ALC-JBC Budget Hearings

If members would grab your seats. We'll get to the first things first, uh, Senator Love, you're recognized for our opening prayer everyone please stand. If we can send and all be in the attitude of prayer. Heavenly Father, we first want to come just saying thank you. Thank you for waking us this morning and blessing us to see another day that we weren't promised. The Heavenly Father, we pray that all that is said and done will be pleasing, will be fruitful for the building of your kingdom, the Heavenly Father, let us do the work and the will of you for the people of Arkansas. It's in a mighty name of Jesus, we pray and we thank you. Amen. All right, members. We have a We have reports and communications. We have Secretary Shane Carey here. I Oh, there they are. So members will do something a little different this morning. Um, I saw something yesterday and we didn't really talk about it much. So if you would, secretary, if you would introduce yourself for the record and then kind of walk us through the audit findings, uh, with your agency before we go into the budget, please. Sure. My name is Shane Corey. I'm the secretary for the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment. Have several of our directors and senior staff here to help answer any questions in terms of the audit findings specifically. Um, let's go back. I think we had 3 or so different audit findings all have been rectified. The first one dealt with. A career service date when an employee who had left state government returned to state government. And, uh, there was an AI calculation error that results in that person receiving. Additional compensation for years of service awards and additional hours that was rectified. The employee when she transferred to a different department. And this became we became aware of this, she reimbursed the agency for the additional funds that were expended and her get closer to that having trouble hearing you. Is that better? All right. So when she returned, or when she transferred to a state agency, we're made aware she did uh reimburse the state for the additional, uh, compensation that was paid and also I believe her, her Annual leave balance was adjusted accordingly. The second one had to do with changing banks. I think we changed to our vest and uh they were unable to give us a required document they have done that for this year. We've worked through that process, so we do have the collateralization requirement that is done and then the third one dealt specifically with our, what is now called the Office of State Geologists, the warehouse, uh, we had some burglaries that are, that happened in 2021, and I believe that there was a lawn mower and a few other items that stolen and uh we did not file a police report during that time. So can you tell us why a police report wasn't filed at that time? Uh, I, I apologize. I actually believe we filed the police report, but we failed to remove the item. From, uh, our AI list of, of, of inventory. We didn't move from the inventory list we have since that time off state geologists is now part of the oil and gas commission, which is also obviously part of the Department of Energy Environment, and we have centralized these functions of, uh, of inventory and other property into a centralized system, uh, uh, computerized and centralized division so that we have a better accounting for all of our inventory. Thank you. Representative Love, you have a question on the audit findings. Our Senator Love OK. All right, remember seeing no questions on audit findings. We'll move on with the budget. Um, you guys are recognized to carry Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is Billy Parish, Bureau of Legislative Research. We're on page 146 of your week 4 manual page 146. This begins the, uh, shared services for the Department of Energy and Environment. The department is a cabinet level department as a result of transformation. It's combined from divisions and programs within the division of Environmental Quality, the Oil and gas commission, and the liquefied petroleum gas board. cabinets are provided a new shared services section to eliminate duplication of services and provide efficiencies on page 146, it shows state contracts awarded to minority owned businesses and employment summary and publications. On page 148, is there a appropriation summary for shared services in 25, 7.68 million was authorized. For the biennium 2% increase is requested by the agency. However, the executive recommendations for $32,000 less each year, and that is due to one less position request and the reclassification of 14 positions. We're going to move into. The division of environmental equality, so we're on page 149 now. This division is a primary environmental regulatory agency for the state. It's responsible for implementing the state's environmental laws and regulations as established by the legislature and the Arkansas pollution Control and ecology commission. Uh, page 149 shows state contracts awarded to minor minority owned businesses and employment summary publications. On page 150 begins their appropriation summary. The division has 38 appropriation requests. 15 have a change level and a few others only request salary and match adjustments to continue to the new biennial. The total authorized budget for 25 is 165 million. The division requests $159 billion for the biennial. That's a 3% decrease from what was authorized. The executive recommendation provides for that agency request in all but 3 sections. It is 220,000 less than the agency requests for each year due to different personnel recommendations. The division is funded primarily from federal grants, special revenue, fees for services, and some general revenue per the chair's request, the department has no general revenue unspent and recovered in the last 10 years. We're going to move to page 154. On 154 is the first change level. This is for their state operations it provides for the administration of the division. Uh, in 25, 3.6 million was authorized for the biennium. It's less, it's about a 1% increase. However, the executive recommendation is for 71,000 less than the agency requests, and that's due to a discontinuation of one position and the reclassification of another, and I did reach out to the department and for this request, you know, all other executive recommendations that are different from the agency requests, they are in agreement. On page 156. That's the next request. And this is a federal operations. And 25, 9.9 million was authorized. The request for the biennium is almost 70% increase over authorized. The executive recommendation is for 61,000 less than the agency requests. uh, regular salaries and personal services matching, uh, they go up 29% and 77%. Of course, that executive recommendation is 61,000 less due to a reclassification of one position and the discontinuation of one position, operating expenses goes up 15%, conference and travel up. 120% professional fees, 160%. Grant and A goes up 515%. Capital outlay goes up 47% and indirect costs go from 0 to 586,000. All changes are to align the budget with federal grants. The department said that they had been awarded new funding in a variety of programs, including coal combustion residuals, diesel emissions reduction Act and energy and environment innovation funding, uh, this creates a need for increased outreach and stakeholder engagement, which will also increase. Spinning in each of the adjusted line items. The next section with the change level is page 160. On page 160 is their land reclamation section and fiscal year 25, 950,000 was authorized. The request is a 60% reduction. Uh, this is to align the appropriation level with funding. They had a fund balance of about 320,000 going into fiscal year 25. The department spent $0 last year and the most they've spent in the last 10 years is 21,000, but the department says they need to keep the appropriation level at 400,000 for contingency. Many of the department's corporations are set up to respond to environmental events should an event occur in the next biennial, they would need the spending authority in reserve in order to act. The next change levels page 162. On page 162 is hazardous waste permit program. And fiscal year 25, 1.7 million was authorized the request for the biennium is about a 7% reduction. operating expenses goes down 27%, conference and travel goes down 78% in professional fees goes down 90%. These all are adjustments to keep their capital outlay at the 25 authorized level for equipment and vehicle purchases. Next, change levels page 170. On page 170, is there a fee administration section. In fifth year 25, 15.8 million was authorized, uh, for the, for the biennium, 4% increase is requested. The executive recommendation is 96,000 less than the agency requests, and that's to reclassify two positions and discontinue two positions. Operating expenses only goes up 4700, but that's to better align with the estimated expenditures, grants and aid goes for 415,000 to 179,000. That's 160% increase. This is to align with state matched needs for federal funding. According to the department, they received additional clean diesel grant program funding for their go Red program and increases in this section will accommodate the corresponding increased state match. The next section with the change levels page 186. On page 186, it's a regulated storage tank program. Uh, if just 25, 3.9 million was authorized. The requests for the biennium is a 62% reduction. Uh, this is to align the appropriation with the expected federal funding and the executive recommendation provides for that request. Next change levels page 194. Page 194 is your small business loans program in fiscal year 25, 550,000 was requested. I'm sorry, sorry, authorized the request for the biennium is to zero it out. Uh, the department said the program has never or has been historically underutilized and the funds were difficult to recover. They will be working with the governor's office, uh, to draft a proposal to discontinue the program and expend the remaining fund balance. The program was created in 1997 to provide financing for small businesses when complying with environment. regulations. The next section is page 196. This is the program expenses for the small business loan program, and they're also requesting to discontinue this section, uh, as it's connected to the previous one. On page 200 is the exchange level. Page 200 is environmental Settlement Trust in fiscal year 25, 5.65 million was authorized. The request is an 85% uh decrease for the biennial, and this is again toon funding, uh, with their fund balance. The next section is page 202. Page 202 is their computer electronic recycling program in 25, 250,000 is authorized, and this is a request to discontinue this section. The department says the program is no longer necessary. They are working with the governor's office to discontinue it and spend the fund balance on page 208. It's the next request with a change level. This is their, uh, electronic vehicle infrastructure program and in 25, 5 million was authorized. The request is to discontinue this section. It had special language that was connected to it and it was discontinued in the special language subcommittee. This program never received any funding at ADEQ. All the federal dollars went to RA instead. Next page with the change level is 216 on page 216 is energy efficiency Arkansas. This is another request to discontinue the section. Uh, it was authorized at 1.4 million, they're going to zero. the Public Service commission and Energy Office closed this program in May of 2024 after determining that the desired goal of energy efficiency education and adoption had been successful. Next, change levels page 218. Page 218 is clean cities. In fifth year 25, 189,000 was authorized. They're requesting to discontinue this section. The department says the Clean Cities program will be more effective as a community-based program, and they are working with the Department of Energy to identify a local entity or higher education institution to administer the program. The next change level is on 220. Page 220s or alternative fuels vehicle program. In 25, 435,000 was authorized, and again, they're requesting to discontinue this section. Uh, the department says they have, they haven't awarded a grant since 2017, and they are working with the governor's office to discontinue the program and expend the remaining fund balance. Next section is 224. 