ALC-Personnel

That All right, members, we're gonna call this meeting to order. Thank you. Um, welcome. Thank you all for being here today. We've got a pretty short agenda, so hopefully this won't take too long, but before we get started, I wanna to um turn the mic over to my co-chair, representative, Mark Berry. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I'll have to say, since this is my last, uh, uh, uh, meeting, uh, co-chair of personnel subcommittee, uh, I wanna say thank you to my, my wonderful co-chair, uh, Senator Davis has just been. Uh, uh, just awesome to work with and I appreciate her and, and I appreciate uh Tony and the staff and, and BLR and everybody and, and Miss Kay, uh, it just, you know, I know you're just jumping through hoops all the time, but, but we, we really appreciate that and members of the committee and everyone behind back there that they because you're the ones that really. Take care of our, our state employees and I was, I a truck passed me on Interstate 40 the other day and on the back of the truck, it said, uh, Our drivers are our most precious cargo. And I thought, you know, that goes with state government also. Our state employees are our drivers, and they're the ones that's pushing this cargo called state government down the road, every single day from the GS ones on up and, and we need to make sure that we take care of them, uh, we recruit them and, and try to retain them until they retire and we do that through, uh, uh, pay allowances, benefits, and treating them with dignity and respect, and I wish we had more people here for the committee meeting today to hear those comments because sometimes we lose, lose sight of exactly uh you know what our precious cargo is and it's those state employees but uh thank you, Madam Chairman and thank you, uh, committee. Thank you. I appreciate those remarks. All right, um, we. Yes, yes, uh, we will move to item B. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Item B is a request for special compensation and recruitment plan for the Department of Veterans Affairs. This request will require approval from ALC. The agency is requesting the opportunity to provide $3000 special compensation awards to members of their maintenance staff who oversee the veterans' homes in Fayetteville and North Little Rock and the Veterans Cemetery. Opium has recommended the plans. Do we have any questions? Right, we have a motion to approve. Uh, do we have a second? Second, all right. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Oppose no. Motion carries item C. Madam Chairman, I C is a miscellaneous federal grant request for a new grant position at the state crime lab under the Department of Public Safety. Crime lab is requesting a forensic administrator title through a grant from the US Department of Justice to help eliminate the DNA backlog, uh, Pierre has already reviewed the added appropriation in the establishment of the position, personnel is tasked only with reviewing the title associated with the position. Opium has recommended the request. All right, um, no questions or comments. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second, any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye, opposed no. Motion carries. Madam Chairman, items um D and E are reports from the Department of Higher Education for their provisional positions in the most recent personnel actions taken by state agencies to provide special entry rates, labor market rates, in the first round of employees receiving the special compensation awards and there's, uh, no action to be taken on those. There are reports only. OK. Representative uh him. Lang Jing, you are recognized. I want to be recognized after we get at the end of the, at the end of the, uh, agenda. OK, great. Well. We are at the end of the agenda. So excellent timing. Just wanna make sure. Uh, I've got a question for Miss Kay. Uh, you know, we, and, and, and if you're not gonna give me any answer, I understand that. Have you got any update on the pay plan? Yes, sir. We are very close. We are putting the finishing touches on it right now, the departments have had a chance to review some recommendations and come back with some concerns and we're trying to address their concerns, and that should conclude pretty quickly here. We should have something for you very soon. Do you think we'll have this prior to January 13th? We can certainly work towards that goal for sure. All right, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, members, before we adjourn, I just want to say thank you, Representative Barry, for all your work. It's been a really good year and a half. I feel like we've been on the same page on a lot of things, but I just appreciate your insight, um, and experience that you were able to lend to this committee, um, and the work that we do, talking through how we pay our state employees and, and not just that but incentives and how we make it, um, how we add value, um, to them and wanting to stay with the state. So, thank you so much for all your work. In your time, and I know you will be missed not just by me, but um all of us here in Little Rock and our state employees, so thank you. All right, with that, this meeting is adjourned.