Arkansas Legislative Council Review Subcommittee
December 17, 2024
Senator Scott Flippo All right, everybody, if you want to take your seats, we're gonna get this meeting started. I just want to welcome everybody to the year ending Review Subcommittee meeting. I don't know about y'all, but I think that's a good thing. Looking for a couple of weeks off. But before we get started today, members, I do want to recognize Miss Kathy Schmidt. Kathy is going to be-- is it like retiring actually? Are you actually going to retire, Kathy? Retiring from government is what I'm hearing. Full time.
But with that, I know Chairman Wardlaw and I, along with Chairman Rice, do have some citations. And so Whereas Miss Kathy Schmidt is retiring on December 31st, 2024. Yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. Kathy, I'm not going to read this thing out. We know how this goes, but I want to thank you. I have served as a co chair of this committee for the past seven years. And what I can still remember, you haven't aged a bit.
But I tell you what, your professionalism has been unparalleled. You've been a great colleague, but you've been a great friend. And more importantly, you have shown me the ins and outs of procurement laws and all the nuances and things that you have never wanted to really take the time to show me. You've been great. And I just want to tell you, on behalf of a grateful state, thank you so much for your service.
Representative Jeff Wardlaw So I'm gonna take a minute to do this. Because when I was a second termer, I took the position of Review chairman and was nervous as all get out because the first time I run a committee was in this room with Miss Kathy Schmidt to my left. And I can tell you guys, there is nobody that knows the contracts of state government the way Miss Kathy Schmidt knows them. Not only does she know them, she knows every increment piece of them and the people that help procure them. And that's very important when you chair a committee like Review and I can't tell you how much you prepared me for what it made me as a member going forward. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate working with you. Thank you.
Senator Scott Flippo Now I get to say a few words, Kathy. No, no, no. Less. Come on up here. Kathy's retiring at the end of the year, Les. Les is a man of few words. I put that in there for you. She was giving me grief over the yadda, yadda, yadda. Inside joke. All right, Miss Kathy, I know you're not one for formal words, so if you just want to get started. Let's do it.
Kathy Schmidt Before we do get started, I do want to say thank you. I have really enjoyed working for this committee, for this organization, for BLR, and it was hard to make a decision to actually retire. But it's been a pleasure. And I thank you all so much. And now we're going to start out with the methods of finance. For the last time, I'm going to present them for you. We're starting in the B packet.
Senator Scott Flippo On a scale of 1 to 10.,How excited are you about this being the last time?
Kathy Schmidt Pretty big.
Senator Scott Flippo All right, Kathy, take it away.
Kathy Schmidt Starting with the methods of finance in your agenda, Packet B on page 1 is the letter from DFA sending over the methods of finance. On the next page, you'll see a chart that has the individual projects listed. The first one is for Arkansas School for Mathematics Sciences and Arts. It's for their maintenance building and woodshop. It's a multipurpose facility at $2,250,000, and they have reserves to cover the funding of this. Next, you have the Arkansas State Police for the security system replacement at the governor's mansion. This is primarily funded with ARPA funds and it is being revised to $1,455,297.
And the next one also for the State Police, also using some ARPA funding, is for the barracks facility at Camp Robinson. This will be the facility that will house the troop school recruits and the driving track trainees. They say that it's going to be 200 beds and include a classroom. They're revising that method of finance to $24.2 million.
Next, number 4 is Arkansas State University at Jonesboro. This is for parking services, renovation of the Wesley Foundation Student Center, a little over $970,000. They report that they have university reserves for this. And then we have UA Fayetteville, number 5, at the bottom of page 2. This is for the purchase of property at 501 North Wilson. And this is $975,000. The agency reports that they have university reserves for the project. On the next page, another one for UA Fayetteville. This is the Maple Hill Residence Hall central side. And they are revising this to $40 million. This is covered with student services housing reserves.
Number 7 is UCA for various property acquisitions, $1 million capital reserves. Number 8 starts several for UAMS. The first one is the Monroe Building roofing replacement, $670,000. This is going to be covered with Health Resources and Services Administration grants. UAMS for the Monroe Building, another one. This is for the mechanical engineering and plumbing updates for that building, a little over $2.3 million. And they have federal reimbursement for that project. Then you have UAMS, the Ward Tower Operating Room 14 remodeling. And they're installing ceiling mounted imaging equipment. This is going to be a little over $3.2 million. They note that they have a capital lease as well as UAMS reserves. That capital lease is for that imaging equipment and will actually be funded using clinical revenues.
Number 11 also for UAMS. It's the Patient Tower. And again, they are going to receive a new CT scanner. So this is $1.8 million. And again, they are noting that they have a capital lease, which, again, will be covered by clinical reserves as well as their UAMS revenues to cover the project. And then on page 4, we have UAMS Patient Tower 2, and this is a project to replace end of year imaging equipment, $9.7 million. Again, that's a capital lease using clinical revenues to fund and UAMS revenues. And finally, UAMS Ward inpatient pharmacy dispensing area, $889,612. And the agency reports they have reserves to cover that. That's all the methods of finance on today's agenda.
