ALC-JBC Budget Hearings

AI recap

Transcript

I call this meeting of the Joint Budget Committee to order. If y'all would please find U of C. Have no reports of communications, we will start out with the Election Commission, Mr. Chris Madison. Okay, if y'all would please turn your mics on, introduce yourself for the record. Good morning committee chairman, my name is Chris Madison, the director for the State Board of Election Commissioners. Weyland Cooper, legal counsel for the State Board of Election Commissioners. Adam Penman, Bureau of Legislative Research. You recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, State Board of Election Commissioners, we're going to start on page 351 and their appropriations summaries on page 353. Why are you getting that? Bring your mic up a little closer please, or you better start off. We couldn't hear the page numbers. So page 353 is going to be the appropriations summary for election commissioners. The agency administers state supporting party primary and special elections, develops resources to educate and assist candidates in county election administrators, monitors compliance with state and federal election laws, investigates complaints, and distributes funds to counties for these elections. To see the agency has three total appropriations and 9 million authorized for FY27, the agency is requesting 9.1 million for both years of the biennium and the executive recommendation provides for the agency's requests. The first appropriation we'll look at, that's on page 354, this is nonpartisan general elections, the board is tasked with funding nonpartisan general elections and establishing reasonable filing fees, and those nonpartisan office filing fees are what funds of this particular appropriation. And they have language authorizing them to transfer this to their operations appropriation if funding is needed. The agency's requesting to continue appropriation of 1.6 million for both years of the biennium and the executive recommendation provides for the agency's requests. Our next appropriation is going to be on page 356. This is their operations appropriation, their summaries on page 357. This is the, provides for the operations of the agency that I had mentioned before. This is funded by a general revenue, and the agency's requesting appropriation and the amount of 1.2 million for both years of the biennium, and they're asking for general revenue funding of 876,000 for both years of the biennium. And the executive recommendation provides for the agency's request. Our final appropriation for the election commission, this is on page 358, and their summary on page 359. This is election expenses. This appropriation provides reimbursement to counties for the expenses of state-supported political party primary elections, special primaries, and statewide special elections. This appropriation is also funded by general revenue, and the agency also has carry forward the language authorized for any remaining funds between the fiscal years. The agency requests to continue their appropriation of 6.3 million for both years of the biennium, and they're asking for 4.3 million in general revenue funding for FY2028 only because of that carry forward special language. And you'll see this carry forward amount is on page 360. And Mr. Chair, that concludes my presentation for election commissioners. Okay, thank you very much. We have a few questions in the queue. Representative Kavanaugh. Well, somebody. Okay, Representative Wooden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here this morning. My first question is you requested 6.3 million, one year, and 4.1 million in other years. Is that because of the difference in the elections from year to year? Yes, that's exactly. We have funded all at the beginning of the biennium, and then the way the election and the reimbursement goes, we carry that money forward into the next year to pay for it. Like right now, we've still got probably $2 million worth of reimbursements that we're processing right now from the market. The next question, if I may, Mr. Chairman, is your actual expenditures were 4.424,000, but you requested 6.3 million. What's the difference between what you requested and what your actual expenditures? So we have special language in our appropriations that if the 4.2 million dollars is insufficient to pay for the primaries and all the special elections, and it's not going to be this year. So we have the ability to go to the Treasury Department and say we need more money moved over from another account up to that 6 point for funding and elections. So for example, this year with all of the special elections and the statewide runoff and all of that stuff, the 4 million dollars that we have currently on hand to pay for this stuff is going to be insufficient. So I will have to go to the Treasury and say, hey, we need some more money over. We do that towards the end when we know. But that's why we appropriated that amount funded at this amount because we have a gap that we can get from the Treasury resolve. One more question. Do you evaluate your positions each year as to whether they're needed or not? We have nine offices, nine people. So I've got- You're not overloaded. No, sir. In fact, I could actually use one more, but we'll work about that later. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Representative Collins. Hey, thank you, Mr. Chair. So with Representative Wooden's question, about only 424,000 being spent in fiscal 26, I'm still not quite clear on your response to that. Are you saying maybe because it was an off year, there weren't a lot of election expenses, or why would the 424,000? I mean, you're saying that you didn't have enough to cover 4 million, but you only spent 400,000? Okay. Let me back up- I live in the world of- I look at both fiscal years as a single time period, and the primary election in March of 2026. Well, that fiscal year ends June of 2026. The problem is, is we don't get the reimbursement requests from the counties, but it's continuing and ongoing. We still get the packets. So we have a board meeting next week, for example, where we're appropriating or authorizing almost a million dollars in reimbursements. That's from the FY26, from this last year's election, but it'll be paid in this fiscal year. That's why. So the way the cycle works for the election, the reimbursement requests, and then when we're actually funding it. So about how much do you think you'll spend in fiscal 27? Maybe that's the question. I had, well, we went into fiscal 27, and I don't remember what the carry forward was on the elections account. We have 3.9 million, and that's probably not going to be enough to pay for all the reimbursements in fiscal 27. So the Lions share, even if the election occurred in fiscal 26, the Lions share what you pay will be in fiscal 27. Correct. That's why you need this carry forward. That's exactly. Okay. Because it's just the sequence, because there's a large packet that the counties have to submit for us. And then we have to go through for our rule to reimburse the counties, the cost of that. And we're working anywhere from 15 to 25 reimbursement requests per board meeting that we have, and that's just a process. And with the special, the statewide runoff, and then all of the other specials, we have to reimburse the counties for our rule for the cost of that. I figure we're going to be, before it's all said and done, $4.6 million on reimbursement cost from the 26 cycle. Got it. Thank you. Okay, Senator Flowers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to note, we're in your summary or your budget proposal, our fines reflected. Talking about like our penalty fines. Penalties, fines. We don't generally impose fines. We have not historically, although that is something the board has asked about recently. I'm thinking of the ethics commission, excuse me. Yeah, we don't do that. Okay. That's a different committee. I think they're up next. But the election commission does not collect any penalty or fines. We have the ability to, at the end of an investigation or part of our complaint process. But our board has not taken steps to do that in any case. I think we've had one case in my seven years here where we had fines. It was like $100, and it just goes into miscellaneous revenue. Okay, thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. Okay, seeing no others, you have a motion, except the executive motion, second, all in favor say aye. Motion is approved. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right, we'll move on to claims commission. If you would please turn your mics on, introduce yourself for the record. Good morning, I'm Micah Tucker, attorney specialist for the claims commission. We look closer. We'll let Micah look closer to that file. Thank you. Jennifer Rook, Bureau of Legislative Research. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're going to look at the claims commission budget request that can be found on page 362 of your manual. The claims commission is a quasi-judicial body established to hear claims against the state of Arkansas. And it's agencies, boards, commissions, institutions, unless otherwise exempted by statute. On page 363, this is the department appropriation summary. The commission has a total of three appropriations. They are requesting about 3.3 million for each year of the biennium, and the executive recommendation provides for the agency request. The first appropriation you can find on page 365. This is their operations appropriation. It is funded from the State Central Services Fund. The agency requests and executive recommendation are about 1.02 million for each year of the biennium. The second appropriation you can find on page 367. This is their various claims appropriation. This appropriation handles the payment of small claims and debt benefit awards. It is funded by the miscellaneous revolving fund. The agency requests and the executive recommendation are 2.25 million for each year of the biennium. And then their last appropriation you can find on page 369. This is the fire fighter benefit review panel, and it is funded from the State Central Services Fund. This appropriation provides for expense reimbursements for the review panel. The agency requests and the executive recommendation are 8,000 for each year of the biennium. And this concludes my presentation, Mr. Chair. Thank you. A question from the Rep. Regent Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Over here by the pillar, I've got two questions if that's okay, Mr. Chairman. The first one is on the various claims that the 2.25 million request, no problems with that. My question is, is your actual expenses were 2.173 million? So that's pretty tight to that 2.2 million dollar maximum. So my question is, is that enough overhead to make sure we're able to pay all of our expenses there? Or do we need to allow for a little more room there? Was this with respect to the CCP? Yeah, the various claims, miscellaneous revolving fund. If needed, the commission will seek additional appropriation for those. Okay, so they would have to come back before the legislature then. That's correct. Okay. But as of right now, unless something unforeseen happens, you believe the 2.2 million dollars is going to be enough. I believe so. Okay, then the second question is just on the firefighter benefit review panel, 8,000 again, no real issue here, but I noticed that there was no expenditures of that $8,000. And so just curious why that is. I believe we haven't had requests for those. We are only we only administer those based on a request from the firefighters panels, and we just have not had that. I do know in the last time you had one was I don't believe that we have had one at least in recent years. So do you know if this is something we would even still need then we always anticipate that it could happen. Okay, all right, like I just just just curious if we don't need it and then let's get rid of it. But if you think there's a need there, then we guess we'll hold on to it. All right, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Representative Wooden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here. I have two questions if I may, Mr. Chairman. The first one is the 10 positions filled, which is an average of 82,700 a year. Is that adequate? I'm sorry. I mean, what do they do? Those positions are the commission staff and then also our commissioners. Those are the commissioners that hear the claims. Okay, and do you evaluate each year your positions? I believe that the director and the commission evaluate the, yes, you mean the need for them or like employee evaluations. All right, thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry, sir, seeing no other questions to have a motion for executive recommendation, motion of second. All in favor say aye. Thank you, passes. Thank you all very much. Moving on to ethics commission. Good morning, if you would please turn your mics on, introduce yourself for the record. Jill Rogers-Barram, Arkansas Ethics Commission. Cindy Jones, Arkansas Ethics Commission, Physical Support Coordinator. Angela Walls, Bureau of Legislative Research. You recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you'll turn to page 370 in your manual, we're going to talk about ethics commission. Sorry about that, sir. Page number one again. 370. Thank you. All right. This agency is responsible for enforcing standards of conduct and disclosure laws for those involved in the process of governing. They have one appropriation of $1.15 million. That's 100% journal revenue funded from the Mussoliniist Agency's fund. On page 371 and 372 is their only appropriation, which is for their operations. They're requesting an increase to a total of $1.28 million, which is about $120,000. In fiscal year 28 and $1.26 million in fiscal year 29. The agency's requesting a $20,000 increase in fiscal year 28 only for operating expenses for the purchase of desktop and laptop computers. And the executive provides for the agency's request with the exception of the increase in operating expenses for fiscal year 29. And Mr. Chair, this concludes my presentation for the ethics commission. Thank you. Senator Flowers, I recognize you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to know where in your appropriation summary are your budget requests or fines and penalties shown. Is it a funding source? Thank you for that question, ma'am. The ethics commission does not get to keep those fines. Those are turned over to the treasure for the general treasury. We don't get to keep those. Well, but you take them in. Yes, and they're given just to the state of Arkansas. They're not part of our fund that funds our agency. Well, I'm trying to figure out, because I've been subject to paying a fine, hefty fine, based on some legislation we pass. It made no sense since I had a zero balance and tried to close the account out. But the checks that I wrote totaling $2,000 were to the ethics commission. So I'm trying to figure out I don't see anything about transfer of funds that are paid to the ethics commission. Why not? I don't believe we actually have the ability to I think that check was probably turned over to. But it was paid to the Arkansas ethics commission is my point. So let me try to help you out on this. I want to ask you if they would have someone that could answer that question and contract those funds. If you would come to tell somebody for the day. Oh, yeah, yeah. I asked a book. There you go. You would please turn your mic on and introduce yourself. It's my understanding that when those funds come in, they're just deposited the ethics commission deposit deposits, the receipts into the state treasury into the general revenue fund. So they do not retain them. They do not what? They do not retain the funds. So where do you see that in the whole scheme of the budget proposals? You would not see it in ethics. You'd have to look at it from the general revenue collection statement that we put out. So let's say received from Arkansas ethics, fines or penalties. Because that report is so extensive, it's probably summarized under just general fines and fees. So you would not see it broken out independently. Well, I'd like to see something that says the total amounts that have been ordered paid and received by way of the ethics commission. Is that possible? Yes, ma'am. That is possible. We can get that for you. I'd like to. And you get that to the staff and staff. We get it out to us. Yes. We can get it to the staff. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Flowers. Representative Meag. Thank you. So my question is the $20,000 for the computers that y'all are requesting that the executive has denied evidently. Tell us about the need for the computers as my first question. So try to convince us to add that $20,000 back. And then my second question is, have you contacted the Office of State Technology about the need for this new equipment? Because under a law we passed, I think all of that's got to go through them anyway. So if y'all reached out to them about this need. Yes, sir. Those are great questions. Thank you. So we did reach out to the Office of State Technology. Actually, one of our staff attorneys doesn't have a working computer. And they loaned us a laptop to help with that attorney until we can afford to replace their computer. Our computers have reached their end of life. Turn around. They're not built to last. Computers are not. We did reach out to John Mennifey at Office of State Technology asking for numbers. We weren't able to get those on in time to come with the $20,000. So our fiscal coordinator did her own research. We did get the numbers back from OST and they actually suggested that it would cost more money than $20,000 to replace all of the computers that we needed. We've got to the microphone that we use for our commission meetings was donated by staff employee. We've got two employees using printers that they brought from home. We've got an employee using an extra monitor that they brought from home. So last year all of our computers were working unbearably slow and we were very grateful that an OST employee came in and did something to them. To make them go faster and to not stall and to not freeze. So we were very grateful to that. They put a bandaid on it and it really did give us a little bit more time. And so OST is also sounds like recommending that this needs to be done. Yes, we submitted a technology plan and that was part of our technology plan and it was approved. And then do you not have any normal operating budget where you allow for this so that you can kind of keep pace gradually over time with technology changes versus kind of we've hit it wall. Suddenly we need to fix all this stuff. That's a great question. We operate on a shoestring budget. Sure. There's only about I think 70 to 75% of our budget is already predetermined every year with rent, with the insurance for the space, paying office estate technology. So there ends up being just enough room barely to we end up rationing postage by the end of the fiscal year. So to replace all of the computers at once know we would just ask for the money as needed. And if it's not granted we'll just have to replace them one at a time when an emergency happens. So I guess that's kind of the point that I'm making is perhaps going forward in your operating expenses. Maybe need to increase that line item or request a larger line item there so that you would have the ability to replace one or two or three a year as needed instead of kind of the situation we've gotten ourselves into. That's kind of what I'm recommending. