Joint Education
Video
Transcript
Machine transcript
May contain errors. Verify important quotations against the official video.
About transcript accuracy
- Source
- SliQ live captions
- Model
- SliQ live ASR
- Processing date
- October 2, 2026
Unknown speaker
0:20
Members if you would go ahead and grab your seats we're gonna start here in about two minutes
Members go and take your seats Char sheaorum jointucation will come to order members to to start off on'm gonna recognize uhpresentative cozart to start us in prayer if you would please stand with us and represent cozzar would ask you to remember Senator English
who broke her hip about a week and a half ago had surgery and's currently in rehab hospital. she's doing well and it's gonna be out soon and joining us in the future but please keep her in prayer
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
2:26
we thank you for the many things that you help us with each and every daylord
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
2:37
kids and our teachers Lord we we thank you for just watching over us each and every day getting us here safely getting us home safely we thank you for the opportunities that we have Lord and we we come to you and ask you for a healing for senator English Lord as she's up in her age she
doesn't heal quite as fast as maybe someone younger but we play for that fast healing and back on her feet and get her going again we love you we thank you for everything go with us now and help us to do our duty in Jesus'
name amen. thank youpresentative our members without objection we'll move to item B on the agenda. I need a motion to approve the minutes from our June 1 meeting your motion of second all in favor say aye
right. let's have been adopted moving on to see on our agenda consideration of adoption and interim study proposal from Representative Mckenzie need a motion to adopt secondcond is there any discussion on the motion seeing none all in favor sayI all opposed that has been adopted so members today here's kind of the flow of how things will go we
haveegegal that is with us remotely and they're going to be making a presentation on on healthcare costs health
insurance funding and then we will have our adequacy presentation our draft from our friends atblr I want to go ahead and just kind of talk about what the schedule is going to be moving forward on the remainder of the adequacy process and so today you all have your binders in front of you as always end up buying your the first tab in your binder is going to be the worksheet and so they will present we'll have the Seegal presentation that we'll have the adequacy presentation that will be presented and then you need to take your binders home with you
I know right hopepe? so take your binders home with you please treat your binders as a brick of gold. don't go throw it in our spare bedroom and never see it again take it with you continue to study all the amazing work that's been done and then we need the recommendations back so you have your recommendation worksheet in the first of the the first tab we need those recommendations back no later than august the 24th. no later. that doesn't mean we're gonna put them together on August the 25th. that means that we need him on August 24th so we can start working on the process of moving towards a joint
recommendation. so they're due by August 24th. we will then put all the recommendations together and on October5th which we have a a joint education meeting scheduled on October5th prior to joint budget starting we will adopt the recommendations and then those are due to be delivered to the speaker of the house and the senate president pro tem on November the firstt which actually will happen on October30th because November 1st is a Sunday. so that's kind of the lay of the land and so
here's my admonishment encouragement for you when you take
these home we've got plenty of time we've got3 weeks to put together recommendations and as a part of this committee, part of the expectation of signing up for this committee is that that we take this process extremely seriously because this is what this is the funding for our our public schools which we all value and so last time out of all of the members 28 members of joint House and Senate we have three recommendations come back my hope and my expectation to know
that Senator English would share that as well as Senatorulllivan and uhvice Chair Macenzie would share that that we want those recommendations back because it makes us it helps us get to a better place in terms of of what the process is and in terms of the recommendations for funding our our schools and so that would be my my encouragement my my admonishment to you is please take the process very seriously spend time the next three weeks looking over all of this amazing data and then let's come back with good recommendations from everyone so that we can put this together to the benefit
of our schools senatorulllivan thank you Mr Chair and I
appreciate those comments and I look forward to carrying this binder home with me and laying it right next to something I just wanna make
sure on the very first page there it says when making changes which we're going to try to make the general assembly shall ask the following questions rooted in lakeview just
for the committee and me included what relevance does
Lakeview have because that lawsuit is my understanding has run its course if that would be a is that the
correct way to state that that may be a question that I would allow the bureau to to
answer a little bit more in depth but so Jasmine or someone feel free to but we so from my perspective you know the adequacy process was the adequacy bill was passed out as a result of Lakeview and so we even thoughlakeview is
is past we still operate under the legislation that came from that and this process
is that so I I would completely agree but just so that everybody understands how how binding is the lakeview case on our recommendations and can recommendations be made that might be contrary to what the Lakeview decision was or does every recommendation have to follow you know how deep do those its
rooted in in the lakeview how deep do those roots go but I'll letblr answer that you recognize that hijasmine ray
Speaker 30
8:15
Burereau of Legislative Research. I can't I can't speak to how
Speaker 31
8:18
rooted they should be what I can say is that part of the continuing evaluation actct the adequacy statutes that guides the study requires it as as and I'm going to go into this in our in the final presentation actually but as a guidepost in conducting deliberations and reviews the committee shall use the opinion
of the Supreme court in the matter of Lakeview and other legal precedents to guide the decision.
Speaker 32
8:43
so that's that's in the statute for the adequacy study would it be appropriate to say that
it is rooted but not binding can't cannot answer that can
think that's critical if people are going to make re recommendations they need to
understand if we're bound by that or those are just recommendations I think there's a huge difference in rooted in and binding on garrity you
Speaker 37
9:24
recognized thank you Mr Chairmarty Gerrty with the Bureau of Legislative Research. Senator, I'm not going to definitively say because I am not sure but I do know that recommended recommendations change from year to year or every two years from these
committees so this committee is directed to work within the parameters of the lakeview case and so I don't you know it's it's a very much a guide and I think there are parts of it that may be more susceptible to lawsuit than others but again I I would defer to a later date if I can follow up with you to give you a more confident answer. Sure mean that gives us
good guidance going forward from today because nothing's finalized until the committee adopts whatever changes happen and we'll make those decisions later on thank you very much and and senator I think a very good question as
as the bureau has has stated previously is that this is our process as a joint education committee this is our process and so recommendations we make are not necessarily bound by specific law we can make whatever recommendations we want to then it becomes the purview of the committee whether
we adopt those recommendations and pass them on on as our our joint adequacy report. thank you I agree with that thanks looks like
we've got just a couple of questions uhpresentative Duke you're recognized Thank you Mr chair just a quick question are we not meeting in September?
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
10:56
I don't believe I have a meeting scheduled in September. let me let me
check and get back to you so if I may the the reason
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
11:08
if if we're turning in august we're coming to the
October5th meeting. I'm assuming there's the you're gonna pull all the recommendations together and we're going to review them. are we going to have that in adequate time before theoctober5th meeting is all the discussion I mean that's a lot happening at one meeting if we're not meeting in
September we yes we will we will have that all reviewed prior to that and and get that information out to the committee and
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
11:32
would that be in a time in which if we needed to have a meeting in September to because if if everybody participates in this it's gonna be a lot for us to dice through and to try and do onoctober5th alone I guess
that's my question is will we have you know I I'm
committed to kind of taking that on a wait and see basis based upon
what we've got thank you. Represent Macgruder. Representative
Chair
Unverified
12:02
Duke ask my question. thank you. Senator Johnson you recognize thank you Mr Chairman.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
12:08
I'm not a member of the committee I appreciate you recognizing me I appreciate Senator Sullivan's questions
aboutlakeview I consider it a cloud that's that's that hangs over this legislature every session I think in subsequent time since that what almost30 years ago it's hard to believe it was that long ago but I think that the general assembly has worked hard to make sure that that educational opportunities for our children are are both equitable and adequate I think the Learns Act Mr Chairman was probably one of the biggest things we've ever done to ensure that and thank
you for your work on that but I just remind everyone that in the 30 years or so since Lakeview decision we've seen a lot of of constitutional law that's come out of the courts that recognized the separation of powers that perhaps the lakeview court did not recognize I do appreciate that we have passed statutes to guide us but I don't want anyone to think that there's some
cannot be moved constitutional precedent created by that court decision obviously anybody can sue anybody over anything any time but I I feel like subsequent decisions are things that guarantees that the decisions of this body when I say this body certainly all due respect to the education committee but to the entire general assembly decide what is equitable and what is adequate and I don't want any of the brilliant people that put in
the kind of hours you do on this committee to lose track of that fact because it's it's a legislative decision baring some new court action that I hope we don't have but I just wanted to make that point and thank you for allowing me to do that Mr Chairman. Thank you Senator Representative Painter you recognize Thank you Mr Chair and I for staff I assume
there'll be a pDF fillable file after this so we could put our recommendations in there because if you got chicken scratch like I do you won't be able to read it.