Senator Scott Flippo All right, members, you've heard the explanation of the MOFs. Are there any questions from members of the committee? All right. Seeing no questions, without objections, these items will stand as reviewed.
Kathy Schmidt Mr. Chairman, the next item is an alternative delivery construction project. This is a construction project over $5 million. And this is for the Arkansas Department of Education. It is for the School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Arkansas School for the Deaf. Square footage they are unsure of at this time, but they have funding that has been provided through designations from the Governor's Office.
They're estimating the construction cost to be somewhere around $65 million. In the procurement process, they received eight contractor proposals. They interviewed five of those contractors and selected Nabholz Construction and SCM Architects for the professional design services. They estimate to have this project completed in end of October in 2025. And that's the only alternative delivery construction project.
Senator Scott Flippo All right. Members, you've heard an explanation of the contract. Are there any questions from the committee? All right. Seeing no questions, without objection, this item will stand as reviewed.
Kathy Schmidt The next item on the agenda, Mr. Chairman, are grants. And we have grants today from three different agencies. The first one is the Health Department. And these are both funded by state general revenue dollars. The first one is to implement the preventive health screening health education activities, and the second one is to employ community health workers for the purpose of supporting its health screenings, health education and outreach, immunizations and other screenings that take place through their mobile unit program.
Then on the next page, on D2, starts the DHS grants. The first ones are amendments to existing grants, numbers 1 through 3. And these are going to be to assist homeless individuals with a serious mental illness to find and obtain adequate housing. That takes us over to page 3, grant number 4 for DHS. And this is an amendment for an addiction recovery support center. Number 5 is an amendment to a grant to partner with local schools and colleges, and this is to provide youth access to sports training, health and fitness programs and other extracurricular activities to help prevent delinquent behavior during after school hours.
Number 6 at the bottom of that page is to provide after school academic and enrichment support to academically at risk students in the Glenview Community. On the next page, Number 7 is an agreement for an amendment to the grant that they have for the Youth Restoration and Remodeling Initiative. The next is for TANF federal funding to support the Children's Advocacy Centers of Arkansas. Number 9 is to physically restore a unit within the current Arkansas State Hospital, as well as design and operate a secured restoration program as part of their Forensic System Improvement initiative.
On the next page, number 10 through 15, these grants are all going to be new federal grants to provide victim centered, trauma informed, and evidence based services to children and adults who are experiencing human trafficking. And that takes us over to number 16 on page 7. The final one for DHS is for a job training program designed to enhance the employability of youth and prepare them for future employment.
And then the last group of grants come from the Arkansas Beef Council, which is part of the Agriculture Department, and they have two grants. The first one is to increase the promotion of beef to consumers and the education of nutrition of beef to youth in school districts. And the next one is to continue the beef in the classroom program to Arkansas schools via grants to family and consumer science teachers in awarded school districts. And those are all the grants today on the agenda, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Scott Flippo All right, members, you've heard an explanation. Are there any questions from the members of the committee? All right. Seeing no questions, without objection, these items will stand as reviewed.
Kathy Schmidt Mr. Chairman, the next thing on the agenda are contracts. And we're going to start out the packet with a letter from Jessica Patterson, the state procurement director. And on this letter, she notes that there are two agencies that are seeking ratification of contracts. One of them is the Department of Military that will have two contracts on here with Kentucky and Louisiana. And I plan to explain more about the ratification needs when we get to the contracts.
The third one, the second agency is Arkansas Geographic Information Systems with Computer Aid Incorporated. And again, I'll explain those when we get to those contracts. She notes that all the other contracts presented appear to have been procured not in violation of any Arkansas procurement law. And then there is also a chart that is provided for the committee. This has to do with original RFPs that are on today's Review agenda and noting the procurement method that they used using the map are the traditional in the procurement of these requests for proposals.
So that takes us over to page 3. On page 3 is the letter that the Military Department has provided concerning their ratification of their contract. On page 4 is the letter from Military for the contract with Louisiana. And then on page 5 is the letter for the ratification of the GSA office. And again, I'll provide that detailed information when we get to it. We'll start with construction related contracts.
These are the first contracts on the agenda. The first one is number 1, and we're on page 9. It's the Department of Veterans Affairs, and this is for expansion of the North Little Rock Cemetery, Phase 5. The next one is University of Arkansas for a parking study. That's an amendment to an existing contract. The next one, University of Arkansas, is for professional design services for student housing project Maple Hill. Number 4 is University of Arkansas, and this is for funding on call commissioning services. Number 5 is UA Pulaski Tech on call roofing services. Number 6 and 4 are both for UAMS, and these are on call professional services for architectural and architectural engineering services.
And then number 8 on page 11, this is for architectural and engineering services for UAMS in order to renovate vacant areas in their Jonesboro regional program. Those are all the construction related contracts.
