ALC Review: Dec. 16, 2025

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Members, it’s almost time to start. If you’ll take your seats, please. Please get your seat. I call the meeting to order. Thank y’all. Co-chair, do you have anything? Go right ahead. Thank you.

Katie Walden Thank you, madam chair. Good afternoon, members. Katie Walden, Bureau of Legislative Research, Fiscal Division. At the very beginning this morning or this afternoon, we have a supplemental agenda item that was brought by the Economic Development Commission. And Madam Chair has some comments on that. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Yes, without objection, we need to take up a supplemental agenda. No objections? Good. All in favor, say aye. Opposed, say nay. Thank you. Representative Vaught, do you have a motion? You’re recognized. 

Representative DeAnn Vaught Thank you, madam chair. I move that we move this item to full ALC on Friday. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. The motion is that this will be moved from here to full ALC on Friday? 

Representative DeAnn Vaught Yes ,ma’am. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor, say aye. Opposed, say nay. All right. We’re going to move that to full ALC on Friday. Katie, with that, do you want to start with item A? 

DHS Evident Change contract

Katie Walden Thank you, Madam Chair. The first item for the subcommittee’s review today is a contract that was re-referred to this subcommittee last month in Arkansas Legislative Council. It is item A1 in your packet. This is an out-of-state contract, and it’s Amendment 3 to an existing contract with DHS, DCFS, with a vendor called Evident Change. 

his particular amendment adds $375,000 to the contract, and it also revises the scope of work and revises the performance indicators to continue quality improvement reviews of programs. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh There are some handouts to go with that. If you’ll get the staff to hand that out, please. And while we’re doing that, if we’ll go ahead and have the agency and the visitors from Evident Change to come down to the table. Because I know that there are questions. And when you get to the table, will you please introduce yourself for the record? 

Tiffany Wright Good afternoon, Tiffany Wright, Director for the Division of Children and Family Services. 

Sarah Cunningham Sarah Cunningham, Office of Procurement with DHS. 

Angie Wolf Good afternoon, Dr. Angie Wolf, with Evident Change. 

Kathy Park I’m Kathy Park. I’m the CEO of Evident Change. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank y’all for being here. Appreciate it. And, Katie, if you want to– that’s all we’ve got to say? All right. Members, I know we have some people that have some questions. If you want to get in the queue, we’ll just get right into discussion. Representative Rose, you’re recognized. 

Representative Ryan Rose Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you both to DCFS and Evident Change joining us at the table. Grateful that– I want to make sure the committee knows– grateful to both groups for reaching out. We had some really informational video conference calls over the last week. I want to say thank you for that. For the benefit of the committee, a couple things I want to say and then I’ll follow up with a few questions.

 Firstly, I think my overarching concern is that there is seemingly a kind of a vertical integration taking place with Evident Change inside of DCFS. And this contract amendment is an expansion of scope and a continuation of a growing influence and reliance that the state has on an out-of-state vendor. So my concern is that there’s not an off ramp plan in place. 

And that the vendor is becoming more and more necessary so that DCFS can utilize the services that they are providing us and then grading. From what I understand, the relationship with this contract began back in 2018 when Evident Change was under a different name and has since, I think in 2020, become Evident Change. Can we, in short form, discuss the scope of Evident Changes work with DCFS and how that has changed since 2018? 

Tiffany Wright So the work with Evident Change started as the structured decision making tools and safety organized practice. So implementation of how the agency utilizes tools to make informed decisions to provide some consistency statewide around assessment of child safety, as well as a continuation of services throughout a child’s or family’s life when involved with our agency, including around permanency and how we utilize tools to ensure safe reunification and case planning. 

Also, the work with Evident Change includes the different reports and a data system that DCFS frontline caseworkers can log into, see real-time work that’s happening related to their caseload, as well as allow DCFS program management, as well as executive staff to pull out data and extract it and have reports to present and provide information around our specific data related to caseloads, visits, maltreatment types, all different scopes, some of what you all see when we come and present to committee. 

More recently, we were approved by the Children’s Bureau to lead a state-led Children and Service Family Review, CFSR. And part of that is because of the work that we have been doing with Evident Change in order to have a quality review. They are utilizing the same tool in which the Children’s Bureau would do if they were to come to Arkansas and review our system as well. 

Representative Ryan Rose So follow up, continuation? So director or to the vendor, when we had a phone call this week, the vendor said to me that they want to put their clients in a position to fire us. Essentially, we want to do such a good job that you no longer need us. I don’t see evidence of that. 