ok thank you Additional questions right
so we will wait Missgarrity can get us additional clarification on the question earlier but again from
the from the standpoint of what this process where this process has been since it's inception and where we are now again our our opportunity and our expectation as a joint committee is to provide recommendations and then to adopt a recommendation based upon
what we have ascertained in the information that's available to us that's been provided as part of this long standing process and again with nothing prohibits us from
making recommendations anything we want to frankly then we just get to adopt it so with that no
additional questions I will move on to item d on our agenda and recognize Patrick Kline from Seegal if two
of you would please introduce yourself for the
record and then you're recognized thank you Patrick Kle senior vice
Speaker 60
15:26
president and actuary at Seegal. muted Olga Olgainor actually withegal and just to confirm right is
everyone able to see the the presentation we do not have anything
on the screen right now if that's what you're going for we all have a printed copy and I'm
Speaker 60
16:05
trying to share my screen through Teams it's it's good it's it's on front of it's
it's on our screens in front of us it's not on the main screens in the command room but go ahead and proceed well thank you for your time today some background we're
the actuarial consultants to EBd and today we're gonna walk through our view of the psE's fund balance and reserve projections and the main takeaway here is we're gonna talk through what it's gonna take to keep the plan on solid financial footing for 2027 and beyond. so one important note we are not the actuary of for EBd so that is the public consulting group
and we rely on all their expense projections since they have the day to day actuaries. we did review the numbers and the assumptions used and deemed them reasonable. we have done this several times the last being two years ago and the landscape has changed quite a bit so on on the funding side the minimum district contribution is bounced around a little bit. It was at300 then it went down to 234
increased the350 and now it currently sits at at400 dollars as of July2026. Meanwhile the expenses have increased 17% above projections for 2024 and2025. so in the market we are seeing higher medical and pharmacy trends, all time highs a lot of plans that are experiencing double digit trends so it's it's no surprise we're seeing
a large increase there,17% is relatively high compared to our other state clients and then when we put our you know our expenses and revenue together we're right now we're we're projecting a slight loss for 2026 so the expenses are slightly higher than the revenue and that deficit grows to31 million dollars for 2027 and if there's no material increases the reserves will be
depleted for this plan by 2029. so to help you think through the path forward we ran several scenarios we'll walk through in a few minutes but the headline is this the PSE fund has a surplus right now but the key is that we need to have a strategy on how we're going to increase the funding to keep up with these growing expenses
Speaker 60
19:06
this slide shows just how much the expense picture has shifted since the last time we presented the
top block shows Millman's projections back in 2024 and then the bottom block shows the current pCG projection and as you can see there's a there's a pretty large delta between the numbers so again the 24 and25 actual expenses came in 17% higher than the initial
forecast from two years ago and the growth and expenses have extrapolated even further so 2020 we have 22%23% all the way up to 27% increase in expenses for 2029 and it's not just 11 lever it's really all pieces of the program medical expenses are up 15%. we've had a large spike in the MA premium and and pharmacy costs continue to surge.
so that's really going to be the backdrop of the next couple funding slides
Speaker 60
20:16
so here's here's the baseline where we sit today this slide shows what happens if we keep this minimum
district contribution locked in at400 dollars throughout the lifetime of the projection. and the top part here this top row this is the the minimum district contribution and then if we drop down we've got our
revenue items below that is our expenses we have our net income loss so that's just your revenue minus your expenses total assets or fund balance that's how much cash is in the plan at the end of the the counter year and then the bottom row there is our our recommended reserve so this is 14% of medical and pharmacy claims that is our recommended target for where the fund balance should be.
so as you can see for 226, we've got a large surplus $188 million in fund balance versus the73 million dollars target but you can see that the expenses are gonna grow substantially almost70 million dollars a year and if that revenue remains flat the fund balance depletes quickly and so as of 2028 we would be under the target and at 2029 the fund would go negative
without any increase in funding. so this is why we're
Speaker 60
21:51
here this is the scenario we're we're trying to avoid and we're gonna go through some
alternative funding scenarios that you may wanna deploy to to keep the fund balance in check. so before we get into the the scenarios we ran I think it's worth pausing just so everybody has a a clear
picture on where the PSE funding actually comes from in 20 in counter year 2026 the total funding was around510 million dollars and it's made up of these three pieces so so there's really three pieces where the funding can come from historically the Department of Education amount is 142 million that's been fixed employee funding we we did have an increase for 2027 but before
that the rates were flat and there was even decreases before I know the idea was to get to a target subsidy percentage but that that is either decreased or stayed relatively flat and then lastly the district contribution which is contingent on the minimum district contribution that has been the lever that that has been pulled we've seen some changes there but
again if if that's the only lever we pull you're gonna have some sizable increases so that's what we're gonna show in this first scenario the idea here is that we're gonna reach our target reserve at the end of the projection period in 2031 so you can see these numbers are highlighted in green so your targets 118 million and that's where we project the reserve to be
so what where do we need to increase that minimum district contribution to get there it's 21.3% annually so that starts at calendar year 2028 and by 2031 the minimum district contribution needs to be $867 and so that's you know more than double than than where it is today obviously if if you increase
funding from other sources then we don't need such a large increase but if if we just isolate that minimum district contribution as the only lever we can pull that's the increased and then the other scenario we ran is what if we spread the increase equally over all three pieces all three stools of the of the revenue so the district contribution the employeeing
contributions and that Department of Education funding so if we increase all those uniformly starting in 2028 through 2031 what is that increase necessary to get to our reserve balance at the end of the period so that drops to 12.5% so much much more feasible percentage increase if we spread the revenue across those three pieces
Speaker 60
25:21
and that is the end of our presentation. so we'll be here for for any questions or comments Members of their questions Represent painter you recognized thank
you Mr Chair. just question for you guys
on our smaller districts how are we gonna expect them that's quite of an increase for even our small districts rural districts
even if we spread it through all three so go ahead sorry I'm not
sure I'm not sure if I'm the right person to answer that I I don't know I'm it's just the numbers are the numbers and when you're when you're seeing growth70 million dollars in growth on your expenses and if it all needs to come from the the minimum district contribution that is a big burden on the districts
Yeah, no I I I agree I think that's something I hope we can take into consideration in the
committee because I'm going to tell you that's gonna that's gonna kill some schools right there just this alone. Sure
and to clarify I represent painter for everybody obviously Mr.lein and and his group they're they're providing us the data the information it's up to us how to disseminate that and
Speaker 48
26:44
what to do with it much like the the broader adequacy process. thank you Mrirrsenator
dotson you're recognized for a question. thank you Mr Chair. and
you may I Is stepped into this just a minute late and you may have covered this already and I apologize if you did but when we started this 2022 or 2023 I can't remember which year we actually made the switch over and had the projections out how does this compare to when we were initially looking at the fund balances and what we're putting into when we made the changes legislatively
and I'm trying to remember was that the 20 it was a fiscal session so it would have been a 20 22 I think year so we made the switch over to what we're currently doing it's been about four years you were projecting things out at that time are we in line with that are we higher than that? how much higher are we than when we're making those projections a few years ago. Yeah, so
the the expenses have increased almost 181718% from when we were here two years ago doing the same the same exercise and and again we rely on the EBD's actuary for all the expense projections we review them for reasonableness but yeah they're they came in 17% higher and then if you look to their 2026 projections then versus
now 22% higher so the expense landscape has changed. you've had some really high trends on the flip side the minimum district contribution has increased it's up to400 dollars so that's been able to offset a lot of those large increases so for 2026 you're in you're in a really good spot you're almost break even expenses versus revenue you've got a large surplus but you know going forward
there needs to be a plan in place to increase funding in future years or that surplus will get eaten
up very quickly. You you you deal with a lot of states in this scenario is this common across the board in other states as well or is this unique to Arkansas the the 1718% above projected expenses from two years ago. yeah we we've seen some plans