Senator Scott Flippo All right. Before we go on on that, I do want to jump back to, I think it was E5. Do we have somebody from Shared Services here? I just want just a quick explanation. I've had a few members ask me about this with the CIA staff augmentation and what was going on. It seems like we had something recently with that, similar with the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, I believe. Kathy, was there something? Was it the last meeting? If you will go ahead and give your name and your position for the record. So we've got to log witnesses in whenever they come down there each time. Okay.
James Caldwell James Caldwell, CFO for TSS. It's my understanding that we had a contract with CAI in place. That contract expired, but there was still money left on the purchase order. And my staff didn't catch that the contract expired. And the way the system is set up, it still let us spend since that money was on the purchase order. So now that's why we're coming now to get it ratified because we realized that we didn't have the contract. And then we've also got another contract on the agenda for going forward.
Senator Scott Flippo Okay. Do you have like a protocol in place in your policies and procedures to like notify prior to a contract expiring so you know six months out?
James Caldwell We did not. So I just recently promoted somebody to be over our procurement probably about two months ago. And then part of that, we're working now. We've started notifying each of the divisions when their contracts get to about 120 days out. So we've got a report now that goes out every month.
Senator Scott Flippo Okay. And that 120 days, is that the same for all contracts?
James Caldwell All contracts. Yeah.
Senator Scott Flippo Okay. All right, members. Senator Gilmore. Are you on over there, buddy? And you're live.
Senator Ben Gilmore Ms. Kathy, you really cannot leave. Clearly. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I have some similar questions that you've already been asked by the chairman. So I guess what I'm trying to figure out is you didn't know the contract had expired before you issued payment? Is that what I'm hearing?
James Caldwell I believe so, yes. It was discovered, brought to our attention, and we immediately notified OSP. And we stopped the work at the same time. As soon as we were notified, we stopped. We notified the vendor to stop working until we get a contract in place.
Senator Ben Gilmore And the new contract is on the agenda?
James Caldwell It is.
Senator Ben Gilmore And is it for the remainder of the work, or is it an extension going forward of additional work?
James Caldwell I believe it's a new contract for the same thing. Shelby Johnson can talk more to the contract. It's for the work we do for the 911 board.
Senator Scott Flippo Hold on, Senator Gilmore. He's got some reinforcements coming up here. Okay. Kathy tells me it's for new work also. And it goes back for expenses that they were unable to pay. All right.
Shelby Johnson Good afternoon. Shelby Johnson, GIS.
Senator Scott Flippo Shelby, can you just hit the-- Roy, can he hit just the microphone, the button in front of the microphone in front of him? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Just hit the button on yours. Here you go. If you want to turn yours off, maybe try that. Yeah. Who procured the new system? Representative Jean, is this your handiwork? Okay. Yeah. As the House Budget chair, I know you signed off on something.
Shelby Johnson Good afternoon. Shelby Johnson, GIS. Senator Gilmore, that's part of a long project that we're working on on behalf of the 911 board. And it's to do all of the data processing to prepare for the next generation 911 system. And we started that project in 2020 and we're still working on that project. And I can answer any additional questions about the project if you have any other questions.
Senator Ben Gilmore So I guess just what does this work entail? Because I think your letter stated that you didn't have the manpower or something along those lines. I may be incorrect on that.
Shelby Johnson Yes, sir. We're working with all of the county 911 systems to convert all of their back end data into a geographic information system format. That's how the future system will be driven. And the goal there is to avoid call transfers at the local level. It's enabling your mobile device to share its location with the call when a call is made. And in order for that system to work, we must build all of the back end data that has all the mapping information. And so we only have a staff of four that are assigned, that are full time state employees, that are assigned on that project. And because we were going to be working with all 75 counties, we just didn't have enough bandwidth to cover it all. So we're using that staff augmentation to bring a couple of folks in to assist us with that. And the two folks that were working on this particular project, they were assigned on Crittenden, Mississippi and Ashley County and then Pulaski County and Cleveland County. So that held us up for about 3 or 4 weeks on those counties in the work we're doing there.
Senator Ben Gilmore How much more time do you anticipate on that?
Shelby Johnson It ebbs and flows. And part of that's a function of local changes that happen at the local level. This contract is running out until June 30, 2026. And we're optimistic that will be completed before then. But we want to keep the contract in place until the end of that June 30, 2026.
Senator Ben Gilmore Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Scott Flippo Co-chair Eaves, you're up.
Representative Les Eaves The gentleman on my right, I forget your name, but did you say you have something in place now to catch when contracts are going to expire so we don't run into this again?
James Caldwell Yes. Yes. I have a procurement manager now for all of TSS and that person, one of their responsibilities is to every month run a report of all expiring contracts and when the dates are so that we can then get it out to all of our Division directors and let them know these are what you have coming up and we need to start working on them now.
Representative Les Eaves Okay. I think that'd be a good start. Thank you for that.