224 is there state operations for the energy office in 25, 221,000 was authorized, uh, they're zeroing this outfits for the biennial. The department says this section is used to make state match for federal grants made to the Energy Office. They currently do not have any grants that require a match, and so this spending authority is no longer needed. The next section is 228. Page 228. Is the federal operations for the Energy office in 25, 39.6 million was authorized the request for the biennium is a 5% increase of 41 million. The executive recommendation provides for that request. This is all going to the weatherization Assistance Program line item, uh, to align with new federal funding for that program. Mr. Chair, those are all the requests for the division of environmental quality. Uh, co-chairman Rice, you're recognized for a question. Can you tell me on the weatherization. Program funding is, is any guidelines changed on that. Is it pretty much it's been run in the. Last few years. Guidelines on the program itself as covering the state. As far as, excuse me, covering the state. Um, I don't believe any of the program requirements have changed, you know, this is one of those areas where both weatherization and light heat programs have received substantial amounts of additional money through regular funding, and then there was an additional round of additional fundings from the infrastructure Investment Jobs Act so that program has received those funds. That is a program that, uh, is dispersed through community action agencies, the, the So Energy office coordinates with those community action agencies, um, to, to disperse that funding where they make those applications, the LIE program, the weatherization program, both utilize CIAs, although they use a different number because not all see community action agencies wanted to administer both programs. So the coverage for those two programs are different, but they're all done through community action agencies. OK. And my reason for asking this gets asked every couple of years, but at different levels. We Out in rural Arkansas, if you don't have somebody to make you knowledgeable, they don't know about these programs, and that's my point is, are we doing a good job? Are we continuing maybe to do a good job in getting the word out where, where that can be dispersed across the state of Arkansas. Well, I, I appreciate that question and we are still working through but hopefully we'll soon be finalizing a, a vendor to develop a statewide application portal so that we can refer everybody to one place no matter where you are, advertising. In one place and then they'll be able to go if they have access to online, go online and it'll distribute it to the appropriate CAA. So if you're in rural Arkansas, you don't have to drive 2 hours to wherever the nearest CIA is, and you said the, the magic word that I was worried about. If you have access. If you are knowledgeable. As somebody that's 70 years old and I can run a computer but I'm not literate, never been trained in that, and, and what I'm finding with state agencies, and I talked to one this week. And they said, well, we moved all that over to computer in 1996 or whatever else, and I had a constituent trying to get. Records that he lost in a house fire to prove and they, you know, and it's. The government expects us to To know stuff that I, I expect them to take care of, so that's the reason I'm asking you the question just be. Uh, if you can pass that down, let's, let's try to do everything we can to to help people out here that are, uh, Not up to our, not up to the government's level of, of knowing what to do, just I'm just gonna start at the top, Representative Ladyman, you're first on the list. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm over here. Yes, sir. Uh, well, Mr. Secretary, I, I, I appreciate you cleaning up your budget like that. I really do. It looks really good when you're cutting out those programs that are not being used. Uh, I, I appreciate that. Uh, but the question that I have and on page 148 is an example of that, and I noticed it on many other pages, but And this was touched on when the presentation was being made, but professional fees. Uh, on that particular page, you have, uh, budgeted 450,000 and you carry that out, and you only spent 96,000. And I noticed that on multiple budget pages. Why is that number so big compared to what the actual expenditures are. I appreciate the question and, and I think that uh. a way of explaining this. This is a Fairly newly created shared services program where we are trying to centralize some of these expenditures and, and eventually the idea will be moving some of these shared services out of the individual appropriations of the different departments that are truly for shared services and consolidating them here, um, I think we created this 2 years ago. We, we recently, as of, uh, I think. June or July, our CFO who had been at the department left and we, we actually hired Whitney, who's here today as well and may help answer some questions and I think she started the day the budget was due, um, but ultimately some of these line items, our goal will be to be moving some of those expenditures from the individual entities within the Department of Energy and Environment to the shared service line that covers all of energy environment to better cost allocate those things and, and be a, a better percentage as well, and I believe that we. Spent 300,000 in that line this year for professional services. So consolidate that one item, is that what you're talking about? I think ultimately we'll be once we have a better idea what those numbers are, we'll be able to have these numbers and retain these numbers, but we, you should start seeing the next biennium, a reduction in some of those other lines and corresponding areas. So when, when you talk about professional fees, can you give me an idea of what that is, uh, I mean, what are you using? uh what are you hiring professionals for, uh, do you not have that particular, uh, service in-house or or That there are a lot of things that we hire professional services for some of the testing that we do, some of the air monitoring, different things that we have to use consultants that have expertise and equipment that the department doesn't have, uh, we've also architects, engineers, anytime we have to do something to one of our buildings, upkeep. That requires an architect that would come out of professional fee. A lot of these IA grants that we've received in addition in lieu of adding new employees because they're short term couple year projects for hiring consultants to do that work and those sometimes come out of those professional fee lines as well, but. Thank you. Thank you. Um, can I just add to that real quickly? I'm Whitney Rainey, the CFO for Department of Energy and Environment, the professional services for in shared services were for a Sikh. It's our payment platform and licensing platform for most of our fees, we are getting, I think we have 50% migrated to seek and we'll have the remaining 50 in the next couple of years. Representative Collins, you are recognized. Thank you. And I guess this is kind of a general question, but it seems like we have a lot of programs here that are either being cut altogether or significantly reduced in funding, uh, dealing with pollution control, pursuing damages for violations of law of the environmental law, recycling a lot with electric vehicle infrastructure, research, education, and I guess, you know, I understand a lot of times we want to deregulate. We don't want to have overly burdensome regulations on business, that's not really what this approach is. This approach is investment, this approach is incentives. It's money, it's not regulation. By taking this away, are we going to have a dirtier state or we risking damage to our environment by not making these investments to try to make us cleaner? No, I, I don't believe any of the programs that we are proposing to reduce or cut are going to impact the environment. The electric vehicle one specifically, uh, I think it was a legislative. West several years ago to add 5 million in anticipation of the Department of Energy giving out money for building electric vehicle infrastructure that happened but it did not come on the federal level too, the division of Environmental Quality, our department, it went specifically to the Arkansas Department of Transportation. So that was a funding mechanism anticipation of an event that that didn't occur exactly the way that we thought it was gonna happen. The other one that you mentioned in the Environmental Settlement Trust Fund, you know, historically. That was about a $750,000 appropriation that allows us as we receive and settlements for environmental damages or natural resource damage to appropriate and spend that money the way that it's contemplated in the settlement that was increased by $5 million in 1 year for one specific event, uh, that was several years ago and, and that's why that just seems like a large reduction, but we're just returning to more of a base level of what that would be minus that one anticipated event that happened in one fiscal year. Those two make sense, but there are still some others here, I guess. Do you think any of these that are being cut have ever provided any value to the state. Sure, but I also believe that any of them that are being cut have either. Fully ran their course at this point in time, or there are other methodologies that are better or more uh more streamlined for us to administer in a different way. Clean cities, for example, most states didn't operate that as a state level because we're looking at the state level a lot of times colleges and universities administer that federal grant, and that's what we're helping DOE find in Arkansas is someone who is focused on the city level to administer that at a city level, um, what are some of the other ones that energy efficiency, Arkansas, that was a program required by the Public Service commission. The funds have all been expended. The companies and PSC I believe still have a process for the individual utility companies to continue that program, but the funding that was set up for our department to handle that has now been exhausted and the PSC is agreed and entered an order discontinuing that service. So is there any of these where you feel like there's gonna be a gap that's not being filled with a concrete way, not just and we'll have future discussions and figure. something out maybe. No, sir. OK, thank you. Representative Keon, you reckon? Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, my first question is going to be, and they, they're all going to revolve around, I'm sure you're not gonna be surprised fund balances. So, um, on 172, we look at this solid waste performance bond fund balance. Oh sorry, um, this is gonna be on your historic spend. Your funding looks like it. Almost non-existent special revenue, but you're still asking for an appropriation of $2 million your historic spend happened in 1516. Why are we needing to keep that appropriation. When you're not really getting any fun bounce. It's on page 172. So this specific fund is, uh, for closure of abandonment or non-compliant solid waste disposal facilities, I would say this falls under the category of in the event it's needed the appropriation is there, so we have performance bonds, etc. on these facilities and if there was a need for us to step in and do something, these are a lot of times I would say contingency requests. Uh, hopefully, we don't have to utilize them because if we do utilize them, that means somebody's landfill failed and we had to step in and call their bond and perform. maintenance, so it allows us in the event is needed to respond as quickly as possible. And do you not have the ability to know before this happens to come to legislative council and ask for that appropriation if you need it, if you don't have it. I mean, do these things just pop up overnight and you don't know about it, or is there some way that you have some indication and talking with the operator that you know it's coming down the pike. Uh, in a perfect scenario, we know and we have time to respond and react, but a lot of times we don't. Maybe it's caused by another event, a weather-related event, something else that causes us to have to step in and use one of our consultants on an emergency type basis and this gives us the appropriation to to step in and be able to do that. And this is gonna be along the same line. This is on 174, which is the hazardous waste cleanup on your contractual services, it looks like yoursoric spin happened in 14 and 15. Um, and that was for 2.4 mL, but you're asking for 6.19 mil. Why do we need so much more of our historic spend. I believe this is the same thing, this is, this is an area that we would identify a need to to have a contingency spend should we need to do it. This is a hazardous substance cleanup and different funding for that so I that would, I would classify this as a contingency similar to the last one as well. OK. How do you come up with your contingency balance that you need when you look at your historic span. This is probably close to 3 times what your historic span has been. So how do you as an agency come up with what you need your contingency to be. I'm gonna ask, uh, Bailey Taylor, who is the DEQ director and chief administrator of the environment to come forward. Uh, we work with all those closely with our programs and the staff in there to basically identify anticipated costs should this event happen or should an event, several events like this happen in a year, but maybe she can help explain that specific process. Thank you. Hi, good morning, Bailey Taylor, DEQ director and chief administrator of Environment. So this, um, is aligned a little bit with our fun balance to make sure that in the event of an emergency, we have the capability to respond as well as we need to. OK, that doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy, doesn't give me how you come up with the number for contingency. If you're basing it on your fund balance, that doesn't tell me that you need it. It tells me you're trying to spend the fund balance on a budget request. And so my question is, how do you actually come up with what you really need for contingency. It doesn't need to be based on your fund bounds. It needs to be based on what you really think this might be a true contingency because we have money stuck away in all kinds of little honey holes and as a state we've got to figure out, do we need this money stuck in all these honey holes. We want to be good stewards of this fund so that In future events, all events that occurred were able to respond appropriately. And so this, this amount is, would encompass any large, um, emergency that occurs, and so we would be able to fully respond because some of