Arkansas Legislative Council Peer Review
December 17, 2024
Senator Jonathan Dismang If everybody can take their seats. Senator Chesterfield says we are ready. I'm very proud. The clock in the back matches the clock on my wrist. So thank you staff for adjusting the time. If you could go ahead and take your seats. All right, members, we're going to go through all the items in B, and then I will come back and I'll ask if there's any questions, and then we'll vote on each 1 of those individually. If you have a question, wait until that item is announced. So we'll go to B1. Does anyone have a question? If you have questions on B6, you'll have your opportunity to hit the button then. Okay. All right. You're recognized.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're in section B. These are various temporary appropriation requests. The first item is B1. This is a letter from the Department of Agriculture. This is for 3.5 million in appropriation. According to the letter, it's to cover an increased number of concurrent projects across fiscal years, coupled with confounding variables that may affect research projects. Staff did reach out to the agency and learned that some of the factors are multiple projects paying out at the same time and an unanticipated increase in soybean production. These are all supported by soybean assessments.
Next item is a letter from Department of Corrections. This is B2. This is a $300,000 increase in appropriation. This is to cover medical quality review services, audits, training, a dietitian and other professional fees. B3 is a letter from Public Safety. It's 8,000 in appropriation is to purchase a videography system for the Public Information Office. B4 is a letter from the Department of Military. It's for 650,000. This is to match the Federal Cooperative funding agreement to update and maintain armories in Camp Roberson buildings. The letter says this is supported by general revenue, but they will adjust their budget and an increase in GR will not be necessary.
B5 is a letter from the Division of State Police for half a million in spending authority to construct training barracks. This is from a fund center where a special revenue comes from criminal history background checks. And the next item, B6, is also from State Police. This is 1.4 million for the same purpose for training barracks. It's for a different fund center though. This is from special revenue from driver's license fees.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Members, do we have any-- ao he's not showing up. I think I have it. All right, Senator Johnson, you're recognized for a question on B1. Maybe not. Hold on. Can you go ahead and hit your mic again, Senator? Allright, you're recognized for a question on B1.
Senator Blake Johnson Is anybody here from the department?
Senator Jonathan Dismang Do we have anyone from the Ag Department to come answer a couple of questions or maybe one?
Fred Wiedower Fred Wiedower, Department of Agriculture.
Scott Bray Scott Bray, Department of Agriculture.
Senator Blake Johnson So what's the confounding variables?
Fred Wiedower The amount of collections of the soybean assessment, we're anticipating that being above what it was previously. And half of what we bring in has to be remitted to US Soybean, the national organization. So the more of that we have to do, the more appropriation we need. So that's 1 of the confounding variables. And primarily it's a timing issue. Multi-Year research grants, primarily to the University of Arkansas, sometimes they kind of bill us all at 1 time as opposed to over a period of time. And that's kind of what's happened to us in this fiscal year.
Senator Blake Johnson So you've got more money. So you need to be able to spend more. And the matching has hit in two years instead of one.
Fred Wiedower That's correct.
Senator Blake Johnson That's better than confounding variables. Thank you.
Fred Wiedower I'll pass that along.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thanks, Senator. Do we have any of the questions on B1? B2? B3? B4, 5, or 6? All right. Seeing no questions, we got a motion to approve all items B1-6. We've got a second. Discussion on the motion? Representative Springer. Hold on. You're recognized.
Representative Joy Springer Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to know, in 5 and 6, who are these barracks being constructed? State Police.