Senator Scott Flippo Thank you, Representative. All right. Golly. Somebody hasn't had a question in quite some time. Representative Fran Cavenaugh. Come on in, Fran.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think, I'm not sure about that. But my question is, when you noticed that this contract had expired-- we had the same issue with UAPB last month-- did you check to see what other contracts that you might have had that are expired, that you might be under the same problem with or about to be under the same issue with?
James Caldwell Yes. Currently we don't have any that are expired. We have some that are expiring soon. And we did send out emails within a couple of days of discovering this to all the directors with anything that's going to expire within the next 120 days.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. But I mean, we don't have any others are going to loom? Because UAPB, we've got a bit of money to pay back.
James Caldwell No, we shouldn't have any others.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh And do we know across the state, all the agencies, have they implemented similar procedures? Or are we kind of willy nilly, each agency is doing what they want to do?
James Caldwell All I can speak to is that I know OSP sent out a bulletin, I believe today or yesterday, with instructions on how to run the expiring contract report to all agencies. But past that, I don't know what the different departments have implemented.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh If we could ask, Mr. Chair, if we could ask OSP that question. Because I think it's an important issue. You would think that once we had it last month that it was a trigger.
Senator Scott Flippo They're coming. You didn't think we were going to let you go through the whole meeting, did you, Jessica?
Jessica Patterson Jessica Patterson, state procurement director. Yes, like James said, we sent out a bulletin yesterday explaining to all the procurement divisions across all state departments, reminding them how to run a report to check for their contracts that are set to expire and to track when they are going to expire and how many days out that they are. In addition, because we have had multiple of these ratifications come up in the past few months, we're working to develop some additional training that we can put out to all the departments to help them with their contract management.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. How come we just waited until this week or something to do it when we had the same problem out of UAPB last month? Why did we wait a month?
Jessica Patterson Well, I didn't realize until after UAPB that we were going to have these additional ones. But now that we've identified that this is a problem beyond just UAPB, we are working to address it.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh And is there someone in your organization that will be looking at this also? So in case we do have an agency that is not running the report, we've got a backup in case it's going to happen.
Jessica Patterson So we don't currently have a system in place to do all the reports for all the different departments. Because they are responsible for managing their own contracts, it's really up to the departments to run the report themselves to see if they have any contracts that are set to expire. But we, of course, can as a central office, provide training to teach them how to do that and remind them to do it regularly.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. But we don't have anybody in your office that can run the reports just as a backup plan as these things continue to happen?
Jessica Patterson To my knowledge, we don't have an ability to do that statewide.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. Thank you.
Senator Scott Flippo Thank you, Representative. All right. Seeing no further questions, y'all are dismissed. Thank you. All right, members, without seeing any other questions on the construction related contracts, without objection, those items will stand as reviewed.
Kathy Schmidt Mr. Chairman, the next item are inter-governmental contracts. These are contracts between state agencies. The first one is DHS with UAMS. And this is for design and evaluation of Family First Services and Prevention Act services. Number 2, this is the Department of Military. This is the one I said was one of the two for ratification for the military. And they note that back in July they closed down the Youth Challenge program in early July, and they had a class of 50 cadets that were signed up for the next program
. And so they contacted the Kentucky program and they were willing to take up to 30 applicants from Arkansas. 27 were accepted and 25 started on July 22nd. Due to the timing of all of this, a contract agreement was delayed in being processed. So this is a contract agreement going back to July 1, 2024 for $150,000. That would be the ratification recommendation from this committee if you agreed on it. The next one, number 3, also for the Department of Military, the same thing, the closing down of the Youth Challenge program in July.
The 50 cadets, they were trying to place. The Louisiana program agreed to take 25 applicants. 12 were accepted and started their program on August 18th. So on this one, the military has done an agreement with Louisiana for $75,000. And again, this goes back to July 23rd when their program began. Those are all the inter-governmental contracts on today's agenda.
Senator Scott Flippo All right. Are there any questions from members of the committee? All right. Seeing no questions, without objection, these items will stand as reviewed.
Kathy Schmidt Mr. Chairman, the next group of contracts are out of state contracts. The first one is the Department of Agriculture. This is for natural resources. And this is an amendment to the contract they have for financial management and loan and grant servicing software. Number 2 is for an armed security guard services for Department of Commerce, Arkansas Rehab Services. Number 3 on the next page is for vocational rehab fiscal report review and reconciliation.
Number 4, Department of Education. This is with the National Center for Grow Your Own. This particular new contract was done as a sole source justification. So in the green packet today, your letter is concerning this contract and the organization provides technical assistance needed to develop a registered apprenticeship program for special education teachers. And the Walton Family Foundation provided the funds for this and they are restricted to use this vendor for that project.