these, especially in recent years, these contractors and these cleanups can take in the millions, and so we want to be able to respond if we need to, but also reserve some in that fund for future years. Well, I realize that, but your spending's been going down. since 2015, because that was your historic span. So for almost 10 years, you're spending has been going down, but you keep asking for the same appropriation. If I could request, and this is, I wish I had requested for all the agencies and I will probably ask if we can do that is I would like to understand the methodology that you use for these contingency balances, how you come up with, I need this much and this contingency because this might happen, how you actually come up with that, that would give us a better feel when you ask for this contingency, we just see that you're asking for so much over what your actual spend is. If you could give us that information, how you actually come up with that, your methodology so that we can understand that. I would appreciate that. We can do that. I'd appreciate that. Thank you. And, um, along the same line on 178, we're looking at the asbestos control. And I think this has arrived from fees by I guess abiders. That's why I know how to say people that bite the asbestos. How many lozenges do we have that actually are able to do that. I don't have that number here, but we'll be happy to get you that number. OK. And the reason I'm asking is your fund balance based upon your spend, you have almost 7.15 years worth of fund balance. So, Is it an opportunity where maybe we don't charge as much fees to these people that are paying it because if there's, if they're funding it with fees and you're not needing it, is there an opportunity there? And then one of my major questions is going to be with, um, On 184. Which is the petroleum tank Trust. Um Your historic spend on this area, if you look at it in your operating expenses has been actually 23, 24, which is 6.664 mL, but you're asking for almost $19 million in funding on that, um, Again, that's probably gonna, I'm probably gonna want to know why you need that much in operating, and I know you're gonna tell me it's for contingency if something happens. If you can give me the, the methodology, how you come up with your contingency on that also, I'd appreciate it. We can certainly do that. We have a lot of historic, um, examples of this one, but also most of this is already earmarked for responses that we know have occurred and we are expecting to be able to reimburse. So, so the majority of that is earmarked for projects ongoing, and if you can let us know that, that'd be a great thing. And one thing I do want to ask about is your funding on this model. You show that you're funding for 23, 24 was fees, but you don't show any more funding at all. You show no fees and coming in for 25. 26, 27. Are we not expecting to collect any fees? Uh, is on page 184. We're looking at that, the, the We'll be happy to respond, but we, we, we don't anticipate any reason why we wouldn't collect fees in this particular that it just shows you're not expecting any and my final question is really revolving around these fund balances for these appropriations that you're discontinuing, and I hear you say you're working to spend them. How are y'all? Are they earmarked that they can only be spent for certain things. And if they're not earmarked to be spent for certain. That we've earmarked them special revenue. I mean, what's the ability that we can use these funds for. I would really kind of like, if you can give, when you're making your list for me, if you could put that in that list too, so we can understand what these fund balances might be available to use for. We'll be happy to do that and and some of them do have some grant and other things that we're working through this year. So we will spend down part of that fund balance to kind of clean up what we can, but yes, there will be remaining funds and in most of those that were discon continuing that we'll be happy to list and and show you where, like I said, this is where we said we're working with the governor's office and obviously would come back for you all as part of our, our proposals next session to, to make sure that y'all approve of that I appreciate that so we can get a little better understanding. All right, thank you. Senator Chesfield, you recognize us? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, I sat here and I listened to you talk, well I started reading all of the things that are being cut. And I'm wondering. Why were they there in the first place if we no longer need them. Where are they going to go? Where are those services gonna go? I believe that, you know, most of those things had a purpose, but the programs we're specifically proposing to cut the purpose never came to fruition or the courses have now run their intended purpose. So what are you going to be doing now that you don't have to do any of this. What are you going to be doing? We have a lot of other things that we aren't cutting. Well, let me, let me get to the heart of my concern and and a lot of this was at the heart of it and Representative Kavanaugh has dealt with a number of the concerns that I've had. What is the relationship between the Department of Energy and the Public Service Commission. We are a cabinet level department in the Public Service commission is a standalone. Entity within itself. Well, the reason I ask is because right now we're in the throes of Decision making by the Public Service commission, which is supposed to be an independent body, but we have no legislative oversight. Do you provide then when you're doing all of this. That you do. Are you in a position to make sure that the citizens of this state are having Um Those things that are needed to provide Good, uh, electrical service, good, um, gas service. What do y'all do to make sure that these people that are supposedly working with us, and you have land reclamation, you have solid waste, you've got all of this stuff. What do we what do we as citizens, what can we come to you and ask you to make sure of, so that we don't continue to be, I think, misused to some extent by the utility company, companies, or do you have any role? that at all. We don't have a whole lot of role in that at all. We, we are a regulatory agency. Most of the divisions within the Department of Energy and Environment are regulatory. So for example, if a utility company is going to build a new power plant and they're going to have air emissions, the EQ is going to make sure that the power plant and when it's operating we'll meet with, you know, whatever the the applicable air emission standards are or if they're going to build something, they're going to have to get a stormwater construction permit just like everybody else in the state, um, let me, let me follow up with that because summit claims that it is said to be all this new infrastructure. Which is why they're gonna gouge us with their prices. Do y'all have any role in making sure that they're having to do what they said they were doing. We, I would say we have our role is to make sure that they are complying, operating requirements with whatever the federal or state standards are. We don't have anything to do with pricing. We don't necessarily have to do with sighting. I mean, we permit a site once they decide they're gonna build or construct or not they are doing it. In a manner that is good for the consumer. I would say that is not our role. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Barry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, so my questions in relation to, uh, and you probably can't answer any of these questions because only an ordained few know about the prison that's gonna go and uh Franklin County, uh, representative Eubank's district, but you'd think that, uh, the environmental concerns, uh, would be brought to you prior to purchasing $3 million worth of property over there that include, uh, solid waste, uh, wastewater. uh, any environmental concerns. Has anybody brought any of that to your attention, uh, to this point, or are you one of the That don't know. I do not know. OK, thank you. That's what I thought. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Singer Love, you're welcome to follow that I'm gonna deviate from that, um. Thank you, Mr. Chair and, and Secretary of court, good to see you. Um, I, I want to first start, I, I, I might, I might pick up where Senator Chesterfield left off, but it's, it's a different question, but first of all, I do want to, um, Start with where Senator Rice started with, with the weatherization program because that was one of my one of my main concerns and every, you know, every budget session we talk about weatherization and and the improvements in the. Um, our constituents trying to get to the CA agencies and they're not able to get to the CAP agency. So I do want to applaud you if you can get that system up and going because I always wanna know kind of what, how many, how many citizens have we helped, you know, how many constituents are still calling me saying, hey, I, you know, I need weatherization services, so in, I mean, if you can get that system up and going within the next year. I mean, I'll, I'm. hats off to you cause I think that's necessary, um. One of the one of the the programs that I saw that, I guess I don't know if you were shutting down, you did have a fun balance and. It was a fun and one that you're closing down. It was, it it was in regards to weatherization. Um, Energy efficiency, Arkansas. Yeah, so efficiency, Arkansas. So with that fund balance and you saying you're not doing any more, any further energy audits. Is that what you, you were saying you're not gonna. You have a fund balance. Are you returning that, are you returning those funds to. To the federal government, are we keeping those funds and then how can we dispose of those funds if if we're not if we're no longer doing energy audits. So this particular program, as I said, was, was. A quarter of the public service commission that we administered some of this and. Maybe uh Larry Bingle, our chief administrative of energy can come if you have more specific questions, but I think we won't have much of a fund balance once we conclude all the program, um. OK, so are we still that's correct. It's my understanding, you know, that was funded, um, through the utilities and funded, I think even through, um, maybe that came through the consumers actually it was paid, I believe, but that's all in response to a docket from the Public Service commission that docket was closed, so there should not be any remaining fund balances, and if there are, those should be returned. All right, I thought I saw a fun down there. OK, all right, good, good, good deal, um, #2, was tires. What are we doing about waste tires? Uh, I was trying to figure out where the funding was in your budget. There there is a line item um that deals with our waste tire program. I forget which page it is right now, but um, what, what page is 214, I believe. According to Bill here. Uh, last session, as you know, we, we. worked part of Senter Payton, center, and many others, many of you in this room kind of the governor's office, everybody kind of came together and we, we use what we lovely call a tire patch, my session where we made a few changes that allowed us to use some of the existing funding allowed DFNA to start doing some of those historic collections, um, and, and enforcement for those collections and a few other things we consolidated the districts down, so we just now have adopted that rule that came out of there, but we have moved from 11 different. districts to 4 different tire districts. Uh, so far we, in order to make that work, we have not done any abatement in those past two years, so those historic tire sites that I always get asked about, no, we haven't really, um. Have been able to do anything with those, but I think that's on the table for our discussions and maybe some of these remaining fund balances as we go to some of these programs that have fund balances maybe utilizing that for some abatement or other tire related things as we move forward. OK, so the funding that you asked for the 2.8 million, uh, what, what, what is that number based on? Is that based on the quarter, you know, I get a rolling out vision of a quarterly spend, you know, currently there's a $3 rim removal fee that gets split up different pieces eventually we get a section of that and then of that we do reimbursements to tire districts for. Uh, for the processing of waste tires into the current system, so I think those numbers are all based on operating that this is, this number is based on actual funding that we would collect, is that, is that currently adequate? Yeah, I guess that's what I'm asking. I am I gonna hear from loonies or am I gonna hear from Davis, uh, saying, hey, they've run out of money they're not giving me any more money and the tires are stacking up at our. Building and that's what that's kind of what I'm asking. Well, I, I believe that the the tire patch for lack of a better term, was designed to carry us through until the next legislative session, so I don't anticipate anything until next legislative session. I don't believe that we're gonna have a shortage of funding, um. You know right now or in the next few months. OK. And then my last question, Mr. Chair, is, is, um, and the pickup where Senator Chesterfield, um. Kind of left left off in regards to summit, and I know that you all don't regulate the utilities, however, you have a section in oil and gas, and you do inspection of pipes. You you you you do kind of infrastructure inspection, is that not