My concern is that, since 2018, the contracts continue to expand. And with a look through our government transparency website, it looks like we have spent, since 2018, roughly $28 million. The contract values have been higher. It doesn’t look like we’ve executed those total dollars. But where we’re at this year through about five months’ worth of contracts look like this year could be even more than last year, which was $8.3 million. 

My concern is that it’s growing. We’ve not hit an apex, and now we’re expanding scope. And our child protection in the state is now relying on somebody other than ourselves. And so I guess maybe the vendor could speak to this, since they’re the ones who said, hey, we want to put ourselves in a position where we’re not essential. 

It feels like the vendor is becoming more and more necessary, and that we are more and more reliant. And so my concern is, at what point does DCFS become sustainable on their own? Or are we always going to have to rely on this vendor? 

Sarah Cunningham I just wanted to pop in real quick. The contract in front of you today is for continuous quality improvement. And that was actually bid by RFP in 2023. So just to kind of put that out there to point that out that, from 2018, any work that Evident Change has done, this contract was awarded from a competitive bid at that point in 2023. And can I get some clarity in terms of what you think is the expansion of scope? Just so that we understand. 

Representative Ryan Rose Amendment 3 says– should I answer that? I’m fine to, but– okay. It says, ‘amend to add funding, revised scope of work, revised performance indicators.’ And from what I read when we inquired about a month ago, it had to do with overview of hotline fidelity or investigative fidelity. What I understood was this is scope that the vendor has not had previously, which sounds like an expansion. Is that correct? 

Tiffany Wright So that is correct. So the point of this amendment is to add additional CQI to understand what is happening at the hotline, as well as narrowly what is happening around child maltreatment investigations in our state. The current scope of the current work that they’re doing related to CQI is around requirements that we have to have for CFSR, our child and family service review process. 

Representative Ryan Rose And so I see some other questions have hopped in. So I would like to allow the vendor to discuss the plan for an off ramp, and then hop out so others can jump in. But as I understand, there’s not an off-ramp plan. We say we would like to have an off ramp, but what is happening is we’re continuing to grow and spend more. 

Angie Wolf Certainly appreciate the question. And I just have to take a moment to share my appreciation with you, Representative Rose, for bringing some of these issues up and giving us an opportunity to talk about this important work and this important partnership with the division. 

We’re very proud of the work that we’ve been doing since 2018 and look forward to producing more good work for the department so that the director can use our work to implement changes and policies or actually look at accountability issues and training issues and other sorts of things that the department needs to focus on so that children don’t fall through the cracks. This extra amendment that we were asked to produce a proposal to do an additional scope of work that takes the continuum of the cases that we are looking at and includes hotlines and investigations. 

So currently the department has several bodies of work that we are now looking at, including the most recent report that is, I think, shortly to be disseminated that includes cases of youth that had five or more referrals through the hotline, had open cases but did not receive services from the department. 

So that’s obviously something that the department wants to address and see what’s happening there. This new amendment, it’s a natural progression of that work to include the front end. So we are, the department is getting their arms around what is happening in the middle, in the back end. They need to be armed with information to direct them to what they need to be looking at at the front of the system. 

Representative Ryan Rose I want to let another question hop in and I’ll get back in the queue. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh I actually do have a question myself. So, since you’ve been doing this work since 2018, can you tell us some of the recommendations that you have made that DCFS has been able to implement?

Angie Wolf I think that’s a better question for the department. It’s up to them whether they take our recommendations and how they implement them. 

Tiffany Wright I would say, so the CQI work began in 2022. So that’s where we’ve been getting recommendations. And so the current work is part of our area reviews. And so we get a review back from Evident Change and then we convene the leadership teams in those areas and set goals. 

So Evident Change, alongside leadership within DCFS at the area level down to the county level, they set goals and improvement. And so some of those have been increasing family time and connection to parents, honing in on safety and following– so we set the goals and they support that through the continued reviews and then following up on those goals that we’ve done. 

And so what you see is in the next review. Did we improve or did we not improve? And what do we need to continue to do? And so we get recommendations like, obviously, continuing to support the workforce is a huge one, as well as supporting decision making, leadership supporting decision making, then as well just improving the continuous quality of what we’re doing. 