Senator Jonathan Dismang Okay. Can someone answer that? Camp Robinson. Is it not at Camp Robertson? Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. All right. Do we have any other discussion on the motion to approve items B1-6? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. C1.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're in section C. These are CARES Act appropriation requests. There's only one. It's for DFA Budget and Management Services. This is for 1.78 million in spending authority. This is to return federal funds that were awarded for the coronavirus emergency supplemental funding program.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you, members. Do we have any questions on C1? Seeing no questions, I've got a motion to approve. I've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. D1 and 2.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Section D, these are American Rescue Plan Act requests. There are two requests. The first 1 is a direct federal award from a federal department to a state agency. And the last request is a reallocation of funds that were awarded by the executive. That's from state's share of state fiscal recovery funds. D1 is a request from Corrections. It's for 3.7 million in spending authority. This is to make improvements to the Tucker water treatment plant. There is a letter from McClelland Consulting engineers following the requests and on page 5 is a budget. On page 7 is the next request. Page 7 is D2. This is a request from Parks, Heritage and Tourism. Again, this is a reallocation of previously awarded appropriation. They're requesting to move 1.6 million from a construction line to a miscellaneous line item. This is for trail construction for the City of Dardanelle from an award made by ALC originally in September of 2023. The transfer will allow payments to be made to the City of Dardanelle directly, as opposed to the department paying a vendor out of the construction line item.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you, members. Do we have any questions on D1? Any questions on D2? All right, Seeing none, we've got a motion to approve. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Others opposed? Motion carries. Section E.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Section E, these are the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act appropriation requests. The first one is a request from Public Safety, State Crime Lab. It's for 152,000 in appropriation. They have a grant from the National Highway Safety Administration to buy test kits, pipette charging stands and staff training to aid in complying with the fatality analysis reporting system for motor vehicle crashes.
Next item, E2 is for the Division of State Police. This is 3.4 million. They have a grant from the National Highway Safety Administration to implement a highway safety program that includes awareness campaigns, data collection and analysis in support of enforcement efforts in seatbelt distracted driving and speeding impaired driving loss.
Number E3 is for the Division of Emergency Management. This is 275,000 in spending authority. They have a grant from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration at the DOT. This is for year three of their hazardous material emergency preparedness screening program. Mr. Chair, those are all your requests.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Senator Rice, you're recognized for a question on E1. Do we have any questions on E1? Seeing none, Senator Rice, you're recognized for a question on E2.
Senator Terry Rice Thank you. Somebody come up from State Police.
Senator Jonathan Dismang If you could just recognize yourself for the committee.
Bridget White Sorry. Bridget White, Highway Safety Office administrator for the Arkansas State Police.
Karen Perry Karen Perry, Department of Public Safety, CFO.
Senator Terry Rice Thank you all for being here. This is something I ask every couple of years. When you approve a request for federal grants, has there been any substantive change in what the State Police is agreeing to in the way of enforcement, ticket writing, the efforts and the number of manpower it requires? I know with a change in federal administration, sometimes these things change. In the number of years I've seen and I've asked questions, they say, well, we're getting federal money. What I want to know, what did you agree to to get federal money on the safety deal? Or any substantive changes from prior years?
Bridget White Sir, no, there have not been any substantive changes in the past five years.
Senator Terry Rice Okay. And what I'm looking for is where there's additional manpower that take away from other duties of the State Police to meet the federal criteria to get the grant. And that's always my concern. And I have found some things over the years.
Bridget White All of the enforcement efforts that are done through highway safety grants are for overtime.
Senator Terry Rice Okay, therein again, for them to get overtime, they've got to write some tickets. It may be warning tickets is what I was informed a few years ago for them to justify getting the federal money for overtime.
Bridget White Or they just have to be out there and present. There is no mandate for a specific number of tickets or citations.
Senator Terry Rice The State Police has to show the federal government this is what we did with your grant. So they do take manpower and overtime and, yes, it may be some safety, but they're distracted sometimes, I think, from their other duties that they're doing to make sure they get their overtime logged. And that's my concern. So thank you for stating that.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Members, do we have any other questions on E2. Seeing none, thank you. All right. Any questions on E3? Seeing no questions, motion. We've got a motion to approve itemsE1-3. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Section F.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Section F, these are restricted reserve fund transfer requests. The first one is a letter from DFA disbursing officer. This is a $2 million transfer. It's from the various general discretionary majority vote set aside. It's to make it grants to Arkansas enterprises for the developmentally disabled. It's to construct the Jobs For You Cabot Workforce Training Center in Lonoke County, according to the executive summary. In the next page, the total cost of the center is 3.7 million. Construction can begin in 2025 and it will open in 2026. The program would train up to 60 adults with developmental disabilities each year to be placed in meaningful employment. Spending authority for this will be requested later in the agenda in the cash section.