correct? Well, the way that works, and gas does inspections of obviously natural gas well sites and then there is a pipeline program, but it's bifurcated in the state between the public service commission and the oil and gas. so that the pipelines, you know, gas commission specs or natural gas pipelines infrastructure that is owned by the natural gas producer, not the utility company, the Public Service commission has the other side of that, so when we're inspecting infrastructure, it is the infrastructure coming from whales gathering lines, etc. to get that gas to a market once it becomes. The utility or a third parties, then the Public Service commission takes over that federal program of inspecting that infrastructure. OK, so, so the public service commission, so you're inspectors could potentially do that but it's the public service commissions, they have the money with The utility or a third parties, then the Public Service commission takes over that federal program of inspecting that infrastructure. OK, so, so the public service commission, so you're inspectors could potentially do that but it's the public service commissions, they have the money that they do for the FEMA pipelines program and they have a much larger. Section and number of inspectors that do that just based on the miles of pipeline in the state so we do a small piece as it relates to gas, natural gas producers, they do the remaining, which is the larger portion. Mr. Chair, I might want to get back in the queue cause I, I, I don't wanna put you on the spot but. I, I guess I'm just trying to figure out, you know, with this summit issue that we have, should they, should the PSC hit caught that. Um I if if we're saying that that the infrastructure is that dilapidated that we now have to charge our constituents, our constituents are being charged at 25%. a charge of 25% should the PSC and I, I don't want, that's why I said I don't want to put you on the spot, but if, if, if you were over that program, I guess we would probably be saying, hey. Watching what what what your inspectors not supposed to find this out before. You know And I'll say pipelines, you know, the, the FEMA, the federal. Government standards have a lot to do with the construction of those pipelines when they're put in because it's obviously when you can see those pipelines there are obviously other tests and stuff that have to be done in a. Periodic basis to make sure the integrity of those pipelines, but what I don't know enough about. What issue may have happened with Summit or with PSC to know whether they they should have or could have found it. OK. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Wooton, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask for your forbearance before I start in. First question I I'll cut you off when you get there, but you're good to go. Well, you feel free to do that if you want to. Um. You have 16 positions that are over 2 years old. Why, why is that? The 16 positions that we have. Over 2 years old are basically. A combination of multiple factors. Some of them on, I think our Act 796 report. Specifically, we've asked to retain those that we were asked to retain were in two categories. One, they were fairly low graded employees that We were having a harder time feeling we're still trying to work through that process of filling those positions, but the pay structure that that you all approved last session or last I guess was fiscal session, whatever it was when we increased the base level funding for those GS 1 through 5s, we're hoping that will help us to be able to attract some employees there. Another one, some of them are management positions. One of them in particular is the Oil and gas commission director. We have had, uh, the benefit and the blessing of, of Larry Bingle serving as. both our chief administrator of energy and the oil and gas commission director simultaneously, he has been able to, uh, because of his education, experience and background, been able to utilize just one of those two positions, uh, when and Hopefully not any time in the near future, but when he does retire, we will have to look whether or not we can find somebody that can actually do both of those positions or whether we will need both those positions. You got 1010 vacancies in the environmental quality water today. We have 10 vacancies in environmental quality. I think a lot of those are the, I mean, administrative analysts, some of those lower graded positions we do have a high turnover rate specifically in our professional service areas of engineers, geologists, even attorneys. I mean they, they we can hire them out of college, but you know they have attractive benefits in the private sector, so we have a quite a, quite a high turnover rate in a lot of those positions. But the vacancies in particular I think are some of those lower graded positions. Do you evaluate them manually? We, we do evaluate them probably more than annually. Uh, we, we're always contemplating how, how we can better utilize those positions. We, we are contemplating maybe, you know, bringing your request at some point to consolidate several of those. positions into a higher graded position to see if we could attract better better talent. Can you, can you share with me why you would have 66. People authorized in your shared services. With 479 employees and then we got another uh agency that has 452 and they only have 28. I think it probably depends on what you consider shared services at each department or maybe let's call it the central office, um, I think that we as a regulatory agency have a lot of attorneys and other staff and we have put all of our attorneys, no matter who they represent or work for are part of our shared service, maybe not everybody does that, and we have, you know, a a office of Chief counsel that has probably 12 people in it, in and of itself, all of our HR, or fiscal, our building fleet facilities. some of the IT folks, um, that even some of the same, I mean, is that not the same in other agencies. I don't know. That's what I'm saying. I, I can't answer the question as to why another department only had so many to make a similarity between what each central office does. It's just uh it's the will of the secretary. Well, I would say that, you know, at the Department of Energy and Environment, specifically when we went through transformation. 2019, we had a good working relationship we had people that had worked with each other for years. We had the oil and gas commission, the division, what was the Department of Environmental Quality now the division of Environmental Quality, and I think we were able to truly consolidate and create a Department of Energy Environment, and we moved a lot of positions initially into that shared service based on agreement amongst all the entities that came into that department at that point in time. On your budget on page 148. Under travel conference expense, you have $25. And you budgeted 85,000 and you continued that out next year. Why, why, why do we need that much money set aside if you only use $25 last year. Actual. So this kind of goes back to the question that was asked earlier about our shared service budget. This is a new paying line, so we're trying to move and I can tell you how much we've spent this year so far in that line, we're trying to reallocate those costs for shared services. So for example, Uh, if I travel somewhere, they would come out of the shared service line as opposed to having to come out of one or the other entities specific lines so that we can cost allocate, um, those, those travel lines back to other. Entities within the department. OK. On, uh Page. 184. Storage store of petroleum storage tanks. You have a fun balance of 40. $4 million. You have a, uh, Excess appropriation of $45 million. And Then you have, is that, is that $50,000 or That George The petroleum tank division for shared services. Did they pay your, pay your central office 50,000. Is that what that is? ladies back here shaking her head. So it is. OK. Uh And that would be for. A multitude of things, including administrative oversight, building different utilities, all the things that, that, that shared overhead expense. Well, my concern is, In 25, 26 that goes fun balance goes to 636,000. Where, where did that $45 million go. So I think to get to that, you would have to do. Yeah, you would have to expend all of that $19 million and this is one of those regulated storage tanks programs and one of those that we do have ongoing projects expand the fund balance of 45 million. I think to get The the 18 $19 million difference would assume that we actually spent that $19 million and this is a classic example. Of the budget system. That we have in this state. Your, yours is not the only one. But this is, this is ridiculous. In my opinion, my humble opinion. But this is totally ridiculous. On the, on, on here, you have $10 million in fees that you didn't budget it, but yet you have $10 million in fees coming in, but you don't have anything in the ensuing years of 2627. Does does DFA tell you how to do these budgets. So I believe as we give you instruction on how to budget because this goes back to the very hard of what Kavanaugh was told Representative Kavanaugh was talking about represented Chesterfield was talking about representative love and me. I, I don't understand. Having a budget with, with $450,000 in it when you, when you, when you only Spent 96,700. I just don't understand that. And the question begs to be answered, where, where is this budgeting process coming from? Is it from this, is it from DFA? Is it from the governor's office, or is it being made up by each secretary because it, it's a colossal. Failure, in my opinion. It's not, it's not being fair with the people of the state of Arkansas. You tied up $450,000 in one line item. You tie it up 70 $85,000 in another one. That, that's just on one budget. That's just a one page in this manual. It shows the colossal failure of the budget system that we have in this state that we've utilized for, I know, for 40 years. And I attempted when I was director of DFA that put a stop to it to change it, and we're still doing the same thing. The same games. Why not, why not put what you think 300,000 in, in, uh In professional fees rather than 450,000. I, I, I can't understand why they're going from 96,000 to 450,000 or the 300,000 in a year's time. When I look over here on page 184 again. That's the professional fees. $2 million in this agency. What, what does the central office need professional fees for 450,000. Well, what do you need that for? Is that for uh uh changing computer systems, upgrading IT. What is it for? So I believe and I've tried to answer some of those questions, but first and foremost, I will recognize that this is the one where we believe that the fee information is missing so that there will be fees coming in this second of all, this is dealing with our petroleum storage tank trust fund. Uh, this is where we administer and I think it would be all classified as special revenue that's paid by retailers, but this particular program is for our state lead when we have to go in and clean up an area, a. gas station that may have had a leak that we have to hire a consultant environmental contractor to come do the work's 2 million. I'm talking about in central office, 450,000 in professional fees. Oh, we're back in shared services. Well, I believe I'm, I'm back in church, the shared services the $2 million what you had to do is to clean up a service. I apologize. The sheriff a $45 million. So the shared service and this is not intended that you, this is intended, you just catching the raft. That I've sit here and go through fiscal year and every session. And see the same thing, millions, millions of dollars that are being held captive in a budget line item. That does not make sense and I appreciate you asking the questions this up with a billion dollar surplus and we're given money to private schools were given money here, we're given money there. And the people are still paying. And I just, I just don't understand it. So I would like to address where specifically the $450,000 is, and, and that is we have been going through a, a multi-year process of upgrading all of the. Uh Electronic access for regulated community. This is building out a system where people will be able to apply, receive permits to, to submit applications that they currently do through paper forms, um, this will allow them to do electronically and greatly utilize and streamline the administrative process, so this is a multi-year project that we call SIC that someone referred to earlier, but that's what the $450,000 in this particular line item in this particular case is, is anticipated for. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Lustrom, you reckon us? Thank you, Chairman Wardlaw. Um, couple of questions that I wanted to ask um. Sorry about that you hit again. Technical issue. So it's all good. Um I've got a couple of questions on a variety of different things, but I bet you can guess on what area I'm going to focus on. Um, first of all, we talk about 2 million here, 400,000 here, 85,000 on all these different budget and line items that we're moving things around. Has there anything been done for the air emissions for the Tawnytown landfill. That's $100,000. We can easily find that in this budget. Well, the last one we did was $100,000 give or take. Our next one, we've been, uh, anticipating and working on, we expect we'll be quite a bit more than that, maybe 5 to 6 times more than that. We have worked with our internal legal folks to make sure we believe that we can and should be able to and finalizing the process of using an existing fund, the, the RAA fund to do additional ear monitoring. We just received back, I believe yesterday, um, our request from that we it to OSP in order for us to use an IFP process instead of, or excuse me, an RF RF RFP process RFP instead of an IFQ that way or IFB. The one that will allow us to utilize both cost and have someone submit a plan because as you know and as we've talked about many times, we, we have done, I think that starting the 1st 24 hour test, 2 or 3, I guess 3 levels of testing and And there is no indication of the potential source based on that testing, so we're gonna go out, we're gonna do a larger test, we're going to do a longer test, but we need some help from some experts to design where it's coming from because every sampling that we've done in the last one was designed to hit those areas of traffic to to to to focus on the areas of complaint and those areas as well as the background areas, um, all had the same results and all, all, all ultimately were in levels that you can anticipate in that area. So if we're gonna do a next round, which we do intend to do, um, thank you and we're probably looking at more of about 500 to $600,000 to do that next level of study, so. Um, we've talked about $10 million in fees. How much have we collected in fines. I would have to go back and look at that number. I don't know if we have that here, but I'll be happy to get it to you on the landfills, how much we've collected on fines, um, just, just to say also any most all civil penalties that we collect go into the rat of fund that we're talking about that would allow us to has enough fund balance to do this study. OK, well, my, in my area, the amount of complaints for the Tawnytown landfill can fill up boxes and boxes and boxes, and I'm not seeing a lot of fines coming out of that, and that could be. to clean it up. My concern is on the, um, should there be a crisis and the cleanup fund, are we going to have enough of taxpayer dollars available to clean up. A landfill that's 630 acres, whereas we worry about a gas station that's less than a quarter of an acre, getting a consultant and hiring and that's hundreds of thousands of dollars. What are we going to do if we have a problem in Tawnytown? Well, I'll ask Bailey to, to expand on this, but I would say that should there ever be a crisis in any existing operation that has hazardous substances, that is what the rat for fund is used for, so it allow us to move in and and do whatever necessary in whatever the situation may be to, to at least stop and abate that that action. That's correct. And also each permitted landfill is required to maintain financial assurance in the amount that it would cost to close the site. OK, and just follow up on that, on that financial assurance. Does anybody inspect that? Cause it really shouldn't be taxpayer dollars to clean up any of this. It should be the, the business that annually we require that that fee be adjusted based on inflation or, you know, expansions or anything. So that financial assurance dollar amount is, um, reviewed annually and we make sure they still have it on file or that we hold it or whatever mechanism they choose. OK, I'd like to get with you a little more information on that, because my concern is if they go belly up, then we're left holding the bag. That financial assurance should guarantee that we are not left holding that back. OK. And then also our wrap up fund if we utilize expenditures and it's tied to a specific cause, it does require us to do cost recovery as well, so we would use, obviously the bond first and then if there was anything that we had to spend in addition to that, we would go after the company or the entity for whatever the additional cost is. OK, um, is there anything in here on your budget on employee integrity, because you've had two employees that have tipped off the landfill ahead of inspections. And that's an insult to the rest of the employees that are doing a good job. that I believe that we have nothing in our budget manual, no. We do have employee handbooks, we have other, you know, codes of conducts, etc. at the department that would address those types of situations. Thank you. And a Gin like Representative Wooton said, I, I realize you, you've only been in here a little bit, so you're getting the wrath of past, but Congratulations, you got the job. Um, Uh, I do want to flag this budget, chairman, so we can have a little more time to, to digest some things and get with the department on our questions. And Thank you. It is flagged. All right, we have Senator Love left in the queue. All right, thank you, Mr. Sherry. I, I just want to do a follow-up question because that Represented a lungstrom did raise a point about closing land fields and did, is it not true? I guess a couple of sessions ago, and you, I know you that you weren't here, but you probably have this historical knowledge that we did take money. Taxpayer dollars to close the land field somewhere. Up north. My recollection is that and I wasn't here during the time, but uh. There's some special language that was done uh for a landfill, I think specifically the neighbor's landfill. But it did, I think, allocate money from the post-closure trust fund, which is in to to close the landfill. OK, and then also did we, did we end up collecting that money back. What, what, what happened in that scenario to where we did not. So ultimately they ended up with a multitude of lawsuits, I think some of it ended up here in Pulaski County with Judge Fox. There was also a bunch of taxpayer, um, suits filed up in those counties, ultimately the department did not recoup any of. those funds, and I believe they're still ongoing litigation between the bondholders in that case, which I believe I don't recall which bank it was, but we were the smaller portion of all the different things there, so we, we did not receive any funding from the agency out on that landfill to I don't know if they have that here. We can probably, we can definitely get you that information, um. I remember what it was. Uh If I were guessing, I think it was 17 to $19 million. That's what I thought. It was almost a $20 million figure that, uh, um, and, and so excuse me, it was, it was 15 for the closure, but then we did post closure care for a period of time. That's right, and so, so where, where does the post closure fund stand at now? It It has about 15 million. more than 15 million fund balance now and and just to clarify that couldn't have happened without the special language. Yeah, well, well, I didn't say I didn't say that we didn't mess up. I just said that I didn't say I'm just like we couldn't spend that under the current because that language has is no longer there, but are are we trying to recoup any of those funds? Are you saying that we're, we're going to, we're not going to, we're not going after them. What I believe. And I, I would have to get one of our attorneys, but I believe that where the litigation is at this point in time, we were left out of receiving uh those funds because there was so much other money owed to the bondholders and other parties that we were a, uh, not, not necessarily. In the line of recouping any funds if there are ever any funds are cooped, so. There was also a lawsuit about whether the funds that were used to pay that were legal or not, and I don't know the status of all those lawsuits there. OK, so that, that is why it is, it is, it is vital that we make sure that we have the bonds in place to actually. Make sure we can close those land fields, so, OK, all right, thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. Seeing no other questions, do I have a motion? I have a motion for executive record. Do I have a second? I have a 2nd. All those in favor, say ah. I opposed. I have it So with that, we'll move, Move on down the line, Mr. Parish, you are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're on page 236, page 236. This begins the request for the liquefied petroleum gas board. And this board enforces laws and safety requirements that regulate the manufacturer, sale, installation and use of containers and equipment in the storage, transportation, dispensing, and utilization of liquefied petroleum gasses on page 236, it shows state contracts awarded to minority owned businesses and employment summary and publications. On page 238 is the appropriation summary for their one request. Um, in fiscal year 25. 629,000 was authorized, uh, for the biennium, it's a 14 to 15% increase over authorized. Regular salaries and personal services matches, um, those requests for 13 and 9% more. Those are salary and match adjustments, uh, they're due to adjustments for employees as authorized by law. Operating expenses goes from 113,000 to 153,000. That's a 35% increase. This is to better align their expenditure needs, uh, conference and travel and professional fees, that's a reallocation. of $2000 from one line to the other, uh, that is again to a on there uh with their expected needs. Granted aid goes from 0 to 30,000. That's for a safety training grants and capital outlay goes from 80,000, it decreases 38% to 50,000. There is a decrease, but they still request that 50,000 to purchase vehicles. Uh, the executive recommendation provides for that request, request, and that's the only request for this, uh, division. Like, uh, since your chest failures just a point of information, Mr. Chair. um, representative Lasstrom asked that the previous presentation be flagged. What specifically does that entail? Cause I thought we were just gonna hold it. I thought that that was synonymous with holding but apparently not because we just passed the executive re. So tell me what this flagging do? Kevin addressed that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, so when, when there's a flag put on, uh, a bill, that means we flagged that for a hold by doing an executive recommendation, you give us authority to draft that appropriation bill without that authority, we wouldn't draft it. So we put, when it's flagged, once that bill is introduced in joint budget, it gets immediate hold on it. We keep a list and it gets held with that member's name. Well, that was my, that was my understanding of it, but the exact re still is necessary. Because I thought when there was a hole there would be no motion to the exact wreck is necessary to give us to draft the bill. Yes, ma'am. All right, got you. Thank you. And by the way, for those wondering, I just could not in good conscience move executive record on that one. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Chesterfield. I'm not seeing any more, uh. On that. OK. Have a motion in a second on in favor. I post. OK, Mr. Parish and move on to uh oil and gas commission. Thank you, Mr. Chair, on page 239. Page 239 is the oil and gas commission. Uh, the commission protects the rights and interests of mineral, mineral owners and regulates oil gas and brine production industries to ensure compliance with state and federal laws, uh, pages 239 through 240 show state contracts awarded to minority owned businesses, employment summary and publications. The next page is the Department of Appropriation summary on page 241. The commission has 8 appropriation requests, 4 have a changed level. The total authorized budget in 25 is 20.6 million and spending authority. The commission requests almost 19.9 million for the biennium. That's a 3% decrease. The executive recommendation is 57,000 less than the agency request. This is due to personnel recommendations that are different. Uh, division is funded primarily from special revenue. Those are fees paid by oil and gas production companies. Next, uh, the change first change levels on page 243. Uh, this is the summary for the, uh, oil and gas commission operation, which provides the administration of that, uh, division. And in 5th year 25, 4.7 million was authorized for 26 and 27. It's a 1% decrease, uh, capital outlay was authorized 160, 160,000. That's a 25% increase to 200,000 geological research. I'm sorry, uh, that was for the purchase of vehicles. Geological research is 110,000 authorized requests to discontinue that line item, and that's due to a transfer of geological survey to the oil and gas commission. The next change levels on page 250. On page 250 is uh Office of State Geologists operations in Fisco 25, 1.9 million was authorized. The request for the biennium is at 2% increase. The executive recommendation is 57,000 less in the agency request, and that's due to a discontinuation of one position. Uh, there are some reallocations among various line items, about 102,000, and that is to align the appropriation with projected expenditures. Next change levels on page 256. On page 256 is the State Farm Grand earthquake awareness in fiscal year 25, 6,505 was authorized. The request is to zero out this section. Uh, the department said the State Farm, uh, no longer offers this grant. The next section is 262. On page 262. We have the Office of State Geologists cash operations, uh, in 25, 601,000 was authorized. They are again requesting to discontinue the section. The department said the foam was created to hold the cash proceeds, uh, of the sale of an office of state geologist building. The cash balance and federal grant will be used to purchase a new roof on their warehouse and that will be completed before the next biennium. So that'll make the spinning authority unnecessary, Mr. Chair, that is the end of the, uh, request for this section. Representative makes you recognize famous way over here to your far, far right, uh, director, it's good seeing you. Um, well, when this is all over, I wanna catch you out in the hall cause I have a, a question for you, but related