trends it depends on the state that we're working with but I would say the range is yeah anywhere up to 20% to a high single digits so I would say you're 17% is definitely on the higher side but back in the you know I would say like4 or5 years ago we were seeing345% trends expense trends almost like a CPI trend and the last few years in the last two years we've seen
across the board is is there some things
that other states are doing changes in coverages things like that that that are holding those expenses in line well I think a lot of
states are are seeing large expenses come through and their experience and then for future years they're looking at how to mitigate those those large increases whether it
be plan design changes or trying to come up with other strategies and then but but I would say most states are are really just trying to find more revenue and increase contributions looking at planned design changes those are the key lovers of their states are pulling to keep their funds in line with witharget. thank
from Ebd here I believe you may be behind the column that I can't see but I think we have some people from from EBd here if we have additional questions for them. I'm going to take questions from committee members and then I'll get to noncommittee members Representative Duke you're recognized thank you
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
31:21
Mr Chair. I guess I'm kind of along the lines of Senator dotson I think. my question I guess in relationship to this data and I don't know who can give me the answer is the only solution I'm seeing here is to increase funding
which means find money somewhere which that all comes from the taxpayer so I where's the solution or the discussion or information from you all or from somebody else on where can we make some cuts where do we make some changes or I mean that's just typical what our because me and the teachers here they're getting the benefit of this when we increase that's going to be their taxes too so I think that needs to be part of the discussion on this and who can help us go dig deeper into this
information to find out are there places where we can make some adjustments so that we are not increasing funding which means increasing taxes in one shape or form unless we're not cutting somewhere else it's just I think a simple budget but maybe I'm just a simple girl. Could
I get somebody from EBd who might be in the crowd
if y'all would please introduce yourself for the record and then you'll be recognized to maybe provide some additional context and answer questions
Speaker 93
32:57
from members James Cadwell CFfo for shared administrative Fran
Speaker 95
33:02
excuse me Fran Jansen, deputy director of Vbd
Speaker 96
33:04
Courtney Trayor, chief of staff at shared administrative Services Represent deke do you
want to address your question more specifically? I
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
33:14
don't know if I can but I'll try. thank you. I think it again I'm maybe being oversimplifying this but I think that's what folks understand as well is our choices as I'm understanding is we either increase funding which means raise tax I mean that all that funding comes from taxpayers or we which we're not to seem to be discussing that are there any other solutions in cutting things where can we make some adjustments to to alleviate or help lessen this problem I'm sure you guys are running that
and trying to figure out and coming up with those
solutions but I just haven't heard that yet so or alternatives I can try
Speaker 100
33:52
to address that and I apologize to our director Grant Wallace is not able to be here today
Speaker 101
33:58
but I will we've met with him prior to this and we've been asking those questions and I know from an EBD perspective there's two fronts that he's working on that's under the EBD umbrella that they can work on cost and the first
one is on the medical side and they're renegotiating the contract with the TPpa to work on containing those admin costs and in addition they're doing some postclaim review work so that they can make sure that the claims coming through are being paid appropriately and accurately. so they're working to increase that they're also bringing in point solutions which is focusing on the diabetes management,
maternal care and cancer care to make sure that we have targeted approaches to how those patients are being treated and and working on containing the cost around those then secondarily that's on the medical side on the pharma on the pharmacy side which is where most of the increase is coming from they are working on renegotiating the contract with the Pbm and working on reducing those admin fees so those are the things that EBD
can do to to help contain those costs in addition they're constantly monitoring formulary management of prescriptions and making sure that they're paying for you know if there's a a generic available or a brand available to a generic or a generic available for a brand or a biosimilar they're working to substitute those where it where they can and make sense and then in addition they're also working to enhance their coupon program which are the
rebates that they get back on those expensive brand medicines so they're they're trying to make sure they're maximizing that with the pbM. and then lastly they're working with the immunomodulators which eventually right now those are primarily brands that they're able to prescribe but they're looking at over time they'll be able to move to more from the brand names to the biosimilar that'll be available.
so those are the the primary areas where EBD is working to contain those costs Can I
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
36:28
have a ma'am and I don't even know this is this is not an area that by any means I have a lot of expertise in if even a little bit of novice knowledge on this so this may be a foolish question but I I am curious in legislation that we have passed in 2025 or in 2023 could somebody get us the informationblr or someone on what legislation we have passed
that have increased me coverages or rates or whatever that have impacted this. I don't
know if that is even a logical question for this but I am curious if what we are doing as legislators when things are coming through and it sounds great and it's a great program we're gonna increase this what impact it's having down the road when we're coming back here going what are we gonna do how are we going to pay for this we've got to increase their insurance we've got to increase what they're paying what the district's paying, what the state's paying if and if I don't know if the I don't know if that's even a relevant question but it kind of
seems to me sopresentative let me let me go outside of the committee I'm gonna go to Representative Wardlaw
who has been involved in this process for quite some time and let him give a little bit of context
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
37:36
thank you Mr Chair. So Patrick, if you would we'll kind of go back in history here for a second but back to 2023 session and we'll bring it forward to now in a 2023 session we had a 234 dollars50 cents was the contribution rate. It was supposed to went up that year
almost 19% and we've foregone it because the balance of the reserves and the balance of the system were ok move forward to the next session we were supposed to win up to325 that next session if I remember right and that number's arbitrary right now because I'm pulling that memory number from memory but we also stuck to the23450 again in that session which put us behind the eight ball because by missing that mark it forced us this last session to go to375 dollars
which is a huge jump by the way we were always supposed to only jump medical CPI but because we've foregone those two injections of CPI index we had to catch up all at once well what you had happened was when you look back at the last year, you look at health insurance in general you had about a 18% increase in health insurance across the board it wasn't just the teachers or the state employees look at the Blue Cross report from back in May
and June, everybody saw the 18% increase. Well, you end up having to add that to your CPI and now you're looking at you can't stick at400 dollars you have to jump those increases to say sound that money was always meant to come out of for this program the public school fund that's the reason it's in your committee and it's not sitting in council in the public uhr fund we we put it here on purpose because this had always been funded in the past in the history through adequacy
and that's the reason when Patrick gave you the report a while ago, someone asked what's the number well it's our job to give him that number as legislators of this committee and it's our job to give him that number because that's the task at hand at adequacy if you say no or you say a minimum number less than the percentages he's telling you you're going to be facing a cliff. He prayed that out very well in these slides you go back to page four the bottom slide it it walks you through the history I just got
you to and then you can go forward and he shows you what that looks like it's really scary out to 2031 at the moment but you have to do cost containment you have to get control of the insurance companies which we can go back to session and there were some bills to do that they didn't pass but there was bills to do that but that's where you're at and that's why this is so important in this committee because this committee decides where that cliff lies and it was designed to be that way. The system works as long as we do our job and put the money
in when we're supposed to put the money in but when you forego a session, two sessions is what we did you're going to see these huge cliffs or huge increases because if you've done it incremental it would have been small and it would have played up through but we didn't do that because the budget was OK and tax cuts were more important at those times and I'm just telling you that's the job you're faced with in the education committee but it's the job the education committee's always been faced with we've always handled the health insurance of the state of the
teachers inadequacy. we've always paid for it here we left it here when we entered reengineered the program so you guys still had a say so in what was spent in the insurance plans. Thank you Mr chairir.