The next item, F2, is a letter from the University of Arkansas. This is a $7.3 million transfer. It's from the infrastructure grants matching set aside. It's to support construction in purchasing capital equipment for the Multi-user Silicon Carbide Fabrication Facility or the MUSC fabrication facility. This project received a $1 million transfer from restricted reserve in August of 2022. On the following page, it says MUSC will advance development and commercialization of the silicon carbide power devices for military, consumer, industrial and health care applications.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you, members. We have questions on F1? F2. All right. Seeing no questions, we've got a motion to approve items F1 and 2. We've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. This takes us to our review items, G1.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chair. Section G is an appropriation or transfer request. This is for the Commission for Parent Counsel at the Public Defender Commission. They have special language that allows a transfer after review by ALC. The agency requests transferring 20,000 from legal services to extra help. The letter explains a contractor has agreed to a part time position with the public defender, so spending authority would need to move from the vendor line to an extra help line.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Do we have any questions on G1? All right. Seeing no questions, I've got a motion to review. I've got a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Others opposed? Motion carries. Section H.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Section H. These are cash fund appropriation request. Their first one is a letter from the Division of State Parks and Heritage. This is a $1 million increase in appropriation. It's to address extensive repairs at the Ozark Folk Center State Park from storm damage that occurred in June of 2023. It's supported by an insurance payout. Second item, H1 is a letter from DFA. It's for 2 million in spending authority. It's to provide the spending authority for the restricted reserve transfer for the Jobs For You Cabot Workforce Training Center that was requested in the restricted reserve section.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Do we have any questions on H1? any Questions on H2? I've got a motion to review both items. I've got a second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Others opposed? Motion carries. Section I.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Miscellaneous Federal Grants. The first one, I1, is for Appraiser Licensing Board. It's 22,000. They have a grant from the Federal Financial Institute Examination Council for State Appraiser Regulatory Agency support. Next item, number two, is Department of Health, 4.7 million. They have a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration for the Age Drug Assistance Program.
Number three is State Crime Lab. This is for 211,000 an appropriation and to establish one position. They have the grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to hire an assistant technical leader as part of decreasing the number of backlogged DNA cases. Number four is Department of Insurance over at Commerce. It's for 614,000 spending authority. They have a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to assess the state's essential health benefits in the benchmark plan and identify potential opportunities for broadened maternal health coverage.
Number five is Transformation Division of Building Authority. It's for 2.75 million in spending authority. They have a grant from the Department of Defense for security and fire safety upgrades at the Army Navy Hospital in Hot Springs. Number 6 is the Department of Military. It's 15 million in spending authority. They have a grant from the National Guard Bureau to update Camp Robinson.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Members, do we have any questions on I1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6? Seeing no questions, I've got a motion to review section I. I've got a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Those opposed. Section J.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Section J. These are pay plan appropriation requests. There's only one. It's for the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training at Public Safety. It's for 93,000 in appropriation. This is due to performance increases, employee benefits division increases and other salary adjustments.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Members, do we have any questions on J1? All right. Seeing no questions, I've got a motion to review and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Section K.
Staff Thank you, Mr. Chair. Section K is overtime appropriation requests. This is for Division of Correction. It's for 5.2 million in spending authority. This is due to staff shortages.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Senator Love, You're recognized for a question. And do we have anyone from the Division of Correction that can come forward to help? And if you could just recognize yourself for the committee and then, Senator Love, you're going to be recognized for your question. If I can figure out how to do that.
Dexter Payne Dexter Payne, director for the Division of Correction.
Chad Brown Chad Brown, Chief Financial Officer, Division of Corrections.
Senator Fred Love Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I have just a quick question regarding the overtime. Now, I know that we have this overtime piece every, I guess every year. Have we tried to make any adjustments to the budget so that we could just include this? Or is this something that we just continuously are going to have to do?
Chad Brown Well, in regards to the budget, we have requested an increase in our appropriation up to 15 million.
Senator Fred Love Now is that for--
Chad Brown That's for this fiscal year.
Senator Fred Love Okay. But is that to cover overtime?
Chad Brown Yes, sir, it is. That's just the appropriation. So we'll pay for the overtime out of our salary savings. So this request should get us through the end of the fiscal year. We pay about a 1.5 a month, 1.5. We've had one month where we've paid 2 million in overtime. But it looks like it's turning back down to the 1.3, 1.4 range. So we're hoping the 5.2 will get us through the end of the year.