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Rice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here. What I wanted to touch on is you have served as interim director of that exhibition. When was that put in place? My first day of service was January 1st. Former director retired the end of the year efficiently. Yes, sir. Were there savings in the director not being appointed you were already at the exhibition correct? Yes, sir. I've been there since 2012, I believe. Okay. And the director was not replaced. You were appointed to be interim director. Yes, sir. Was there anybody else hard in your place? No, sir, not as of as of today. So we've been understanding. That's one last person for 10 months. Yes, sir. Is the commission saved that money? That's a great question. It is my understanding that we no longer have access to salary savings. But that might be a question for our fiscal workers. Okay, we'll get into more of that in JPR. And again, you had no control over the director retiring and you getting appointed. And I hope that I've been pushing to get something done. And we'll, again, we'll talk about that in JPR what I want to know. So you've told me you all don't get the savings of the director being gone for 10 months, which to me ought to go to your agency. You do work on a few string budget always have. And we'll find out that. Do you have the necessary funds? I mean, I'm going to have to ask this question. Do you have a backlog in claims that is elevated from normal? Do you feel like? Because we have been understaffed this year. And we've had an increase in complaints filed. And we've had lots of great time helping county municipal and school board candidates on the telephone more than pastures because they're filing location change from Secretary of State's office. So we spent a lot more time on the phone, helping those folks get transitioned. Some of our cases are older than they would we would like them to be. But none of them are legally too old. Okay. And I'm sure that fluctuates as I'm sure for years. Yes sir. No control. But you've been one person short for 10 months. Yes sir. So we'll talk a little bit more about that and how that came about now. But I appreciate you serving as interim director and best job you can. And I'm for efficiencies and where we can cut staff and all. But I've never seen where you all have had too much staff. And again, we'll come up on election season. And I can assure you there'll be filings and all that that come through. And you need need somebody in place. The director is expected to get appointed and that salary one that being needed. At some point this body appropriated money for us to have a full staff of 11 people. For this fiscal year. And we have notified our budget analyst that we've been given permission to proceed with. Trying to become fully staffed. Okay. Again, you didn't have anything to do with that, but it's 10 months to get it done. Thank you, Mr. here. Thank you, sir. Okay. Next on the agenda is representative Wooten. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe Senator Ross touched my question. The report I have showed that you had 11 positions, but you say you have 10. So is the one that's vacant is for the director. Yes, sir, on paper, yes. I was appointed to serve as the interim director. They made that decision in November or December of 2025. And then I've been serving since January. So we've been short of fourth staff attorney effectively for the workload since that time. Okay. So we have been one employee short. Okay, so your average is 74,000 a year with 11 positions. And with 10, it would be 82. So which one are you using? I mean, you use my reports. Your report says you have 10 employees in your authorized 11 and it says that you had 11. So what which average are we using? Are you using 82,000 as the average pay or are you using 74? Oh, that's not a quote. I don't know. I'm not sure that we look at it as average pay. I don't. That might be a question for budget. Well, if you're not using your total budget, I think as well as Senator Ross saying, you're one position vacant. Yes, sir. Okay. And do you evaluate all your positions each year? Yes, sir. But what is your share of the new shared service payment to the state to do work for you? Do you know what that amount is? I believe it is. One agency reported 260,000 a year. Do you know what yours is? It's around 3,000. Do you recall the exact number? I'm not. We're a much smaller agency. So it was a much smaller number. I believe it was a couple of hundred. I believe in the amount to the shared services division. Is that correct? We will be required to do it this year. It's my understanding. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Senator Love. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going back to the issue that Senator Flowers raised. That is a little concerning that you all would collect money for fines, but not to record them. So are you saying that you collect the money and you don't record it anywhere? No, sir. We recorded multiple places. Okay. Because the question was, do you know the amount that you are collecting? You said no. I'm just figuring if you collect the money, even though that you had to report it to the Treasury or give it to the Treasury or whatever you had to do, is that are you actually keeping record of the amount of money that you're collecting? Yes, we do. We do collect the money once we receive it and we record it. Okay. So you could give us an annual amount of the fines that you have collected. Yes. Well, I was confused because that was the question she asked. We were not asked that question. We were asked how it was, if it was written to the ethics commission, why is it not on the form? If the check was to the payee, we don't deposit it in an ethics commission bank account. We hand it over to the State Treasurer. But we do record all of it. We do keep track of how much we collect. Okay, I thought that was the question I was asked. Okay. All right, Mr. Chair. I'm fine. Thank you. Representative Long. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I heard you say a moment ago that you're over here. That you were paying so much for Brent. I believe are you all renting an office from like a private outfit? Oh, no, so we rent from the State of Arkansas. Okay. I just wanted to double check. Thank you very much. Senator D's. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate you being here. And this might have been stated, but I want to go back on Senator Rice's train of questions. With your role, you've been as interim for about a year. Sounds like. What is the timeline or plan? Has anything been communicated to you about what that looks like for the actual director position? Or is there any direction about removing interim to full-time filling this position? What is the plans inside that agency? That's a great question, sir. Thank you. We were actually given notice late last week from OPM and the hiring freeze committee that we have been released from the hiring freeze. So we've been in touch with our OPM recruiter to proceed with becoming fully staffed. And so with that, that was last week, you said? Yes, late last week. So with that direction, you would move towards back filling that last position that you have. And then what's the process of if it's you or another candidate to be the director of this agency? I believe the positions advertised like any other employee with a state of Arkansas. So we should see some movement in this agency. We're optimistic, yes, sir. Okay, all right, thank you. Senator Dotson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Back on the subject of the computers, does every staff member have their own individual computer allocated to them? Yes, sir. Other desktop or last laptop? Yes, sir. So we're talking about 11 devices and other computer equipment. So I have you considered adding whatever that amount is into your ongoing budget amount, like $5,000 a year, if you're asking for 20 right now to replace all of them. How many of those are you actually looking at replacing over the course of this next year with that 20,000? So all 11 devices plus, I guess printers or whatever it was you were mentioning. So to make that on a rotating ongoing basis, you wouldn't need 20,000 annually, which I know you're just asking it for one, one of the two years. But if we were to do the 20,000 in this first year, but then add an extra amount, what would that extra amount to be for an ongoing operation and maintenance expense for those types of technology? I would think roughly like 5,000 would be good. Okay, thank you. Okay, next on Senator Flowers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I heard you mentioned in response to, I think Senator Rice is questioning me. All that you could legally look at in terms of complaints. Are there statute of limitations on the complaints that come into your office? What is it? So the statute of limitations effectively, and that's not the exact term they use, but it's four years from the activity took place. The complaint must be filed within four years. And then we have generally 240 days to complete the investigation. And if it's necessary, we can extend that in extra 60 days. Okay, thank you. And is that that's a rule within your agency? That's in the statute. Okay, thank you. Representative Meeks. I just have a motion of the proper time, Mr. Chairman. Senator Tucker. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've heard a discussion about the executive position and backfilling the position that you would otherwise have, Ms. Barb, right? My question is a little broader than that, which is that even once those positions are, those existing positions are filled. Is that enough for you all to do the work that you need to do or do you need more positions to do the work that you've been charged with? We have had an expansion in jurisdiction over the last several years. To be fully staffed right now would be ideal. Additional staff would allow for more review exercises. It would allow us to do additional trainings, things like that. It would reduce the number of cases per attorney. Given the expansion of jurisdiction that you all have experienced, how many additional staff positions would you like to see to have the caseload that you think you deserve? I mean that the attorneys would need to be proficient with the caseloads, with the cases they have and what not. I appreciate that question and I would hate to speculate at this time. Because like I said, to be fully staffed would be ideal right now. And we have had an unusually large number of complaints filed this particular year. And so I don't know if that will be the, if that's the new normal, then we would want an additional attorney or investigator. But that may not be the new normal. I do appreciate that question. Just thinking about it. All right, thank you. Senator Scott. Sorry, that was my part. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had a quick question again about the laptops, desktops, and printers. You're wanting 20 to replace all of them. Are all of them being recommended to be replaced right now by IT? Because I know my job sometimes they might say over the next two years, you need to replace all your desktops for all your employees. And if I don't have the money in my budget, I might replace half of them and then the next year I replace all of them. So I'm just trying to figure out where y'all kind of are. Yes, we're seriously outdated on all our computer with the software and just the computers in general. The last time we purchased computers wasn't back in 2018. So it's been a while. Follow-up. Sure. Is there a reason y'all the job just not come to us wanting? I mean because y'all handle so much information that I think should be secured. I'm concerned about people using their own anything in government when we obviously can afford to accommodate the needs for. You having things to just do your basic job. Is there a reason the request wasn't made in eight years? We just run it every year. We just have a tight budget and, you know, we've replaced, you know, a few laptops here and there. So we just realized we needed when it last year, when all the computers went out and OST came out to, you know, do their magic. I think they all started getting sick as it were last year. And so that this would have been the first time for us to come and ask for additional funding. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Senator D's. Mr. Chair, just listening to the testimony today in this discussion. And you talk about the uptick in total caseload and complaints that we're receiving as of late and the impact that has on your team. How many even ballpark for us to think about? How many complaints actually result in maybe violations or recommended ethics issues? Do you have a percentage of total complaints versus actual violations that come from there? I don't believe I have a total of where a violation was found. I don't have that information. I could get that to you. We consider a successful case to be one where the investigation was completed. The citizens filed a complaint, so they're not sometimes they know sometimes there's a violation and sometimes they're not. We want a thorough investigation, but we don't. I don't have those numbers with me, but I can get those as soon as possible. And I think that's what I'm trying to understand. If we're seeing an uptick. If there is a. If your team, your agency is being used as. It may be kind of fishy next edition of, but, but they're actually not seeing actual violations. And so thinking through how how is your team need to be staff or not be need to be staffed. So I was curious on if if you do have a percentage of yes, we have an increase in total complaints, but our violation rate is still relatively low. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sir. I just a quick question related to the increased number of violence that you've had. Is that related to the, you know, there's been some recent years we've had some of the more local races are falling into the Secretary of State's office. And is that creating more of these? Is the question ours it just something else? That's a great question. I don't think there's just one cause. I, you know, a few rewind a few years. The complaint form wasn't on the internet. Now it is, you know, rewind a few years. We had a smaller jurisdiction. With every year more people around the state might find out about, for example, the paid for by disclaimer law. So the law wasn't even on the books 15 years ago. And with every passing year, someone in a community would find out that law exists and would be able to spot it not being complied with. I think that there's been an uptick in community interest around the state where there will be a local. A local Facebook blog and they'll talk about community needs, but then they'll maybe talk about idle gossip. And so there's just people are discussing politics more. So I think it's any number of things. We've also had an increase in complaints this year that seem to have been filed by AI. And they're, they're confounding to read. And so there's been an increase in AI file. Now human is the filer, but they've been drafted by an AI. So a citizen of Arkansas is the is the filer, but so an AI machine drafted it is what it appears to be, which the law would allow them to do. But we did have it. I think about 10% of our cases this year have been from an expansion of our jurisdiction to include a certain statute related to school board members. That's been, that's represented to think about a 10% increase for examples. I don't think it's one one issue alone. The reason I asked the question was you, you made the statement that if it stays at this level, then you would need, you'd probably need some additional manpower. And you sort of indicated that maybe this is just a temporary type deal. I was trying to get at that. What is the temporary type increase that you're seeing? And I was thinking, well, maybe it's just that we haven't got everybody trained up on the new system. And there's some ethics file. I assume it's related to that. And that's a fair question. It has increased our workload. It hasn't necessarily increased the number of cases filed at this point. All right. Thank you. Okay. Senator Clark. Thank you, Mr. Chair. What you said about AI is scary, but also scary to me that Republican sitting here, expanding government, and this is what we want to expand. Mr. Sloan told us not too long ago that like 90% of what we did, and he wasn't being critical, he was always supportive of the job that he did. 90% of it was tiki tacky stuff that people filed, then ran a campaign ad, and said ethics charges have been filed against so and so. And then the very next complaint you got was from the other side. Is there a reason we want to expand that? I'm not sure what kind of expansion you're talking about. Expanding your agency to do more nothing. We stay very busy helping people stay in compliance with the law. I'm not sure that we're aware of us asking to expand. And let me compliment that. It was always very helpful to be able to call Mr. Sloan or one of you and say. I want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing. But that I think that's a very important job of the agency. And I'm not criticizing you for doing your job. I'm just pointing out the fallacy of some of the things we did. Thank you. Okay, we represent me. We're going to come back to you for a motion. Okay, here we go. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So before I make the motion, I just need a quick clarification from staff. So to allow them to purchase computer equipment on an ongoing basis, would that need to go on the capital outlay line item? Or would it be better in the operating expenses line item? We originally requested capital outlay. But when I spoke with the Office of Budget since it was declined, they moved it over to our operating expenses. But we did originally ask for a capital outlay. So that's what I'm trying to clear from our staff, not agency staff, which would be better from the budget staff. Would it be better for computer equipment to be under capital outlay or under operating? I'm going to defer to DFA staff. They're the ones that help them with the request. I would defer to Mrs. Moore. Please come to the table. Good morning, Jessica Moore, DFNA. It would be properly classified as an operating expense. Operating expense. Okay, that's what I need to thank you, ma'am. All right, so I'm going to go, so the motion I'm going to make is for the agency request so that they can get the $20,000 to get the computer equipment upgrades that they need for this year. And then in their fiscal year 29, I want to up their operating expenses from 110,000. Let's see, make sure I'm on the right line here. Yeah, from 110,900 to 116,000. So that gives them $5,000 a year to make sure they're keeping their equipment up to speed. We have a motion to have a second and a half a second. We have a discussion on it. If not, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. Motion passes as amended. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much. Next, we're going to have judicial discipline. If you both would please, please turn on your mics and introduce yourself for the record, please. Shonee Davis, Bureau of Legislative Research, fiscal division. Emily Abbott, Director of the JDDC. Illinois Davis, judicial discipline. Turn your mic on, please, ma'am. Illinois Davis, judicial discipline. Thank you. Miss Davis, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, members. The judicial discipline and disability commission begins on page 373 in your budget manuals. This agency receives and investigates information and complaints about the possible ethical misconduct or disability of Arkansas judges. They have one appropriation and is for operations funded by general revenue through the Missilaneous Agency's fund. If you turn to page 375 in your manual, you will see their appropriation summary. The agency is requesting a appropriation in the amount of approximately $870,000 in fiscal year 28 and $850,000 in fiscal year 29. And general revenue in the amount of $777,000 in each year of the biennial. There's only one change level request from fiscal year 27 authorized. Their requesting increases in operating expenses of $30,000 in fiscal year 28 and $9,000 in fiscal year 29. Those increases are to support the implementation of a new database system. The executive recommendation provides for the agency requests with the exception of the operating expenses increase in each year of the biennial. And Mr. Chair, this concludes my presentation for this agency. Okay, thank you. We're playing a mix. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. So just like with the ethics, make your picks to us about why we need the $30,000 for the new database system. What's the benefit to the agency going to be and have you talked with the Office of State Technology about implementing this database system. Thank you for that question, Representative Meats. I actually have potentially good information for the body today. Our fiscal manager has been in communication with our budget analyst. And we believe that we'll be able to get ourselves through with the implementation of a new database, not the full database that we would need for the historical modernization to go fully digital of close cases. But we think that with the current budget allocation, we would be able to do that. That is new information that we've been able to come to and just the last week. It could be that in a couple of years, I will be back to you all to request an increase in that amount for the close cases. So to give you a little bit of background, we've had a pretty tremendous project that came to the JDC this year. And it came to my attention that the lack of digital access to our close cases was a big obstacle for us, because we had to lay hands one by one on over a thousand case files to come up with a report that was requested by the Supreme Court. We haven't been fully digital, just like most agencies, just like the ethics agency. We think at this point with the budget allocation that we got two years ago in that process that we'll be able to implement what we need in the meantime to get us through. What we're hoping to do is to go fully digital with cases present to the future and then maybe come back to the legislature in a couple of years if we need to go fully digital with all of the close cases. What we were attempting to do when we initially made this request was in line with the Governor's initiative of Arkansas Forward going fully digital, so that we're not having to continue to purchase case files and as much copy paper for all of the information that we have within our agency. At this point, we think with the current budget allocation that we have will be able to get us through. I came prepared, or I was coming prepared a few weeks ago, to ask for that full amount. Our fiscal manager, as I said, has been in communication with our budget analyst. We think we'll be able to implement what we need in the meantime, make good use of the taxpayers' dollars, and then may have to come back in a couple of years and say, now is the time we need to go fully digital with everything we have in storage. So I think at this point we're in a good situation. I do want to thank this body that two years ago when we came, we needed improvements on our computer systems. We were in a similar situation to the ethics commission. This body approved that request and I can say that we now have all new computers and we've been able to make use of that. So I want the body to know that when we make a request and we follow through on it, it's really something we need, like the ethics commission, but at this time, I think we're in a good situation to go forward. We respect the executive recommendation, so we've had to really drill down on where we can do call savings. There just aren't that many places that we can save money with the size of budget that we have, but I appreciate very much your question and I appreciate what you did force two years ago. So the second part of my question, have you been in consultation with the state technology on that database system, just to make sure it's in line with our cyber requirements and all that. And to answer that question, Representative Meats, we are attempting to use the system in the future that the Attorney General's Office is using. So yes, it is in line with what the requirements would be. As you can imagine, we handle a lot of highly sensitive information about elected officials. We have to therefore use a database that is solid. We can't use anything that another state agency could access in the cloud or anything like that. So we had a staff member who took a look at what other state agencies are using and we ultimately were able to isolate a similar system to the Attorney General's Office, airtight, and it's accompanied by the name of NEOS. And that's what we're hoping to implement in the meantime. And all of the money is in line with what we still have in our budget. It's going to be about $7,000 for a subscription to get us online. There's some professional services fees of $1,900. And then ultimately some customization would be about $10,000. But this Ms. Davis has assured me in discussing it with our budget analysts. We think we're going to be able to get it done, but may have to come back to implement it. But it is in line with the state tech requirements. Okay, so I'm good with the budget that all that all sounds great. I just want to make sure that I mean, it sounds like you're doing something similar to the Attorney General's Office. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't sound like you have actually consulted with the Office of State Technology to, you know, that's part of the new procurement law that all that stuff has got to go through state technology to make sure the systems we're getting. And I'm sure you've probably got to find system. But the reason we put that in place is to make sure that these systems that we are getting are up to standard. So I just encourage you, if you've not done so before you start heavily investing, get with the Office of State Technology and make sure double check that because we don't want to invest a lot of money only to find out, hey, there's a problem. Right. Right. So make sure you do that. But otherwise, I appreciate your answer. Thank you very much, Representative. Representative Wooten. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here. Your report shows that you have five employees. The report I have is six. Correct. And there's a difference between 71,000 average with $5,000 and $76,000 a year with six. Are you vacant one position? Yes, sir, we are. We have a staff attorney vacancy that it's actually currently posted and we're receiving applicants for at this time. So what are your plans? Are you going to fill that position? You need to fill it? Yes, sir. We need to fill it right now. The agency has an allocation for six positions. Two of those are attorney positions. So as we are situated currently, I am the only attorney in the agency. So I'm kind of wearing two hats. So that staff attorney position is very important. We have been going through a very interesting process to find a person who has the specialization that we need for this type of work. And we have received some very impressive applicants so far this round. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Representative. Senator Flowers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question. It might be touched on your request for the new database system. But in the past, I've seen the reports of discipline action taken against judges online. And I haven't checked recently. But the last time I checked, there was no such report on why judges were agreeing to be to resign and never to serve on the bench again. Sure. What has happened to that? Will that be, you mentioned going forward to put cases in those actions online. But in the past, I think it's helpful because, you know, I've been alarmed by some of the things that I see in the media that you don't see through the reports from the judicial discipline and disability commission. And I think the public has the right to know. Lawyers should have a right to know. The cases that have been handled by those judges that might make a difference in terms of the outcome. What has happened. Clients appeals. That kind of thing. So can you talk a little bit about that? Is that something that you are now required to report to the Supreme Court? We do report that information to the Supreme Court. It's also something that we do make available to the public. And I'll take a look, Senator, and see if there's some additional information that I can get for you. And that may not be exactly what your question is. But if there is additional information that we could place online that you believe would be helpful to you or your constituents, I would love to sit down and talk to you about that. I'm at another time, so we can put that out out there in the way that is the best user-friendly way to get that information out there. But any case of ours that leads to a final action, so a disciplinary action, we do release that to the public. There are certainly cases that lead to a final action that are dismissals. Those statistics are also kept and released to the public. And so information like that, I am allowed to provide and place online. And historically, that has been online. I will take a look and see if there's some improvements in that that we could make on our website to make it easier to access. But if there is a specific question that you have, I could certainly chat with you about that offline if that would be easier. But online, if I didn't answer your question, just let me know and maybe I can do a better job. Well, you might be able to point me to some information that I haven't seen online. And I know specifically, as an attorney going into courts, I've been into courts where they've had a special judge sitting that had signed an agreement saying they would resign and never serve on the bench again. I would love to have that information. And then see reports where judges have been sentenced to prison, federal prison. You don't know what they were sentenced for, how long they got, anything like that. And I think the public needs to know that. And the reason for the action taken by the discipline and disability commission. That's important. And to get the public trust and to know what we're facing in a courtroom. I think that's, I mean, I don't understand why anybody would not want to see that information. So are you all reporting that now? Do you all actually have something that you upload on the computers now? Every year we post our annual report online. And that information is in that annual report. And we do provide that to the Supreme Court. We certainly also provide that to our commission members. And although I know that you, Senator Flowers, don't make an appointment to our commission. There is representation from the legislature in our commission. And so you may know this, but for the rest of the body, our commission includes appointees from all three branches of the government. And we, I think a good idea that I just came up with is to make those reports available to the legislature as well. We submit those to our commission members who are appointed by members of the three branches of the government. But I think perhaps the idea that I've just come up with is that we should probably also submit those to the legislature as well. I think so because I don't know who the representative is from the legislature. The speaker of the House makes two appointments. And then the president of the Senate, which is classified as the lieutenant governor, makes the other two. And so it's an interesting situation, but speaker of the House makes two of the appointments. Well, I certainly like your idea and would welcome that. And Mr. Chair, if we could make that part of the ongoing database system or however she wants to couch it, that a requirement be made to have the legislature at least get a report. And I'm not sure he didn't specify what all in the Supreme Court report. But are the specific reasons for discipline of these judges in that report? If a judge receives a disciplinary action, so similar. And I was listening very closely to the questions to the ethics commission because we do similar work, but with different, different elected officials obviously. We do. If it leads to a final action, so a disciplinary action that becomes public, that information is placed in the annual report. And then that is released to the public, presented to a press release that's then uploaded to our website. And obviously when we are getting to that point with members of the judiciary, there's a lot of communication with that responded judge who's on the receiving end of that. But that information is included in there. If it is a final action that leads to a dismissal. And here is the part that sometimes I receive a lot of questions from members of the legislature who may call me directly. If within our process there is a judge who has engaged in behavior that is not considered egregious behavior, they are allowed to participate in some ongoing training. And I think that there is kind of a plan that we put in place and they work that plan. And the factors are weighed by members of the commission as to whether or not that should be a strict liability type of situation. In our process, that's not the knee-jerk reaction is it's not strict liability. There are factors weighed. Things taken into account like cooperation in the process, acknowledgement of the misconduct and acknowledgement. That's what I'm going to do in the future so that this doesn't happen again. Additional training. We have internal documents that we have the judges to sign that are confidential. Obviously that are provided to the members of the commission. And then at that point it could lead to a dismissal. But that does not mean that there wasn't a finding of misconduct within our process. It just means that ultimately much like kind of a pass to dismiss in a criminal case. It leads to a dismissal in that that is a judge that we have decided should stay on the bench. The vast majority of our judges are men and women of honor, even if they have a misstep that we kind of help them work through. So if it leads to a formal disciplinary action, that is something that is publicly released and the details of that are publicly released. But if it is a situation that pursuant to our walls or procedure, our commission members, confidentially deliberate and weigh those factors and decide that this is something that we can handle without ascension being imposed. Our process is set up to where that is reflected as a dismissal. However, with internally within our system and among our 18 commission members, there's more information provided to those stakeholders that's not publicly released. So would you have any objection to propose legislation that will require a report such as what you report to the Supreme Court to the legislature as a whole? The only consideration that I think we would have to take is that they're there. And I may be misunderstanding your question. There is a rule of procedure that the Supreme Court is put into place that requires our internal investigative documents to be kept confidential. And so we're set up kind of in an interesting way. Amendment 66 created our agency. Then there's statutory language that obviously codified that. And within Amendment 66, the Supreme Court is tasked with creating our rules of procedure. So within the rules of procedure, we have some parameters that we have to comply with so that we are not out of line with what the Supreme Court is expecting of us, pursuant to rules of procedure. But the report itself, I wouldn't have an issue with that statutory language. Let me interrupt a little bit because we've gotten off the budget quite a bit. Offline with you. Yes. But I think this is important, Mr. Chair, because I don't think even as a lawyer, you don't hear about all these. Well, I agree with you, Senator Flowers. We've discussed it up here and probably be special English during the session to require that report not in the budget. Thank you. And so that's the