So OSP agreed to the sole source justification on this project. Number 5 through 7, these are all going to be contract amendments for Division of Career and for Adult Workforce diploma program. Number 8 is for Department of Finance Administration Management Services. This is for the AIRS Maintenance and Support Program. Number 9, the Department of Health for Tumor Register, Education and Training Services. Number 10 on the next page is for providing a drinking water analysis. Number 11 is for tumor registry quality assurance for the Arkansas Central Cancer Registry Services.
Number 12 is to continue implementation of systems integrator and integrated eligibility and benefits management. This is for DHS. Number 13, a DHS one for providing Medicaid and other human services procurement support. That's a new contract for them. Number 14 is to recruit, hire and train eligible specialists dealing with clearing of the Medicaid application backlog and to support DHS with staff to process ongoing cases. Number 15 is for asset verification for DHS. Number 16 is for eligibility operations support. Number 17 is a new contract for their psychological examiner services for the Conway Human Development Center. Number 18, this is the contract they have for prior authorization and retrospective review services for Medicaid.
Number 19 is a contract DHS has. It's an original contract for health insurance premium payment program assisting. Number 20, and we're on page 21, this is DHS. This is nonemergency transportation services. There are going to be more of these over in the in-state.
Number 21, this is the contract we were talking about that Arkansas Geographic Information Systems Office has with Computer Aid, Inc. This is the other contract needing ratification. They are requesting to go back to November 1, 2024. And as they stated earlier, this new contract will run through June 30, 2026. And they have noted that they requested ratification of services for providing GIS processing and to support the 911 board. The GIS full time employees, as they noted, are augmented with staffing through this cooperative contract with CAI. And the existing contract expired in September, but they had money left on the existing contract and they were able to pay some of the expenses. When they found out that the contract and the expenses had run out, work was stopped. And this contract includes the balance, as they noted earlier, plus services through June of 2026.
Moving on to the next page, number 22 is for janitorial services at the B.G. Hendricks Building, and this is for Building Authority. Number 23 is for launching for Student Success Planning System. That's for the Division of Information Systems. University of Arkansas has contract number 24, and this is an amendment for their UAF marketing cloud project. Number 25 is UA for Water Purification Systems Service and maintenance. Number 26 is an amendment to an existing contract for Education Transformation Project.
Number 27, this is security services for the Arkansas School for Math Sciences Campus. And number 28 is for grant writing services for federal and state grant. That's for UA Pulaski Tech. Those are all of the out of state contracts on today's agenda.
Senator Scott Flippo All right, Representative Cavenaugh, you're recognized.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first quick question. I have several.
Senator Scott Flippo There's multiple?
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Yes.
Senator Scott Flippo Dadgumit. Where's that mute button?
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Imagine that. Mine is for the Division of Career and Technical Education.
Senator Scott Flippo All right. We'll start there. A little enthusiasm, Greg. At least feign like you're happy to be here. Grill him, Representative Cavenaugh.
Greg Rogers Greg Rogers, Department of Education.
Courtney Salas-Ford Courtney Salas-Ford, Department of Education.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you. This is going to be your contract number 5, 6 and 7. And they were like with Graduation Alliance, Graduation Solutions, and ResponsiveED in Arkansas. And it talks about like it's for an amendment to an existing adult workforce diploma program. Can you tell me exactly-- they're all $750,000 and so I'm trying to figure out what they are.
Courtney Salas-Ford So this is the adult diploma program that was created last session. We are required to do an RFQ to identify vendors that can offer this type of program to adults who want to go back and get their high school diploma. And so each one is approved, but they get paid based on completion of certain courses or certifications and on the number of students who received diplomas. So that 750,000 is the maximum which they could receive. But again, they only get paid based on the number of students who actually complete the program. So for FY 24, we had 71. And so the total expenditure was $383,250. And for FY 25 to date, there's been 134 for a total of $480,000.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. And so you don't know which vendor is going to provide this service, so you do 750 for each one of them. What is the total--
Courtney Salas-Ford Right. Because it's a-- I'm sorry.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Yeah. What's the total that we have budgeted for the program?
Courtney Salas-Ford 750,000 total. It's up to the students to pick which program they want to go to.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. I'm just asking this for staff. Since we're approving a contract for 750,000 for each one of these, theoretically, they can pay them up to 750,000. But they could also pay the other one up to 750,000. So are we really approving 750,000 for the program or are we approving 1.7?
Kathy Schmidt I believe their appropriation is only for $750,000. It could go to one vendor or it can be spread out over the three, but it can't go more than 750,000.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. Do you have a mechanism that's going to let you know when you reach that 750 so you don't pay somebody? The reason is we've had no mechanism to catch when a contract was expiring. So how do we have a mechanism in place to make sure that we're not going to be overpaying on these?
Greg Rogers Yes, ma'am. We have one person that's in charge of this program. And each time that we've allowed adults into the program, we are tracking the adults and where they are in that program. So we're keeping an overall spreadsheet, if you will, so we know who's in which program and how much we're going to spend on it to make sure we stay within the 750,000.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Yeah, I'm glad that you got one person looking at it. But you got a backup plan if something happens to that one person?