Senator Fred Love Okay. So the 5.2 will get you through the end. Hold on, Chad. I'm trying to do some math.
Chad Brown We've already got 15 million. This will be in addition to the 15 million that we currently have.
Senator Fred Love Okay, so then what did you do to your budget to adjust it then?
Chad Brown Are you talking about the appropriation side?
Senator Fred Love On the appropriation side.
Chad Brown On the appropriation side, so we had 15 million in our appropriation act. This request is for an additional 5 million to add to that to get us through the end of the fiscal year.
Senator Fred Love So you didn't do anything to adjust your budget for the anticipated overtime for next year?
Chad Brown Well, in FY 24, we had a request to increase our appropriation for FY25. It still doesn't seem to be enough based on the appropriation that we have. So that's something we'll look at in this session as well.
Senator Fred Love Okay. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chair. I'll just leave it at that. Thank you.
Senator Jonathan Dismang Senator Chesterfield.
Senator Linda Chesterfield Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, gentlemen. Good to see you again. What is of concern to me is how short are we as far as staff is concerned? Because there's something necessitating the overtime. So what is driving the need? Is it a lack of staffing?
Dexter Payne Yes, ma'am. It's definitely a lack of staffing. At several of our facilities, we are very short staffed.
Senator Linda Chesterfield Give me an example, percentage wise or person wise.
Dexter Payne Okay. Percentage wise, I'll take the Tucker facility. The Tucker facility is 48% short staffed.
Senator Linda Chesterfield And where is this?
Dexter Payne At the Tucker facility.
Senator Linda Chesterfield At the Tucker facility?
Dexter Payne Yes, ma'am. Tucker, Arkansas.
Senator Linda Chesterfield What kind of offenders do we have here?
Dexter Payne We've got medium security offenders at that facility.
Senator Linda Chesterfield But this is one of the places where you're going to need the most overtime money, is that right?
Dexter Payne Yes, ma'am, that's correct.
Senator Linda Chesterfield What are we doing to attract? Is it because the money is not good? How much are we paying on average these people come into Tucker? Because we're at a 48% rate of underemployment.
Dexter Payne Yes, ma'am. We're paying them about $42,000 per year.
Senator Linda Chesterfield That's it.
Dexter Payne Yes, ma'am.
Senator Linda Chesterfield Give me another example, because we get 48% there. Is there any place where we're fully staffed.
Dexter Payne Fully staffed?
Senator Jonathan Dismang Just for context, I'm not sure why we're not doing it, but can we talk about the proposed pay plan increases that should help remedy? Because I think that's what she's asking.
Senator Linda Chesterfield That's what I'm asking.
Senator Jonathan Dismang We understand what's happening right now. There are some substantial changes that are occurring. Historically, y'all haven't been able to spend all the money that you have for salaries because you can't hire enough people at the salary rates that are there. And so there's a fix coming with the pay plan. So maybe I think--
Senator Linda Chesterfield That gets to the heart of what I'm trying to get to.
Chad Brown So, Senator, we're hoping that fix is going to help our recruitment.
Senator Linda Chesterfield Tell me what because remind me of it. I've read it, but I don't remember. How much are we anticipating raising the minimum salary then to attract individuals into it?
Dexter Payne The starting pay will be close to $50,000. Yes, ma'am. We're hoping that that will definitely help.
Senator Linda Chesterfield Yes, that will help. Because that's basically what I'm asking, because we can't continue to sustain this overtime because we have got to be able to hire people. And are we looking at where they are because at some point we talk about we need to pay more to get people in this particular area as opposed to this particular area. Are we taking that into account as well?
Dexter Payne Yes, ma'am, we are.
Senator Linda Chesterfield That's what I need to know. Thank you for clarifying what I was trying to say. I appreciate you sometimes.
Senator Jonathan Dismang Sometimes.
Senator Linda Chesterfield Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen, for taking my questions.
Senator Jonathan Dismang Senator Irvin.
