Joint Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs
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Bills discussed (6)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
HB1077
Act 506
· 3 mentions in transcript, agenda, chapter
Matched: “…I have is HB 1400, and unfortunately, I actually picked up HB 1077, so give me just a second here”
|
CONCERNING THE INCARCERATION OF A VETERAN OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES; AND TO PROVIDE … | Hudson | Notification that HB1077 is now Act 506 |
|
HB1400
Act 259
· 3 mentions in transcript, agenda, chapter
Matched: “…r this opportunity to present this bill. The bill I have is HB 1400, and unfortunately, I actually picked up HB 1077, so give m…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE REDEMPTION OF A TAX-DELINQUENT PARCEL; AND TO EXEMPT DISABLED … | Richmond | Notification that HB1400 is now Act 259 |
|
HB1423
· 3 mentions in transcript, chapter, agenda
Matched: “And then HB 1423, uh, there's amendments on that as well, so we will not be…”
|
TO PROHIBIT A PERSON FROM RECEIVING COMPENSATION FOR THE PREPARATION, PRESENTATION, OR PROSECUTION OF A … | Cozart | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1498
Act 507
· 3 mentions in chapter, transcript, agenda
Matched: “HB1498 Painter TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING MILITARY-TYPE CANTEENS…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING MILITARY-TYPE CANTEENS AND EXCHANGES. | Painter | Notification that HB1498 is now Act 507 |
|
HB1515
Act 574
· 3 mentions in chapter, agenda, transcript
Matched: “HB1515 Painter TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE AUTHORITY TO ORDER…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE AUTHORITY TO ORDER THE ARKANSAS NATIONAL GUARD INTO SERVICE; … | Painter | Notification that HB1515 is now Act 574 |
|
HB1526
Act 575
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1526 Painter TO AUTHORIZE THE DEPARTMENT OF THE MILITARY TO ENTE…”
|
TO AUTHORIZE THE DEPARTMENT OF THE MILITARY TO ENTER INTO PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS; AND TO AMEND … | Painter | Notification that HB1526 is now Act 575 |
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Committee will come to order. First of all, it's a privilege to be here. On this particular committee representing the vets and stuff as well as the military fairs folks that we have. Uh, if you look at the agenda right quick, uh. Representative Hudson's informed me that she has to do an amendment on hers before it can run, so we're going to skip over that one. And then if you look at HB 1498, uh, that will not be heard today because there's an issue with it as well that they've got to work on.
And then HB 1423, uh, there's amendments on that as well, so we will not be hearing that one. So I'll end up presenting the very first bill myself here, uh, again just welcome happy to have you here. Representative, I'm sorry, Senator Flippo, you got anything you'd like to add? OK, Senator Flippo, if you would take over at this moment, I'll go down and, and run the Bill.
All right, Representative Hill introduce yourself and your district for the record, you'd be
recognized to proceed with your bill, sir.
I'm Representative Marcus Richmond, and I represent District 52 and thank you, Mr. Chair, for this opportunity to present this bill. The bill I have is HB 1400, and unfortunately, I actually picked up HB 1077, so give me just a second here
bring you a paper copy down there, OK? Such an auspicious start. Thank you This is a pretty simple bill, 1400 that was brought to me by the, uh, the land commission and what they're trying to do, you'll see there's a couple of changes you look at section one and paragraph 2, and there you have the exception. On this, that's the first change and then when you look at uh. The 2nd page On this, the real meat of it is
in section 2, and what they're doing is a disabled veteran. Who is delinquent on his property taxes, that when he is in a position and decides that he's going to try to get right with the state. There's usually a 10% penalty. And the commissioner of, of land wants to waive that penalty and not charge this disabled veteran that penalty. You can also read the qualification of a disabled veteran. Uh, it's not so penalty. It's an individual
that, that has lost his eyesight. It's an individual and one eye at least, or a limb or something, so there's a qualification it's not just somebody driving around with the license plate. On their trucks saying I'm disabled. I wouldn't qualify for it, even though I, you know, I'm 30% disabled. I would not qualify for it myself. So it has to be some something far more severe. And everybody wants to know the, the financial impact of this is estimated they can only do an
estimate financial impact is $10,000 or less. So it's, it's an insignificant amount of money. That we're talking about, but it might be significant to the individual that's disabled, that's trying to, you know, go ahead and, and, uh, get right with the state with this property. And I'll take any questions at the right members, you've heard an explanation of the bill. I
see there's a question from Senator Dodson. Senator Dodson, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, Representative Richmond.
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
6:32
This would If I'm reading it correctly, they still would have a 10% penalty one time. It's the 10% penalty that accrues on an annual basis that is being exempted. Is that correct? Let me bring up the commissioner on land so we can be
sure we get the correct answer on this.
And if Phil, introduce yourself and who you're with for the record, you'd be recognized
Speaker 27
7:09
to proceed with your remarks that don't. Peyton Murphy with the commissioner of State lands, um. If they are redeeming this in the county, they would still be susceptible to a penalty within that first year after a whole year went by, the county would then certify it to the commissioner of State lands for collection, so this would only apply in instances where they're redeeming it from the commissioner of State lands. So
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
7:35
in subsequent years, and then I guess it would. Still continued to fall under the, the other provisions where if it'd been on the books for 10 number of years without anything, then that the commissioner of State lands would dispose of the property tax sale. Yes. OK. So this is just
during the redemption period period. That's correct. OK, thank you. Thank you,
Senator. Uh, Representative Brown, you were recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um,
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
8:02
Representative Richmond, I apologize. I haven't looked up
this particular section of code, and you mentioned that if they've lost an arm or an eye or or or or some that type of disability is, is this, um, Does this definition of disabled veteran followed
the the uh BA's schedule, like the 30, 40, 70, 100, whatever. Not necessarily.