thank you wardlaw represent painter you're recognized for
a question just just information for me. can we can you guys get me maybe the last two cycles of just the administration costs that we have paid and how much that is increased please thank you and share that
with the committee too please we will do that
Representative Andrews is not there. OK? senator Love, you're recognized for a question.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
41:53
thank you Mr Chair. I'm just asking for clarification so I'm I'm on page four right now and it it's the Q&A I guess slot it's above because I'm trying to figure out so we said if we increase
if we increase the level to 12.5% on all three portions which is the department of Education the district and the employees then the employee will go
from paying375 dollars to400 dollars is that what we're saying? iss
Speaker 76
42:31
that no so the400 dollars that's the minimum district contribution and that's
that's what it is currently right now
so the 12.5 would be increasing that400 up to roughly450 dollars in2028 and you can see at the top part of the slide that number increases to506 and569 so that's that's that 12.5% increasing the minimum district contribution and in addition like you like you pointed out the Department of Education and the employee funding would also be going up 12.5%. and so so what we're asking is for employees to
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
43:14
to pay the the the50 dollars increase and then another 5 $5 or56 dollars increase is that what you is that what we're asking I mean
is this what this metric is saying? that's what I'm
Speaker 76
43:31
asking yeah so yeah there the employee contributions would all
go up 12.5% so yeah if an employee is paying $100 today they'd be they would pay 112
Speaker 117
43:46
dollars50 cents for for in 20 twenty8. OK
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
43:49
I guess I need to ask what what is the employee paying right now? I'm trying to get the I'm I'm just trying to get figures what actual what is an employee actually paying now today? are they paying the they have they
pay yeah they pay different contributions based on what plan and tier Ebd should have all that information what we're showing you here is the total dollar amounts that that go into
the fund but Does EBd have that number? I don't have an average
Speaker 123
44:24
amount that they pay but I can get that for you. I think it does vary depending on the plan and the number
Speaker 122
44:30
of you know, family members they have but I can get an average OK I I would just like to know the average of what what
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
44:36
we're we're gonna be asking employees to pay all right thank you I should be able to pull it up here too while we're waiting
Representative Burkes you re recognized thank you Mr Chairman. so I'm
Representative Rebecca Burkes
Unverified
45:04
curious what specific factors caused the45% substantial increase in prescription drug claims in 2026 does this have something to do with the weight loss medications and what were the causes of the increase? So to address the GLP one question
Speaker 131
45:32
currently EBd we only cover GLP ones in the case of diabetes obviously this is an area that is getting a lot of attention and we're certainly looking at some some options but so specifically to that that would not have in and of itself attributed to those increases however it is we we do pull the information of the you know the chronic
conditions of which diabetes is one we have crohn's colitis so as those for the public school employees actually the PsE had the larger increase between pSE and ASE but it's also the the drug costs as you can imagine have gone up substantially
Speaker 95
46:26
in the last two years so the rising drug cost you would say was a primary factor
Speaker 132
46:36
for the increase in assumptions thank you Representative Beck you're recognized
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
46:49
thank you thank you Mr Chair I I appreciate you guys coming down and trying to answer some of our questions the concern I have is this it seems like we're kind of peeking through the door and we're we're seeing some categories and we're seeing some numbers in there but
there's not enough real details here to make intelligent decision solvement it's and I I was wondering is is the data available when we could take possibly comparable groups of people are on the state plan versus this to see if there are any glaring differences either way on on these as far as cost administrative you I'm just gonna tell some things that administrative cost certain drug costs are or things like that and then at that point we
could take a look at those and say ok here's what's going on and and maybe certainly justify the increases in which would I think would make the committee more susceptible to being willing to to or make better decisions as far as where those additional costs need to come from because it's it's almost now we're at the data level I I see it at the data level where it's it's it's almost like ok either you pay it or you don't and and so before we make that decision
I think it'd be better to have more data related to directly not just like the the teachers this category went up45% but then taking a step further and saying ok in a comparable group in the state plan is that the same cost increases that we're seeing are there some de some some big burying the differentials I should say but between the two and and then we could you know possibly justify those differentials or not is there
any way that we could get that data before we make our decision
Speaker 131
48:46
I'll be happy to take that back and in conjunction with uhrector Wallace and our reporting team we will in fact I'll probably follow up with you directly to get some more specific answers I mean some more specific questions but we'll be sure and do what we can is that August 25th or yeah we will put together what we can before your next
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
49:10
that anyone else on the committee who has similar questions let's get together and so we can take it to him as a group and say this is a data that we want maybe a different categories thank you isn't that
essentially what your tasked to do with right now is looking at that detailed level and come to us with some recommendations and choices isn't that the goal forrector Wallace right now by August 25th. and I do think he has plans to
what you're looking at where are the details where do we cut where do we add that's and we appreciate
that thank you Representative painter you're recognized thank
you Mr chairir. I hope maybe we could have that before the August 25th because if we got to make a recommendations before I haven't submitted by4:30 August 24th I think it would help us to have that quite a bit before and then second thing is is I would like
to know across the board the medical claims that we're seeing if it's increased by 15% I would like to see what those claims are and then if they're also if we're also seeing that across the board on the state on the other employees within the state as as well so that can help me give me a better understanding of what we need to fund pp re ci ate that and thank you Representative Beck for doing that per subscription. Thank you just I think I heard you
say that the biggest spike has come in the
pharmacology side is that correct we're seeing increases both ways but versus medical expenses versus pharmacology is there a different of significant difference do you know the percentage what that might be just roughly based on the information on this
Speaker 101
51:02
report I believe it's45% on the pharmacy side. but I I would look to
Speaker 151
51:11
the Yeah45%. that that's the difference in the projection
for two years ago versus now for 2026. Got you thank you a lot a lot of that's driven by actual experience and and then higher trends thank you
and and while I'm while I'm speaking I did find the the premium rates so if we're talking about the most popular plan which is the classic plan an employee only coverage they pay $88 monthly right now
so 12% increase would be roughly you know increase that contribution up to $100. and it does vary by you know if you cover your family it's it's gonna be up to391 in the classic plan. so there's different tiers and different plans
Speaker 117
52:02
but hopefully that gives you a rough idea Great we appreciate
it and with saying no further questions we'll excuse the witnesses thank you very much and we'll be moving to item E the adequacy study
we appreciate all your input thank you look forward to seeing
Speaker 39
52:42
you again soon. OK would you just for the record please introduce yourself one more
Speaker 156
52:46
time good afternoonjasmine ray Bureau Legislative Research and we will
proceed you may proceed with the your report. Thank you. so
Speaker 32
52:53
we're here today to present the preliminary final report of the 2026 adequacy study today's
Speaker 31
53:02
presentation will include a brief overview of the adequacy study's components a review of the key findings from the preliminary final reports the process for submitting recommendations and a reminder of important dates for the final stages of this adequacy study. first up we'll review the main
components of the adequacy study the duties outlined in the continuing adequacy evaluation Act24 excuse me referred to throughout the preliminary report and this presentation is the adequacy study statute are fulfilled in part through the reports provided by the bureau of Legislative Research and as a reminder the full adequacy study statute can be found behind tab 1a of your binders Each report aligns with the topics identified in the
Speaker 32
53:50
adequacy study statute using evidence and legal precedent including the opinions in Lakeview to examine each topic. Additionally, blr applies the
Speaker 31
54:00
definition of adequacy that was adopted by these committees throughout the study and the statutory requirements tracking sheet behind one b of your binders shows how each of these reports align with the eight broad
Speaker 32
54:12
study requirements of the adequacy study statute
Speaker 31
54:22
This slide details the adequacy study reports that have been presented to date for each topic examined the study
Speaker 32
54:31
considered four types of available evidence including analysis of Arkansas K-12 funding expenditure and achievement data we also when available provided state comparisons we did literature
Speaker 31
54:44
reviews and analysis of Arkansas educator responses from online surveys and in addition to presenting the report shown on this slide
staff responded to52 member questions between these presentations so the preliminary final report with permission of the chairs rather than merging each adequacy study report into a single formerly over 200 page document we pulled the key facts and findings from the reports to form the core of this preliminary report which is now32 pages including appendices and we hope this condensed format is easier to review and
assist the committees as you begin your deliberations. The
Speaker 32
55:30
preliminary final report includes a historical and legal framework key findings written stakeholder testimonies
Speaker 31
55:36
and an overview of limitations encountered with data analysis but today's presentation will primarily be focused on the summary of key findings So in this next section we will go over those key findings including information about progress made since the 2001 Lakeview decision.