only thing I'm trying to do is move forward on the budget. Thank you. Senator Hester. Thank you. How many complaints did you look into last year? You have four, five full-time employees. How many complaints do you have? Right. I guess 340. Roughly. Just a second. I was just looking at numbers, and I want to be sure that I don't get. Provide you to the wrong information. I can tell you so far this year, we have 364 as of today. And last year. And those can be filed by any arcans, and I guess? Any arcans in the rules of procedure also allow anonymous complaints. But if an anonymous complaint comes in, I have to review it to make sure it's not frivolous. And then I have to sign it. But we also receive complaints from litigants or parties who live out of state, because as you can imagine, people who interact with our judges may live anywhere. No, that's good. But roughly how many judges are there in Arkansas? I guess you deal with circuit district. Right. So we currently have 126 circuit judges, 70 district judges, 12 court of appeal, 7 Supreme Court. We also have jurisdiction over any special judges who are appointed. Wow, so you've got more than one complaint per judge. I'm sure most are true a few judges. Right. So I'll also say we do have some judges who make it through the year without a complaint. Sure. But yeah, that's about about our average. I'm just trying to understand your overall scope of work at how many of those were found substantiated or that there was an actual consequence to a judge. Right. So last year, we did not sanction any of the judges in the state of Arkansas for disciplinary action that led to a public sanction, obviously. We have a number of judges who went through the process as I was speaking to Senator Flowers about and our internal investigation panels found that those judges were cooperating in the process with additional training, things like recusals. And so sometimes judges may receive a complaint from us. And in the course of that, they decide, hey, I'm going to enter this recusal. That cures the issue right. And so last year we had no disciplinary actions. We have some in the process right now that are coming very close. To disciplinary action. And there are judges around the state right now who are on notice of that. And so as I said, we're investigating judges all around the state. The vast majority of those investigations do tend to be things that don't pan out to lead to disciplinary action. But there are judges right now who if they're watching this hearing, they know that they're one of the ones who run the process of that disciplinary action. That's very helpful. And honestly, I think you guys do really important work. And I hope the answer is no one was disciplined because no one deserved it. I do feel better that a bunch of different people pick who's on that commission and see the information make those decisions. Thank you. Okay, representative Shepard. Thank you, and really quickly. And thank you so much for the detailed information you share today. So it's similar along the lines of Senator Hester. Approximately, how many do we have right now that are on? It sounds like what you're describing is an employee improvement plan, basically, is what we call it where I work. Sure. Approximately, how many do we have? Currently. Yes. We probably have. I think we have about 15 judges right now who are going through some version of that process. The reason I turned around is to make sure that I'm conferring with with our staff who. I'm involved in all of those cases. So I could come up the top of my head with with who I'm thinking about. We have about 15 who are going through that process. And it could be that their own staff may not be aware of that. It could be, however, that we have done additional training with staff members. Okay. So there's a way that we do that. I will sometimes go to the judges. We sometimes will have people come to us because as you can imagine, there are judges who don't want their staff to see me in the courthouse. They don't want attorneys to see me in the courthouse. I may be represented. I may be recognized by the mayor of that town or things like that. So we, much like I think Ms. Barham with the ethics commission is taking a stand to be very respectful of the people who are on the receiving end of investigations. We try really hard to make sure that our members of the judiciary know that I'm protecting that confidentiality and the public trust of the judiciary. But I would say we have about 15 right now. Some of those are actually self-reports. So we have judges who call me and say, hey, Emily, I need to talk to you about what happened yesterday in court. And we'll talk them through. Here's how you could have done this better. Hey, what are we going to do about this in the future? It could be something as simple as in our district courts in the rural areas. They have to receive, new judges have to receive a lot of training on. Don't have attorneys hanging out in your chambers. Because when attorneys hang out in your chambers before court, they're probably going to exparte you, right? They're probably going to talk to you about those cases. If you receive a case in a small town that's a divorce case and one of the litigants is in Sunday school with you, go ahead and enter that recusal, right? So we do a lot of educational work with members of our judiciary. We try really hard to keep the good men and women who should be there on the bench. We try really hard to do training with the new judges to try to head off any missed steps. The vast majority of the people who run for judge in the state of Arkansas are solid public servants. Our task is really protecting the public to identify those people who are not willing to work the program and improve if we identify they're not willing to work the program and improve. Those kind of end up on an internal list of mine that we realize that maybe they're not right. They're not there for the right reason, and they could be kind of a threat to the public, right? One of those that I think Senator Flowers was referencing with someone who we cooperated with the feds in a prosecution of a judge and I testified in that case and Senate seeing as well as a fact witness as well. So there are sometimes things happening behind the scenes when there are allegations of corruption that when I'm in public, there's never going to be an indication of that, right? So a judge who's under investigation is going to get the same handshake from me as a judge who's never received a complaint. So we take all that very seriously. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Clark. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am very thankful for the job that you'll do. Like Senator Flowers, I would like to be more aware of what's happening. And I appreciate how you've described you do the job. I think Grace is important. I think working with people who have made mistakes and want to do the right thing is important and not calling them out publicly necessarily. On the other hand, in the time I've been here and not so far away there, whether it was you or before you have dealt with some very serious cases. And I was glad to hear you talk about testifying in a case where somebody has been prosecuted because it seems that that's very rare. And I don't know of anything more serious. I have said for a long time that I think there's no one more powerful in a circuit judges area than a circuit judge. And I think that includes the governor. And a lot of people, you know, have always said, well, you can appeal. Most, you know, it costs somewhere between $40,000 and $70,000 to get into appeals court. Most of us can't. So the corruption there, I think, is one of the most serious things that there is. So why don't we see more prosecution for those very serious cases? And to clarify Senator Clark, I appreciate it. And I'm not blaming y'all. I appreciate your question. And are you meaning prosecutions, criminal prosecutions of corruption cases? Yes. No, I appreciate the job, y'all, but it's going beyond that. I think there should be more done in some of those cases. You know, again, let's stay on budget a little bit more. If we need more money to do, Senator Clark, what you want to do is what we need to do. Again, I'm not, we will discuss, but as they sail on court TV, Mr. Chair, a question withdrawn. Thank you. But again, that is a good question for your committee in judiciary, Senator Clark. Okay. All right, you're off. Okay. Seeing no other questions, do I have a motion for executive approval? Second, everybody in favor say aye. All opposed? Say no. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Senator Caldwell. Sure. You did. It's come to my attention that I think that, and I would love to do this. If there's a time that I could make myself available before the session starts, I'd be more than happy to come over. I know everyone would not be available, but I would love to have some time set aside to do a presentation about our agency. And privately answer some questions, obviously, that may not be something that members of this body would be interested in, but we'd be happy to do that before the session. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next on our list is the Public Service Commission. Okay, if everyone would please turn your mic on, introduce yourself for the record. Danny Hofer, Chief of Staff for the PSE. Do all the way up, Chairman of the Public Service Commission. John Garman, Chief Fiscal Officer. And Katie Walden, Bureau of Legislative Research. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, members. I'm going to be going over the Public Service Commission budget request with you today. It begins on page 376 of your manual. The Public Service Commission has general regulatory authority over public utilities that provide electric gas, telecommunications, water, and sewer services to state consumers for profit. They also monitor and inspect pipeline transmissions of hazardous materials in the state. And finally, they annually assess the property tax for the public utilities and carriers operating in the state. Their Department of Appropriation Summary is on page 377. You'll see they have three appropriations up for review today. And they receive revenues from federal revenue reimbursement, special revenues, and a little bit of advalorem taxes. They also have a fund balance. Their budget request is for roughly $16 million each year. I'll review these three appropriations with you now. The first one is detailed on page 379. This is their operations for their utilities division. Funding is derived by special revenues from assessments paid by the utility companies. And this includes their staff for the utilities division and operations. They've requested a total of $13 million for each year. And it includes a few increases and I'll go over them with you first. They also asked for an increase in operating expenses of $149,000 FY28 and $215,000 in $29,000. And this is to provide for increases in operational needs and software maintenance. They also asked for an increase in capital outlay, $40,000 in FY28, and $181,000 in FY29. And this is for the replacement of equipment and to purchase new IT equipment. Similarly, if you look down at the bottom part of that schedule on 379, you'll see they asked for an increase in data processing fees of $25,000 in FY28 and $40,000 in $29. This is for the replacement of a network firewall that is at the end of its life as well as associated IT services. Moving to page 381, you'll see the pipeline safety program appropriation. As I mentioned earlier, this is funded with special revenues from inspection fees. Charged to each company according to their pipeline mileage. And they also get a federal reimbursement for this service that they provide. And this is for monitoring the transmission of hazardous materials throughout the state through pipelines. They request a total appropriation of $1.2 million for each year. This includes an increase in operating expenses for vehicle associated expenses including license fees, tidal fees, and maintenance. They also ask for an increase in capital outlay of $100,000. And this is to replace their specialized vehicles for this program. Many of the pipelines are off-road. And so the vehicles have to have off-road capabilities and specialized equipment. And the executive recommendation provides for this request. Finally on page 383, you'll see detailed the tax division appropriation. As I mentioned before, this provides for all the assessment of lands that are owned by the utilities throughout the state for the purpose of collecting property tax for the school districts and counties. The total appropriation request is for $1.6 million for each year of the biennium. This includes an increase in operating expenses of 25,000 in FY28 and 29,000 in FY29. This is for more network services increased rent and maintenance costs. And finally, they want an increase in capital outlay of 25,000 in FY28 alone. And this is to replace IT equipment and to purchase a copier. And the executive recommendation provides for this request. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Representative Meeks. All right, up again here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So two questions. Number one, it looks like y'all are requesting 181,000 in FY29 to replace aging vehicles and IT equipment. This kind of goes back to what we've discussed with the other agencies. How many vehicles are we looking to replace? And do you have nothing in your budget currently that allows for that ongoing expense over time? Thank you, sir. So do you want me to take the aging server first or? Well, let's do the vehicles first. So the vehicles, there is a holdover reference in the narrative to a vehicle in the SJP Utilities Division operations. That was inadvertently left in the narrative in PBAS, but it is not reflected in the actual numbers entered. There are vehicles requested in the pipeline appropriation fund, but with regard to hearing the Utilities Division, we are not intending to replace a vehicle. Okay. So the full 181. That is entirely for the replacement of an end, a server that is the end of life as of FY29. Okay. And again, as I asked the other ones, have you worked with the Office of State Technology on the replacement of that equipment? We've not yet reached out simply because we're not at the point of replacing yet. However, we know that that's something that needs to go through them. Obviously, that purchase can't be made without them. So we fully intend to go through them. Okay. So I guess that the next question is, how do you know what the cost is going to be if you've not gone through them to get the list of the approved equipment? Well, I mean, we have a list of approved equipment. We haven't submitted a formal tige. I guess is what I meant. Okay. Okay. Perfect. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Representative. Representative Paganer. Mr. Chair, quick question. We have for professional services, 331,000 and now we're going up to 998,000. So over 600. Can you just kind of help me? Absolutely. Yeah. So right now, due to some employee shortages or staffing shortages, we are we are lacking employees in our audits division. And as a result, we are we have expanded and existing consulting agreement to encompass those auditing duties. We have received approval to fill those positions within the audit section. So we don't intend to rely on consulting services on a permanent basis, but at least until we're able to hire, fill those positions and get them trained. We have three rate cases that are all simultaneously ongoing right now. And so each, each one of those rate cases is really audit intensive. And so we wouldn't be able to complete the duties of those rate cases without the consulting. Okay. Great. And then how many employees are you short then? Total or just within that section within that section within that section, we are short. Five, I believe, five or six. Okay. The entire section to be honest. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't care who answers this, Mr. Web, Mr. Halford. And my question will be is it relates to budget, although there's going to be a little added as a causal personnel. So as we all know with the Generating Jobs Act, that's created a lot of talk at the, at the least. It's my, I've had folks that are calling me that are wanting me to file a bill to repeal it. I've had people calling me asking me, can we amend it to fix it? Any and all type of stuff. So the thing is, ultimately, that'll be up to this body is what we're going to do. I don't have a good direction myself right now. But this is the way that I see it as it relates to your budget, that if we leave it the same or possibly amend it. That you all are going to have to have additional positions as more of these utilities start doing these projects under the sea whip. And I guess my ask of you all between now and the session because I know we could amend this budget if something was to happen there. Can you all get prepared on what that would take? How many positions you think that that might be? You know, when I know it would be knowledgeable type people that would have to understand this, you know, everything that goes along with whether it's electric or gas or whatever, whatever else we may be doing. So is that a possibility that you all could work to just be prepared? Because I think that would be a thing we're not going to know until the session. But I want to be prepared to do that with an amendment if we need to. We can absolutely evaluate personnel. We do evaluate personnel on an ongoing basis, but certainly we can respond to that request. Senator Hickey, let me add that when we when this bill was passed, we had 106 employees. We were down to 78 employees. We have actually sought to audit one of our utilities and we did not have auditors sufficient to audit the audit. And so we had to suspend that. So your question is well placed and our needs are real. Okay, well, and again, you know, if what I've read is correct with the through the Democrats that I believe is where I've read that, you know, I believe we've only had two utilities so far that have requested different projects under the sea with. And obviously that's going to be available for for all of them. So I see that this need is going to just be something you probably won't won't know how to calculate. And again, I think that we're going to need knowledgeable people there to do it. My next question to Mr. Chair is going to be this. So during transformation, I had to do a lot of a lot of stuff right there and what if you don't mind, I can't. There's people talking. But if during transformation. We found out that the Supreme Court and I keep saying this had actually ruled that you are a quasi legislative and executive branch agency. You all agree with that, I believe. Is that correct, Mr. Webb? That's correct. Okay. Do you do you all feel that you that you fall within the hiring freeze? We have fallen within the hiring freeze. The governor has advised that we are presently they're working with us substantially right now to help fill some hiring. The negative is that we don't have the funds to do it because of the funding source at this point, even though we are self funders. So we're working on a solution to that to have a look at re appropriating some money for us through some utilities. And we so we may need some help from y'all when it comes to the session. Okay. And I guess that's why all of this is budget. You're not going to know, like I say, until we figure out, you know, if we're going to do something with that. And if we don't do something, it looks like to me that we're going to have to start making some type of amends for that also. So Mr. Chair, if this was to pass, I know you've got a lot of questions, but at the end, I want to go ahead and flag this and place a hold on it, because like I say, it looks like to me that this is definitely going to have to change and this will give them time to do some work to figure out exactly what they need. Also, as along the hiring freeze, this is for you all, but also as much for the body. I'm not for sure because you're such a, you know, the regulatory agency that you are. And I understand that the legislature can always cut off your phone. So I think we have control there. But I'm not for sure that we don't need to try to put some legislation in place too, that while you all are doing your work to make sure that there's no outside interference from either us as a legislature. Or the executive branch, it's much like legal audit, legal audit themselves, although they work for the legislature. You know, there was some fine statues that was put in place that at least allowed those officials within those to do their job without any outside interference. And I'm not for sure that it's not time for this body to look into that. Thank you, sir. Senator Hickey, yeah, I acknowledge your request. And if you will, get back in the queue later at the bottom so you can make your statement. Senator Hester, you're acknowledged for a question. Yes, so we all understand you guys have a very difficult job right now. You're in the national news or everybody in this. How important I'm a very firm believer in the basic economics of you increase supply price goes down. I'm trying to watch, I don't understand what you do completely. I try to watch and understand I'm coming more and more interested. How fast are we turning around yeses and noes? And do you have the adequate staff to say yes faster or no faster? Sometimes the process just takes forever because what you'll have to do is so complicated. But do you have the adequate staff to say yes as fast as possible or no as fast as possible? Senator, we meet the deadline that the statute put in place. We wish that we had more staff, we would feel more comfortable with our decisions. But we are turning around as quick as the legislation requires us to turn around. So if we said you had to be faster, would you? Yeah, if you said we had to be faster, we need some help. And you know that we're going to try and do it as inexpensive as possible. It's like running a little bit of a tax revenue and looking at does someone really need the money? Do they need the revenue? Do they need the increase in rates? Yeah. And you have to double check and audit each thing that they're requesting. That takes a lot of expertise to do that. If you had more staff, could you be faster? Absolutely. Okay, well, let me say this. Staff, sometimes just the person that walks in off the street isn't the best staff. Our area is so specialized, we need people that have had audit experience. We have, I believe it's 14 or 16 CPAs right now. We could use more CPAs. We could use a few more engineers as well. Well, you know, and I'll close by saying believing that the higher the supply cost will go down. I hope that your position is every day how do we get to yes and get to yes faster. Thank you. Representative Wooden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I agree with Senator Hickey and Senator Hester relative to the increasing staff. Because it's a changing environment that you're in. And it's more costly for you to be equipped to be able to have a rapid yes or no in the environment. But did I understand you correctly? What I have, I have, that you have 86 positions filled in the utility division, which was mean that you have five vacancies over there. But did I understand the chairman to say that you have 73? I think you reversed his, just the digits in that number. You're correct on your number. I think he just flipped. He's looking at a document that says 78. So I think he just turned the numbers around. Okay, the next question I have with the utility division being in such domain. The average, the average salary for the 86 is 125,000. How many more positions do you think you need at this point? If you can answer that question. And at what salary range do you need? Because this is an issue that affects not only the industry, but it also affects the tax payers, which you're weller of. And the more the supply, the better. But what I've taken note of is that they're looking at areas where there is a surplus of electric utility. To be used. And they use it up and then the local people decide or get an opportunity to have an industry come in. And they don't have enough electric because it's been sucked up or used up. So how many positions do you need? Do you know at this point? And what compensation do you feel that the level that would permit you to be able to address the issues that you're going to have to address? I think our primary need would be to be fully staffed at the number of budgeted positions that we have. So we are budgeted or authorized for 116 positions. We have 29 vacancies currently. So I think that would be our primary need would be to fill those positions. Okay. So you say the 29 if you had, if you were at full capacity, that that would be the number that you need to be able to address the issues. We certainly would be addressing more issues, yes. Okay. What is the problem in filling those positions? Is it market value? Is it the lack of personnel? I mean, the lack of trained people? What is your problem in having 29 vacant positions? Representative Hootin, there are a multitude of reasons. One would be once we get someone trained, usually a utility will hire them. We are not competitive in our salaries, particularly with CPAs, engineers, people that are specialized. The other has been a funding problem, a budget problem from the last session. That can be overcome through the legislature, but from a factual point of view, once we get someone hired in a very specialized field, the private industry hires them out. And so we lose some of our best people are retiring at this point because they've been there a number of years. So it's replacing at a competitive salary that people that are doing very specialized work. Okay. I would ask Mr. Chairman that that be included. And there's a whole place I think it's already been asked for on this budget. And that we adequately address the issue of market value, salary compensation, and that we address the issue of trained people. And order that we can satisfy the public need, not just the industry need, but the public need to have adequate supply of energy. Thank you, Representative. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative later one. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Webb, I'm over here. I just want to add to Senator Hickie, Hester, and Representative Wooten, what he said. And I hope I can find a question in here. You have talked about the need for additional help. And I think you're correct in that, not just to see Webb, but what's going on in this industry. You know, there's going to be $997 billion spent next year in the country on data centers. I just went to a meeting in DC on that. That's just one thing that's going to be happening. So you all are going to be getting a lot of requests, I think, on different things other than see with. We need to double our power output in the next five to ten years. That's going to make you all very, very busy. That's a good, very good point. See, Webb is a part of that, but it's not the full part of that. Definitely not the full part of it, maybe not even half. We're in a world of re, it's a new world in Arkansas right now, with what's going on in rural Arkansas, with these data centers and other things of nature. We don't make a decision whether there should be a data center or not, we have to make a decision on whether you power the data center or not. And can the general public afford that? What do we look at when we look at funding and construction costs? And, you know, we're going to have to do some work this body on direct supply to some of these entities that are going to be. Give you an idea, Mr. Pro Tem as well. We have funded close to $5 billion in electrification this year in Arkansas. $5 billion, which is nearly the general revenue budget of the state of Arkansas. So, do you feel like that you're prepared to do this study and come back to us during the session? We can be prepared. Yes, all right. Thank you. Senator Hester. Thank you. I think the governor's hiring freeze is one of the best tools she has to be able to keep control of government and some of she has to do. Are y'all, is the PSC part of that hiring freeze? Do you have to participate in that program or are you independent and you can hire who you hire when you need hire? It is our understanding that we fall under the hiring freeze. And that's the guidance that we've received from OPM in terms of trying to, you know, go through the hiring process. Thank you. Representative Beck. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My concern was this, and I'm not going to repeat all the additional work that you guys, that train that's coming down the track at you guys right now. But my concern is this. We say that, okay, if we can get all our positions filled, we'll be good. And I agree with that concept. But at the same time, you're saying that you're, you're somewhat under attack by the utilities and other market. I would say that how are these people away from you? So my. I would actually help me feel better that if we, if you guys feel the positions that they're just not going to be drifting right out to the utility people. Whether that's strategic on their part are, are, are not, you know. We lost your pressure bank again. You did that on purpose. I didn't judge it. Maybe I did. Representative makes us up here playing with the computer. Understanding that, you know, if you really look at it from, from my side here, you're saying, okay, we get these people filled up. Our staff, we're fully staff. We can handle this. But at the same time, you're saying people are hiring your people out. And I'm concerned that those, those two things are not on the same side of the playing field here. And that, my real concern is, is for the, well, the taxpayers of public out there because you guys with, with the new legislation, you are the control gate. For what, what do you tell your rights are going to be? And that's a, if there's going to be a lot of activity as you've heard. And these things could go. Why so? So we're really depending. So help me feel better about the fact that you're going to be able to fill these positions and keep those positions in there to address all these concerns. Sure. Would you like me to address more so in terms of what we do to try to retain folks versus what, what our plan might be in terms of staffing to ensure we've got some sort of cushion or insulation. I need to hear what's going to be different because if it's happening now, we just, you know, we just throw more basically higher people and we get them trained up. And that's just more people just someone else to pull away from us. So what's going to be different when we hire this next group than, than what you've got right now. So our first point of optimism is this is the first time that we will be hiring in about a year. So we're optimistic that we'll be able to stem the blade. There's, there's quite a few positions that have exited over the last year. And of course, once you lose some, then it kind of can be a compounding effect as work is redistributed. So you can lose additional. We obviously do everything we can to make the PSC a great workplace. We try to give people the support they need both in terms of their career development, but, you know, their personal lives and try to offer a good balance. But I can't tell you that I can fully insulate us. There's a very uniqueness to our industry. And we're one of those industries that is so perfectly aligned with the bodies that we regulate, not all industries are so aligned. But if somebody, you know, if somebody cuts their teeth and gets good at this at the PSC, they are perfect to go to whether it's an RTO or utility. We see just as many people exit probably for the RTOs as we do utilities. So I think it's just the nature of a really highly specialized industry. And then just the nature that that private industry is going to be able to offer at least financial incentives that we can't. To the extent that you would like us to try to build some sort of cushion into that when we're putting together numbers, we can absolutely consider that. Thank you. We'll circle back to Senator Hickey. See you in this chair. I can't see. If I'm last, I mean, my part is I'll be happy to make the emotion for the executive, the executive record or whatever we have no one else. I'll be happy to make that. But after the motion, then I'm just going to ask as we normally would, I'm just going to put a whole flag this and put a hold on the budget. They can go ahead and prepare it, but we will know that that will be held all the way during session. And if something comes up with the legislation that we have and we need to amend that bill that we will do the amendment before it goes forward. Very good. So we do have your motion. My motion is executive. Thank you, Brett. Have a second. All in favor say aye. All opposed. It passes. And my request now is to put the flag in the hold, as I said. Okay. So noted. Thank you. Thank you all. Appreciate you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. The public employees retirement. I would please introduce yourself for the record. Amy Fetcher, executive director of APERS. Jason Willett, CFO of APERS. Billy Parish, Bureau of Legislative Research on your staff. You recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're on page 384. This is the budget request for the public employees retirement system. The emergency administrator is a statewide public employer retirement program for certain state, county, municipal, and some school district employees. APERS also administers to state police retirement and judicial retirement systems. The director serves as a social security administrator and responsible for coverage related issues for state and local government employees. Here's some latest stats based on their most recent financial report, not it. They have almost 14.3 billion in assets. 43,400 working members with an average salary of 50,700. 43,100 retired members with an average annual benefit of 16,500. Their funded level is 83%. Investment return has averaged 13.1% a year over the past three years. That's almost double the target of seven percent annually. Employee contributions are 15.32% of an employee salary and resulted in 392 million in revenue. 3 contributions are 6.25% salary and the rate will continue to increase by a quarter of a point each year until it reaches 7% in 2029. On page 384 and 5 are an employment summary and publications. On page 386 is their Department of Appropriation Summary. The system has six appropriation requests. Each section has a change level. The total authorized appropriation for 27 is 960 million. The system requests 1.01 billion in fiscal year 28. That's a $48 million increase or about 5% over fiscal year 27. And 1.06 billion in fiscal year 29. That's a $96 million increase or about 10% over fiscal year 27. The executive recommendation is just $14,000 more than the agency requests. And again, the system is funded through investment income, employer contributions. That's 15.32% salary and employee contributions of 6.25%. The next page is the first request. This is employer retirement operations on page 387. This provides for the administration of the systems and it's supported by the April's Trust Fund. The following page 388 is their appropriation summary. In fiscal year 27, that's a third column at the bottom. The total amount authorized was 142.7 million. The request for fiscal year 28 is 73.8 million. That's a 48% decrease. And in 27.3 million, that's a 46% decrease. And again, the executive recommendation is for 14,000 more than the agency requests each year. Looking at the line items, salaries and match. Those are increases due to rate adjustments for employees as authorized by law. The executive recommendation is for 11,000 more than salary and 3,000 more than match each year. This is to upgrade to positions. And I spoke with the agency in the acre with the executive recommendation. The next line is conference and travel. 67,500 is what's authorized. The request is for 87,500. That's a 30% increase. It's the same for fiscal year 29. This is to support continuing education. The next line is benefits non-employee. 40 million is what's authorized. 10 million is the request. That's a 75% reduction. It carries over to the next year as well. This is due to a changing payment method for warrants. That's the mail checks to direct deposit. The next line is refundary reimbursements. 85 millions with authorized. 45 millions are requests. For the first year, that's a 47% reduction. And in the second year, the request is 50 million. That's a 41% reduction. These are also due to changing payments from paper warrants to electronic direct deposit. If you look at funding sources, the retirement systems operate differently than traditional agencies. The system assets are put into investments to produce revenue for the system. And funds are drawn down as needed to pay benefits, refunds, and system administrative expenses. The trust funds of the systems act more as paying accounts. So you'll see a zero balance and funding matches the year's actual expenses. The next request is on page 389. This is the police retirement operations. And this provides for the administration of that system. It's supported by the state police retirement fund. Here are some of their system stats. They have 513 million in assets. 