Exactly the same, but I'll read you what what is qualified, it says. But a disabled veteran who has
been awarded special monthly compensation by the Department of Veterans Affairs for the loss of or the loss of use of one or more limbs for total blindness in one or both eyes or for service connected 100% total
and permanent disability. Thank you. Thank you, Representative. All right, members are Senator Payton,
you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to have it
Senator John Payton
Unverified
9:02
on the record, the way I read this, it only applies to a
tax delinquent parcel that belonged to The veteran that is redeeming it if the veteran is purchasing a tax delinquent parcel that did not previously belong to them, they still have to pay the 10% and the other penalties and interest and all. That is correct. Thank you. All right, are there any other questions
from members of the committee? All right, see you no further questions, representative, you'll recognize to close your
bill. I'm closed and I make a motion to pass. Got a motion to pass a seconded by Senator Payton, all in any discussion on the motion. See not all in favor, say aye. Opposed. Congratulations Representative, your bill passes.
that Representative Painter, you are recognized to present you Mr. Cha, and with your permission, Chair, I'd like to have Colonel Wood from the National Guard here. OK. If you would, sir, identify yourself. Jeff Wood, Arkansas Department of the Military.
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
10:53
Thank you. You may begin. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you committee. HB 1515, uh,
is really a simple bill that does a lot for the National Guard. Uh, this bill allows more flexibility for state active duty, like other states while keeping it voluntary and having governor oversight currently, the code only allows state active duty during emergencies and by the order of the governor, Military Justice section implies, uh, service members can be put on state active duty, but
Nothing, uh, spelled out directly. This bill does that. Uh, the Arkansas National Guard had a temporary need for particular skills due to a vacancy or other full-time staff needs, uh, set aside. This bill would enable the guard to put someone on state active duty to fill that role, and it would enable us to tap into the unique skills of our traditional soldiers when needed. Now we can only put them on set active duty when an emergency. This will again fill those roles outside. Be glad
Speaker 58
11:49
to take any questions for Colonel Woo if you wanna.
Speaker 59
11:55
Uh, just a few comments on the military justice piece of this because to uh for us it's really just clarification.
Speaker 60
12:01
There's an entire code section in section, uh, 1264 on military justice, uh, that implies that folks can be put on state active duty. And so what we, what we don't want to do is have one of our cleverAG attorneys argue, well, there's nothing specifically says you can put someone on state active duty. So for us, we see this more as a cleanup to make sure that, uh, when someone is court
Speaker 61
12:21
martialed and ordered to go to confinement.
one that we can get them paid, they get their benefits and things like that. So to us from a legal perspective, very much implied we already have the authority to put someone on state active duty when it comes to military justice. This just cleans it up. And the other part of it is, again, just to give us a little bit more flexibility, uh, for staffing shortages. A great example was when the federal government almost shut down last October. We didn't have a new budget yet, so we would not have any security guards for our front gate and it's for a very short term. So what this would enable us to do is Put some shoulders on the front
date for a couple of days, uh, you know, to kind of fit that need. Uh, we still have the emergency process where the local authorities can request folks, so we envision this as more of a one off, two off where we may have a very skilled person, you know, in our formation that comes in for a very specific need for a couple of days. We built a lot of, uh, you know, there's a lot of mechanisms in there for one, you know, the tag has to approve it. So if you've been in the military, you don't go to a two-star general just asking for, uh, just anything. thing. So I think there's a little bit of protection there
that the tag has to authorize it. Secondly, he has to go to the governor to get her to sign off on it. So again, that's another level of protection. And then 2, the funding piece of this would come out of the uh the uh call up fund that we have that we use for emergencies, so too, we want a judiciously look after that fund because we have to have that for ice storms, tornadoes, and other events. So I think there's enough layers of protection in there that we don't foresee this, you know, ever being abused or a lot of folks being called up. Uh, and I think the last thing I'll say is it is voluntarily
voluntary, so they can't be forced to come
Speaker 62
14:00
on orders this way, uh, that's, that's all I got. Happy
Senator John Payton
Unverified
14:07
to answer any questions. Senator Payton, you recognize the question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just interested in the in the terminology of the organized militia because uh then later in the bill, it specifically says Arkansas National Guard as if it's addressing the two things is separate. Is there a difference? Uh, Senator Payton,
Speaker 61
14:25
great question. We got that one in the code, the organized militia is
defined as the Arkansas Army National Guard and Air National Guard. So those terms are used interchangeably throughout our code, uh, so when it says organized militia, that is referring to the Arkansas National Guard and National Guard.
Senator John Payton
Unverified
14:43
OK, I appreciate that and um. I'm, I'm trying to remember a few sessions back, we had a bill and a discussion about the Arkansas militia being defined as everybody between us in a certain age bracket. How's that different? Yeah, yeah, the, uh, the unorganized militia, I think
Speaker 61
15:01
that's the key term, is organized, unorganized under Arkansas law every able-bodied male over the age of 18 is in the Arkansas militia, uh, I don't think that's, you know, been called or or organized in any way, shape, or form in probably
Speaker 67
15:12
the last 100, 100 or so years. OK, thank you, thank you,
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
15:22
Mr. Chair. Senator Dodson, you recognized? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, So This, if I'm reading the bill on page 1 line 29.