Speaker 32
56:02
So the2001 decision which the Arkansas Supreme court upheld identified low teacher salaries as a critical issue and
Speaker 31
56:10
cited that Arkansas ranked between fortyeighth and 50th in teacher pay. As of2025 as was reported earlier in our teacher salaries recruitment and retention report. we are now ranked fortyfifth in average teacher pay in36 whenever you adjust for the cost of living. The Arkansas Supreme Court also agreed with the lower court's
assessment regarding the state's student performance issues it noted that 4th and 8th graders did not rank at or above the national average on the national assessment of educationalgress refer to as the NAEpe in math, reading science or writing this slide shows the 4th and 8th grade proficiency ratings in math and reading at the time of the decision but please note that science underwriting scores have been excluded here because they are no longer available for comp So while Arkansas's rankings
have not reached or exceeded the national average since the 2001 decision the overall percentage of fourth graders scoring at or above proficient has increased as you can see here on this slide and the same is true for eighth graders. The2001 decision also
Speaker 32
57:23
noted low fourth grade proficiency ratings in math and reading on the statewide assessment so determined
Speaker 31
57:29
to determine the state's progress we compared those findings to the most
Speaker 32
57:36
recent 2025 Atlas results but in it's important to note that the state assessment has changed multiple times since the Lakeview decision so the results are not fully comparable. as shown on
Speaker 31
57:49
this slide while math performance has increased the percentage of fourth graders scoring proficient or above in reading has decreased. As shared earlier the
Speaker 32
58:01
definition of educational adequacy adopted by the committees is applied throughout the study. This part
Speaker 31
58:07
of the definition identifies the goal of having all students or all but the most severely disabled perform at or above proficiency as of 2025 node gray level between3rd and 10th had more than39% of students scoring proficient in reading and science or43% in math and for your reference
Speaker 32
58:25
the full definition of educational adequacy as adopted by these committees can be found behind tab
Speaker 31
58:31
onec of your binders As reported in theccotability
and achievement report, the long term goals set in the state's EA plan is for 80% of each student subgroup identified for reporting to achieve a testbased gradele proficiency score and as of 2025 no subgroup has met this goal. and
Speaker 32
58:51
that long term goal is set for 2030. This part of the definition of educational adequacy outlines sufficient
Speaker 31
59:05
funding to provide adequate resources as identified
by the general assembly so now we'll start going through some trends related to funding and spending that have been presented in the resource allocation reports earlier in the study So key findings from the funding overview and resource allocation report shows several trends local and other funds make up a larger proportion a total grade 1el education funding compared to previous years.dditionally, the last three adequacy studies highlighted consistent trends superintendents identified mental health services school
safety and dyslexia support as the top three critical resources for an adequate education that are not currently funded in the matrix pe ci al education is the area cited as most need of additional funding specifically for the FTE's funded in the matrix paraprofessional funding and high cost occurrences this feedback aligns with
Speaker 32
1:00:00
written stakeholder testimonies and data collected by consultants hired that were hired by the committees to conduct the 2020 adequacy study.
Speaker 31
1:00:12
and for your reference a summary of the stakeholder testimonies is available on page six of your report and the full synopsis of these written testimonies can be found in appendix Here you see some key findings from the resource allocation and expenditure reports regarding spending trends sppinning trends show that between the 2023 and2025 school years, public schools spend an average
of $15,499 per student that's from all fund sources not just foundation funding they spent between40 and42% more per student on matrixxours from all fund sources that received in foundation funding and5% of funding is spent on non matrixx resources with instructional aids accounting for the highest percentage of
Speaker 32
1:01:03
spending and as a note instructional aids is a term used byblr to categorize expenditures on instructional classified
employees therefore it is possible that some of these expenditures include roles that superintendents identify as paraprofessionals. So now we'll discuss now that all the adequacy study
Speaker 31
1:01:26
reports have been presented in the key findings from those have been summarized in the preliminary final report. The next step is for the committees to make their recommendations. as you move into the recommendations phase we thought it
Speaker 32
1:01:41
would be helpful to reshare the questions Taylor provided
Speaker 31
1:01:45
during the legal framework presentation she gave back in February. These questions are intended to guide the committees when making changes and as a reminder of the adequacy study stipulates the committee's must use the Supreme court's opinion in the matter of likeke you along with legal other legal precedent as a guy during deliberations and reviews. So here you see some potential areas of recommendations which these include changes to formulas and funding tools issues for study statutory
frameworks, education policies and more really any recommendations that you all want to come up with and this slide shows some examples of broader categories or excuse me some concrete examples related to the broader categories that were shown on the previous slide I'm not going to read all of those off to you though. Behind tab 1d of your binders you will find the paper version of the recommendations form that
represented Brooks referenced at the beginning of the meeting and electronic version of this form will be sent by Rley following this meeting it will contain directions on how to complete the form and it will also have links embedded in the form to to resources that can be helpful including summary of changes recommended by past committees and and past consultants that have been hired to conduct these adequacy studies and as a reminder submissions are due by August 24th.
Speaker 32
1:03:24
Here we wanted to remind everyone that you can access all current and past study materials at this website In addition to the august 24
Speaker 31
1:03:40
due date for recommendations there are a couple of other important deadlines October 16th is the deadline for recommendations to be approved by both committees and should include proposed implementation schedules special s specific steps agencies responsible resources needed and any draft bills proposing
legislative changes and then the final report with recommendations is due by November firstt. that concludes my presentation. thank you
Speaker 34
1:04:05
for your time. I can take any questions thank you we appreciate the
presentation uhpresentative Duke you're recognized thank you Mr Chair. thank you again for your report
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:04:19
and all the work you all do on this. My question is from on page six
slo on the slides there and it's just kind of a general question since and I don't know if you know the answer to this but since 201 when we've got this for these first tests versus the atlas and all the different tests. I mean we've been
taking tests since I was in school and that was a long time ago hadd the standards changed that much I mean I know you you mentioned you can't the tests are not exactly the same and we need to keep that into in mind whenever we're looking at the scores and
comparing the atlas and the ACT aspire
and the benchmark and all the different tests that we've had but over those years
have the standards that they have been tested upon changed that much I cannot answer that question right now but
Speaker 32
1:05:09
I am more than happy to look into that for you. I would appreciate that and
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:05:14
and my thought process on this because I've heard that that was a comment often made in school
board meetings when presentations were being made about the test scores as well the tests changed and so this is
the kids are getting used to the test and so forth and so on but if the standards don't change even though the test changes and even though some of the questions and wording and different things may change if the substantive standards don't change, we should still have a general idea this should be a still a pretty good picture from 200 1 to2024 how our kids are doing on learning the standards but if we've had a significant change in the standards since 2001 and2024 then I think that's relevant for us to know as well so that's the kind of the
question but I have the I kind of think that they haven't changed enough to warrant not having been able to move the gap or or make move move the ball forward more in our scores just because the test changed doesn't mean that it's not as reflective and that sometimes the argument that is used in poor test scores is well the test has changed so many times we can't really judge we can't gauge or our kids aren't used to it so I think it would be at least helpful for me to know how much of our standards changed and I don't
know if you need to go further with did that have significant impact on what the test looks like if the standards didn't change that much. I don't think they probably changed that much because not that not that much changes especially in the early elementary years. we will we will definitely look into that for you. OK thank you Representative Becky recognized thank you my question is
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:07:00
when when you were talking about mental health services and school safety and dys dyslexia and you said not funded these are not funded a superintendents according to superintendents said these are not funded my question is are the concern that I have is that obviously we took care of these so they were getting funded from something and they in the s wi with within the school the
the the the matrix right in the school it has to come from somewhere for it's no money for this it has to be pulled from another resource and that might be a federal resource or some other program like that but it very well could come from another line item on the matrix and we've seen that in the past where you know the they have the latitude to take these things in the matrix and move them and pay for different different areas so my question is this I'm concerned that
we could hide and I don't mean hiding something to keep it from us but in a way where some area that we need to be funding right we'll just use the school safety or some other that category is there some way that we could be missing that we need to fund that and it's not being we don't see it because it's being funded from another source within the matrix because your superinttensertaining it's not funded so they they gotta be pulling the money from somewhere the
the the point of my question is this here we are trying to move the matrix around and and make it fit the schools what the schools are actually using but my concern now is that if something is a category is not funded does that do we are we able to see where that money to fund that particular item is
Speaker 30
1:09:01
coming from so first of all I wanna provide clarification on how the
Speaker 31
1:09:06
question is asked to the superintendent. so we provide the mat you know every line item that is on the matrix which are the resources that have been identified by the committees to make up the matrix and then we asked them are there any resources that are not currently in the matrix that you believe are a part of an adequate education that that you needs funding and these have been the consistent these have been the answers that they provided consistently over the past three years really for
Speaker 32
1:09:38
if you count the 2020 study that were APAs the data that they've gathered we can identify where the funds if it's categor they obviously we know that the foundation
Speaker 31
1:09:51
funding matrixx is is a funding model it's not a spending model so we can show how much is being spent on mental health resources from foundation dollars
Speaker 32
1:10:02
from categorical dollars from supplemental dollars from federal dollars
we I'm happy to provide that we we do have that
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:10:14
data and we have seen that in the past but I I guess
I'm interested so so you're saying you do have the data that shows where these things are being funded from and probably more accurate than saying not funded in matrixx it's not maybe would be not acqui not funded adequately in the matrix because there is some funding for for dyslexia support right? well there's not a line in the
