people who spoke and testified and I think they pretty much made my case. You know, they talk about one thing local control, um, well, let me preface that. 2 weeks ago in this committee we heard and each one of you sitting here heard one of our committee members saying they had to create an enemy. That we as a Republican body couldn't function without having an enemy there to attack. That's exactly what's going on right now. The library board, the library. Arkansas Library Association members, uh, they need somebody to attack and that's been me. I get it. That's no problem. I've got the phone calls y'all have gotten the phone calls, but that's a typical strategy. Uh, you know, if you read the bill, most of the things that were testified are in the bill that we're continuing to do the service, I think my clarification a while ago said if we don't get it done, that policy stays in force. I would be the first one to increase library funding when we come back next year, uh, in 2026, if we have some incentives in place and people are meeting these objectives of oversight, I would be glad to increase their funding, especially for innovative programs. The appeal process is there. We've already talked about May, um. You know, again, if we're, if we're funding things like gardens and things, I'd just like to know how that money shakes out. Uh, we have oversight. The minimum hours was brought up, you know, I think if we're going to fund them, that there's a responsibility for funding sources to fund them to those minimum hours, but that primarily rests with the county, and if they're, if they are providing the valuable services that they do, and I believe they do, then the county's got to step up and join us, join the state in doing that, you know, it's one of the testimonies testifier said that they couldn't do that because the taxpayers Uh, wouldn't stand for it. Well, it's the same taxpayer. We're hitting them twice. Um, On page 13, let me look at that real quick. Um You know, there was a lot of talk about what is appropriate and what 372 did. This bill is in response to that, and it does take into consideration age appropriate material, uh, um. Sexual contact, human genitalia, uh, it carves out a section for sex education. That's all been done at the request of the court. You know, you saw one, the ALA is embedded in Arkansas libraries. You can hardly go through a policy and not see a cut and paste or as the gentleman testified, they follow the ALA Bill of Rights. Uh, they deal with uh DEI and they're heavily embedded in that, which the state isn't. And our libraries need to make a statement about that, and they need to distance themselves from the ALA. The reporting, how much of the reporting did you hear was just redundant? Yeah, I'm already doing this report. We're having to do this report again, you know, a lot of what they're saying they can't accomplish is uh again, it's just redundant reporting. I guess what strikes me is the counties are going to have to step up. If you're relying on state aid, folks, there are 8, I think it's uh $5.8 million that they have set aside for this program. I'd be glad to turn that money back to the taxpayer and give a tax cut of $5.8 million back to the taxpayer locally and let them fund their libraries more. There's a total reliance on state aid. And not one person has talked about going back to their county. You know, I really take exception with this retribution thing. Uh, I have tried my best to work with people, call them when they make those phone calls, tried to call them back. This is not retribution. This is trying to make our libraries better and help them serve the needs of the people better and as you heard many of them say, we need more money. OK, let's work together to do that, but I'm not gonna let you working together is not giving you money without any oversight. That's our job. Remember This, uh, we beat this horse to horse to death. I appreciate your time. I would appreciate a good vote and I make a motion to pass. Thank you, Sandra Sullivan. I have a motion to pass in a second. Any discussion on the motion. I No discussion on the motion. Alright, all in favor say aye. Any opposed? I have it. Congratulations, you're Bill passes. Mr. Chairman, yes. Can, well, maybe you're about to declare your intent, but I'd like to recommend, I think, Senate Bill 521 because I think that's what a lot of those guys sitting over there asking for Senator Davis is here to present. Thank you. And uh Senator Flippo is here to chair. No I don't have to go. Ah I want to thank my vice chair Senator Peyton, you've done some fine work. I was kind of hopefully optimistic that she would have cleared the agenda by the time I returned, but that's not have happened. All right, Senator Davis, what bill are you running again? What's your bill number? Senate Bill 521 Senate Bill 521 and you've got whoever you're going to have to join you, come on up here. You guys come on up. And if y'all senator, introduce yourself and your guests. We know who you all are, and for the record and be recognized present. Senate Bill 521 Senate Bill 521 and you've got whoever you're going to have to join you, come on up here. You guys come on up. And if y'all senator, introduce yourself and your guests. We know who you all are, and for the record and be recognized present.anne Davis, State Senate District 25. Good afternoon. I'm Pope County Sheriff Shane Jones also president of the Arkansas Sheriff's Association. Uh My name is Taylor Hanford. I'm legal counsel to the Arkansas Sheriff's Association. OK, Senator, you're proceed. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. So this bill just updates the reimbursement time frame in Arkansas for law enforcement from 18 months to 24 months. Currently, Arkansas has a more complicated and condensed reimbursement timeline. This is causing a lot of strain on more of our local law enforcement agencies as their officers are being hired away by agencies that can pay more. Meanwhile, the smaller agencies are stuck footing the bill for the training and cert. um, and then, you know, the officers are swept away to a different agency, so they're footing the bill to train officers but not having them stay with the agency for a long period of time. So this new schedule in the bill puts Arkansas more in line with what other states are currently doing. Um, it essentially says from 0 to 12 months, if you start with an agency and you're recruited away in the 0 to 12 month time frame, then um you will have to pay a 100% reimbursement rate. to the law enforcement agency that you hired the the officer from and 12 to 24 months it'll be a 50% reimbursement rate. For hiring an officer away, so to request the reimbursement for the training, everything has to be in writing. It's got to be itemized and the requests must be made within 6 months. With that, I'm happy to take any questions. Senator Hammer, you ask a question. So where are all the law enforcement agencies on this. I know you got To sitting here just kind of like to hear as far as like with state police and sheriffs and all that, are they all good with it? Yes, Senator, they are. We, we've sat down with the chief of police and also the Arkansas State Police there. OK. They're on board. OK, thank you. Thank you, Senator. Are there any questions from the committee? All right, so no further questions. Do we have anybody signed up to speak for against this? Nope. All right, Senator, you recognize the clothes for your bill. I'm close for my bill and I asked for a good vote. Thank you Senators closed. Got a motion to pass from Senator Clark, Senator Hammer. Any discussion on the motion saying none, all on paper say I opposed. Congratulations, Senator, your bill passes. All right. Have we got any Any other members of the committee that got one non-controversial. I'd like to ask What what else they're hanging around for. They've been sitting all morning. They're, what are y'all here for? What other bills are? Is there another bill? OK. That was it, 21. I've got some if you want them. Mm What Let's go ahead, uh, Senator Hammer, you've got a couple, Senator Hammer and Senator Dodson. Senator Hammer, what bills are you gonna run? Senator Dodson, are you ready? Go ahead. I'll let you get them ready, Senator Hammer. What are you running, Senator Dodson. Senate Bill 570 members. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senate Bill 570 as we're looking at this involves joint budget committee and the membership thereof, um, if You look at the statute and notice this as we were doing committee selections last time and this time that the current And immediate past chairs of legislative council and audit where ex officio members on joint budget, but the Speaker and the prote are not. And so, um, what this bill would simply do is add the speaker, the pro tem, and the immediate past speaker in prote to be automatic ex officio members of Joint Budget Committee. All right, remember, you've heard the explanation of the bill. Any questions for the committee? All right, see none. Don't have anybody sign to speak for or against the bill. Senator Dodson, you recognize the clothes. I'm closed. Make a motion do pass. We got a motion to pass. Do I see a second, seconded by Senator Hammer. Any discussions, say no. All in favor, say aye. I post. Congratulations, Senator, your bill passes. Senator Hammer. feels like this. All right, Senate Bill 584. Or something Come on up here, Lindsay. Kim Hammer, state senator District 16, as Chairman, if we could do 584 please Senate Bill 584. All right. Center you recognize to proceed with Senate Bill 584. I'm gonna let Lindsay start. It'll be quicker. So 584 is. Not a super short bill, but it's not a complicated bill. You've heard all of this before and bills that came through here about statewide petitions, um, this defines local petitions as county or municipal petitions and it literally goes through here where um It has requirements for statewide petitions and it adds or local and where there are functions of the Secretary of State in vetting the signatures. It says Orr County clerk if it's a local petition. And the reason this bill is so late in running is because there were a lot of things, uh. ran that affected statewide petitions, so, um, we wanted to make, uh, most everything uniform for local petitions that, uh, canvassers be be held to the same standards if they're paid the same transparency of all the other bills that you all have seen fit to pass thus far. All right, members, you've heard an explanation of the bill. Any questions from the committee. See, no questions, don't see anybody to speak for or against. He says Mr. Tribble, is he in here? All right, not about um It's a Doug Curtis. Mr. Curtis I will. they they just They they explain that at the time. OK. OK, thank you, sir. All right, members, uh I see any further questions, Senator Hammer, you're like to close your bill. Close, do pass. Motion to pass. got a or motion from Senator hammer from Senator Dodson in the discussion on the motion saying none. All in favor say aye. Congratulations, Senator. Your your bill passes. 551. All right, set up 551 along the same line. So 3rd. There's only one way to go from here. I'm closed. I make a motion to pass a motion to pass on Senator Hamm. I know, Carl. No, so a brief explanation of the bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a really good bill and it deals with local concerns on KMC. It brings everything in line with everything else that we've been doing, and with that I'll take questions. All right, members, you've heard an explanation of the bill or any questions from the committee see no questions. We have any anybody to speak for or against this. Don't see anybody. Si Hammer, you recognize the clo your bill. I'm close. Chair and make a motion do pass. Got a motion to pass Senator Hammer, Senator Dodson. Any discussion on the motion scene, all in favor say aye, opposed. Congratulations, Senator. Your bill passes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, can I keep going? Keep going, OK, um, I'd like to do 1707. House Bill 1707. We're going to do, we're going to do whatever