Where it says with the approval of the governor, the adjutant general, or the commanding general. There's an oar in there. I heard you say that it would require the approval of both the tag and The governor, but this is one of those 3, and I'm not sure who the commanding general of the militia. I, um, and then, Down on line 35, you talk about voluntary support. Of the National Arkansas National Guard of the Department
of the Military to address critical staffing shortages. I mean As seems to be very broad in that it would not require a, a, What is defined as a critical staffing shortage. All across The country we have staffing shortages and so, um, I, I guess kind of concern I have is the ability to just call up and create a full-time military.
State with voluntary uh folks that are signing up for one weekend a month, 2 weeks a year, and emergency situations or deployments as, as they come up, but this seems like Well, I get that you're not going to abuse it, it's one off, but if this is in code 10 years from now, somebody says, hey, we're gonna define this as critical staffing shortages and The commanding general of the militia doesn't have to get sign off from. Taggert, the governor, according to this statute.
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
17:06
Senator Johnson, excellent question on the commanding general because what a lot of people don't know
Speaker 61
17:11
is the, the tag is not a commander. That position and so under code, we always have the governor appoint the tag as the tag and the commanding general, because the commanding general is what gets the peace for military justice. So to us, you know, we use those terms interchangeably, but normally, every time a tag's appointed, they're appointed in the same position, so it's always been the same person and always would be. I can't think of any scenario where we would have a tag and a uh Commanding general. So, so those
two pieces, uh, fit together. Uh, the second part of that critical staffing shortages, I think when we were drafting this bill, what we thought of that was is if we get to the point where we don't have, uh, you know, AGRs, federal technicians, you know, soldiers that are on Title 32 orders, either drill or AT. If we get to the point where we don't have anybody else, you know, kind of in that, uh, government shutdown type scenario that I described to us that would be a critical staffing shortage, you know, we're having to either close the gate or call some folks up on stay active duty. To us, that's kind of gets
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
18:08
to the critical part of it. So is that defined anywhere else in statute
that that is, that's what's defined as critical staffing shortage. No, it's, it's not defined anywhere else in the code section, so we I don't know You might consider fleshing that out a little bit in the code so that it's, it's not subjective in the future. And, um, if the adjunct general or the commanding general is, is the same person, um, maybe putting an end between governor and the
adjutant general or commanding officer on that first line there, uh, would be my suggestion, um, just to. Get your intent. Actually into the code. Thank
you. Representative Hudson, you're recognized? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
18:57
I think I know the answer to this, but I just want to confirm. So any of, uh, anyone that's called up under these, these new provisions in the code would still be protected under UEA,
um, and all of the other state and federal protections with regard to protecting their job if they have to take off time from work, um, any sort of benefits that flow from that. Is that correct? Yes, Representative,
Speaker 60
19:20
and I'm kind of proud to say that thanks to
Speaker 61
19:23
y'all in past sessions that no other state has more protections for their soldiers they call, get called on the state active duty then to Arkansas. So they would absolutely get that, and they would get it on day one. There's not a day requirement of waiting 30 days or 180 days, the first
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
19:34
day they're put on, uh, stay active duty, they would get those protections. You anticipated my follow up. Thank you.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
19:41
Senator Hammer, you recognized? You. Um, good morning. Just trying to get my mind around a couple of things and I'm, I'm thinking about a scenario of nursing shortage right now, um, would this allow for, you're using the illustration of guarding the front gate. I'm thinking, how does this apply as far as like areas, and I think I even saw on the news, um, like in nursing shortage areas, how do, how would it fit in like that? And we, we may determine that it's
a, a critical need because we're giving money to hospitals to pay traveling nurses. come in at a high rate, but then with this going into effect, just give me an idea of how those two things would balance against each other. Yeah, I'm
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
20:26
trying to think of the senator the example for a nurse specifically, uh, because again, on, on those, we have nurses that are AGRs out there all
Speaker 61
20:32
the time. They're on orders, and so we haven't really seen a need,
Speaker 60
20:43
if, if we ever needed to surge up OK. If we ever had, uh, you know, I could think of a scenario again, I think if we ever had a need for extra nurses, what this would enable us
Speaker 61
20:58
to do is we have a lot of soldiers out there that may not be a nurse, is their MOS on the military side of the house. And so this would enable us to call them up on state active duty to kind of plus up our, our nursing area and use them, uh, in that capacity would be an area, but nurses probably one I can't really think because
we have so many of those they're on orders over at Medcom on a regular basis. I can't see a scenario for that. that, but I could see potentially either IT or like our military planners, uh, instead of declaring an emergency, you know, the military, one of the things they do extremely well is planning. I think during COVID, we went over and helped the Arkansas Department of Health, you know, with their planning. So I think there'd be a scenario there where we could bring some state active duty folks on a couple of days to assist with planning.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
21:47
The, uh, what was your comment a minute ago about 18 or older, I'm sorry, I only caught part of that. Let me ask
Speaker 61
21:53
you a question, you responded 18 or older. Yes, buried in the code section is is language that the unorganized militia, and I think it's back actually in the Constitution. Every able-bodied male over the 18 years of, uh, of the age of 18 is part of the unorganized Arkansas militia. You know, this code section only applies to the organized militia, which is the Arkansas National Guard and International Guard. So this would have no impact on the Unorganized militia.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
22:26
Thank you, Mr. Chairman from Piedmont Post over here. Um, I, I, I support the intent with what you're, you're after. Um, my question is on, um, slide 35, it says voluntary support of the Arkansas National Guard. Uh, I know you're from your testimony, excuse me. It sounds like your intent is, is that the soldier would have to volunteer, uh, to, uh, agree to do this. But when I first read that, my, my mind automatically went to volunteer as in, I'm doing this for free.