Greg Rogers Yes. It still goes through finance.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. Just want to make sure because sometimes having one person can be a blessing but it can be a problem also.
Greg Rogers So it's still reconciled. Yes, ma'am.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. That's all I have for them, Mr. Chair. But I do have some questions for DHS.
Senator Scott Flippo Okay. I'll tell you what. Why don't you jump back in the queue? I've got Representative Bentley here. Representative Bentley.
Representative Mary Bentley Thank you, Chairman. DHS is who I've got as well. My question is for DHS.
Senator Scott Flippo Okay, great. Yeah. We can get DHS up here.
Lori McDonald Good afternoon. Lori McDonald, DHS.
Sarah Cunningham Sarah Cunningham, DHS.
Representative Mary Bentley Good afternoon, ladies. Just on contract number 13. If you guys would just give me a little more specific on exactly what we're doing with that money. That's really what my question is. Just want more specifics on what we're doing with that money on Contract number 13, please.
Sarah Cunningham Yes, ma'am. That money is for procurement support for a couple of our, well, several of our more complex solicitations. So specifically Medicaid enterprise or complex IT solicitations that our staff does not have the expertise or experience to be able to properly build a solicitation to garner the best results for contracts or to get the best vendor pool. I don't know if I explained that well, but let me know.
Representative Mary Bentley Let me get this correct. So we're providing someone to help you guys gather funds because you don't have the expertise to gather those funds currently with our current staff.
Sarah Cunningham I guess to clarify, they're not going to be gathering funds. The services that they will be providing will be to support our staff. So typically I have solicitation staff who can put together solicitations, but this contractor is working specifically on the more complex solicitations like Medicaid enterprise, as well as other complex I.T. solicitations that we don't have the expertise to provide.
Representative Mary Bentley Could you just give me one example?
Sarah Cunningham Yes, ma'am. So a couple of the projects that we had listed for bidders to respond to would be Medicaid Enterprise Decision Support System, as well as the Medicaid Enterprise Core system. So we're going to have to re-procure those components of our MMIS system as required by CMS. And as a result, those are very complex Medicaid related IT solutions and we have solicited to have a procurement support consultant brought in who has experience with other states such as Indiana, Tennessee and similar Medicaid enterprise systems or MMIS systems or procuring those specific types of systems that we don't have the experience or expertise in our staff.
Senator Scott Flippo Let me jump in here real quick. Is this a new contract?
Sarah Cunningham Yes.
Senator Scott Flippo Okay.
Representative Mary Bentley Okay, thank you. I'll get more questions offline. Thank you.
Senator Scott Flippo All right. Representative Cavenaugh.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is going to be for Division of County Operations.
Senator Scott Flippo I thought you said DHS.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh It is. Their Division of County Operations.
Senator Scott Flippo Okay. Now do you have a question or questions?
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Questions.
Senator Scott Flippo All right. Alright, Miss Mary, your mic should be working.
Mark Franklin Good afternoon, Mary Franklin, Department of Human Services, Division of County Operations.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you so much. This is going to be on, it's our contract 14 and 16. It's the Automated health systems and Maximus Health Services Incorporated. When I'm looking at this, it sounds like you're going to be use in this company for employees. Is that correct?
Mark Franklin We will be using them, yes, for eligibility support to help us with Medicaid casework.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh But its actual people? Workers? It's going to have workers?
Mark Franklin Yes. They will be doing that with staff that they hire to to complete the work.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Well, then what is Maximus doing then?
Mark Franklin So Maximus is currently doing that for us. And CMS required us to do a competitive bid. We had hired Maximus through a cooperative agreement, so it met all state requirements and CMS approved us to use them temporarily but required us to do a competitive bid for eligibility support. And Automated Health Systems won that procurement, and so we are onboarding them. But in the meantime, we are keeping Maximus. As we transition the new vendor in, we will begin transitioning Maximus out. We just don't want to be without the support in the interim to make sure that we can keep our Medicaid work flowing and as current as possible during that time.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay, So keeping Maximus online is costing us an extra $18 million dollars versus the person that actually won the bid.
Mark Franklin In the Maximus amendment, I did request the time for a full year, but we only added funding expecting to keep them through June. If we need to keep them longer, we'll come back. If we need to add funds, we will come back. But in the Automated Health Systems, what you're seeing is potentially the total projected cost over a seven year contract and with the first year potentially being up to 36 million.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Right. So but if you add the 36 and the 18 that we're going to be paying, we're paying $54 million for the service a year. Am I not correct in that?
Mark Franklin Yes, that would be correct if we spend the entire amount on both contracts.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. And have we historically spent the maximum?