542 working members with an average salary of 121,000. That's for those in tier one, but it's just four employees. And 79,300 for those in tier two. Those are the employees hired after 1997. They have 789 retired members with an average annual benefit of $40,600. And they are funded from investment income. Employer contributions of 26%. Drivers licensed reinstatement fees, car title fees, and court fees and transfers from the insurance premium tax. That's until they reach an act daily to determine right necessary to fund the plan. The next page is 390. This is the summary for the operations. In fiscal year 27, the total authorize is 30.2 million. The request for 28 is 34.7 million. That's a 15% increase. And in 29, it's 36.7 million. That's a 21% increase. And the executive recommendation provides for the request. The change level occurs on refunds, reimbursements line. 25 million was to authorize the request for 29.5 million. That's an 18% increase. And then the next year it increases 26% to 31.5 million. This is to accommodate the increasing amount of revenue from special fees and other transfers. The next request is on page 391. This is the judicial retirement operations. And this provides for the administration of the judicial retirement system. It's supported by the judicial retirement trust fund. Here are their system stats. They have 363.5 million in assets. They have 145 working members with an average salary of 204,000 in tier 1. That's just two employees at this moment. And 205,000 in tier 2. That's those hired after 1999. They have 183 retired members with an average annual benefit of 106,000. And they're funded from employer contributions of 12% employee contributions of 6% for those in tier 1 and 5% for those in tier 2. And transfers from the state central services and constitutional officers for that to reach the actuarially determined right in this area to fund the plan. On page 392 is the appropriation summary. In fiscal year 27, 8.6 million was authorized. The request for 28 is 9.6 million. That's a 12% increase. And then in 20 knots for 10.1 million. That's a 17% increase. The change level occurs on refunds, reimbursements, line item. It goes from 8 million to 9 million. That's a 13% increase. And then in 20 knots to 9.5 million. This is to accommodate the increasing amount of revenue from special fees and other transfers. And of course, the executive recommendation provides for this agency request. The next section is on page 393. This is the public employer term and cash section. And it provides a spending authority to make benefit and refund payments by direct deposit. It's supported by a cash fund. On page 394 is the summary. In fiscal year 27, the total authorized is 725 million. The request for 28 is 830 million. That's a 14% increase. And then 29 is 870 million. That's a 20% increase. The executive recommendation provides for that request. Change levels occur on the benefits line item. 675 million was authorized. 785 million is the request. That's a 16% increase. And then in 29, 825 million is the request. That's a 22% increase. And this is to accommodate increase of payments made by direct deposit. Refunds reimbursement line items. The next change. It goes from what's authorized is 50 million in 27. Down to 45 million in 28. That's a 10% decrease. And that carries over to 29 as well. This is a reallocation of 5 million to offset the increase in the benefits line item. The next request is on page 395. This is a state police retirement cash. This is a section that allows them to make direct deposit payments. It's supported by their cash fund. There are summaries on page 396. The total authorizing 27 is 32.5 million. The request for 28 is 34 million of 5% increase. And 35 million in 29, which is an 8% increase. The executive recommendation provides for that request. A similar last section. The change levels occur on the benefits line item. It goes from 31 million to 33.8. That's an 9% increase. And then 34.8 in 29 is a 12% increase. This is to accommodate the increase of payments made by direct deposit. And then refunds reimbursements. What's authorized in 27 is 1.5 million. The request in 28 is 200,000. That's an 87% decrease. It's the same in 29. And this is a reallocation of 1.3 million to offset the increase in the benefits line item. The next request is on page 397. This is the judicial retirement cash. And it provides a spending authority to make benefit refund payments by direct deposit. It's supported by a cash fund. And on page 398 there are summaries. In fiscal year 27, what's authorized is a total of 21 million. The request for 28 is 26 million at 24% increase. And then at 31% increase at 27.5 million. And the executive recommendation provides for that request. The only change level is benefits line item. 20.75 million is what's authorized. 25.75 is a request. And that's in 28 for 24%. And then 27.25, 31% increase in 29. And again, this is to accommodate the increase of payments made by direct deposit. Mr. Chair, that is the end of the APERS budget request. A lot of numbers. Thank you very much. Actually, no questions. Ms. Fetcher, you have a comment? No, sir. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Not seeing that have a motion for executive recommendation. I have a second. Second. All in favor say aye. Just just keep it safe. I'm getting closer to the day. Thank you. Okay. Teacher retirement. For y'all that don't know, Mr. White left the HS. Go to teacher retirement. Jumped out of the hot seat to go over to the cushy job. Welcome back. I haven't seen you in a while. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. More quiet. Executive director. Arkansas teacher retirement system. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Rod Graves. Arkansas teacher retirement system. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Rod Graves. Arkansas teacher retirement system. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I'm Billy Parish with the Bureau of Legislative Research. We're on page 399. This is the Arkansas teacher retirement system. Legislative requests. This is the agency administrator's pension fund that provides survivor disability and age and service benefits for public school teachers and other school district employees. Some of their systems statistics. They have 26.3 billion in assets. 67,800 working members with an average annual salary of 48,000. 57,400 retired members with an average annual benefit of 25,000. Their employer contributions were 50% of an employee salary generating 563,560.3 million. The employee contributions were 7% of an employee salary generated 214 million. Their investment return of 15.8% was in 2026, and their average investment return of 10.2% a year over the past 10 years that exceeds their target investment return of 7.25%. The next page, page 400, is there a Department of Appropriation Summary? The system has two appropriation requests. Only one section has a change level. That's the operation section. The total authorize appropriation in fiscal year 27 is 1.92 billion. The system requests roughly the same amount for the next biennium. The change level is $150,000 less. That's less than a 1% decrease. The executive recommendation provides for the agency requests. If you go to page 401, that's their operations section. It provides for the administration of the system. It's supported by the teacher term trust fund. And then on page 402 is a summary. There is a lot of movement, but hardly any changes. If you look at 27 with authorize is $280,000. The request in $28,000 is again $280,000, but it's only $150,000 less. And the executive recommendation provides for the agency requests, but there is movement between the lines. Beginning with regular salaries matched, there are increases due to rate adjustments for employees as allowed by law. But there's also an addition of two new positions. If you look at confidence and travel, with authorize is $27,000, $30,700. The request in $28,000 is $45,000. That's a 49% increase. And then in $29,000, $50,000, and that's a 65% increase. This is a trained staff on new IT systems. Benefits line item, it begins its authorize at $180,000,000. The request for $28,000 is $470,000. That's a 6% decrease. That's the same for $29,000. This is to align with expenditures and to offset increases in other lines. This is the line that has the most movement. It's a data processing services. What's authorized in $27,000 is $250,000. The request in $28,000 is for $10,000,000. That's a $9.75 million increase. It's the same for $29. This is to update and replace IT systems. They plan to procure a new pension administration system as well as new investment in accounting systems. The next line is discount bio plan. $9,000,000 was what's authorized in $27,000. The request in $28,000, that's an 11% decrease. That carries over to $29,000. And again, this is to align with projected expenditures. Looking at funding sources similar to APERS, they operate differently, the traditional agencies. The system assets are put into investments, produce revenue for the system, and funds are drawn down as needed to pay benefits. Mr. Chair, that is the teacher retirement budget request. Thank you. Okay, we do have a question. Reverend Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm just kind of curious. Is the $9.75 million in both years of the biennium for a new IT database system? Is that the full extent of it? I mean, so we're talking about roughly $20 million. Is it going to be more than $20 million or $20 million? So we don't know what the total cost will be just yet. We are intending to replace three systems altogether, the legacy systems that are very old and are showing their age. We had a consultant come in and do a gap analysis for us to help us develop a long-term roadmap. They gave us an total estimate over time of probably 30 to 60 million, and that's over five years. And so we're allowing for that amount. I'm certainly hoping it will come in less than that. But that was the basis for that amount that we put in there. Okay. And obviously that got the executive recommendation. So everyone is okay with that as far as you're aware? As far as I'm aware. Yes. All right. Thanks. Representative Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So kind of along those same lines. Have you worked any with the Office of State Technology on these upgrades to make sure there are an alignment with our standards for cybersecurity and so forth? Is my first question, and then the second question is, since we're pulling basically $10 million off the benefits line item, is that going to create any kind of concern with being able to pay benefits? Sure. And let me ask the answer to the saying one first. That's a short answer. No, that shouldn't cause us any issue. Of course, we like having some cushion in there, dealing with the reduction. I think that's still sufficient cushion for us to make sure that we can pay any bid for the claims that may come in on the IT side. Historically, the system has not had much interface with OST. We certainly have been changing that last couple of years around cybersecurity and try to have more interaction and cooperation with them. For these systems, we did discuss with them our bringing in a vendor to help us develop requirements for the new system and they did approve that. So they are aware and have been part of that. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Wype, for being here in your system. I have three questions about the budget. Under professional fees, you have budgets in 558,000. You've expended 84. What why the difference between 550 and we continue to ask for that amount of money? So that's been the amount that's been historically in there. But one thing, there have been some expenditures that have been spent out of operating expenses that really should have been spent out of that professional fees. And so you're going to see in future years that spend go up in the professional fees line as we shift those items to really where they should, that appropriation where they should be. Otherwise, it's misclassification. That's the reason for the difference. Yes, sir. Not illegal. I won't say that. But I think it's just better classified in the other question. On the next item, the benefits you budgeted 180 and you spent 121 million. Is that just in case? And then you asked for 170 million, 10 million last. So that line out and that pays for certain one-time benefits. And that can include things like distributions of T draw balances. And those can be very pretty significantly from year to year. And so we just want to make sure we have got the capacity there. So if we have an abnormally large number of withdrawals, then we're going to accommodate that. Okay. And then one final question on the budget line. You show 150 million point three. And you're asking for 219 million. Is that normal? The biggest piece is on that benefit line. That's the biggest cushion amount we have there. There are a few others that all are related to benefits that we just have room there in case that it's needed. But I do want to emphasize that none of this is general revenue. This is entirely coming from the contributions that are paid to us by employers and our investment returns. Okay. So the plan, so far as the teachers are concerned and those involved in it is solid. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. White. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I see no other questions. Apparently, we're in pretty good shape. I appreciate you. We have another question. So moved. So moved. Turn your mic off. And we have a second. All in favor say aye. All opposed. Thank you. Congratulations. Appreciate you. Thank you, members. Okay. Disability determination. Good morning. Would you all please introduce yourself for the record? Arthur Brudiat, Director of Social Security Disability. Jeff Stern, CFM. Lila Walls, Bureau of Legislative Research. You recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you will go to page 405 in your manual, we're going to start disability determination for Social Security Administration. This agency is responsible for determining the eligibility of applicants for disability and other payments in accordance with federal Social Security laws and investigates suspected cases of fraud or abuse. They have one appropriation of $77.8 million and it was 100% federally funded. Page 406 and 407 is their operations appropriation. This is the only appropriation that they have. They are requesting an increase to $79.8 million, which is about a $200 million increase in both fiscal years. The agency is requesting the following changes. In their operating expenses line item, they're requesting a $900,000 decrease to align the budget with operational needs. In their professional fees line item, they're requesting a little over $3 million in increase to support caseload processing. And the executive recommendation for this agency provides for the request of the agency. Mr. Chair, this concludes my presentation for disability determination for Social Security Administration. Thank you. Representative Bentley. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for being here today. Can you tell me how many applicants you have? I mean, you have 460 employees, so how many applicants do you get? Applications do you get, Chair? I'm curious. 115,000. An Arkansas? 68,000. Per year. That's right. Thank you, Chair. That's my question for now. Thank you. Representative Wooden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The report I have of this pit. And thank you for being here. So 594 employees authorised in your 60 that are over two years old. Can you explain why there are 60 people that haven't been replaced or do you not need them? Or what is the situation? Well, the situation is we're one of three states that this body approved for us to do cases for other states. Right. Which would create jobs that would have otherwise gone to other states. And so that becomes flexible, and it has to be flexible. We used to have 100 in some of our positions. We've recently given up 42 positions. The reason we have that is good example as several months ago. The federal government had 156 jobs that they replaced nationally. And so there's 15 to 16,000 DDS employees nationally. So that's like 1% of all of those positions that they have nationally. Arkansas got 45 of them. Virginia got 45 of them. So over the 158 positions, the two states got 90. So those 45 positions, they have to go through this incredibly deep background check of 92 pages. Takes forever to do that. So instead of running back to the legislature, we keep enough positions to be able to accommodate the federal government to give us the resources. We always get what we ask for because we do so many cases for Arkansas. We're in the top 10 in quality. I think we're fifth. And we do so many cases for other states. So last year we did 35,000 cases for Texas. And we did about 10,000 cases for Georgia. This year we're going to be doing about 45,000 cases for Georgia. So we have to have that latitude in there. So you have flexibility to be able to respond to the demand from other agents. Are you federally funded? How do your money comes from? 100%. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Hester. Mr. Virginia, you've been doing this very long time. And I just wanted to acknowledge that we only hear from you once a year when we require you to come here. And that I appreciate that. And it's always good news that you're running such a tight ship over there that you're bringing jobs to the Arkansas because we're being so efficient and thank you for the job you're doing. I appreciate that. I try to fly under the radar. And you'll be happy to know we have no IT needs. We're going to meet. Well, it's chairman of the tech. I'm right here in front of you. As chairman of the technology committee, I still have to ask you an IT question, right? So my first question, the $3 million additional for professional fees and services. Can you kind of give us the need for that? So most of that is either the 3% that's built into the budget or the doctors that we've had to hire to handle these cases. And so if you know any doctors who want to come work for us, please let me know. We have 82 doctors on our staff. It's not near enough. And we're always like, for instance, we have 1,200 cases right now waiting for a medical decision from a doctor on the physical side. We don't have enough doctors to do it. But that's what it's for. And so that leads to my technology question. Are you are looking at implementing any kind of AI solutions to help you process this case load more efficiently? Well, it's funny. You should ask because three years ago, the Arkansas Agency started with an outside group called the advocate to find ways for AI to read the thousands and thousands of pages of evidence. And it got so good that the federal government stole it. And so now they've got a program that they're about to release, which will, it's really incredible. That, you know, on page, you know, we have to, for instance, always look at depression or we have to look at mental illness. And sometimes that's buried on page 2,000 of their medical records. This new AI program picks all that up. It not only does that, it asks for all the medical evidence before we get the case from all the sources that the claimant states when he files with the federal government. So all that stuff is already coming in electronically. And then when we get the case, this new AI technology is reading all that evidence. Thousands and thousands of pages is bookmarking it. Okay. And bringing up the most important highlights so that the adjudicators then can take it. We see this making a big difference in reducing our staff as we move forward. The doctors and the adjudicators will always have to make the end decision. But it's going to really streamline what the needs are of the agency. I love hearing that. Thank you. Okay. No more questions. I have a motion for the exact recommendation. Second, all in favor say aye. All opposed. Thank you. It's always good to see you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Public Defender Commission. Good morning, Mr. Chair Greg Parish, Executive Director, Arkansas Public Defender Commission. Thank you. Tracey Rainey. Full and close to there you go. Public Defender Commission. Say it again. Tracey Rainey, CFO Public Commission. Jennifer Rook, Bureau of Legislative Research. You recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. The Public Defender Commission. Appropriation starts on page 408. The Public Defender Commission was created to address a variety of concerns relating to the representation of indigent criminal defendants in Arkansas. The Department of Appropriation Summary, it can be found on page 409. The agency has a total of three appropriations. The agency request is about 52.6 million for each year of the biennium. The executive recommendation is about 51.3 million for each year of the biennium. The first appropriation request is on page 410. This is their operations appropriation. It is funded from the State Central Services Fund. The agency is requesting about 4.3 million for each year of the biennium with no significant changes. The executive recommendation provides for the agency request. Their next appropriation is on page 412. This is the trial office appropriation. This appropriation is funded from the State Central Services Fund. The State Administration of Justice Fund. Belbon fees and user attorney fees. The agency is requesting about 42.4 million for each year of the biennium. They are requesting an increase in their operating expenses line item in the amount of 246,000 for each year of the biennium. This is to support travel reimbursement for the public defenders. The counties are no longer providing the funds for this travel. The executive recommendation is for about 42.2 million, and it provides for the agency request with the exception of the operating expenses. The increase, let me just, they want the operating expenses. The last appropriation is on page 414. And this is the appropriation for the Commission for Parent Council. Parent Council was added in 2019 regular session to the public defenders appropriation and the public defender commission has no oversight responsibility over the Commission for Parent Council. This appropriation is funded from the State Central Services Fund. The agency is requesting about 5.9 million for each year of the biennium. They are asking for an increase in extra help of 56,000 to support staffing levels during periods of heightened workload and they are asking for an increase in the refunds and reimbursements line item and the amount of 919,000 to support attorney costs associated with dependency negligent cases. The executive recommendation is about 4.9 million for each year of the biennium and does not provide for the increase in extra help, personal services matching, or refunds reimbursements that the agency is requesting. And Mr. Chair, this concludes my presentation. Thank you. We have several in the queue for questions. Senator Tucker. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Parrish, I'll first be on page 412. I notice there's no difference in agency requests and executive rec on the operations budget. So this is in the trial office. There's a difference between the agency requests and the executive rec of 246,000. As it says, that's travel reimbursement for county public defenders. Is that mileage? Yes, it is, Senator Tucker. What we encountered, and if I can give a short history, I'm going to stay on budget. When the public defender system came online with the state in 1998, the state became responsible for salaries. ACA 1687302 left the obligation of maintenance and operation with the counties, and that still exists. Throughout the years, counties have reimbursed public defenders for mileage and this becomes a real big issue because we have 28 judicial districts in the state covering 75 counties. We do not have public defenders in every county, so somebody is on the road all the time, every time. And so when you get to those districts where there's more than one county, and we have some districts with up to six counties, we have two of them. Three, four, and five, six counties. They're having to cover two different county courts, and they would submit their mileage request from their base of operation to the court that they're attending to back. And the counties would pay that. They would request of the Attorney General's Office last October, an opinion was issued that says the counties do not have to pay that mileage because it is not maintenance and operation. And so since that time, because it's not in my budget, public defenders have been traveling on their own dime to cover courts. Okay, so yeah. Thank you for that history. I was going to ask what changed and also just to clarify that. I mean, we have judicial districts with, you know, four, five, six counties, and currently public defenders are driving all over that territory, and not receiving mileage reimbursement, is that correct? That is correct. And I can attest from personal experience coming from the 13th judicial district, where there are six counties. I made three counties in one day, chasing judges. You're living off the cell phone. Just give me time to get there. And that's, that's common. Okay. Thank you. The next, on the Commission for Parent Council, will you just go into a little more detail and explain what you were asking for in terms of extra help and the dependency neglect cases? And Senator Tucker, just for the chair, Mr. Brian Welch has joined us. Okay. That will be a question for Mr. Welch. Okay. Okay. Yes, my name is Brian Welch. I'm the executive director for the Arkansas Commission for Parent Council. And we made this request this year because we haven't had an increase of state revenue in at least seven years. And for that, we operated at about 2.5 million on state funds. Now, I think we're at about 3.2, if I remember correctly, somewhere in that range. The problem is staffing. We are, our turnover rate is at 48%. We have 65 attorneys that work the entire state. I have had open positions that have set open for over a year. We currently have two positions that are open that have been open for over three months. The problem is we are the only piece of the dependency neglect arena that is strictly contract pay. So we cannot compete with benefit backed positions. So we'll hire new attorneys, young attorneys. I'm not afraid to hire a young attorney straight out of school. We train them. We teach them. And then they steal them. So we're constantly turning over. We're constantly training. We just simply cannot compete in the arena anymore, given our level of funding versus the other areas. And it got even worse with the new pay structure that Governor Sanders just put in place because that gave OCC attorneys and attorney's items pretty significant raises. And as much as you want this stuff to be kept kind of under the rug, they talk about it. They know who's making what in the courtrooms. When those positions come open, the attorneys that we have leave of the 65 positions that we have in the last two years, I have replaced 40 of those. And again, I have two getting ready to be three open positions and I have no applicants for either one of them. So that puts me and my deputy director on the road pretty frequently, pretty regularly doing court coverage, carrying a caseload ourselves. And so we ask for this money to try to equalize some of that pay. It won't get us even, but I think it'll get us in the neighborhood to where I can have a better retention rate and kind of stabilize our positions. Okay. All right. Thank you for that explanation. Mr. Parrish, I do have one more question for you. I know there's a court case that's ongoing and any effect has been stayed at this point, but it would require there to be if it continued the way that it's on the path that it's going down right now, we would require for there to be representation for folks at parole revocation hearings and probation revocation hearings. There was that was requested earlier because there was a federal lawsuit involving some inmates in front of Judge Baker's court here in Little Rock several months ago, she issued an injunction on the parole hearings conducted the way that they were doing it because of council issues. And so I got a phone call asking for public defenders to be present at a parole hearing from the next day and at a meeting with the caller. I said no because Judge Baker's injunction is still there. I think there's a thought process that they won't us to start appearing at those at some point in the future because council is a big issue in parole hearings when it's requested. And that's what Judge Baker found. So your budget, this budget request assumes that things are going to move forward in the state that they are now, but if a court were to require there to be defense council at parole revocation hearings, how much of a change would that be for the public defender commission budget? I think it would be substantial because you're again, some of these are done by video, some are in person. You're having travel, you're going to want witnesses there. You're going to need people to process requests for reimbursement, potentially issues, subpoenas. So you're not only talking attorneys, but you're also talking about support staff as well. Okay, I just again, that's not being required at this moment, but I think it's something for the members to be aware of and be thinking about. So thanks for that update. Yes, sir. Representative Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm off here to your right. I had the same questions as Senator Tucker regarding the requests that were not met by the executive recommendations. I won't repeat those, but I would second them. But I do want to just ask a little bit more about the non reimbursement of mileage. I mean, obviously that doesn't impact us that much here in Plaski County, where I represent because, you know, we have a lot of attorneys here and there's not a lot of distance to drive. But I am concerned about rural justice in rural areas. I mean, that's really where the impact will be primarily felt, right? And I guess I just kind of want to know to flesh out the implications of this. Do you have a sense for whether or not this is going to make it more difficult for you to retain and bring in attorneys? I mean, how much of an impact are we talking about in that respect? And secondly, how much leeway do people have or flexibility do they have in terms of what kinds of cases they're choosing to be on? Would they, if they had to come out of pocket to drive to the Drew County or wherever it is, you know, are they just going to pass or can they pass or kind of take me through how this is going to impact the administration of justice and the equitability in rural areas? Thank you, Representative Collins. And I'll start here in Plaski because for any member who might not know, but I'm assuming you do. This is the sixth judicial district. It consists of two counties, Plaski and Perry. So your judges that are elected, who have offices here in Plaski, they travel to Perry County. Typically, that court meets after I believe once every two weeks or once a month. So what is occurring is the public defender who is now housed here in Plaski is assigned cases by the managing attorney here in Plaski. For Perry County, depending upon the number of cases, and if there's a conflict, depends on how many cases that attorney has. But that attorney, nevertheless, if he or she has one case, is expected to be there every month when court meets. So they will drive from Plaski, which is their base of operation to Perry County and back. Now, when you take that circumstance and you multiply it by three counties, four counties, five or six, it's like a pinball effect. I mean, you're, and you've got since October, and I've heard the grumbles, but you've got public defenders all over the state carrying this system on their back. And we all know that gas last October was what? Cup of 250 a gallon? Well, now it's four dollars a gallon. And so it has a great impact, especially when we're anything financial with us because of what we can pay. The impact is hard, especially for the new lawyers that we're required to hire because we have difficulty retaining experience. We're losing to other state agencies over money. So if you have someone who just passed the bar this past summer, they just got the bar results. They will come in on the new pay plan at an SPCO 3 because they cannot come in any higher because they don't have experience. Their salary will be 71,000 a year. And if they have to travel, their expenses for travel are coming out of that because they're not getting reimbursed. And this request is to add to my budget so I can reimburse those people who have to travel to make court appearances. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe this question will be from Mr. Welch. I wanted to touch base on the, I think it's roughly 919,000 that was requested for specifically to support attorney costs associated with dependency negligent cases. If I understand this correctly, these are cases where I guess parents are defending or appealing their children being removed. Am I understanding that correctly? That's correct, yes. And so this is an increase from previous years. Yes. Could you speak to that just why the need is there or what the need is that you have for that and then I have a couple follow ups. When I took this position in 2013, the budget at that time for parent council was 2.2 million and it only included my contract attorneys. In 2019, we were relocated from the AOC to Public Fender Commission. At that time, I was given some employees from Public Fender Commission reassigned to me, specifically three individual attorneys that do our domestic dependency neglect appeals and the support staff that came with that. So there was a budget increase that was given to my budget just to include those new employees that came under my umbrella. So there wasn't any extra money that went to our contractors. And then a few years ago, we did get, I believe it was like a $400, $500,000 increase. So now we're at a total of for our contractors, which is what I'm talking about today. We're at a total of 3.6. What I need is I need five more attorneys because we have some areas where we are distretched entirely too thin and we have more caseload than our attorneys can handle. But I don't have the budget for those five. And then I also would, what would really be helpful is to be a higher position that would just do conflicts that would, you know, people get out, get sick, take vacation, they need coverage. Due to our timelines that are statutorily set, we don't have the ability to kick a case down the road three months. It has to happen at, you know, six months a year. We have, I think, four or five different statutory timelines. So in order to meet those demands, again, I need some more attorneys. I need some different kind of attorneys and I need to be able to increase that what we're paying those, because we're paying those contractors the same that we paid them when I took over in 2013, basically. The only increase we've had in that pay is I was able to, I guess that's been five or six years ago where the federal government allowed us to start pulling down funds from 4E based on how much our state budget was. So I do pull some federal funds to help pad that. So we were able to give them a small raise currently right now the way our pay plan is set up. We pay them approximately $1,200 a case, which if you went into the private sector and walked into an attorney's office and said, hey, I've got this case. It's going to last a year. We're probably going to have at least five, maybe six hearings plus multiple meetings with clients and meetings with stakeholders and all I have is $1,200 to pay you. They're going to patch you on the back wish you well and show you the door. I don't need it to be exact, but a ballpark number. How many of these cases are you going to see in a year? Currently, I believe the number of open cases with DCFS is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2600. Our budget currently right now covers 2800, but what that means is that's 2800 today. Every day cases close and every day we get new cases. So our total touch in a year is about 4,000 cases and we budget for 2800. I follow. So with these cases where I'm guessing your attorneys are advocating on behalf of the parents who are saying our children need to be returned to us so they should never have been taken the first place or somewhere along those lines. Yes. How often does it happen that the court finds in favor of the parents where a child may be returned? Does that happen at all? Yes. It happens. I think reunification rate in the state of Arkansas right now I believe hurs are around 42% of all total cases, which means 58% go to some other resolution, whether it be adoption or guardianship. And when it happens is a sliding scale. The first hearing that you have in these matters is a probable cause hearing. Very, very, very rarely do we get kids sent home at probable cause although it does happen. I would say 1 to 2% maybe adjudication, which is the main trial to determine the merits of the affidavit that the status filed against the parents were probably successful. Adjudication may be 5 to 10% and then of course that goes up as the case goes along. So in line with, I guess I'm just trying to think through the justification for the funding that you need for these situations. I don't know if you're aware or not, the federal HHS office of Inspector General did a child abuse investigation report in the state of Arkansas found a lot of problems. And the one that really stood out to me that I think would pertain to you is the failure to notify the alleged offenders. And them not receiving notification causes problems with them to receive due process, including their right to appeal a true determination. I believe that's a reference to the administrative track where they get placed on central registry. For our parents, the ones that we represent, it's a typical legal proceeding where they have to be served if they're not served, the case can't go forward. So everybody that we're representing has been served and has gotten noticed. So I guess another side of this equation, too, is a late notice. And so I'm curious if those delays in those families being notified in the caseload that you have, is this causing some of the backlog that you have an justification for this funding for additional attorney's fees or whatever it is that you need the money for? So that doesn't usually impact us again, because we're in that particular instance, we're operating under the civil procedure rules. So service is required and the court can't go forward. And so most of the time those are worked out relatively quickly. And in my experience, they don't happen that often. Now with the administrative track, I don't deal with that. Our attorneys don't do that. So I wouldn't have any knowledge of what's happening over there. Thank you, Mr. Walters. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Hester. Thank you. I know there's a constant need for additional staff and then pay for those staff. I'm asking you a question, I ask the PSE before. Are we, is justice being held up because you have inadequate staff? I mean, are we having to push court dates off because of your staff, or is it other reasons or, you know, I kind of the same thing I said to PSE. I want to get to court. People deserve to be told yes or no as soon as possible. Is your staffing holding that up? Is that for me, Senator Hester? Yes, sir. It is at this point. And what I will tell you is it's gotten worse. Last year, statewide, this is just an example. These numbers come from the spring court. There were what I count to be 150 capital murder cases filed statewide. Just capital murder cases by definition. Capital murder carries a potential penalty of life in prison or the death penalty. Unless and until the death penalty is waived, I have to appoint, by statute, two qualified death penalty attorneys, plus an investigator, plus a mitigation specialist. And if you only took half of that 150 and said 75, that's 150, the death qualified lawyers, I've got to find. At most, we have 30 in Arkansas, at most, because you don't get there overnight, because you have to have certain credentials. Now, a client could go out and hire somebody who passed the bar yesterday, but who would when they're facing a death penalty. That's just one aspect of it. And so it's constantly juggling, finding attorneys, hoping they'll get rid of one case. So they can take another case. And these are the type of cases that are not pleasant. You read about them in the paper daily, especially if you know of some in Northwest Arkansas that have caught up there, the horrific. And it takes a special breed as an attorney to handle these type of cases, because what you see, you don't forget ever. Not everybody has cut out for that work. And I take the position through the administration, because I have to appoint qualified attorneys otherwise, if they get the death penalty. In 15 or 20 years, I'll be explaining to a federal judge on a red habeas corpus or sooner. Why I did or did not do something. And if I did not do something, it's going back to the trial court, and it may start all over again. In fact, there was a case out of Dallas County in the last few years. It wasn't even. It was a capital case, but it wasn't a death penalty case. That case originated when I was down there in 1988, federal court reversed it and sent it back to the trial court a couple of years ago. For a retrial. Can't do it. So we know we're going to be facing a review at some point on up the line. And when we can't pay our attorneys to try and I'll give you just one example. I've recently lost a part time public defender highly qualified came to us and I was able to pay this public defender $44,000 a year part time. And he had been a previous deputy prosecutor with great success. He just got hired away from us by another agency. Because they kept coming to him to hire him and he says the money just got too good. And so working for that other agency part time. He's making $78,000 a year. I can't touch that. I can't throw opium. I can't even get close to that. So as you can see, I train him. Somebody else gets him. And the people that are staying in this business for lengthy amounts of time are the people that believe in the cause. Remembering the oath that we took which is very much akin to the oath that everyone in this room took and it's to uphold the Constitution. But I'm losing people like that monthly to other state agencies because I can't compete. Excuse me, Representative Wooten. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. President, you're to be commended. You're in your staff and people and you're too. Because we've asked an awful lot of you and you try your best to do it. What is your case slowed for an attorney? And if I understand it correctly, you're a criminal and you're a family. Is that, would that be okay? What is your case slowed in the criminal per attorney? And this is going to be across the board as a close average because again, it's going to differ from where you are in the state because depending upon whether you're traveling or not, means you're not able to be in the office handling cases. I'll start here in Pulaski. I think my public defenders in circuit court adult circuit court are anywhere from 250 to 300 felony cases or more per attorney to 300 per attorney to 250 to 250. And what and it's on our website, I will tell you, the Rand Corporation did a study that involved all the players involved judges, prosecutors, law enforcement, everybody across the board. It was a several year study. It just came out a couple of years ago. And it went from, we're not going to count the type of cases, the cases that you handle by number, but it's going to go to a time factor because from experience, the time I'm going to spend on a forgery, done compared to the time I'm going to spend on a murder one aggravated robbery or right. So that study came out and said on an average, this is what we think an attorney should spend per case, hourly, amount of time. It did not factor in travel or any of those other things. And I can tell you, based on the numbers that we've got, the math won't work because if you do the math, once you hit for full time employee, two thousand eighty hours, you know, they've got 50 cases that they could easily say, I'm done. Don't give me any more cases because I can't do these the rest of the year. You get into the rural areas, roughly the same or even more. I mean, it just depends on what the prosecutor files. And then you then you got a factor in not only the adult circuit, but you got a factor in the juvenile courts that we cover as well as the district courts that we cover as well. And you ask a very important question that we should have been asking every agency, every person that comes up before us is the cost of fuel to be for a fleet of vehicles that we have. And then on top of that, what those we compensate for using their own vehicles and the gasoline has gone a dollar and a half, two dollars a gallon higher. And public faces and as well as the state faces have once you're in the case of person per case. We're set up quite differently than the public defender commission. All of my not all I have a handful of part time state employees, but they work the same as our contractors. So our contracts range in the in the range between about 30 up to 90. And that's for a part time that also carries either another public defender position or private. Private case load. But those are the way we structure our contracts is say, for example, we have a 45 case contract. What that means to us and the contractor is that if we take a snapshot of your case load every month, you'll have approximately 45 open cases. There's a significant number of our attorneys that are running 5, 10, 15 cases above their contract load. We do have some obviously that run lower. Again, it depends on how often they take children, how often the case is open, how often the case is closed. So ours fluctuates. The ABA recommends no more than 75. So those all those contracts and attorneys that are working above 75, which I have at my last count was 28. They're over the recommended case load. So either way, either group, your group or your group is facing court orders or court limitations relative to the time that a person has to be brought forward judge. Yes, sir. And so let's go back to but there's fine. The question line of questions. Fine. If you want to plot to the question, I have what what what what staffing do you need each session? This comes up before us. So how many attorneys more do you need and how many more do you need? You want to take that first part? This is the first time I've ever asked for increase since I've been doing this. So we you know we we make do and get by with what we have. But with the recent changes to pay structures and of course the increasing gas and the cost of everything else. I just felt like it was necessary to ask that's why I mentioned earlier I would like to add another five to my roster to go from 65 to 70. I also give them a slight increase on their contract pay rate. We're probably operating in about 20 to 25% of private market in what we pay them. And so if I can just give them the people to do this again like Mr. Parrish mentioned earlier you you got to believe in this. This is hard work when you're working with you know families that had their children taken away from them. You can do this not everybody wants to do this is highly emotional. So the attorneys that we look for not always easily to find so if we can just give them even a little bump they would be very appreciative and we could keep jugging on. Thank you Mr. Parrish. And in my answer representative is a lot more complicated than I'll tell you why you asked me about the mile that for first off with the mileage we only compensate a 52 cents a mile. But we're not seeing lawyers for any reason going south of Little Rock. And I've heard this from a superintendent once before and I believe it's true. If you take I 40 from Memphis to Little Rock and then you take I 30 from Little Rock to Dallas everything below that no one's going there. No no lawyers are going there unless they have a mother or father who were in practice. And there's certainly not going there for what we can pay. And it's not only us it's prosecutors as well because I've got a lot of friends you're prosecutors and we're competing for the same person in a lot of places. And I'm always lose because I can't pay. I can't match the right of pay not balting them. I'm going to say I can't match that. So what would you need? What would adequately address your problem? A minimum of a number. The main thing is incentivizing going someplace where I can't get lawyers. A Harrison the 14th district unbelievably different. The 10th district Monticello warn the 13th. And I have a great I have a better pull to choose from here in Little Rock and Fayetteville because the law schools are there and nobody's leaving there. You know when they graduate. But I mean much like the medical profession doctors aren't going to get there either. And it's only going to get worse. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Painter. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm sorry, Mr. Parris. I didn't maybe I didn't hear an answer. What is the current vacancy rate for public defenders across the state? Because you just mentioned the 14th. I have public defenders calling me at least every few months asking for help because of the case load and everything else. And as you can, nobody wants to go up in the northern Ozarks to work up there. But what is the vacancy rate across the state? I think we figured it out about 13%. So on that, how much of your budget do you spend on contract work? Just an average? We have budgeted for that to 750,000 for the contract attorneys. And we have budget 725,000. Now when you say contract, we don't do contracts. You know, because when depending upon the classification of the offense, depends on who I can appoint. Only certain type of lawyers can handle certain type cases, even if they're not capital cases. And so we easily went through all that money last year because of the number of attorneys I'm having to appoint statewide. And when I get a conflict in South Arkansas where there's no lawyers to begin with, I got to send somebody from the little rock and I try to avoid it every, I want somebody local. They don't have to travel. They know the judge, the judge knows them. It's impossible. Can't do it. Gotcha. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Tucker. I think I'm good, Mr. Chair. I may come back at the end if I need to, but I don't think I need to. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Ripley and Betty. Mr. Chair, I just have motion at proper time. I have some more questions, so I'll come back to you. Thanks, sir. Ripley and me. Thanks. So right here in front of you. So I want to circle back to the Miles reimbursement request that you have at the 246, assuming this all passes and proceeds, it'll be July before you could actually start paying the mileage out of this. So are you having, I mean, that's, you know, half a year away. Are you having now track their mileage and hope you want to reimburse that? Or are we saying you're just out of luck and then we'll start reimbursing you July? I'm just curious if you plan for that. And if you've not planned for that, do we need to plan for that and adjust that number? No one has specified that they're looking to get back mileage. Okay. I have heard many, many complaints that pay me for my mileage now for where I'm going to. But again, these are people who believe in the calls. Sure. Sure. And you don't want to offend a judge. But I mean, I know I've been on what I like to call a season lawyer. But if I was in that position being asked to drive six counties. Sure. I think I'd tell that judge. Judge, I'll see you on court today. I'm not coming to visit my clients in the jail. I'm not coming to visit my clients right on bond. Now if the sheriff wants to pick them up and bring them to me because no one's paid me my mileage and $4 a gallon of drive there. Right. When everybody else in the system is getting reimbursed. Right. So everybody. I'm part of my reason for asking that is I think you'd find a lot of sympathy in the legislature that we need to make sure we're paying them their mileage. And so if the intent is to wait until July 1 with this budget. Just a suggestion you might consider trying to come through the legislative council and see about doing a supplemental to maybe patch over and start paying these folks a little bit, a little bit sooner. Because of that attorney general's opinion are the counties now picking up any of the tab or is this pretty much at this point that the counties aren't helping cover any of the expenses. I think there's some isolated counties who are still doing it because the county judges know the benefit. I mean, if I went to one county and I got one guy out of jail, that's paid for my mileage because he doesn't have to house that inmate for three or four more weeks. But I think that was the only thing the counties were paying though. It was that. And so now with the attorney general's opinion, the counties aren't pitching in basically anything with the public defender's office. So they have a maintenance and operation obligation also in some counties, not all provide office space to meet with clients there as well. And they fund that now. I collect every year until my public defenders are approved budgets from the county as well as our counterparts approve budgets from the county. Again, I'm not faulting them. There's a massive, massive difference. Okay, all right. Thank you. Representative Panier. I have a motion, Mr. Chair, that we do agency rep could let me. You own the fur. That's fine. He had asked first. Yes, we talked. Okay. He's so long as long as we're straight. I don't want. Okay. We're all good. Representative Panier, recognize your motion. That we do agency rec for this. Thank you. Zero second. Second. All in favor say aye. All opposed. Thank you. Motion passes. Members, thank you very, very much on behalf of myself and all the other state employees. Yes. Thank you. One more before we get to go eat lunch. Development finance authority. If you would please turn your mics on introduce yourself. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department summary for the Arkansas Development Finance Authority is on page 417. The authority currently has two appropriations that are 100% federally funded. And three ARPA appropriations that are not requested for the next biennium. The authority is requesting to discontinue their two appropriations in the next biennium pursuant to act 4944 of 2025. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. I'm waiting. I don't see any questions. I have a motion for executive recommendation. Second. Second. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed. Thank you very much. You waited a long time. Okay, members, let me before we adjourn. I want to remind everyone that we'll be meeting next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. But personnel will meet Tuesday at 130. And special language will meet Wednesday at 130. So don't forget if you're on personnel or special language to look at your calendar and book that. And please be there. And with that said, we are adjourned.