So, when we’re out engaging with families, are we utilizing the tools appropriately and engaging with the families? Are we just making a referral or are we actually walking the family through that referral? And what does that look like versus just pushing a piece of paper? 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay. And with these recommendations that they’ve given you and the ones that you’ve implemented, have you seen a change? Do you see an improvement in those services? 

Tiffany Wright Yes. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh And how are you tracking that improvement? 

Tiffany Wright So when we get the– so the areas are on a rotating schedule for review. And so when we’re getting those reviews back, like the second time they come back to review in that period, they’re looking at what was recommended last time, and did you set the goals, and then where are you at now? 

So like we have one area of the state who actually did achieve 100% on two metrics that they had not been doing well on before. And so can we watch that and then also take into consideration what’s been going on in that specific county. Have we had turnover? Have we had an increase of kids in foster care? What does it look like overall? And then balancing those out as we set the next round of goals. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. Senator Bryant, you’re recognized. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to go back a little bit to 2018, obviously different leadership at the department. Was the reason for this is because we didn’t have enough staff and we wanted to make sure we were training our people right out in the field and then we built off of that? Or did we just want to see where we were and what we needed to improve on at that time? 

Tiffany Wright So the work in 2018 was more of the data management work and then it evolved into rolling out what we call structured decision making. So prior to 2018, Arkansas had what they–  well, they implemented with structured decision making in years prior. I actually got that original structured decision making training in 2015 or 16. 

And it wasn’t actually what structured decision making training is, and now we have implemented what is structured decision making. And that work started in that early 2020 period of time. And so what we did was we actually gave our staff an evidence-based model of safety decision making versus what was happening before all across the state and what we previously had thought was structured decision making. But it was not. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Can you expand on that? Does that start from the time the hotline is called where somebody is claiming there’s an issue of child negligence or welfare issues, and then that takes you all the way through to trying to put that child back into the home or to the foster system? Just expand on the actual tool. 

Tiffany Wright Yes, where we started in Arkansas was with, once an investigation is assigned to DCFS and using those tools. And so we started implementing that work and utilizing the tools. And we also had to go back and get safety organized practice. Right. So putting safety in our minds while we’re using structured decision making tools. And so we started that work. And then Covid happened, and we had to pivot some of that to online. 

Then we had a massive workforce shortfall, and then we’ve just kept plugging away on finishing implementing. And so now we have the entire, what you call suite of tools, which includes the case planning tool– I’m sorry, the reunification tool, and additional tools that go along with that. So now it is holistically the whole system. 

And then there’s also a hotline assessment tool that was implemented and used. There’s a hotline tool that was implemented, and that’s what we’re asking for now, is to get that CQI on the hotline tool that we implemented, as well as just investigations alone. Because what the current CQI is on, like it’s just picking that family. And that life of that family’s involvement from maltreatment report, until what the case closes, or whatever happens with that family for permanency, right? 

And so we want to get the rest of the system, which we don’t have CQI on currently. And so this was really about changing our practice. Who is DCFS? What do we do? How do we keep kids safe, ensure their well-being, but also ensure permanency? And that’s what these tools are about. And then how do we make sure that I’m implementing the tools– I’ve led my team to implement the tools appropriately. And that is what we are trying to do. 

And so, I know that there’s concern about an off ramp of this, but like CQI does take time and systems changes take a long time. Like the work that we’ve been doing has been historically happening since 2016 and it’s taken a long time. And I know several of you are in here like it’s not perfect. And you’re right. It’s not perfect. And we still have work to do. And we’re wanting to do that work. 

It just helps to have an outside view of our system to show us what we’re doing. Because what happens is you get lost in the day-to-day work. Like I get lost in the day-to-day crisis sometimes of what’s going on and forget we have to lead a system too. And that’s hard to do when you’re dealing with kids and families. 

Senator Joshua Bryant I agree. And I also know this is something that this is a societal issue that we’re not going to be able to phase out this kind of activity in our society. But I guess to a concern that I think Representative Rose brought up is, are we asking the same vendor to grade their own homework? Is that a concern to you to say, hey, we’ve designed this tool. Now we’re going to see how effective our tool is, and you’re going to pay us to do that. Is that a concern? 

Angie Wolf No, it’s not a concern because we are not actually evaluating the outcomes of the tools. We are evaluating and assessing and auditing how well the department is following their own practices, policies, including our tools. But how well they are implementing our tool work as well as their other manuals, policies, and state law. 