I'm not getting paid to do this. And, uh, I'm wondering if you guys might do an amendment, uh, to clarify that they are volunteering to Do this duty, but they are actually going to get paid and they're gonna have, uh, you know, their, uh, allowances and so forth that they would normally be entitled to for serving in this area. I that, that makes sense what I'm after because that language can be confusing there. Absolutely we can get that cleaned up and I know that,
Speaker 62
23:23
you know, we have that term voluntold, and so that's kind of
why we put the protections of having the tag and the governor involved in it as well. So, but, but great point
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
23:39
on that, we can get that cleaned up. All right. Thank you. Senator Clark, thank you, Mr. Chair. A law 3 lines 33 and 34. Any matter related to the execution of military justice, including without limitation, confinement. What does that mean? Yes,
Speaker 61
23:55
Representative, we've been doing, uh, courts martials for about, uh, actively for about 10
years now since about 2000 or 2014, uh, and I think we have confined about 4 to 6 individuals during that time frame. So in our, in our military justice code section. It said it, it allows for the penalties, and allows us to confine folks, but there's not a clear language in there that says that we can put them on orders to make sure that they get paid and they get protections for medical and things like that. While they're confined. So we just want to make it clear since we're opening this up for voluntary service anyway, just
to put a code, a piece of code section in there that basically says, you know, that we can put folks on, um, uh, orders for that. It would also include either testimony, the trial, you know, uh, and things like that, anything related to military justice would be, uh, you
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
24:46
know, what we envisioned there. No, it's line 34 that I'm most interested in, including without limitation, confinement to address that, but it looks like you can bring. me into confine me. Is that not how it reads?
Speaker 61
25:03
All match related execution of military justice, yeah, and what we're we're got them in this anyway, we'll try to clean that up. Uh, the intent there was basically again, just to, uh, to be able to put someone on order state active duty orders for everything related to military justice to include confinement. So, we'll we'll get that cleaned up but you can't already do that. Yes, yes, we can already do that now. We've been, we've been doing that again for years. We just wanted to make sure it's clear. What we didn't want someone to do is to argue that we've come out and we've confined someone and sentenced
them to them, uh, and then someone make the argument of where in the code does it say you can put someone on orders because nowhere in the code does it say, I can put someone on state active duty orders for military justice, uh, you know, it does say for emergencies. So the code is silent on the military side, we deal a lot more with kind of just affirmative authority. So we always like to see something. that says we can do something. And so,
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
25:54
uh, that's why we decided to put that piece of cleanup language in there, but overall this is powers that you've never had. On the to bring folks on
Speaker 61
26:05
voluntarily, I would say yes, we never had the the authority to bring someone on there as far as military justice, again, I would say that that's implicit in the military code section of military justice because it has punishments that so soldiers shall be ordered to show up to court in different sections in there. So, you know, I, I would argue that we already have the authority for military justice to put someone on stay active duty. And a lot of times they're either on they're on Title 32 when we do that as well, some of those actions. I'm sorry,
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
26:32
I didn't mean to miscommunicate. I was on 33 and
34. The last question was on the whole thing. These are powers that you didn't have before.
Speaker 61
26:42
Yes, Senator, I, I would say to, to again to, to voluntarily bring someone on Stay active duty voluntarily for, you know, uh, to supplement, you know, staffing shortages. We didn't have that before unless there was an emergency declared, but again, on the military justice side, I would say we already have that authority.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
26:59
OK, and up till now no one's seen the need for this. Uh, no, sender. Uh, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
27:08
Representative Richardson, you recognize? Thank you, Mr. Chair. So first, thanks so much for bringing this forward, obviously at, um, there, there's a need, um, especially with the volatility at the, at the federal level to make sure that we maintain our level of security, and I appreciate that, uh, we can fill in gaps with this legislation where we, where we need to, but for my flow and so I understand this process. Uh, it's my understanding that this bill will allow for
Any type of military justice that has to occur, any type of court trials, whatever, we, we firm up that and then if there is a need that, um, leadership or and or the governor finds agreeable that there is a uh missing. Need out there that then we could look for a volunteer because we can't make someone do that. We could look for a volunteer, um, and then that volunteer, if they have the
skills that are applicable, we could issue orders at that point to bring them on to fill that specific need.
Speaker 110
28:20
Is that correct? Uh, yes, yes, Representative senator, yes. OK, all right, thank you so much.