to, uh, this budget, I, I just have two quick items. Uh, number one, I know last session we moved the geological survey in the oil and gas commission and, of course, at that point in session it's crazy. Um, what was the kind of the reason of why we wanted to move that under the oil and gas commission. And, uh, so that's my first question, and I'll have a real quick follow-up. Sure. Um, so historically, the, what had been the Arkansas Geological Survey now. Went back to the constitutional name of the Office of state geologist was funded with general revenue and uh I think that was a great efficiency where we were able to reduce our departments, uh, need for general revenue by a little over $2 million by moving the Office of Geological Survey or the off state geologist as to a subdivision of the oil and gas commission, so now it's funded by special revenue. I think that was a big driver was just a way for us to reduce the need for general revenue. Secondly, a lot of those projects that, uh. Excuse me, at the office state geologist working on are things also the oil gas commission also deals with and regulate so. I think it was a, a great alignment and a streamlining of two different departments into one and also allowing us to continue to do the necessary work of both. OK, all right, sounds good. Uh, so my, my follow-up question related to this budget, of course, about a decade ago we had a large boom in, uh, natural gas drilling within the state. Um, is any of that, uh, still ongoing or, uh, do we have new oil production, new natural gas production within the state, or has that largely, uh, Come to an end at this point. A, a large, uh, well, most of the drilling has, uh, for natural gas specifically in the Fayetteville Shell has come to an end. There are a lot of, there are 5000 existing wells there. There are a lot of, uh, reworking or temporarily bands and then rehabbing those whales to put them back into production. Maybe some, a few new frag jobs here and there, but most of it is a maintenance mode for the Fayetteville Shields specifically the Arcoma Basin over by Fort Smith, historic conventional gas production is kind of in the. same way we probably have about the same number of wells there and then in South Arkansas we have say 9000 or so operating oil wells, um, we do have some drilling, not a whole lot right now, kind of very tied to the market conditions. And then obviously, our brine bromine and maybe eventually, uh, a lithium play in South Arkansas is kind of where we see the new, I guess, focus or the new work coming up and that was gonna be my last question, uh, if you could, uh, you know, what's the latest on the, on the lithium down there and and potential impacts both to your budget and to the, to the state and that'll, that'll be it for me. Sure, and I may have director Mingle come up here to give a more thorough answer, but basically, you know, Brian has produced. In a different way than oil and gas. So for example, in the Fayetteville Shell where we needed 5000 wells to cover that area to extract the resource. It doesn't work the same in a, a brine for either bromine or lithium. You can basically manage the reservoir with a lot fewer wells. So for example, uh, one of the, the units that the commission approved is about a 6000 acre unit and it only needs 10 wells, over 6000 acres, which, as you know in the Fayetteville Shell, sometimes you had 10 wells within a 1 square mile, uh. So, uh, basically, by doing that pressure maintenance, we don't see the level of drilling activity being near the same because you're bringing the brine up to the ground, processing, stripping out the lithium ions, should that become, uh, productive and then re-injecting that well or the, the spent brine back into the same reservoir. So I think in terms of permitting, in terms of workload, yes, uh, we are looking forward. That's a great opportunity for the state, but we don't anticipate any major impacts to our budget of personnel at this point. time. Obviously, if that changes, we would, we would come back and make that request. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Kavanaugh, you recognize? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm gonna be probably pretty similar questions when I had the last time. This is gonna be on 243 and 2:45, um, and we're looking at fund balances. Again And the reason I ask is, if you look in 243 on spend, you've got 7 years, fund balance, but on 245, based on historic span, you have 20 years worth of fund balance in that one particular, uh, fund account, um, your historic span was in 2223, and it was 1 million. 39,000, but we have a fund balance of 2. I mean 12.3 mil. So my question is, is it time that we look at the way that we restructure what we're charging if we've got this large of a fund balance, or again, what's the methodology of why we need this success. So, we recently transferred $10 million I think 2 years ago, maybe 3 years ago into this fund. That is the anticipated cost to plug the wells that are on the abandoned orphan well plugging find list. So that was an actual number. Now what's happened since then, um, is that we've also received from federal grant through IJ to plug some of those wells. So, um, you know, that, that's been. Something that was unanticipated, but the original $10 million transfer that was at that point in time, the known cost to come and plug and remediate all the existing wells in the state. And how long is those, how long has it been since we knew we had to plug those. Um, well, you know, the program was started. In 2005, I believe, 2007, we started, we, we really have kind of always had a number of whales, but as we plug wells and we discover new whales because a lot of these whales were pre-oil and gas commission. They are old wells that we find all the time. So we're constantly plugging wells and adding new whales to that list, but I would say that static number is somewhere around 400 today. OK, and what's our anticipation to get those 400 plugged, how long it will take. Well, obviously you can only plug whales during certain times of the year for weather conditions, things like that, um, we are focusing on an area around Stevens, Arkansas right now, where we are spending some of that federal money, um, that is. That one will be project that project will have to be completed within, I think the next 2 years because of the 5-year cycle, uh, obviously, we do have, we prioritize those that are creating an environmental impact, but, uh, I would say it's, it's multiple years because when we're on a usual spin cycle, uh, because of employees, because of weather access, because of what we have to do to get in there. It also depends on how much infrastructure we have to build to get in to plug the well, for example, if it's a flooded area and we have to dewater and build road access in that. It's a lot different than just going up to an existing well site plugging a well, but I would say it's an ongoing program that will take, take years to fully plug. With the, I'm assuming with that conversation, you're addressing those that are the what we would call the highest risk first. And then we've got others. OK, all right, thank you I would say most of the, the, the high risk ones have been plugged at this point in time, so it gets a little harder now with the easy access one the low hanging fruit we've taken care of. So now they're getting more and more expensive to get to, so. Representative Springer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll follow up on the well plugging Stevens, Arkansas, Washingtonchita County. I'm familiar with that area. So how many, how many wells you got down there? Like producing whales? No, that's what I've asked that question before, I think we identified and, and we still find some as we're out there working, but I think. Around 230, 226, 230 is our last number that I've seen in terms of wells that we've identified to be plugged, and I think we're at 117 now, 120. 120 of those have been plugged to date. I love to take a field trip with you all one day when y'all go down there. Thank you'll be happy to take you. Seeing no other questions, do I have a motion? I have a motion to have 2. 2. All those in favor. Say ah. I'll post I have it. Well, move on to the next item on the agenda. Thank you. Yep, and for the committees, um. We'll be moving on to Mr. Adam Pin Pitman and Transformation and Shared Services Department. Thank you guys. Um, it's my understanding is we have a letter from the department first, so if you guys would introduce yourself for the record, and then we'll let you explain your letter. Courtney Trailer, chief of staff at TSS. Leslie Fiskin, um, secretary at TSS. James Caldwell, CFO at TSS. Adam Penman, legislative Research. OK Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll take you through the letter, the agency's presented now. This will be under your agenda. And in this letter to summarize. Department of Transformation and Shared Services is asking to combine their 4 bills into a single appropriation. There are 5 sections to be presented today, but 2 of those. The transformation Shared Services department. Starting on page 265 and statewide shared Services on begins on page 305 your manual. Those are already contained within a single bill. And within this, uh. Combined bill. DTSS is also asking to combine. The regular salaries appropriated, uh, related appropriation sections and extra help within. The department transportation Shared Services department. That you'll see Begins on page 265. There are two appropriations there they want to combine. Along with 2 within the Office of statewide Shared Services. That's OPM OSP operations and EBD operations. They're actually to combine those four sections into a single regular salary section appropriation section and extra help. Agency states this will better allow them to shift resources between divisions as needs and priorities change throughout the year. And the other divisions within the bill that would be. Building authority, geographic information systems and Department of Information Systems, those would still keep their regular appropriation sections and regular salaries and extra help as is. Right, and that, uh, concludes my presentation on the letter. Is there anything the agency would like to add? Oh Alright, committee, you've heard the letter. of Beatty. Do you have a question or a motion? question. Do you recognize? When was the last time um that you guys purchased or assisted agencies with purchasing firewalls in walls or cybersecurity tools or services. I'm not sure about agencies, the Department of Education we just recently um started a project to replace the K-12 network firewalls. And, and what process did you use for procurement? Was that an RFP, RFQ? I, I believe it was through a cooperative agreement through a cooperative agreement. Could you explain to me what that is? It's an agreement that is done in another state and then as long as it follows the procurement laws of the state of Arkansas as far as competitiveness of the bidding. Then it's my understanding that we're allowed to sign a participating addendum that gets approved by OSP. And then once that's done, we're allowed to buy off of that. So, is this something that would be along the lines of our approved vendors that we would have in the state or are we, are we still approving our person from our approved vendors or would that deviate. Um, we're going to have Tanya, um, come up here, Freeman, our deputy director on that, uh, Representative Beatty, next on the, uh, or on down the agenda, we're going to be talking to DIS. So if you want to hold that question before we get there. I'm sorry, I was out of the room, so I apologize for my in time. No, it's fine. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Give them one more time. Thank you. So, any more questions on the letter itself? Seeing none do I have a motion to adopt the letter? A motion to have 22. All those in favor. Say ah. The letter has been adopted, so we'll move on to the, uh, department budget and uh would note for Representative Beatty to have a question at DIS. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our first section we're looking at the starts on page 266, the budget summary, this is DTSS administration and Shared Services. This is the administrative. portion of the department. There are 2 appropriations in total. The agency is requesting 4.3 million for FY 26 and 27. And the executive recommendation provides for 4.25 million of the agency request. Our first appropriation on page 267 and 268. This is the secretary's office. Of the Department 8. The department and it is funded by state central services. The agency is requesting appropriation of 762,000 for both years of of the biennium and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. Our second appropriation on page 269 and 270. This is the Administration section. That provides department-wide administrative services. This is also funded by state central services. And the agency is requesting appropriation of 3.5 million for both years of the biennium. The executive recommendation provides for the agency request and also provides a reclassification of 4 positions, the discontinuation of one position and the associated regular salary and match appropriation. Mr. Chair, that concludes my presentation for DTSS administration. See no questions, do we? Representative Beck, you recognize. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's just quick, I've noticed this a substantial increase in the operating expenses, uh, on 27. 