Speaker 32
1:10:40
matrix for dyslexia support. but there is some funding set up for that they're I don't know off the top of my head if there's supplemental fund there may very well
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:10:54
be supplemental funding that is dedicated to dyslexia so I'm just interested in trying to say it within
the matrix can we is there is there a way that we could make the matrix my intention is not to make it a spending model but my to make it a funding model that actually
closer matches what the schools are actually spending the money on therefore it make us easier to track where we need to increase funding and where we could decrease funding actually if if in the case you know moving the funding around whereas right now it's like we we have all these little categories in in the in the matrix and we figure it all up based upon500 students here comes a big chunk of cash down the pipe you do with it what you want and we don't really know whether we're funding things categorically right probably categor who is
the wrong way to use it with the matrix but but you know we're in the right area to make sure that we get the funding levelized out so it seemed like it would be a much better tracking and a much better benchmark for the school if you have a school that has a lot of spending in one category ver s us all the other schools you might say what's going on with this situation grey can't agree or disagree with that do you do you so so you're
gonna provide me with information when when in this
well I guess these categories would be a great place to start to say where's this money coming from yes we can provide you the
Speaker 32
1:12:24
source of the what finds the schools used for those three resources and if there were funds actually at allocated for that and they didn't use all of
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:12:33
that fund for the what it was allocated for yes we'll look into that yes you can give me that right thank you
so we can do that but there's also creative ways of getting around all of that correct? I won't make you answer
that thank you p re s ent ative Mackenzie
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
1:12:59
you're recognized thank you Mr chairir. I I kind of I guess this is another question relative to non oh hey how are you non matrixx spending because I see in your presentation that I found it on annotated on page elev within the fuller report that non matrix spending 5% of foundation funding received by districts and charters were
spent on non matrix spending by dollar amount it was nontechnology facilities are accounting for the highest dollar amount and then or instructional aids were the largest by per cent age So and I don't know if I'm piggybacking off the question you had about categories but it sounds as though we've we've drilled down into categories or subcategories of what the non matrix foundation and nonfoundation money has been going towards if we could see because if if there's an anomaly between a dollar amount over a set of time and a percentage of the dollar
amounts for the s separate time and they're different categories I would love to know how we're getting there also when it accounts for you know $2 billion over the last three school years that's like 11% if we were to just combine all the dollars we spend to nont technology facilities seems like an inordinate amount outside of what is separate apart from what we allocate for physical plant resources within the matrix and in addition to
the new captive we have where everyone's filing claims as fast as you know they can so I'm just a little confused by specifically s page slide 17 of your presentation and page 11 of the broader presentation because I don't saying it's anomalistic and just may because the dollars match up over that same period of time they're different and if it's all right chairman I just have a few more I could rattle off so the I guess the question here is could you provide those further categories for the non matrixx non facility funds and you know where they where they rank
and I guess that the the we've a lot of questions have been circulating around it is relative to the surveys and people indicating in surveys hey we don't have what we need or hey we are using what we're given but it's also for other things. The problem is those surveys it's it's a qualitative response. We have data that we can true things up to within our you know back end but ultimately we're we're creating a qua a quantitative data set of all of these superintendents' responses without the follow on of ok well then cho you know pin every receipt to every statement you're making. So I
think we get a little bit fatigued and I know I get fatigued at the beginning of adequacy process when we look at those administrative surveys because it's I understand they're doing the best they can and it's like based off the top of their mind they're responding to the questions and the stimuli that are given to him and that survey and we've gone through the modalities of that survey and it's I don't have too big a problems with it but it's there but we're using that as a as a cudgold now we're saying that is quantitative data superintendents don't have what they need. Well where is all of it going to? and that's where I think we're getting a little bit of the fru s t ration here and where we'd like to advise I mean
p re s ent ative Beck says he doesn't want to do a spending model. I'm ok with us being a little bit more specific as to percentage of spending within categories in this existing matrix if we're not going to change it. and it that's all of that is not just a monologue to say it's to build to a in a perfect world I'd love to match this up with all of the sources of funding state support, local support, federal grants how that compiles to the $15,499 per student in all funding sources against those localities
going out and achieving bonds or asking for a milliage increase. If I could see a historical over the last 2 to 3 years I'm not gonna go back to you know 2001 but the same superintendents are saying they don't have the support that they need are the ones that are saying well we're not telling you how we don't have what we we don't have we're not telling you how we don't know what we have what we don't need but at the same time we haven't gone to the ballot and asked for more. we haven't done it on a local level or we've invested in admin support for you know more grant writing we can't sit here and say well you know our40 to42% that we're going to contribute
into that total number is satisfactory because we have no idea how you're going about collecting the rest of that revenue so this is a lot you said 200 pages and I don't want to add more to it but and it might be impossible. I'm saying this right now it might be really impossible for you to go back to your data set or an additional survey we send out with like less than60% response by admins to say when was the last time you went and asked for more money at the ballot? When was the last time that you went and achieved a bond increase or some non s t ate support nonlocal support of funds and how much admin
exists just for the purposes of federal grant writing. it's hard for us to because we all think about the number we're going to give it's that you know7,722 dollars that we're going to give an annual support for per pupil funding but in reality it's it's double that number it's over60% of that number comes from other sources and we don't know how they're spending that money or if it's earmarked in specific things so I guess my first question is can we see those categories the second is if possible please let me know if it's if this is a wild hare can we get some form of you know
historical linear data that says cabot school district went and asked for the bond increase or for milllage increase in these years they're they didn't have adequate spending in these years based on the survey responses just so we can kind of have some long tail data on this because at the end of the day this is all the universal rate of millage. I mean we have that in our constitution 25 mil everyone has to apply it if it's if we're saying everyone's not getting enough and there's not enough then is that a we have to do the matrix work we have to do the adequacy work but
is that a a need for us to go require locals to increase their millages because that's we did that at the state level we did it in a constitutional amendment so it's just a lot of unknowns relative to a lot of responses here saying we don't do enough. I'm trying to figure out where the gap is because even though we compared our regional states $15,499 per student is still a lot of money so thank you for all you do and I appreciate your
help in the pursuit of getting this done correctly thank you. so can I respond to that so
Speaker 31
1:19:00
soir I wanna first address the non matrixx part which is at the very beginning first of all on page 42 and43 not of this report but of the resource allocation report that provides you details on all the non matrixx expenditures I think that there may be a little confusion between the nonmares expenditures just using foundation dollars versus non matrix expenditures using
all dollars and so this was speaking to the5%
Speaker 162
1:19:37
is just using foundation dollars and that's where the instructional aids come into play. as far as
Speaker 31
1:19:45
the the $15,499 again that is from all fund sources that's not just foundation dollars so you know, essentially districts are spending basically almost all of their foundation find that they're getting but5% of that is going towards things that y'all are not saying
specifically is in the matrix. or at least they're not perceiving it as being per specifically in the matrixx. as far as the survey is concerned and that survey can be changed if there's any any changes y'all would like to make this recommendation process is a perfect opportunity for for that we would welcome any recommendations you all have for changing the survey the
Speaker 162
1:20:28
s the survey instrument and'm'm not recommending a change. I'm
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
1:20:32
saying it's that and it's it is
what it is. I mean the results directly represent what we're asking them the stimuli is to say tell us anecdotally do you have enough? where do you think you rank? do you have enough support are there enough teachers in the classroom and it's a survey it's not you know it's not a comprehensive model of completion for a payroll personnel it's not a roster it's it's hey tell us what you think and please get it back to us by a certain date so I understand that there's always going to be gaps and the answers back to that but it it's
you know and it's not to be critical I'm just saying that we're using qualitative data to say quantitatively here's here's what we're we're missing on responses are important but then you know the the show proof for the showca on those responses is really what we're trying to get to so and I get the what you previously said about the whole difference between foundation versus nonfoundation there's just a lot of numbers a lot of columns a lot of data. I'm just trying to make sure we all see it clearly especially when it's when it leads to the null hypothesis that we're not doing enough how are we not doing enough? what does it smell like when we're not doing enough? let's
try to fix it and5% isn't within a margin of error that's you know we are that's that's just I mean if we look at the categoricals within the founding within the the funding matrixx like that's even larger than some of those categories so if that is if that is people administrators voting with their feet and the dollars that we all we allocate to them to a new thing a new entity a new being, not just dyslexia support or tiered s special education what is it and should it not be reflective in the way that we write our matrix. So I mean and I I'll go dive into
page42 and43 but that's it's larger than3% therefore it should require a little bit more study. well and I'm
Speaker 161
1:22:20
happy to provide more of the dd dig deeper into the categories for you and as
Speaker 32
1:22:25
far as like the historical information related to everything you said with millage we'll probably have to follow up with you on that right now and I'm just
Speaker 191
1:22:33
kidding thank you so much for all your help the key folks we've
got independent school districts who make their own decisions so we can find that however we want
this is just a suggested system how you spend your money if they don't want to do that they're not bound to do that correct? correct yeah so yeah we can collect all the data we want and they can use it however they want or we can pass a constitutional amendment and say this is a spending and funding formula and if folks want to do that you know feel free to do it but right now we have independent school districts and they're gonna make their
decisions based on what their constituents wantpresentative Maybeyrry you're recognized thank you.