Senator John Payton
Unverified
28:30
Senator Payton, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, so, as Sanator Clark was asking the question there about lines 33 and 34. I noticed it says without limitation, so it's going way
beyond confinement. There's confinement is being specified. But What all I mean, I guess everything comes under the without limitation, why do we need that to use that language if what we're talking about is the confinement. Yes, and we, and when we, we amend this, we can
Speaker 60
28:57
clean that up and kind of put it in there and maybe put the list of things related to military justice that we may need
Speaker 61
29:02
to put someone stay active duty for either depositions, you know, trial, uh, things like that, so we could, we could flush that out more comfortable with a list rather than just
Senator John Payton
Unverified
29:14
saying without limitation. And also on line 32. It says all or any part of the organized militia. I mean, it's definitely an emergency if you're calling
up all of them, isn't it? Absolutely. I think that language was taken from the, the top part, but we'll pull it out absolutely because this is it would
Speaker 62
29:29
need to say all, but wholeheartedly agree this would definitely be, you know, a limited onesy-twosy type deal or, you know, a little bit more than that. So we'll,
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
29:36
we'll change it up as well. OK, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Hammer. Da
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
29:46
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the, um, execution of military justice phrase on line 33. Is that to find somewhere as far as what constitutes. That and does that, would that help as far as what you're trying to achieve in line 34. Is that just a term of art? Can you give me a little insight on that phrase? Yes, it's, I
Speaker 60
30:06
think it's 1264 is where it starts. There's a whole section on military justice that defines, I mean, it defines jurisdiction, defines what a crime is,
Speaker 61
30:13
defines the fact you have to be in a duty
status. It lays out the judges, the prosecution team, and again, all the offenses, so yeah, everything that would be in there, we could tie it back to that and
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
30:26
help define this. Do you think it might. serve any value to put as referenced in and, and that could be a way
Speaker 117
30:43
to tie it together. Yeah, you reckon. Um Get my train of thought back. The
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
30:49
As far as the concept and the idea. And I'm especially in my opinion, concept and idea. We
want to be supportive of everything, but I think always the overshadow overshadowing concern is, are we giving too much authority in a situation that's non-emergency, and that, that's part of what, you know, wrestling with trying to analyze this. Are we leaving a, a loophole somewhere, a wormhole somewhere where something could be worked through. So, uh, just speak to the, just speak to the intent and, and if there's somebody that has that concern, how would you relieve them of that concern?
Speaker 62
31:21
Yeah, thank you, Senator. Again, the attempt came up back when General Stubbs was still here. And again, I think it was back in the October time frame where we almost had
Speaker 61
31:29
a, uh, what we call the perfect storm where the government hadn't started the new fiscal year yet, so our money hadn't started flowing, uh, and they were about to shut down. So we literally weren't going to be able to keep people on during that period and so that's when some of the security concerns and then just things like that. So and to address that concern, I think it's a great idea to take out the all or part of the militia. We can tighten that up to make it, to make it. clear that we're talking about.
We're talking about limited or small groups, either Wednesdays and Tuesdays or related to military justice. So I think if we change that language in line 32, that should, that should narrow the scope of the
current language. Representative Brown, did you have a question? You still have a question? You're recognized. Are you done? We'll come back to you then, Senator Hammer. Sure.
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
32:29
OK, so, um, I'll try to become a little more familiar with the code, but I had a
question when you were addressing the definition of the, um, organized militia, you said it was composed of the national and international guard, uh, what is, I, I've never heard of the International Guard. Air National Guard, it
Speaker 55
32:52
was the Army and Air National Guard And, um,
Speaker 62
32:59
So is, is that all defined in code? Yes, Representative, I think it's defined up in um I'm trying to see if I've got it right here,
Speaker 61
33:09
but yes, there's a definition section at the very beginning of our military justice
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
33:13
section that defines, uh, organized militia. And the International Guard. Sorry
Speaker 125
33:16
about that. I misheard you. Thank you. Senator Hammer, I'm sorry I cut
you off, but you asked so many questions, I never know when you're finished. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chairman. You recognized actually
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
33:26
I think I'm, I think it was the system, not
you, Mr. Chairman. So just for the record there, two quick ones. Thank you. Um, the, Is a lot of this in reaction to whenever there's the federal government shuts down or, or something like that cause you alluded to that a while ago. So is this in, in kind of preparation for wherever we have those gaps where they're fighting in Washington trying to, you know, get the bridge
money is, is that part of what this is intended to achieve. Yes, Senator, and again, for those that know General
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
33:54
Stubbs, he's kind of a big concept idea and kind of like, uh, hey, he saw that this is an opportunity
of, you know, we're not fully leveraging some of the expertise we have out in our guard formation. So, you know, he thought that the concept of doing this to kind of cover those incidents and anything else that may come up with some highly specialized folks we could bring in for very short periods of time. That was kind of the, uh, the genesis of this idea.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
34:18
And the last thing is, Sam I'm, say I'm somebody that wants to volunteer because I don't like where I'm working this, this way for me to get
out and get gone. What's the safeguards to protect the employers in the event somebody just wants to get out of work
and where they are so they can come work for you for a while, just kind of speak to that. If you
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
34:38
would please. Thank you. Yes, Senator, we, we've already got some protections in place for that because we've had that come up quite a bit, uh, with other employers, other state agencies, other law enforcement agencies for our soldiers or law enforcement, uh, because we do have a lot of ADOS opportunities, active duty, operational support orders at PEC that come up. And so we're really mindful of the impact of when we do put someone on orders, with the impact that's gonna be on the employer, so I, I would say we've got a pretty good system in place already,
uh, you know, through when we go to put someone on orders that we kind of for what's the impact going
to be on the employer. Senator Clark Tucker, you, you're recognized. Thank you,
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
35:16
Mr. Chair. On that unorganized militia, is there any definition for an able-bodied man? You know, I don't believe so. I've
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
35:23
never, I, I just knew that since I'm over 18 and I thought I was able-bodied that I was in there, but now I don't think there's any definition. And Senator, I don't know if that's in the Constitution or the code. I think it may be in the Constitution, but it's been a
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
35:35
long time since I've looked at that. I was just curious if y'all gonna have any scouts at the charity basketball game tonight to see how many legislators still, still
meet that criteria or not. Thank you. Uh, before we continue, Representative Painter, I heard a lot of, uh, well, we'll clean this up, we'll clean that up, we'll do this, do that.