Senator Missy Irvin Thank you. I think this is correct. But this isn't any new money. This is already your current funding. You're just transferring and asking for the appropriation to transfer your current funding into this holding account. Is that the budgetary practice that you do any time that you have-- or do you try to anticipate and leave a certain amount of appropriation in that per month and then sometimes that exceeds it, which is why we're here? I'm just curious about your budgeting process or how you try to determine what level of funding you're going to need for overtime because that's just going to vary, right?
Chad Brown Yes, ma'am. So salary match and overtime all have separate line items in our appropriation ct. So our overtime, like I was telling Senator Love is at 15 million in our appropriation act. As we do our projections throughout the year and we take our actuals, which are actuals is what we spend each month. We take those actuals and then we project out to the end of the fiscal year. And as each month passes, we move the projection to an actual. And so right now we've projected about 5 million short in overtime appropriation. So we'll use the existing funding that we have in order to pay that.
Senator Missy Irvin Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that we confirm that and put that on the record. Thank you so much. Appreciate that.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Senator Stubblefield.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dexter, how many employees are we bringing in from Mississippi or Tennessee? Are you bringing any, busing staff in from either of those states?
Dexter Payne Yes, sir. We're definitely bringing in staff from Mississippi to work at the Cummins, Varner and Delta Unit, as well as at the East Arkansas regional facility.
Senator Gary Stubblefield How many? How many are being bused in?
Dexter Payne I don't know a total amount. I can find that out for you, though, and get that information to you.
Senator Gary Stubblefield All right. One more question. What is the ratio between male and female guards in our prison system?
Dexter Payne Okay. I'll have Mr. Stewart look at that and I'll give that information to you, too. But it's somewhere about 60-40 females.
Senator Gary Stubblefield 60% females?
Dexter Payne Yes.
Senator Gary Stubblefield 40% males?
Dexter Payne It's close to that.
Senator Gary Stubblefield We've got a lot of female staff.
Dexter Payne Yes, sir.
Senator Gary Stubblefield Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Do we have any other questions? All right. Seeing none, thank you all for your time. All right. What's the will of the committee? We've got a motion to review. We've got a second. Discussion. Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Brings us to reports. Like we've been doing the last several meetings, members, do you have any questions or comments on the reports?
Senator Jimmy Hickey Seven whenever we get there.
Senator Jonathan Dismang Senator Hickey, you're recognized.
Senator Jimmy Hickey DHS whenever we get to that one. Medicaid trust, I want to--
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right, We're at it. So if we've got someone from DHS, come forward. M7.
Janet Mann Good morning. Janet Mann, DHS.
Jason Callan Jason Callen, DHS.
Lori McDonald Lori McDonald, DHS.
Senator Jimmy Hickey Okay, I'm over here to the left. I know you are going to start hating me, but I've told you that we were going to do this monthly because it looks like the cash flow deficiency that we have within Medicaid right here. And I believe the testimony in the past month or two has been that it looked like annually we were going to have, looks like we have 200 million more thereabouts going out than we have coming in.
Looks like this month you dropped from, October balance was 568, round numbers, and you're down to 553. So it looks like that's still in line. Have you all looked at that again to make sure that you still think that it's about $200 million a year coming out of that account more than is going in?
Janet Mann We do monitor the budget every week, as we have discussed every month when we do these questions. And we are still within our budget projections, right at 98 to 99% of trend. And so we feel that we are on track. I would also-- yes, sir. I'll just stop there.
Senator Jimmy Hickey Well, I guess my question, though, was, as we said annually, and I know we have to do some estimates here, do we believe that we're going to have approximately 200 million in debits over and above our credits by the time the fiscal year is over? Are we still at that? And then I have one more question and then I'll--
Janet Mann Yeah, I'm a little cautious on saying debits over credits or credits over debit because we budgeted using some of our trust fund monies that come from the providers. So a lot of these fees that you see today are provided through the provider fees to do some payments. So that's the reason I'm a little.
Senator Jimmy Hickey Let me rephrase it. Are we still, and again, I'm not holding you to an exact number. I understand what you're up against. So are we still estimating that the balance in the trust fund at the end of the fiscal year will be approximately 200 million less than it was at the start of the fiscal year?
Janet Mann Yes, sir. We are staying on our budget trend of what we put into AOP to spend.