Mark Franklin So we have historically spent about 36 million on Maximus alone. We have also had additional support through the Deloitte Aries contract for some surge support. I don't have that specific number of how much we have spent on that, but those amendments also came through Review. But we are no longer using them for surge support. We are using Maximus and then onboarding this new vendor that won the procurement.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh And how long do you expect you're going to have to keep Maximus and both? Because you've got double the people. So that's why I'm--
Mark Franklin So I anticipate keeping Maximus through June to give this new vendor time to onboard, hire staff, train staff, and for that staff to become proficient to carry the full load of work that the contractors have been doing. But we will see how that goes. And if we do need to add more money or--
Representative Frances Cavenaugh So is the 18 million through June or is it through the end of December of 2025?
Mark Franklin That's what I would anticipate spending through June.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. Because your contract says 18 million amendment for 12/31/2025. So you're saying that really that 18 million only takes you through June, but you could anticipate coming back and having to add more? So I guess I'm trying to say, how are we saving money when we're having to have two vendors do the same thing? Because we've done a procurement, which is fine, but we're saying that the one that won the bid isn't proficient enough to do it so we're going to keep paying the old one too.
Mark Franklin So I think in the short term, while we're onboarding the vendor, we aren't saving money yet. But this new vendor, when they are able to fully take over the work, it is a lower cost than what we have been paying previously.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh How much?
Mark Franklin Well, 36 million for one year. And I will say that for the first year we are asking this vendor to provide the maximum number of employees just because of this transition and the concern with getting behind on work. We don't want that to happen. I don't expect to use the maximum that we have potential for in this contract every year. But I have asked for them to prepare to do that the first year. And we can come back with actual numbers, but what we will spend on Automated Health as far as the per worker is lower than what we have been paying between Maximus and Deloitte. But we do need the help from Maximus in the interim.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. If you could tell me-- you're saying that this Automated is actually less than what it would have been. If you can get to staff how much we paid on the other contract so I can compare it to that. Because I understand we're having to have, but we've done a competitive process. But the people that won the competitive process can't hit the ground going, so we're having to pay an additional one. And it's the same thing with outdated software. When you're up over a barrel with them, they charge you for that. You usually are the ones that-- you get screwed, to be honest with you. So if you could get me that information, I'd appreciate it.
Mark Franklin Yes, ma'am.
Senator Scott Flippo All right, Mary. Yeah. If you can just get that to Kathy before the 31st of December and she can disseminate that to the rest of members.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you.
Senator Scott Flippo Thank you. All right. Representative Richardson, you are recognized.
Representative Scott Richardson Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to circle back to contract number 13 that Representative Bentley was asking about. So just help me understand again. Have we talked to the Department of Shared Services on this contract for looking at project management within their group? The DIS that's there, have they been involved in this entire process? And from a procurement perspective, is Shared Services procurement involved in that as well?
Sarah Cunningham I guess, in terms of involving them on the contract? Sorry. Can I get some clarity?
Representative Scott Richardson Sure. You said you're looking to get, as I understood it, a project manager to help you. Is that not true? You're shaking your head. So help me understand what's going on.
Sarah Cunningham I guess I would probably qualify that as a project manager with specialization in solicitation development and experience in pulling in together different stakeholders, of scope requirements and going through all of the steps of building a procurement for such complex projects that I've mentioned probably ad nauseum. But I don't know if that helps.
Representative Scott Richardson I mean, not really. I mean, it's still project management, scope management, scope design and development, right?
Misty Eubanks Sure. Misty Eubanks, deputy Secretary for Operations and Budget, DHS. So when we first procured these two services back in, we really started that process somewhere in 2011, 2012. And then we were successful in contracting with current DSS and enterprise. And then since then we've done a special procurement in between. And state procurement is aware that we're going to need to go out and competitively bid. But even when we did these procurements previously, we had a similar vendor partnered with us. So they do not only just the project management in the scope, but they do a great deal of the actual authorship of the solicitations. They know Arkansas solicitation law, as you may be familiar, with the contractor costs of consulting. And we've partnered with them on other complex procurements in the recent past, whether that's with independent assessment or other things. But again, they just helped shore up our Office of Procurement and the work that we do and then make sure that through contract negotiation we get the best price for the state of Arkansas.
Representative Scott Richardson And I appreciate outside resources providing gaps when we have opportunity.
Senator Scott Flippo Alright, so I'm going to weigh in here for a second. I have lots of latitude, but, members, just so that we do get out here before New Year's, I would ask that we keep these questions specific to how these contracts were procured. That is the purview of this committee. So if there is a question that regards specifically to make sure that these contracts were procured in a way that are in line with our state procurement laws, knock yourself out. Outside of that, please try to get these questions answered offline.
I do want to extend a little bit of latitude, but there's always going to be another question, another question, another question. And Representative Richardson, you're not the only one. I'm just interrupting you just to make sure to send a signal to other members that let's try to keep it to the contract itself. If there's a question beyond that, work with the agency. If you can't get that answered, come to us and we can help you with that.
Representative Scott Richardson I appreciate that, Mr. Chair. Appreciate the latitude. And I guess where I was going with the question is, the process, as I understand it, is that it has to go through the Shared Services procurement. And I was just wondering if it's been through that.