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
35:55
So I'll, I'll appreciate the committee with your concerns. We'll get this uh language amended, tighten it up, and then we'll, uh, when the committee meets, we'll have that ready to go and and present this bill. OK, and get it passed.
Everybody at the committee hear that?
OK. All right, uh, since you're up there representing Painter, I believe that, uh, HB 1526. Are you ready to run
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
36:17
that? I am ready, Mr. Chair, again, Representative Stetson Painter, District 3, Baxter County and Fulton Counties. Uh, it's again with the chair's permission, Colonel Wood from the, uh, National Department of Military, HB 1526, uh, the goal of this bill is to enable and maximize public-private partnerships to benefit recruiting, retention, and domestic operations within
the Arkansas National Guard. The except for this legislation was modeled after a similar federal program that is in the United States Code. Uh, leveraging leveraging, uh, public private partnerships is critical to the success of the Department of the Military and the Arkansas National Guard, uh, currently, there is a lack of any regulatory guidance from the National Guard Bureau addressing public-private partnerships directly, and, uh, We would probably actually be one of the first states to do this because currently there's no other states that would have
this language, um. Colonel Wood, if you want to Say anything.
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
37:14
Jeff Wood, Department of Military in the two areas this came up, uh, when we were staffing this or, you know, recruiting and domestic operations are squarely the responsibility of the Arkansas National Guard. And so, uh, not having any National Guard kind of uh regulatory authority on uh public-private partnerships. You know, we try to be kind of at the tip of the spear here. So what we did is we actually modeled this after the federal
code section, which is 10 USC 501, talks about the, uh, DOD doing public-private partnerships. So we use that and kind of modeled it with a focus on recruiting, retention, and domestic operations, uh, and so we put that language in there and then we had put the requirement in there for promulgation so that we could flush this out. A lot of the agencies that do public-private partnerships, they did uh regulations on the federal level, so we wanted to make sure we came in here, uh, and we could kind of, uh, flush the issues out about uh the different nuances of doing public-private partnerships.
Senator John Payton
Unverified
38:17
We have questions. Senator Payton, you recognized? Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm drawn to uh page 2, line 1214. And uh 18, they all start with pay. Pay all necessary expenses, pay all expenses related to public-private partnership, including again without limitation. Travel, meals, lodging expenses, and other logistical costs. Pay all necessary expenses for the maintenance of a gift accepted.
So I mean, what, what guard rails do we have on this? Who, who decides and how do you get the money to pay for all these things and
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
38:57
that's again why we want to promulgate the rules on that. That's the way the federal language was set up because when they have certain conveyances, there's gonna be certain fees and things that have to be paid on that one. And then too, there's, uh, and again, we're, we've never done this before in the state of Arkansas, so again, we're modeling this after the, uh, the federal language and that's some of the issuances they had is when folks volunteered to give either, uh,
you know, services or things like that, there was some logistical pieces. That, so, you know, we wanted to put language in there that, you know, we would pay expenses related to that if we were, if we're getting a substantial partnership with somebody, and there were some minor things like that that was going to benefit the agency. We won't be able to to provide that support. But I would hope to flush all that all that out when we promulgate the
Senator John Payton
Unverified
39:39
rules for the implementation of it. So again, on page 2, 14 through 16. If, if you develop a public private partnership related to recruitment. Hm And so you've got.
An airline that says, hey, we'll fly all of your perspective recruits to Hawaii and let them look at the military bases in Hawaii. And uh So you say, that's great. We got free airfare. This public-private partnership, but we're gonna pay. All of the other things without limitation, which, you know, motel meals and all this stuff. Who's making these decisions? Whenever were given the authority here. To pay all expenses related to the partnership. Without limitation.
Speaker 62
40:23
Yes, and again, I think we'd hope to pull it
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
40:26
out when we promulgated it, but we could also clean that up and kind of tighten that language up to to make make it uh a little bit narrower if we're
Senator John Payton
Unverified
40:34
gonna put that into the statute. Well, I would think you'd need to. I think, I think you're gonna need. To at least be able to define who makes the decision and who. Who creates suspending authority beyond this bill. Anyway, I'll get out of the queue and read some more. Representative Brown, you recognize?
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
40:55
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I have. This is a little confusing and uh I have a concern, um, because. I've been involved with the Veterans Cemetery for a long time in North Little Rock. And, um, the reason that we have a foundation. Established for the cemetery is to be able to receive gifts because if the gifts are given directly to the cemetery, which is part of ADA. Um Then they just.