I appreciate the opportunity. so and
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:23:25
I really don't know who to ask this question to cause I don't know if you can answer it but it's just something that as I sit here in these meetings you know the past year we've we've gone over adequacy we look at all these different charts of what we're spending on this and that and and you know looking at s spending by funds source
this last sheet here for example operations and maintenance you know we have a line for that we we we've talked about counselors and nurs and pri n ci p al and secretary and this is all based on Lakeview where we came up with the system before we ever allowed our tax dollars to be used for EFA accounts. and I I I'm just trying to rationalize
how we can spend this much time figuring out what is needed for public school to be equitable and adequate but yet we haven't sat down and asked and done charts and analyzed for example homeschool what's the true cost to homeschool because according to what we've analyzed here we include operations and maintenance which is electric bills and water bills and things like that will
obviously you can't homeschool use that money to pay for those things and yet all we do is say well whatever the the funding matrixes whatever that amount is we're just gonna do 10% less and I just feel like it's too general and I won't be here next term but I think there should be some type of study on what is the true cost and what can that money truly be used for if we do say for example a student who's
in public school can use, can use the school nurse for some some needs or the the counselor for maybe some mental health assistance or I mean obviously that's expected but yet the homeschooler can't use the EFA money for maybe some me or mental health I'm just trying to throw out the idea that I think we need a little bit more understanding
of what is the true cost to homeschooling and come up with that amount and not just be so generic with well it's just 10% less than everything else because it's not it's not apples to apples. I I don't know
I like I said I don't know who has an answer could run that legislation No like I said I won't be
here. I'm just say you said someone can run that legislation that's what it would take if you want to have an this survey is for the previous year correct there's adequacy study
is based on data from the previous year from the and some of the things that are being impacted education today were not a part of this study true and if someone wants to have that be a part of this study we can certainly do that a committee meeting member can bring that to this committee and say we'd like this committee to study the true cost of whatever you want to study and this committee could adopt that study to do that it's not a part
of this study currently but is your for me according to your what I hear you saying there needs to be one I would agree yeah but and how do you do that? bring that suggestion to this committee thank you Representative gonzalez you're recognized thank you
thank you for explaining all of this I'm still new to this is serving my first term. I wanted
to ask if on the superintendent survey, I was curious as to if that could possibly be disaggregated by by school size and and other demographics and student populations for example, English learnarers special education students income level and the reason I'm asking is I'm wondering if if
that is I'm curious as to what the top three areas that the superintendents are seeing that they need in terms of additional resources I know this is the overall all of the school districts but I'm curious as to what how did how does it look when the when the data is desegregated because because our school districts are so they're so different. So one area of the state they may need xyz is there or they say xyz is those are
their top three choices and then some other area of the state and it and it of course is based on the student population. so I know this is the overall but I'm just wondering if if we can look at it in in that regard yeah that's no problem at all we can certainly do that thank
Speaker 155
1:28:49
you Representative Vaughtugh you're recognized you Mr Chair. Is there a way
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:28:59
that we can look at things that we have passed
that we did not attach funding to it I don't want to use that word unfunded mandate because I know that's not a word that y'all can go by but I know that we've passed legislation that says this is what you're gonna do but we've not attached any kind of funds to it that say you're going to use these funds to help to teach it and I can use one because I passed one, I'll use the holocaust bill K through 1el teach about the holocaust. We gave no money to go toward teaching of the holocaust but we've asked schools to make sure
that they do it in their standards and I could list a whole bunch more but I don't want to if there's a way that you can help us figure out
Speaker 31
1:29:46
what those are. I'm sure with legal's help we could I I how far back would you want to go well
Speaker 213
1:29:51
I've been here for 12. what about 10 years? what about5 years I know it's grown over the years I
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
1:29:58
think holocaust though would probably be6 we will work I will work with legal and see what we
Speaker 156
1:30:05
can we can do for you thank you I think
that's a personally an excellent request you know we have things have changed tremendously in education funding in the last three or four years and we as a committee have the option of including that in our final report if we so choose so I appreciate that information I think that would
be valuable moving forward Representative Beck you're recognized just one quick question of the
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:30:36
of the sixty40 the the matrixx Foundation funding and the and the other funding what percentage of that60% is not directly allocated towards in a is what we would call kind of categorical funding so in other words the the the what I'm getting at is is the matrix the only place where the school district has the latitude to move funds between categories within the foundation funding
and whereas there other funding the the larger chunk would all be allocated as sort of categorical funding you know to a specific purpose so the so foundation funding which is directly related to the
Speaker 155
1:31:18
matrix can be spent however doesn't have to be with anything actually in the matrix that
Speaker 31
1:31:23
they don't want it to be categorical funding that's a restricted funds but they can transfer within each other and
Speaker 32
1:31:32
so those categorers are your alternative learning your English learners
your Pd and there's another one that I'm not remembering right now but they can be transferred within each other this this supplemental I if I'm if I recall correctly those I I think that those are restricted funds but I'll
Speaker 31
1:31:54
let my staff correct me if I'm if I'm wrong so so would it be safe to say
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:32:01
that the foundation funding is the most open ended funding that a school district has. in other words it can be spent way they
would like think it's it's safe to say
Speaker 218
1:32:12
that that's the most flexible form of funding so a lot of this
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
1:32:16
stuff that we're talking about as far as items within the the foundation funding where there's the funding is being spread out all over the place it's probably is it a cause or the effects it's the effects of the other categories having a more restricted as far as how those funds can be spent whereas the matrix can be the foundation funding can be spent however you
want think that's a pretty accurate description. thank you Representative
Speaker 32
1:32:43
Duke you're recognized thank you Mr Chair would it be possible
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:32:56
to have the department come down? and ask the answer a couple of questions pe c ific to to study yeah well here here's my thought process
is I'm going to go back and take my binder which I'm very excited about taking back and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna make some recommendations and right now most of the recommendations and information that I have on what we should or not should be doing but the thoughts we've been doing are coming from and I appreciate it coming from the school districts although the teachers did not participate in the great number that we'd like them to from the superintendents from principals and I love having all that information but we also have a department ofucation who has a whole lot of data at their fingertips all the time and I would like to have a little bit
of their thoughts about what because we've talked a lot about the funding and the funding is very important but the test scores the fact that we've had 2425 years and they've not moved a whole lot and I want to make sure when I'm
filling my report out that what I am looking at doing besides just ok well we need to fund this or we need to fund that or superintendent is
it gonna move the needle because that's a whole age group of kids that graduated that are
not proficient on things and so I agree
but I don't know if that's what we're studying right there's report you're going well beyond that report but if someone if someone here from the department that can answer I don't know if I caught the question or not but I think I got the gist of it is there someone here from the department be ready to address that finance question don't have any we're getting into an area that is is is certainly pertinent and