Senator Joshua Bryant So, Madam Chair, you can pull me back when you see too many in the queue. I’d say I’ve got three experiences with DCFS as far as constituents. One is, it’s worked. The child was removed from a bad situation, put back in. One was, it didn’t work. The child was never removed and should have been removed. And the other is the child is removed and shouldn’t have been removed. Now that family has to fight the judicial battle, to fight errors of their ways. 

Is that stuff that is monitored through Evident Change? Because if they’ve been around since 2018, and these are issues I got a call a month ago about a child taken from a home that, I agree with the family, they shouldn’t have been. But now they’re in a legal fight against the state to put that child back where I think the child needs to be. But that’s not up to me. That’s up to the judicial system. But the state started that path. Is that something that SDM marked that territory for and caused DCFS to remove that child? 

Tiffany Wright I would say no. I would say that’s an example of how we have to continue to evaluate and understand how we’re appropriately using the tools and what– it’s hard, because I don’t know  any of these– maybe one or two of these specific cases that you’re referring to. 

But I also think those are the things that we hope to see when we’re getting the CQI. So we’re addressing, do I have a person issue? Do I have a practice issue? Do I have a whole state issue? Do I an area issue? And so that’s what we always are working to glean to improve. And so I would not put that on Evident Change. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Okay. I’ll get out of the queue and get back in. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Senator Johnson, you’re recognized. 

Senator Blake Johnson I’ll start with, I guess, Dr. Wolf, how many states do y’all work in besides Arkansas? 

Angie Wolf Oh, goodness. 23 states in the– I’m going to say 23 states. I’ll clarify if that is not correct. We also work in several other countries, including New South Wales, Canada, like certain territories in those countries as well. 

Senator Blake Johnson Is it in DCFS specifically that you work? 

Angie Wolf In child welfare sector. 

Senator Blake Johnson How integrated are you in those other states? 

Angie Wolf It varies for state. I think we’re talking here today about our SDM tools and where we have components of those. We also have a variety. We have other, like, justice-focused tools and assessments that we provide clients. Speaking just about child welfare, some clients are interested in a couple of our tools, and some are interested full suites. Some are interested in our data management services and how we are supporting jurisdictions’ decision making by regular ongoing access to data and answering administrators’ questions on a regular basis about what they’re facing. 

Senator Blake Johnson What’s the face of the other 27 states that don’t use you? How do they provide the services that you provide without contract? 

Angie Wolf They may be seeking support elsewhere. They may have homegrown tools that they are using. I don’t know that I can be in a great position to answer what folks are not– when folks that are not, we’re not working with are using. 

Senator Blake Johnson In the states that you’re working with, are you helping our DCFS create those tools that you are or you just want them to be dependent on your tools? 

Angie Wolf We do not want anyone to be dependent on our work. Like our work is, just kind of across the spectrum, is about supporting the jurisdictions themselves to do better practice so that they no longer need us. Certainly our data management services and some of our SDM suite of tools, we do have clients that have used our work for a really long period of time and have been really happy with us and find that we provide a cost-effective service that they need on an ongoing basis. 

The CQI work, I would expect us to be able to provide the entire spectrum of kind of evaluation of what’s going well in the system and what’s not going well on the system once or twice, and then have the department be able implement changes and assess whether those changes are having the intended impact. So at the end of the day, there are not kids falling through the cracks. 

Senator Blake Johnson So how many employees have you got in the state of Arkansas? 

Angie Wolf We have 11 employees in the state of Arkansas. 

Senator Blake Johnson How many will you have if this contract is executed? 

Angie Wolf I don’t know that I can answer that question. 

Senator Blake Johnson So you don’t foresee adding another employee for this? 

Angie Wolf I’m sorry. I think I misunderstood your question. I don’t envision adding– I don’t know the answer to that question. I think we have 11 employees currently in the state of Arkansas. We do like to have a strong connection to any jurisdiction that we’re working with and having folks very familiar with that system. 

Senator Blake Johnson Do you have other employees in your system that work on these things for the state of Arkansas besides those 11? 

Angie Wolf Sure. We have employees that work on the safe managers, the data management services, data analytics. Most of those folks are based out of the Midwest. 

Senator Blake Johnson Miss Wright, so best I could pull up is we have just over 1,100 employees right now in DCFS. Is that pretty close? 

Tiffany Wright Yeah, that’s pretty close. 

Senator Blake Johnson And I know the turnover has hopefully gotten better. Is that accurate? 