Go into the budget and so the budget doesn't get any bigger, so we have a foundation where gifts can be given, so we can do those extra things for the cemetery, so is this uh legislation gonna affect that? Is there going to be no reason for having foundations for our military, our. Our state facilities? I, I'm just, it's confusing. Yes, representative and we also have them as
Speaker 60
41:51
you're aware, the Military Foundation, uh, you know, the National Guard and Military Foundation as well. So, um,
Speaker 62
41:58
Yeah, and again, I think the, the concept here was, you know, we're in an area that we've not been in before and so we copied the federal language so, uh, I think we'd probably be open just to maybe completely pull out
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
42:08
all this gift section of it. Uh, you know, a men just pull that out if it's gonna
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
42:14
cause some concern. Well, It does. I mean, it's like it would. There would be no reason to have our foundation anymore. Absolutely, yeah, then we have
Speaker 62
42:22
no issue just pulling out the parts about gifts, but, but we wouldn't want gifts
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
42:28
to then Just become part of the general fund. We'd want them to be specifically for the facility they were donated for. Thank you. Representative Hunger recognized. Thank you, Mr.
Chair
Unverified
42:43
Chair. Uh, gentlemen, could you give me an example of like your ideal image of a public private. Partnership here. Absolutely, I can give you one good example. Um,
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
42:56
right now, let's say we have some soldiers
that want to join the Arkansas National Guard, but they can't meet
Speaker 62
43:02
the, the physical fitness piece of it for height, weight, uh, you know, right now in the the federal side, we have no way to engage those soldiers to kind of say, hey, if they just need a little nudge to get over the finish line. So I think if, if we were to pass this, what I, what we could envision is if we could team up with a, a private organization that could offer that, hey, we're gonna help this young kid get physically fit. If it's just a little bit of weight he's got to lose to make. height weight or he just got to learn better nutrition, you know, better fitness, you know,
there's absolutely a good partnership there where we could help these kids that can't quite make it into their, uh, and team up with a company that provides those services and things like that. So I think that would be the most ideal one that can pop in my head would be uh that would be a great example too, in some of the, some of the partnerships with some of the universities that we have, I think if we had a, something in the code that flushes those out, we could probably do a little bit better job with those. Represent Richardson, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
44:01
So could you help me with a definition of domestic operations. Excellent, I think, yeah,
Speaker 60
44:08
I think that may be defined in the code section. I'm not sure, but for us, uh, domestic operations is all is all of our
Speaker 62
44:14
state active duty when we go down to Louisiana and help them with, uh, Hurricane Harvey or if we go out and do, uh, you know, winter storm, uh, tornado relief, uh, anything within the boundaries of the state of Arkansas when we're in a, a state active duty status.
Speaker 60
44:31
Civil response, civil disturbance, that type of stuff. A follow
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
44:37
up. You recognize? So In that context, if you will, please give me a A good example if you, uh, of a. Public private partnership. In relation to Events that occur
Speaker 150
44:50
outside the state that we would be supporting.
Speaker 60
45:02
The only one that just from playing, the only one that comes to mind outside the state would be, you know, we do
Speaker 62
45:07
a lot of exercises on the New Madrid fault. If that ever went off, uh, you know, there's gonna be a lot of domestic response on both sides because we're probably not gonna have bridges up there. So I think that would be one where, you know, we would be going outside the border quite a bit, even if we were trying to just help Arkansans. So that's probably the best example I can give of one, to answer your question. What would be the private
partnership in that relationship in that. In those instances, like in when we're on Title 32 federal orders. There's a lot of things that we cannot receive, you know, from, uh, from a private entities simply because we can't supplement what we got federal appropriations for, you know, and there's all kinds of other physical law limitations here, you know, I think would be as if a private entity want to give us hotel rooms. Hey, you're soldiers, you're coming over here from New Madrid. We wanna help you out. Hey, you can come stay in our hotel room. Right now, you know, on the, uh, domestic response without a public-private partnership. We
don't have a mechanism for that, you know, we traditionally either stay at the armories or have the hotels pay for it. I think it would open up opportunities like that for, uh, uh, during domestic response. And, and you're saying that would
Speaker 151
46:15
be a gift. From that private Entity Yes, I think. Yes, and I think that's part of, yeah, we wouldn't be paying for
Speaker 60
46:24
that cause that, that comes up in search and rescues and other areas on the Federals, you know, uh, on the federal side, they got a very limited one on the
Speaker 62
46:34
federal side. It's mostly for search and rescue, uh, because on the, on the federal side there's a lot of limitations on, you know, supplementing again, uh, uh, you know, some of the physical law restraints
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified
46:49
they have. OK, thank you. Representative Nazarenko. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, on that same line of uh question, could it be, uh, Could it be, uh, possible that like a domestic response within uh the, the country but outside of the state, could that be over on the, the border in Texas, like assigned active duty to the
Speaker 62
47:08
border on in Texas my experience with those would be is that we don't, we probably wouldn't have a lot of uh any public-private partnerships there. I mean, a lot of that is all contracted out. I think on our last mission, you know, room, board, food, lodging, everything was under one contract. So on those instances, I don't see where we would have. too many, uh, public-private partnerships. I really see it within the state recruiting, retention is probably the bread and butter. The example I gave earlier that I think where we could really make a lot of benefit out of this. And with, you know, with uh, you know,