Misty Eubanks Yes. So we have adhered to all of their requirements through OSP. We put out a public RFP and then the result in contract and that packet has gone through OSP to be added to today's Review agenda.
Representative Scott Richardson So it did to go through Shared Services' procurement process.
Misty Eubanks Yes, that's correct.
Representative Scott Richardson Okay. Thank you.
Misty Eubanks Thank you.
Senator Scott Flippo Thank you, Representative. Golly. Representative Beaty or Representative Cavenaugh. Right or left hand? I knew when it got to, Make it relevant to the contract, Howard might drop out. All right. We lost Fran too. Where are you going, Fran?
Representative Frances Cavenaugh This is DHS. It is Medical Services.
Senator Scott Flippo This is your last question of the day, Representative Cavenaugh. Medical Services, right?
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Yes.
Elizabeth Pitman Good afternoon. Elizabeth Pitman, Division of Medical Services.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you. This is on contract number 19. It appears to be a new contract. And it just says to create a contract for the Arkansas Health Insurance premium payment program.
Elizabeth Pitman Yes, ma'am.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Can you explain what the actual contract is doing?
Elizabeth Pitman Yes, ma'am. So this is a new contract. It is with the same vendor that's doing it today. And this program is known as ARHIP throughout the state. It is the Arkansas Health Insurance Premium Payment program. And what we do is when it's financially advantageous to the Medicaid program to purchase private insurance for families who are Medicaid eligible, this vendor makes that determination. And then we purchase that private insurance so that it is billed prior to Medicaid.
Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay, so it's private expansion. Okay. Thank you. All right.
Senator Scott Flippo Thank you, Representative. All right, members, seeing no further questions, without objections, these will stand as reviewed.
Kathy Schmidt Mr. Chairman, the last group of contracts are in state contracts beginning on page 25. The first one is the Department of Corrections Division of Community Corrections. This is going to be for a 23-bed male re-entry facility. Number 2, also for them, will be to a program to provide supervision, housing and evidence based programs and services directed at addressing risk factors and aimed at recidivism among the target population.
Number 3, this is going to be for the Department of Education. This is for their day guard services at the Arkansas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and School for the Deaf. Number 4, Department of Education. This is for janitorial services at what they're calling building number 2. Number 5 is for Division of Environmental Quality. This is for janitorial services. Number 6, also for Environmental Quality. This is for remediation work at a mine in Sebastian County. And this will be done in order to provide for general public safety as well as environmental protection of wildlife and humans.
Number 7, this is Department of Health, and this is from the Arkansas State Board of Nursing. This is to provide investigations upon request from the Arkansas Department of Health Board of Nursing. Number 8 and 9 are both for DHS. And it's just for comprehensive substance abuse treatment services. Number 10 is DHS, and this is for counseling services for the Division of Children and Family Services. Number 11 and 12, these also are for DHS. These are the non-emergency transportation services contracts.
Amendment number 13, this is the amendment for DHS. There's no money being added to this contract, but they are revising the performance indicators to continue the juvenile justice, community based reentry and vocational and career support services. Number 14 is the Department of Public Safety, Arkansas Crime Information Center. And this particular contract is for the AMF system maintenance and support. And then you have a new contract for the Department of the Military. This is federally funded for the anti-terrorism program coordinator. Those are all of the in-state contracts on today's agenda.
Senator Scott Flippo All right, Members, you've heard an explanation. Are there any questions from members of the committee? All right. Seeing no questions and without objection, these items will stand as reviewed.
Kathy Schmidt Mr. Chairman, the next thing on our agenda are the reports. And you have three types of reports on today's agenda. The no material change on previously reviewed contracts. The second one is for executed contracts. These are contracts under the threshold. And the third report is for critical emergency purchases. And those are all of the reports on today's agenda.
Senator Scott Flippo All right. And before we adjourn, Senator Irvin, I'm sorry.
Senator Missy Irvin Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm so sorry. You just went really, really fast. But it's just a quick question, and they can get the information to me later. On the DYS contracts, we're using the TANF money for that. I just kind of want to get a report on what we're using, other uses of what TANF is going to be used for in addition to this contract. Where are those other areas and are we going to be doing similar types of things with that TANF money? I know there's been a transfer of that money over, so I'm just looking for a report or information on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Scott Flippo Yeah. Thank you, Senator Irvin. And if you all can just-- did you get Senator Irvin's questions? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you can just get the staff and she can disseminate that out to members of the committee. All right, Kathy, continue.
Kathy Schmidt Mr. Chairman, the last item is item G in your packet. And this is just a disclosure from the Arkansas Development Finance Authority. They are noting that there are contracts with a business entity in which Senator Jim Petty claims partial ownership. On page 3 of the packet is the governor's approval, which is required on this. And again, this is disclosure of contracts for Arkansas Development Finance Authority.
Senator Scott Flippo All right. Seeing no further questions and no further business to come before this committee, we are adjourned.