Tiffany Wright I don’t have an answer for that yet. We’re watching. I think we’re trying to be strategic before we say yes or no on the turnover. Probably in the next couple months, be able to really understand how the pay plan impacted turnover. 

Senator Blake Johnson How much one-on-one interaction with those 1,100 employees do you have with the foster? I think we have like 3,500 in foster in Arkansas. And cases pending, probably more than that. 

Tiffany Wright Can you say that question one more time? I’m sorry. 

Senator Blake Johnson One-on-one, I mean with those 1,100 employees, how much of those are dedicated to the foster children and protection? 

Tiffany Wright I would say there’s less than 100 in our main office downtown. Probably most of our work is the staff across the state and the county offices doing the work. 

Senator Blake Johnson So, administratively, do you think that you can take the best practices that is given through Evident Chant and in-house this? Because I think you’ve got almost 250 positions that are not filled. I mean, could you foresee in the future doing this yourself, rather than having to contract and use the $28 million over the last eight years. 

Tiffany Wright I don’t think I can answer that right now. Currently, today, I have 101 vacant budgeted positions. Almost all of those are out on the front lines. The review team would have to be in our main office. And right now, that team does review some investigations, some foster care cases, but they’re also managing programs and contracts. So I don’t think I could give you an answer on that right now. But I wouldn’t want to say no. I just don’t know that today I can answer that. 

Senator Blake Johnson All right, thank you. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Representative Rose, you’re recognized. 

Representative Ryan Rose Thank you, madam chair. First, I want to say that I appreciate the committee. I know not everybody’s been deeply entrenched in this until recently, so I appreciate the patience. Director Wright, I also appreciate your work, your sincerity in this. I know this is deeply personal. And I kind of want to pivot to that for just a minute, as it has become deeply personal for me, more so since we first started having some of these conversations over the last couple of months. 

I’ve had numerous families and concerned individuals, organizations reach out just about the work that they’re doing or children that are in danger or similar to what Senator Bryant said, families who maybe have had children taken incorrectly from their homes. 

Most recently, I spoke to family members of the children involved in that Baxter County case and family members of that child who was abused over the course of 11 years and then parents of siblings of that child who was also sexually assaulted by the same abusers. In a committee meeting a couple months ago, we had a very good discussion that led– I think you guys did some great work discovering, in addition to that Baxter County case, there were 341 other similar cases. 

And at least eight of those have been referred out for investigation or law enforcement or something along those lines. I think what I am concerned with is, we have found and see that there are cracks in the work. And we are saying, we’ve got this vendor who, each year, we continue to spend more money with, more services, more scope, 11 employees in the state. 

And we’re in a situation where they’re assessing the performance and the fidelity of systems that they help build, that they helped improve, or they help implement, or help train. And we continue to give them more money. And nobody ever says maybe we should look at our own division. Maybe Director Wright and her team have the answers. 

And my concern is we’ve been funding this vendor, we’ve discovered this issue, we’re digging into it. But maybe it could be a lapse in the system that we’re utilizing. Maybe it needs to be something done internally. Because I think the problem, and this is the question I want to go to, at what point does the division and our state’s reliance on a single out-of-state vendor become a risk to institutional dependence and then capping ourselves internally? 

Tiffany Wright I think that one part of that question is we have to continue to assess, but also pivot when necessary. I think that one thing with child welfare is it’s continually evolving. Society’s continuing to evolve. The families we’re serving are complex. It feels like families are continuing to become even more complex, and so how do we continue to serve, and what does that mean? 

And so I think that’s where, together, we continued to evaluate what is happening, what information we have, and how we pivot the system appropriately as things continue to change and evolve. We have, I’m sure some of you all are aware, but there’s new rules that are coming from the Children’s Bureau or the Administration of Children and Families. 

And so we’re going to have to pivot and understand what those rules are and evaluate where those fit into Arkansas. There’s a lot happening right now. Also, most recently, Representative Bentley had her ISP passed. And I think that will also be pivotal to the work. But I think the CQI will enhance that work, as well with that Representative Bentley got approved last week at committee. 

So I just think it’s never a conversation you stop. Child welfare continues to evolve. It looks different. And so how do we continue to evolve with the system as the system changes? And I don’t necessarily know if I’m answering your question entirely. But I can’t say– in six months from now, maybe we’re saying, We got to go a different direction, and we got to figure out how do we pivot that, and so how do we balance that out? 