Senator Jimmy Hickey Okay. I don't think that's a direct question. But since you said yes, I'm going to say if that's not true, I want you to speak up. So I'm going to say it's 200 million unless you tell me right now, that's wrong. It's a simple question. I'm not trying to be rude here, but you're telling me your budget trends and I'm just asking about the account. The account has X amount of money at the start of the fiscal year, June 30th, July 1st. And at the end, are we anticipating that it's going to be, as Vince testified, close to $200 million less whenever we start the next fiscal year?
Janet Mann And the difficulty with answering that is because of the provider fees and things that get put to the account. I think we are going to spend some, yes.
Senator Jimmy Hickey Okay. One other question, and I'd like for you all to give me this information, if you don't mind. I've had some members ask me this question and I could not answer it. They're asking me if our operating accounts or our holding accounts, actually, that you all are carrying more money within those instead of the trust fund so that it makes-- this is the reason I'm asking this question because I want to be exact-- that there's more money on a historical basis within those operating or holding accounts than there has been in the past. And what I'd like to know is whether or not that's true or not true. So if we could do a look back for the last three years, like with our holding accounts or our operating accounts that are outside of this, I'd like to know if those balances are substantially the same within those holding accounts month over month and that they have not increased and that you don't just have extra dollars sitting in with those accounts.
Janet Mann So I will begin and then I will let Mr. Callan correct me if I get something wrong.
Senator Jimmy Hickey Thank you.
Janet Mann We are monitoring our holding accounts. Historically, they have had some money in them, not more than what is in the trust fund. But those are made of multiple accounts for paying. And we do monitor those with the trust and our other operating accounts when we pay our bills. And we are mindful that that money needs to be spent first with paying our bills.
Senator Jimmy Hickey Okay. My question is this. October of '22, October of '23, October of '24, your holding accounts, what were your balances in those years? I want to see because of questions that members are asking me for some reason is that we're not maintaining more balances in those accounts than historically that we have. And that's what I would like to get. And I don't know if that request has already been made from you from the bureau or not, because I think there's been some talk about trying to request and get that. But I'm just doing it here publicly.
Janet Mann Yes, sir. We will get you that information. I'm not aware that it's come from the bureau recently. But we've done some other reports in years passed.
Senator Jimmy Hickey All right. I appreciate your work on it. Thank you.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you, members. Do we have any other questions on M7? Seeing none, we do have a question on M8? Does DFA want to answer your questions on that?
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Mine is for the Department of Energy.
Senator Jonathan Dismang Department of Energy. Do we have anyone here? All right. And if you could just recognize yourself for the committee.
Whitney Rainey Whitney Rainey, CFO for the Department of Energy and Environment.
Andrea Hopkins Andrea Hopkins, Associate Energy Administrator.
Becky Keogh Becky Keogh, Department of Finance and Administration.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you all so much for being here. My question is going to be dealing with some of the awards that you got for the infrastructure. You've got an award here that's for state energy program. It's 5.3 million. It was awarded in June of 23. And it says your total obligations out of that's only been $21,000. Why? It's well over a year. So what's the holdup with being able to use that money?
Whitney Rainey I know this is one that they have just started implementing the actual program and they have until 2027 to spend it. And their current budget approved by the feds, the timeline matches up and they will have it spent by 2027.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. And what exactly are they spending this on?
Whitney Rainey Hold on just one second. I'm sorry. I'm trying to get that answer.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay, well, we can move on to the next one In the meantime. The other one that dealing with is the weatherization assistance program. This was awarded back in June of 22. It's for $32.8 million. And we've spent 614,000 of that. And if my memory serves me correctly, there was a lot of debate when this money was awarded. We were talking about how this program is a needed program and we were going to be able to do more stuff. It doesn't appear we've done much.
Whitney Rainey So the federal government or the federal agency just approved their budget in September for this program. So they have started implementing and that's where the expenses have been incurred just recently that you're seeing right there.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh And are we looking that we're going to be able to end up using the money?
Whitney Rainey Yes. We just got the two year extension from 2027 through 2029 to make sure that we can.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. All right. Thank you.
Senator Jonathan Dismang All right. Thank you. Members, do we have any other questions? All right. Seeing none, do we have any other business? Seeing none, we are adjourned. Thanks for your time.