we got. We're rocking and rolling, Senator Dodson. House Bill 1707. You want help on this one. OK. OK, lends you up here, Kim Hammer, state senator, District 16. Good to you. That barbecue was cheese. I Introduce yourself. All right, recognize yourself, Lizzie Bailey with Lizzie Lindsey French Association of Arkansas Counties, um, what this bill does is it takes. Local candidates who filed to run for office in the county clerk's office, and it has them. Electronically filing their financial contribution and expenditures online with the Secretary of State's office. And Mr. Chairman, the purpose of members is this makes it more transparent, makes it available for everyone to be able to see those financial reports, and I do not believe there was any opposition. There is not, and the Secretary of State's office is OK with the bill. They're giving a thumbs up. Senator Dodson, you're organized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this would be the same online reporting system that we use for campaign contributions and that sort of thing. I believe that's correct. That's correct. That's correct. OK, thank you. Thank you. And that's part of the idea. Everybody's getting on the same page public has full accessibility to it. Any other questions from the committee. Alright, say no, don't see by son speak for or against Senator Hammer, you'd be recognized to close for your bill, close for the bill. Appreciate a good vote and make a motion to pass. Got a motion to pass from Senator Hammer, we'll see a 2nd, second Sullivan in the discussion on the motion, see none. Iavor say aye, opposed. Congratulations, Senator, your bill passes, Mr. Chairman, on your list you have anybody sign up to speak for against 4:45, 4:45. I'm not seeing anybody, senator. It's not on the agenda. I don't have, it's, it's on it. It's it, is it on our agenda though? No, it's not on our agenda. OK, let me find it then don't know where it went. Um. And if I could um 17, 14's been hurt in here before. I've got an amendment I'd like to at least get the amendment. Senate Bill 445 is in the house state agencies. Oh, it's in the House. All right, thank you. Um. for Oh yeah, well, never mind, 1714, I'm on gross on the floor, make it easier it comes back through excellent Senator Dodson, you got one. Thank you members. Alright, Senate Bill 586 members. You get people Members, this is Senate Bill 586. We heard a similar bill last week. This is regarding uh Constitutional amendments and their passage, the threshold to The level to pass them at the ballot, made a modification to it and the bill now will require a 2/3 majority to pass. Hang on. Is your mind, this will now under this bill it would raise the threshold for initiated constitutional amendments to be 2/3 to pass at the ballot, 2/3 vote. Happy to try to answer any questions members, you've heard an explanation of the bill. Are there any questions from the committee? Alright, see no questions. We do have some people signed up to speak against this. Scale Cho, Dr. Cho. She in here, don't see Gail. We'll go to the next one. Ms. Rebecca Zimmerman, is Ms. Zimmerman in here? All right, don't see Missimmerman, we'll go to the next. Mr. Tribble, don't see JP triple in here. Right. That is it. All right, Senator Dodson, you are to close for your bill. I'm closed. I make a motion to pass. Got a motion do pass, seconded by Senator Peyton. Any discussion on the motion? See none all in favor say aye, opposed. Congratulations, Senator Dodson, your bill passes. Thank you. Senator Davis, you got a House bill you want to run real quickly? Come on up. You leave Representative Pil Pilkington right where he is, if you want that bill to pass. No, come on up, representative. Yeah, what number are you, what, what will you run again? House Bill 1690 and if y'all introduce yourself and you'd be recognized to proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Brianne Davis, State Senate District 25. Aaron District 45, Pope in Johnson County. We're going to ask to proceed with your bill. Sure, um, this is a very simple bill. We're moving the department for emergency response for nuclear waste to the Department of Emergency Services as opposed to the Department of Health. The reason being when ANO was built, we didn't have the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, so they put on the Department of Health. We're the only state that does it. Every other state has it under the Department of Emergency Management and so we're simply moving it from one to the other. This came at the behest of the five county judges it affects. No no opposition of it should be a pretty simple, easy to build. Alright, members, you've heard an explanation of the bill. Are there any questions from members of the committee? All right, Senator Payton, you're for a question. Senator Representative Pilin, it's come to our attention here in this committee recently that we can't do this without totally disrupting all the services and and all of the. The programs and rules. When, when we, when we move something from one department to the next, uh, can you assure us that this is going to be pulled off without a hitch. Uh yes sir. I have no concerns whatsoever. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Are there any other questions from members of the committee? All right, say no further questions. Do we have anybody signed up to speak? Don't see anybody sign up to speak for or against this. Representative, you're organized to close for your bill. We're closed for our bill close for the bill. I'll see a motion to pass from Senator Dodson, a second Senator Sullivan, in a discussion on the motion saying none. All in favor say aye. opposed. Congratulations, your bill passes. All right, members, just a reminder we do have the Joint military affairs Subcommittee that's going to be meeting after 15 minutes upon adjournment today, and then after the adjournment of that committee, we will likely to come back in here for another state agencies meeting, so I will let you know. See Libers coming for this committee, we are adjourned.