certainly worth knowing are we getting any bang for the buck so we're doing an ROI study in higher re and we're doing an ROI study to make sure we're spending our money accurately I think one what I garner from this our test scores is going up if your test scores are going up, I would assume you're spending your money more wisely than someone who is throwing a31,000 dollars teacher staff party with scores going down
but so am I correct in in assuming that question is a bang for the buck question kind of I mean
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:35:27
there are there are things here to the point of special ed do we need to have increases in special ed and do we need to have increases in like the
dyslexia do we whatever those different areas are are putting more money as we're looking into this are those the areas that will also not just fund those things but move the needle right I mean there's a difference between I can put more money to funding something
but is funding that going to make our kids read and going to make them better math can you respond to that please
Speaker 96
1:36:01
it's broad yeah so Courtney Salifod, chief of staff for the department of Education. I'm going to start by
Speaker 226
1:36:06
addressing one of the questions you brought up earlier which was about changes in standards and changes in assessments and and you mentioned that standards haven't really changed a lot in 25 years and they haven't. We review all of our academic standards on on a cycle basis and of course we make any
updates anytime there's a legislative change to incorporate the new requirements one of the problems was that previously our assessments were not assessing our standards. We did change assessments multiple times over the last several years, but those were kind of off the shelf national assessments that were not specific to Arkansas standards. So when learnns was passed we were able to and required to develop a specific to our state assessment which we have done that is aligned with our standards. so our teachers are teaching what they're required
to teach and we're assessing where students are and how they are learning those standards. We saw in the first year that they're not where we want them to be and there has not been a lot of improvements over the last 25 years. but with the changes that were made in the last three years and this information has been put out we have seen huge gains in what our students how much they're achieving, how much they're learning. we believe that we will continue to see those that growth and those improvements as we go forward regarding the funding piece of it
as you all have talked about that it is a funding model so you all decide how much money districts should get in order to to run their schools to do all of the things that they're legislatively required to do but it's up to them to make those decisions and to put that money where they think it needs to go. So it's very difficult for us as the department to be able to say yes if you put more money in special education, it will improve. you can throw money at a lot of things it doesn't mean they're going to improve. it has to do with the decisions that are being made at the local level
and where that funding is going because even when you say we want to put more money in special ed funding does that mean more teachers? does that mean more paraprofessionals? does that mean more services we don't know the answer to that because we can't dictate where that funding would go to that that's what you all have to decide as part of this process is how much money goes to schools and where that money should be spent or do you allow them to continue to have the latitude to make those decisions because they know their students they know what they need and they should be the ones making the right decisions. So we are
happy to answer any of your questions and provide input we feel like we have already made some significant changes and that you all have made some huge changes in legislation that will give districts the tools and resources that they need to see growth and we are seeing that. so I hope that that answered most of your questions but I can't speak specifically to where funding should go or that putting funding in a specific area will absolutely show improvement.
and just to add to that you know again we districts have a huge say in how they spend their money and if you we pretty much 100% say in how they the legislature wants to be more involved at the granular level write that legislation bring it to the committee or do a study and have the committee study that and we can look at addressing that but that's not what this adequacy study that we're looking at right now did we can make whatever changes we want to that
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:39:30
but its us to decide what we want to do. that's the right that's that's my understanding it's
part of the adequacy studies to help us decide what we need to do in the upcoming session if you'd
like to make or someone would like to make a recommendation for this committee to get information from the department of edd from whomever if someone would make that recommendation I think this committee would be glad to to act upon that res
recommendation and accept it or not but we have to have a recommendation from somebody to initiate a study May I so I want to make sure I'm
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:40:11
understanding in what context you're saying a recommendation because we're we're talking the recommendations that we have due on the 24th. Are you talking in that context are you talking just in general let's have a recommendation we can have a study and have a discussion about it are those two separate things or are you talking about on the one on the 24th 2 separate things they are two separate things and they're two
different they're two separate and they're the same so
if you want to study it for the next year fine if you want to study it before August 24th or august 15th or what's today this if you wanna study by august 8th we need a recommendation to act rather than we can discuss this I see value here I see value that we agree or disagree we have to have a a definitive recommendation for us to act right and and I do understand that but you also have to have
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:41:04
some underlying information on it and I appreciate all the information that we
have gotten through the adequacy study and I will get offline I guess withoney a little bit on some of the additional questions I have to your point I'm having a hard time I I believe in local control I like the district's having the flexibility but when you ask continually ask for money which is kind of what I get from the last couple of years of adequacy well we need more money well we need more money. Hey I also need to see results that we are moving the needle forward before I give
you that money and is that money where you want it is that we're actually really needs to go to your point bang for the buck. are we making sure that it's going to the place that's actually gonna move these kids and and getting them to read math and all the things that they need to do and so that's part of what I'm trying to understand here before I make my recommendations for this upcoming study cause just because you're telling me I mean my kids come and tell me they need money all the time right? but they don't really need money and when they had to make a choice about this or that they make a different decision
and that's kind of what I'm trying to figure out is I'm not excited I don't think a whole lot of members are going back and saying let's raise taxes go back to your local school districts and that's not going to fly most of our school districts and so figuring out where do we shift money if we need to shift money or if if we weren needing to raise you know if that's what we need to do to have an what is it an equitable education because I understand that's Lakeview, right that that's not our job to see if we
have enough money but to see if what we all so all right thank you
you know the questions I don't see thank you very much thank you for your testimony on adequacy
members I don't see any other business and we are adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of a Motion to Approve the June 1, 2026, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Consideration for Adoption of Interim Study Proposal (ISP) [Exhibit C] - ISP-2025-089 by Representative Brit McKenzie – Requesting the House Committee on Education to Study the Creation of a Personal Education Tax Credit Program to Empower Families and Expand Educational Freedom
D. Discussion of Health Insurance Funding and Medical Price Estimates [Exhibit D] - Patrick Klein, Vice President and Consulting Actuary, The Segal Group
E. 2026 Adequacy Study: Presentation of Preliminary Final Report and Adequacy Recommendations Form [Exhibits E1-E2] - Jasmine Ray, Administrator, Policy Analysis and Research Section, Bureau of Legislative Research
F. Other Business
G. Adjournment
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Representative Keith Brooks Chair
Unverified
Representative Bruce Cozart
Unverified
Speaker 14
Senator Dan Sullivan Chair
Unverified
Speaker 30
Speaker 31
Speaker 32
Speaker 34
Speaker 37
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
Representative Stetson Painter Chair
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
Speaker 60
Senator Jim Dotson Chair
Unverified
Speaker 48
Speaker 67
Speaker 93
Speaker 95
Speaker 96
Speaker 100
Speaker 101
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 76
Speaker 117
Speaker 123
Speaker 122
Representative Rebecca Burkes
Unverified
Speaker 131
Speaker 132
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Speaker 151
Speaker 39
Speaker 156
Representative Brit McKenzie
Unverified
Speaker 162
Speaker 161
Speaker 191
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Representative Justin Gonzales Chair
Unverified
Speaker 155
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
Speaker 213
Speaker 218
Speaker 226