probably some partnerships with, you know, uh, universities, schools, things like that. So, domestic operations is probably, you know, it would be good to have in there in case we ever had the, you know, the, the big balloon go off like New Madrid, but for the most part, we're not gonna have a lot of, uh, public-private partnerships with our typical ice storms, tornado. the typical bread and butter type uh response we do. OK, great, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You want to continue with this bill or you think you need to do
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
48:10
some work on it? Well, I'm curious about what Senator Payton and Senator Hammer, that, you know, try to get everybody a shot so we don't repeat this again and beat it again to death. So might as well let, if, if you don't mind, get their concerns and then we'll, we'll pull it down, address that so that way when we present it again, it's, it's, it pleases everybody. OK, I got it. I
was afraid you'd say that, but anyway, we'll continue. Uh, Senator Hammer, you're recognized. Feel the love. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, on page 2 lines 5
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
48:40
through 8. I'm just trying to get the context which the statement is written into this and the way it's formatted. It says allow private entity to use personal property of the Department of the Military at no cost to assist the private entity in supporting the activities of the Department of the military or the Arkansas National Guard, and Of the page that looks to me like you're gonna allow a private entity to have access to what has been paid for by the Department of the military in order to facilitate what the
private entity is wanting to offer. Am I misinterpreting that or can you clarify what that statement means. I
Speaker 60
49:18
think what we were discussing this internally, that would be if someone was again, probably more like logistical support, maybe using our buses or some of the, you
Speaker 62
49:24
know, some of the, uh, vehicles, things like that, uh, you know, space on uh. Camp Robinson if we had a partnership with somebody, I think that's what that envisions on the uh the domestic side, federal operations side, anytime
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
49:35
we have a state active duty mission, we've got to pay back the feds for any use of their, of Humvees, equipments, things
like that. So what we were trying to figure out is in these partnerships, if there's any small things like that, if, and I can't think of a good example, but if there was any, uh, partnership we had where we need to exchange some equipment or they, they had the expertise but needed to use some of our either a dozer or something like that that we would have the, the mechanism. to be able to work those kind of details out. OK, so it
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
50:02
wouldn't, I guess what I'm thinking is somebody comes to you with an idea and says, I, I don't have any money to invest in this, but we're gonna use all your resources in order to get it done.
Is there something that you can't do within the National Guard Organization that would require having somebody on the outside come in and do that for you? I, I can't think of an example off the
Speaker 60
50:22
top of my head. Most of things like that, I think we'll be able to accomplish ourselves. OK. OK,
Senator John Payton
Unverified
50:33
thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you, Representative Painter. I'll be really brief if you want to take notes fast, so on page one, line 30. We're vesting all of this
authority and and decision making in one person. That's a problem I have. Then anywhere else in the bill where it says without limitation. is a potential problem for me. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. All right, thank
you committee. Represent Peyton, uh, Painter, I'm sorry. Representative painter, go ahead and, uh, say whatever it is you need to say at this particular point to make us happy. I, I know.
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
51:08
I appreciate the committee very much. We will get this amended and, and that way we
make sure, uh, that everybody's happy, especially the upper chamber, and uh we'll get a good bill. Thank you.
Committee, again, uh, just like regular military situation, uh, we didn't survive the, the first rounds down range without some kind of glitch, but we've overcome, adapted and overcome, uh, the next meeting will be at the call of the chair. We are adjourned.
Agenda
REGULAR AGENDA
HB1077 Hudson CONCERNING THE INCARCERATION OF A VETERAN OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES; AND TO PROVIDE FOR NOTIFICATION TO THE ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS OF THE INCARCERATION OF A VETERAN.
HB1400 Richmond TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE REDEMPTION OF A TAX-DELINQUENT PARCEL; AND TO EXEMPT DISABLED VETERANS FROM CERTAIN PENALTIES WHEN REDEEMING A TAX-DELINQUENT PARCEL.
HB1423 Cozart TO PROHIBIT A PERSON FROM RECEIVING COMPENSATION FOR THE PREPARATION, PRESENTATION, OR PROSECUTION OF A CLAIM WITH REGARD TO A VETERANS' BENEFITS MATTER EXCEPT AS AUTHORIZED BY FEDERAL LAW.
HB1498 Painter TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING MILITARY-TYPE CANTEENS AND EXCHANGES.
HB1515 Painter TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE AUTHORITY TO ORDER THE ORGANIZED MILITIA INTO SERVICE; AND TO AUTHORIZE THE USE OF THE ORGANIZED MILITIA FOR MATTERS RELATED TO MILITARY JUSTICE AND TO ADDRESS STAFFING SHORTAGES.
HB1526 Painter TO AUTHORIZE THE DEPARTMENT OF THE MILITARY TO ENTER INTO PUBLIC- PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING GIFTS RECEIVED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF THE MILITARY.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — JOINT COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AND VETERANS AFFAIRS, Mar 4, 2025 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Marcus E. Richmond Chair
Unverified
Senator Scott Flippo Chair
Unverified
Speaker 16
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
Speaker 27
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Senator John Payton
Unverified
Representative Stetson Painter
Unverified
Speaker 58
Speaker 59
Speaker 60
Speaker 61
Speaker 62
Speaker 67
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
Representative Ashley Hudson
Unverified
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
Speaker 110
Speaker 117
Speaker 55
Speaker 125
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Speaker 150
Speaker 151
Representative Jason Nazarenko
Unverified