Questions about amount of money spent

Representative Ryan Rose Sure. And I appreciate that. And last year, we spent 8.3 million with Evident Change. And that was data, medical consulting and consulting. And this is what is listed on the amount spent for 2025 under transparency.Arkansas.gov. 

Angie Wolf Sir, we don’t actually provide the medical. I’m not sure what you’re referring to there. We appreciated this question was brought up to us earlier in the week. And we have checked our records. The department has paid us, since 2018, approximately $12 million. 

Representative Ryan Rose All I can say is I’m looking at a copy of proof of service contract valid through May 31 of 2026. And it’s on our government transparency website. So if there’s even confusion in who we’re paying and what we’re paying for, that may be a whole other rationale to press pause while we look into that. I don’t know. 

But I can say with authority that our transparency website for the state lists 8 million-plus for last year. So if there’s something haywire there, we should figure that out too. But that’s what’s listed, amount spent. So whatever the number is, again, my growing concern is that we’re continuing to lean on somebody other than ourselves. 

And we’ve been doing it for quite a long time. We are seeing this circular accountability, which leaves a lot of room for holes because we’re not judging Evident Changes work. They’re judging our work. And that’s concerning. I’ll hop out and let somebody else jump in. 

Senator Bart Hester Thank you. I’m over here. Maybe I can ask Tiffany. If it needs to go to Evident Change, it can. How many people do what you do? I mean, are there 50 companies in the country? Are there three? How many people do this type of work? 

Kathy Park We are the developers of structured decision making and safety organized practice and team decision making. So we are the only organization that provides those specific services, as well as safe measures, which is the subscription based data reporting analytics service. 

Senator Bart Hester So if we did an RFP, you were the only person to bid? 

Kathy Park I don’t know how the RFP was written. I don’t recall that, if that was more generic around that service. We had a service that we felt was responsive to what was outlined in the RFPs and so submitted a response. 

Senator Bart Hester Director Wright, if we came to you in the fiscal session, I said, Hey, I’m going to give you 20 new positions to do this work. Can you do this work? Or is it something you think is necessary to have a third party doing the review? 

Tiffany Wright In my opinion, the third party review helps. Because it’s an outside view looking into the system at all the moving pieces of the system going on. I mean, I can review an investigation, but they’re going to look at the whole picture. And I value that we get an outside perspective. 

Just like when you all, just like when I come to committee and I’m presenting you data reports and you ask me about specific data. I get a good question that I hadn’t completely thought of. I go back and process through that, right? And so I think that leads to continuing to grow how we think and evolve as an agency. 

Senator Bart Hester That’s all I have. Thank you. 

Angie Wolf Just to add to that, my understanding was that we were one of three organizations that responded to the RFP on the CQI work. There was a peer review process associated with that.

Representative Frances Cavenaugh And just for clarification for Representative Rose, both DCFS and Evident both show that they have spent 11.6 million, about $12 million. So I don’t know where the disconnect is with the transparency. So I’ve asked staff if they will look into that and tell us where the difference is at. 

So hopefully they’ll be able to get that to us. But for what they’re able to show and what the company shows is $12 million. So there’s some disconnect in the transparency. So they’re going to get that information for us just for clarification. Senator Bryant, you’re recognized. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, do you know how quick that information might be available? 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh They’re working on it now. So hopefully by tomorrow we’ll have that information. By Friday, for sure, we’d have that. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you. I think I’m just going to go on. My concerns probably mirror a lot with Representative Rose. The contracts have just become the beast of their own. And you have to keep feeding that beast and the beast has to figure out to become relevant and to continue to grow the beast. I think that’s proof that, like any good organization, they hire lobbyists to sway the legislature on their interests. I’ve got calls from that for this. 

And that is, again, my concern is we don’t have an off ramp. If the answer is, we’re going to use this software and this team in perpetuity until the next governor makes a systematic or sweeping change in how the state of Arkansas does business, that’s the answer I want. I don’t want to see us continue going back to the well for more money for the same vendor to do the same things that may or may not be working. 

Because I got constituents that say the system doesn’t work. I’ve got colleges with employees calling me telling me that they are part of the DCFS tool and it is not working. And it is just a machine that perpetually feeds itself in the interest of preserving jobs in the market. And so, again, I would like to know, Madam Chair, if the answer is 12 million over six years or the answer’s 25 or 50 million over 6 years. Because that’s an impactful number. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Yes, Senator Bryant, they’re working on that. Like I said, we’ll have that hopefully by tomorrow. If not, for sure before Friday. Representative Ladyman, you’re recognized. Representative Rose, you’re recognized. 