70, excuse me, so. What it's that about? I, I, I usually when I look, I look for something else that might possibly. me to that, but I don't see anything. On our operating, so our actual expense in that year was 531,000. We left the budget at the existing level because we do try to do everything we can to limit our expenses since we are out of the state central service fund. um, we feel that there's potential that we could need that with some of the projects that might be going on as a result of some of these, uh, Arkansas forward things So we did want to leave the appropriation at the same level, if possible, although we are doing everything we can every day to limit spending to what's absolutely necessary. Uh, OK. Thank you. And no further questions. Do I have a motion for adoption? You motion executive rec of 2nd, all those are fair, say ah. Opposed I have it. With that, Mister Penman will move forward. Thank you Mr. Chair. Building authorities appropriation summary begins on page 273. This agency or this division has 9 total appropriations, 3 of which have changed levels. The agencies uh requesting 51 million for FY 26 and 27 and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. Would you prefer I go through the only the change levels or would you like to go through all? OK. change levels only. OK. Our first one with change levels appropriation begins on page 274 and 275. This is the Justice Building Construction cash fund. Yeah, this is used exclusively for financing of additions, extensions, and improvements to the Justice building, which includes repayment of debt service obligations. Agencies requesting appropriation of 2 million for each year of the biennium, which includes a reduction of $6 million in their construction line item. You see that on page 275. Agency states this is because the construction phase of the Justice building project has ended. And the ongoing expense is going to be debt service payments on the bond issue. And the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. Our next appropriation will change levels. It's going to be on page 278. These next two change levels, they are the same, same issue. This is our building maintenance. This is funded from rental income and reimbursements. The agency request includes the following change. They're asking to increase $6.5 million in appropriation. To establish a critical maintenance line item. Which is is a reallocation from a light on from me an appropriation they already have our exchange level is getting rid of the existing critical maintenance appropriation section and moving it under this one. And the executive recommendation provides for this agency request and also provides for reclassification of one position, the discontinuation of two positions and associated salary and match. Our next change is going to be on page 286 and 287. This is, as I mentioned, the critical maintenance. Uh, section, the agency request includes that reduction of 6.5 million in the line item, which is then being reallocated to building maintenance that I covered previously. And the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. And Mr. Chair, that concludes my presentation for building Authority. Thank you, Adam. Uh, Representative Kevan, you recognized? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, On 287, which is the appropriation you're doing away with, I'm assuming that the fund balance is going to the new. Appropriation that you're asking for, you're transferring that fund balance in this existing appropriation to the new one. Yes, that is correct. We're, we're combining it, it'll have. They'll have separate fund centers inside of there, but it'll still have the same fund. All we're doing is moving the fund to a new area. OK. And on 289, which is a sustainable building design. Um And I did get the list and I appreciate that, but my question is this, is based upon the information on the financial report you gave about the loans that you've given out on that fund. I think it shows that we've given out through the life of the program, 17 loans. And 10 have been paid and we have 7 that are still active. Is that correct? I believe so. OK. And when's, I guess the newest loan came out in we just gave to ASU for what, 2.9 mL? Yes. And when did we do that? Uh, and Laidlaw will be up to you. Please give us your name, all for the record. Thank you. And the director of the division of Building Authority. Uh, Representative Kavanaugh, I believe that a loan agreement was just signed last month, uh, they don't anticipate that project actually starting until after the new fiscal year, so it will be FY 26 before they start drawing any of those funds. OK. And it looks like to me, most of this is higher education that uses this loan, this fund balance, is that correct? Yes, ma'am. In the early years it was used by a few other agencies, but it's pretty much turned out to be higher eds at this point. And when did we start this? Actual I think it was 2011 we uh since 2011 we've only given out 17 loans. Yes, ma'am. Uh, the program has, uh, the criteria for that program is very restrictive, um, the projects have to be over $250,000. It does have to be for a state-owned facility, but it, the project has to show that they will be able to reduce their energy consumption by at least 10% and um some of the other departments just are not comfortable with projects or don't initiate those sort of projects, but the higher ads do have much greater needs on their campuses, but we had limited our, we didn't know the demand on the program early so we limited our loans to no more than $2 million we could probably do a loan for someone that would take all of our fund balance, but we're trying to make sure that it's available for those that do need it, such as maybe some other departments that have some projects they would like to do on their state-owned facilities. OK, so my question is on the fund balance, on the loans, we just gave the one to ASU. Yes, ma'am. What was the one prior to that? Probably may have been ASU. I think it is actually the list you have. It was UALR and what date? The list doesn't have dates on it, why not have dates um that one was probably, uh, during COVID or early COVID, um we don't do these loans every year. I guess that's what my question is the ars or those uh entities come to us and ask for those loans, and the loan repayment is what's refueling the funds. All right. And We have 11.9 million in and you think we, we have loans enough to use that fund balance, but y'all don't use it selectively, I guess. Yes, ma'am, yes ma'am. And It's all available to all agencies. I guess that's what I'm saying like when I'm looking at the list, like I said, it's actually turned into higher ed loan is what it's turned into it has to be a state-owned facility. Yes, ma'am, uh, and at least a project of $250,000 or more. And I'm assuming we're not charging ourselves interest. We are not, it's interest free. OK, thank you. Thank you, Representative Wootton, you're reckon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, on page 273. Sustainable building design revolving loan, is that what Representative Kavanaugh was talking about so you didn't give any loans in, uh, the last year. The one that we just did with uh ASU was the one that we've done here more recently. Yes, sir. Well, it shows, it shows in 23, 24 this year was it shows 0. We, it was just signed in FY 25. Yes, sir. And uh that comes out of the 10 million 739 you have budgeted. Yes sir So you just continue that on. What is, what is a sustainable building design. It was a program that was started back, I believe, in 2009 is when the legislation came out for that. It was a program of funding opportunity or funding option for departments that had a state-owned facilities that they needed to make some energy efficiency upgrades. It was all in an effort to improve the efficiencies of our operations for state-owned facilities. There was actually a task force that developed that program, thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right, members, no more questions. Do I have a motion for executive Rick. Have a motion, have a 2nd with all those hands, everybody all in favor say ah all posed, I have it. With that, We'll move on. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our next section begins on page 293. This is for the geographic Information Systems Division. This provide agency provides geographic information services and data to cities, counties, states, and federal agencies, private businesses and citizens. See they're funded primarily through general revenue fund balances and trust funds, there are two appropriations with the agency requesting 3 million for FY 26 and FY 27 and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. Our first appropriation begins on page 294 with summary on page 295. This is the Geostore and framework. This is used to carry out uh duties, responsibilities and authorities of the GIS board. And to create update and maintain the Arkansas spatial data infrastructure. Agency is continuing or requesting to continue appropriation of 1.2 million each year of the biennium. And the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. Our next appropriation on page 296 with summary on 297. This is the Operations appropriation. This is funded by general revenue through miscellaneous agencies. The agency is requesting appropriation in the amount of $1.8 million in FY 26 and 27. And the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. And Mr. Chair, that concludes my presentation for GIS. Thank you, seeing no questions. Do I have a motion for executive? Have a motion. I have a 2nd. All those in favor, say ah. I posed as habits with that, we'll move on to, uh, DIS or information systems, and as we finish this one, Representative Beatty, if you hit your Mike, we'll get your question answered. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Information systems, their summary is on page 300. This agency provides IT guidance to state government and includes a centralized service bureau, statewide network, technical guidance, procurement services, and others, other services. You'll see they're funded primarily by non-revenue receipts, uh, fund balances and federal revenue. The agents division has two appropriations, one of which has a change level. Agency is requesting $96 million for FY 26 and 27 and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. Our appropriation begins on page 301 and summary on 302, this is their operations appropriation. The agency is requesting appropriation of $92.9 million or 92.9 million in FY 26 and 93 million in FY 27, which includes uh following changes. They're asking to transfer out one position. To statewide shared services. They're asking uh to continue a million dollars in capital outlay to ensure their division has sufficient capital outlay appropriation. And they're asking to reduce $5 million in data processing services as the agency states previously this was used to pay information technology contractors, but now there's a statewide contract which agencies will pay contractors directly. The executive recommendation provides for the agency request and also provides for the reclassification of 3 positions, the discontinuation of 34 positions and associated salary and match appropriation. Our second appropriation is on page begins on page 303. This is their equipment acquisition. Appropriation This is utilized for for major equipment acquisition or IT technology improvements. And is funded by the Information Technology reserve Fund. The agency is requesting to continue appropriation of 3.5 million each year of the biennium and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. And Mr. Chair, that concludes my presentation for DIS. Representative Beatty, you recognize? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, again, going back to um The equipment purchases and uh I, I, I've received some information is, is it a NASO contract that you're utilizing, uh, could you, could you explain some of that exactly what that is. I spent, spent some time this week talking about procurement. Uh, so I want to understand, uh, this process. So if you could educate me a little. Sure, Jay Harton interim director, chief operating officer at DIS, um, so. We utilize um their state contracts through NASO and multiple vendors can sign up on those contracts, um, so that, you know, it's, um, we, we, um, standardize from a DIS perspective on what equipment we utilize so that we don't have to support. And train our people across multiple types of equipment, so, um, Recently we did do the K-12, um, firewall and switch upgrade, um, and we utilize that contract. We are, um, currently BIS has over 1500. Pieces of equipment throughout the state for state entities to support the network. How much, how much was purchased under the NASO contract. Uh, the K-12 project was From an equipment perspective was about $2.4 million for 271 firewalls and 271 switches. And did you directly communicate with the school districts on what equipment that, um, that they wanted or needed in those districts. Uh, no, since we, since DIS supports this equipment, we, um, standardized on Cisco equipment, which is what we use across, um, for the state network as well besides the K-12 network that we manage. And that's at the direction of the Department of Education. We did consult with them on the equipment that we were procuring. And was all the equipment from a single vendor? Yes, sir, it was, um, from Cisco. All right. So every, every, every school district that would be Cisco equipment that you. That's correct. Um, can you tell me what source of funds were used to purchase this equipment. Uh, we build that directly to Department of education and as far as agreement on the price that you paid for that. How did that process work? Um, so ADE gives us a target of how much, um, connectivity per student and so then we work with ADE to get how many students are at each, um. Location And so then we come up with, you know, the size of the connection that we needed each, um, School district and so from that perspective then we determine um. What size firewall we'll be able to handle that. So outside of the NASPO contract did, did we seek any proposals from any other vendors. Not on this since we were already standardized on Cisco across the board, um, we just continued with that vendor. OK. Well, at, at least it's been educational. I thank you for answering my questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think representative for being patient, Representing Meeks, you'll recognize. Thank you, you know, getting way over here to your far right, um, the, uh, looking at your, your budget request, there's a difference in personnel between you and the executive of what looks like, I don't know, about 30 or so positions. Um, are y'all in in agreement with the executive on the reduction of those 34 positions or, uh, do you want to plead your, your case here on why we, why we need to keep those. Uh, no, sir, we're good with that recommendation. We've, um, you know, over the last several years, we've kind of looked at the services that DIS is providing to the other entities, and we've, um, one of those was the application development and we've seen a lot of the agencies. Instead of doing customized applications they're going to what we consider commercial off the shelf, um, so we've kind of right now we're only in a support role of any of the applications that we've written previously. And then also some of the reduction is um we're GS positions, they weren't IT specific and we've been able to not basically fill those because we're getting, um, our physical management out of the shared services. OK, sounds good. Um, and then, um, could you, uh, grab me after we're done here this morning. I want to visit with you, just a few things offline regarding the upcoming session. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Representative Crawford, you recognize. Actually I'm, uh, standing in for I will come back to you because I go to my committee members first, but thank you. Oh, OK, we'll go ahead and hit your button again and I'll let you go. I didn't have a note. I usually have a note on my desk for that. So go ahead, Mr. Riley. So, uh, I just wanna, since we're touching on the uh um the uh. Department of Education refitting the schools with firewalls, um, are you guys also handling all the firewall, uh, uh, purchasing and procurement and uh management for all of the other divisions. Uh, no, sir, we're not, so there's no real centralized, uh, cybersecurity within the state, um, we do have the state cybersecurity officer, uh, Gary Vance, um, but it's not required for the executive branch departments to. Um, go through us to get their firewalls or anything. Most of them do, but there are some one-offs where, you know, they don't, um, nor do we manage all of them either. So each department has its own. Um, security operations center, it's own, um, Expert level individuals that are going through the process of ensuring that our, uh, facilities, our technology, our data is secure on the backside, but there's no organization between that correct. I mean, unless they just come and ask, but they're, you know, we do, um, we don't have any audit or compliance authority to, you know, to go in and look at these firewalls or the rules that are there. So, so help me, uh, remind me, I know that, uh, Representative Meeks, uh, presented a bill, uh, last session that we passed that provided, uh, for a lot of, uh, uh, uh, authority within that realm specifically for the, uh, the education and to provide for. Uh, a number of, uh, uh, security policies, um, but are you saying that those do not apply anywhere else? Well, the, the Act 504, yes, we have put in, um, I think there's 5 policies or standards that we've rolled out to the executive branch, um, but we rely on, um, legislative audit to do those audits. Um, I don't believe it gave us really any authority to come in and ensure that they're that they were actually advising. we have received everybody's, um, cybersecurity policy that was due October 1st, so we have received those and Gary and his team are reviewing those currently. OK. Um, as it pertains to budgeting, I guess where, where I'm going with this is I'm wondering about um. If if you don't have a mandate at this point, then obviously there wouldn't be a need to budget for those kinds of resources and ensuring that, uh, that oversight is there, um. I, I'd like to get with you as well after this and have another conversation. Sure, and you know, Arkansas Ford were, they've pulled IT as its own work stream out of Arkansas forward. So we're looking forward to that IT strategy, uh, finalization in the next month. OK, good. Thank you. Representative Wootton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is on page 302 where, where is the income showed where you have the contract with the Department of Education. That would show up in the non-revenue receipts. It's the billing revenue that we received from the department. Yes. 66 million, does that come directly from them or is it mixed in with some other fees. It would be mixed in with other fees and actually for that 66 million, it wouldn't be included because the payment was made in. The following fiscal year. Oh, the fall, OK. Yeah, it was made at the beginning of this fiscal year. Yeah You give them positions in the exact recommendation, but you have 77 vacancies currently. What, what, what area is that in? Um, like, primarily those are in our kind of our physical department that we rolled up. There's some of our lower graded IT positions that we um we run a command DIS is 24 by 7, 365, we at least have somebody. At both of the data centers 24 by 7, so we're having a little bit of a hard time filling some of those positions also since we're cost recovery, um, you know, we don't, if we don't have the money, we can't hire people and we're, I mean, we are running very, very lean right now, um, at some point as we, you know, grow, um, also we can't make a profit naturally we can keep 60 days working capital. Um, so we're trying to, as we build that up, bring on some more people, but if, you know, nobody has to use our services except for the network, so, you know, it's a balancing act. So the 42, 42 of them have been vacant for 2 years or longer. Is that where the 34 is coming out of, or is that going to be throughout the agency, throughout the department. I believe it's throughout. I did look 11 of those positions, um. Would still be removed based on the. Uh, spreadsheet about the 796, the unbudgeted ones, only 11 of those were on budget, the rest were still budgeted. OK. Is it a competitive situation or is it just a lack of people with the the a lot of it is a lack of funding. Like, lack of funding. Yes, yes, we've been working to course correct since I came in a couple years ago. The um You have with the current numbers that I have on the accounts were 43% of your positions or over 2 years old. Is that correct? That's what you showed, you showed 64 and 64 of 149 is 43%. Yes, sir. We had, um, 64 have been vacant for more than 2 years 2 years old. And then IT that's 42 they make 42 and then 14 of that is in uh shared services. Um, 14 of that is in Shared Services, yes, but you've merged those two together. We we we realized any efficiency by merging those two, shared services one for the department and one for the state. And if you will tell me what the statewide. Shared services, uh, what does that cover or what is that exactly? Was the each agency has shared services and then we have a statewide shared services and now you're combining yours into the statewide, so. Yeah, so ours, the administrative staff in is the, the shared services, so the administrative staff for the department, the statewide shared services are the OSP, OPM, and EBD staff and M&R staff and those were, yeah. Uh, and, and the reason for combining all that is. To help with a little bit of flexibility so that we can move people around between those divisions as needed to react to different priorities, so like if OSP had some big project we could potentially hire from that pool to help them out. Can, can you put a dollar figure on efficiency of by making the move. Not at this time. Will you have one later? We can, I can try, I can't guarantee. All right, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Representative Beatty, you recognize. I have motion at proper time, Mr. Chair. It's proper time. A flag, but a motion executive. That's a proper motion, proper flag, do I have a second? I have a second. All those in favor, say ah. I posed, I have it with that we'll move on to Mister Penman. We can gain some room at the table. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our final section with DTSS. This is going to be statewide shared services. This begins on page 3006 for their appropriation summary. The agency has 7 appropriations, 2 of which have changed levels related to personnel. The agency is requesting 20 million for FY 26 and 27 and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. First appropriation on page 307 and 308. This is the. Shared Services EBD commission. This is for payment of stipends and mileage to commission members of both the public employee health benefit advisory commission and the state employee health benefit advisory commission. Agencies is requesting to continue appropriation in the amount of $100,000 each year of the biennium and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. Next on page 309 and 310. This is OPM and OSP. Operations. This provides for operations of DTSS OPM and state procurement. Agency is requesting appropriation of 7.4 million each year of the biennium, which includes the following changes. You'll see those on page 309. As to transfer out two positions to EBD their operations with regular salaries and personal services matching appropriation. And then transferring in the one position we saw earlier from DIS. With related salary and match changes. The executive recommendation provides for the agency request and also provides for reclassification of 4 positions, the discontinuation of 3 positions and associated salary and matched. Next on page 311 and 312. This is. OPM OSB EBD miscellaneous cash fund. This is used to provide spending authority for various activities like training programs, state procurement seminars, vendor fees, etc. which is funded by registration fees collected from participants. Agency is requesting to continue appropriation of 3.4 million each year of the biennium, and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request along with the discontinuation of 6 positions and associated salary and match changes. Next on page 313 and 314. This is the Uh, corporate travel card and purchasing card program. This is funded by a miscellaneous revolving fund and used for rebates from vendor banks and distribution to participating agencies associated with this. Agency is requesting to continue appropriation in the amount of $4 million each year of the biennium and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request on the next page this is our marketing and redistribution. This provides for operation of their marketing and redistribution program. With funding provided via fees charged for goods and services offered through the M&R warehouse. Agencies requesting to continue appropriation of 1.3 million each year of the biennium. And the executive recommendation provides for the agency request along with the reclassification of one position, the discontinuation of one position and the associated salary and match chain. Our next appropriation on page 317 and 318. This is Employee benefits division operations. The agency is requesting appropriation of 3.4 million each year of the biennium. This includes the following change that transfer of two positions. From, uh, OPM operations with related salary and match changes. And the executive recommendation provides for the agency request along with the reclassification of two positions, the discontinuation of two positions and associated salary and match appropriation. And our final appropriation for shared services on 319 and 3/20. This is the IT expenses appropriation. Which provides for data processing, development, implementation, enhancement and operation of IT. The agency is requesting to continue appropriation of $600,000 each year of the biennium and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. And Mr. Chair, that concludes my presentation for statewide Shared Services. Representative Meeks, you're recognized for a question. Thank you again, your far right. Uh, just one question, uh, there's a discrepancy between what your request is and the executive in personnel, uh, looks like about difference of 1213 different people. And so I'm just gonna give you this opportunity to make a pitch if you think you need those people, why you need those people or if you're good with the executive recommendation as is. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. We're good with the recommendation as is. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll move executive right. It's proper motion. I have a second. All those in favor, say ah. I'll post Let's have it. With that members, we have no other business on the agenda. We stand adjourned for the day. There is a. JB JBC ALC personnel committee meeting at 1:30. So if you're on that committee, please be present. Thank you.