Representative Ryan Rose I want to say I appreciate everybody at the table taking the time to speak with me prior to and during today’s committee meeting. I’m sure this went longer than most folks would like. My overarching theme I think has been expressed. 

And my encouragement to this committee would be for the first time since we’ve entered into this contract since 2018 that maybe it’s appropriate to just press pause instead of expanding and say, Let’s give DCFS the option to look internally to their team, to their qualified professionals. 

Director Wright, you’ve obviously been promoted through the ranks. You’ve done the work from the bottom to the top. You’ve got the confidence of the Secretary of DHS to maybe resolve these issues and find these problems. Pausing or not implementing this contract doesn’t remove the Evident Change vendor from the work they’re already doing. 

But it is my opinion, based on the last several months, that maybe it’s not the best thing to continue expanding. And so I will just leave it at that and say thank you, Madam Chair, for the liberty today. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you, members. Do we have any other questions? Seeing none, I have a motion do pass. Senator Bryant. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Yeah, thank you, madam chair. I guess since the motion is on, I have a substitute motion to hold this to the end of the meeting to see if those numbers come back, if somebody on staff is working on that. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay, so your motion is to hold it until Friday? 

Senator Joshua Bryant Or even hold it to the end of this meeting to see if those numbers come back.

Representative Frances Cavenaugh They won’t have it by the end of this meeting. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Then my motion would be to hold it until Friday. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay, we have a substitute motion, which is to hold it until Friday. Do I have a second? Got a second. All in favor say aye. Opposed, say nay. The ayes have it. This will be moved to Friday’s agenda. Thank y’all for coming. With that, we’re going to go down to item B. Methods of Finance. 

Methods of Finance

Katie Walden Thank you, Madam Chair. Item B in your packet are the methods of finance. On the first page, you’ll see a cover letter submitted from Mr. Daniel Brassert of DFA Office of Accounting presenting seven methods of finance for your review today. On the next page, you’ll see a summary schedule staff created of these methods of finance. And I’ll go over them with you quickly now. 

Number one and number two are both with ASU Jonesboro. The first one is for a library chiller renewal. They state they want to fund this project with renewal, replacement, educational, and general funds. And they estimate the original cost to be $836,000. Number two, also with ASU Jonesboro, this is for Pavilion American Disability Act improvements. This is increasing an existing method of finance to $833,000 using University Reserve. 

Number three, HSU, this is for track restoration project. It is a new MOF for $850,000 and they will finance this project using tuition fees and auxiliary profits. 

Number four, U of A Fayetteville, this is the Oak Ridge Trail Extension. This is a method of finance to create a paved concrete trail between– trail, the wooded hillside between Razorback Stadium and the Arkansas Union. They’re using a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And they estimate it’ll cost $620,000 initially. 

Number five, six, and seven are all with UAMS for various projects. Number five is for a central endoscopy procedure room renovation. This is to increase this existing facility by 350 square feet. They estimate it will be $1 million using UAMs revenues. Number six, this is for operating room renovations. This is estimated to cost $4.6 million, also using UAMS revenues. 

The last method of finance with UAMS is for the Spine Institute First Floor Neurosurgery and Spine Clinic renovation. This will be for about 4,200 square feet. They estimate it to cost $1.9 million and they will use revenues and foundation and donor funds. These are the methods of finance for your review today. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you. Any questions, members, on B1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7? Seeing none, do I have a motion for review? Motion. Second? Second. All in favor, say aye. Opposed say nay. Congratulations. We’re going to move down to item C, which are going to be discretionary grants. 

Discretionary Grants

Katie Walden Thank you, madam chair. Item C1 is one discretionary grant we received from the Department of Health. This is a federal grant for $831,000 to the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care. This is for implementation of the personal responsibility education program, which is for at risk youth in schools and those in transitional services. It promotes abstinence, healthy relationships and STI education. This is the discretionary grant from the Department of Health. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Members, any questions? Seeing none, you want to move to C2, please? 

Katie Walden Yes ma’am. Item C2 are the discretionary grants we received from DHS for this month. There are 30 here for your review, but several of them are for like purpose. So if it’s okay with the subcommittee, I will group those for you. 

The first eight grants are with DHS Division of Aging, Adults and Behavioral Health Services. These are all shared federal-state grant allocations and they are to distribute funding between senior citizen center swap funds and senior citizen center restricted reserve funds for programs and services that improve the quality of life of older Arkansans in various locations throughout the state. So this is discretionary grants 1 through 8. 

So that takes us to item C, page 4. And we’ll begin at number 9. The next grant is for DHS Division of Children and Family Services. This is a federal grant for $3 million to recruit and retain resource parents and to provide tangible supports to children and families impacted by foster care. And this is to a grantee called The Contingent. 

The next group is also with DHS DCFS. This is going to be grants 10 through 15. And these are all federal grants that are for evidence-based services to children and adults who are experiencing human trafficking in the state. 

That takes us over to page 7 in item C. And we begin with grant number 16 through number 26. These are all discretionary grants from DHS Division of Medical Services. And these are for rehabilitative day program assistant grants. This assists adults with serious mental illness with long-term recovery and self-sufficiency by promoting community integration, helping them build connections and engage in their local communities. So that’s grant 16 through 26. 

And that takes us over to item C, page 10. And number 27, we had DHS Division of Youth Services with Sankofa Learning Academy. This is a federal grant for academic enrichment support to academically at-risk students in the Glenview community. 

Discretionary grant number 28, DHS Division of Youth Services with Sille Educational Consulting. This is a $30,000 grant for assistance for students at Dunbar Middle School with leadership, emotional intelligence, and conflict resolution skills. 

Number 29, DHS DYS. This is a $30,000 grant for a job readiness program targeting at-risk youth, and also for college and career readiness activities. 

And finally, number 30 with DHS DYS with Bowe Reading Consultant. This is also a $30,000 grant and it pairs adult volunteers, older students, and elementary readers to strengthen literacy skills, build positive relationships, and reduce risks. These are the discretionary grants from DHS, Madam Chair. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Senator Bryant, who’s your question for? 

Senator Joshua Bryant Division on Aging Adults.

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Can we have someone come down from the department, please? And if you would introduce yourself for the record. 

Jay Hill Jay Hill, Director for Aging and Adult Services with DHS. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Go ahead, Senator. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you. Thank you, sir, for being here. I think my call volume is increased on adults with disabilities. And when I read this report, ‘amend to add funding in these accounts for older Arkansans and adults with disabilities’ and with the title being Area Agency on Aging. So when I’m telling them to refer them for state services, that name does not come into my mind. When I saw adults with disabilities, can you tell me the definition that the agency has the purview to fund or help assistance for, say, a 45-year-old with a disability?

Jay Hill Yes, so those are two different things. The funding that you see here are to support senior centers. This is a $2 million restricted reserve request. And then the first 500,000 of GR that is swept from the agency at the end of each fiscal year supports senior centers. That’s a statutory allocation that goes back to the center. 

So these funds support the activities such as meal services, transportation services, socialization in local senior centers. The services I believe you’re referring to are, for instance, the waiver services, the home and community-based type services that we offer through programs at the division that are Medicaid programs. Is that–?

Senator Joshua Bryant I think it’s more of a broad question. If I were to get a constituent that has an adult with disabilities in the home and there’s not enough bed space being built or being utilized to provide services, is this an avenue that they could go request services from through the Area centers of Aging? 

Jay Hill Yes, there are some services that they provide. The AAAs do fund, for instance, personal care. They do fund some services. They assist, some of our AAAs can assist our beneficiaries with some of the furnishings, the appliances they may need in their home, transportation to medical appointments. Absolutely. There are supportive services under the Title 3B, as well as family services under Title 3E, that do support individuals in the home that do have needs. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Okay, and that’s in addition to the Medicaid services or Medicare services. 

Jay Hill That’s in addition to, right. That would be separate from. And I’m happy to help make connections if you have individuals in your area that you’d like to connect. 

Senator Joshua Bryant I would appreciate that. All right, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Any other questions, members? Seeing none, I need a motion for review of 1 and 2. Have a motion. Second. All in favor, say aye. Opposed, nay. Congratulations. We’re going to move down to item D now, which are going to be the service contracts. 

Contracts and RFQs

Katie Walden Thank you, Madam Chair. In the item D portion of your packet, these are the contracts and RFQs submitted for your review today. On the first page, you’ll see a letter we received from the OSP Director, Ms. Jessica Patterson. She states that all the contracts and RFPs presented today were reviewed by her staff and were found to be procured correctly and under law. 

Also, as requested by Legislative Council, they identified two contracts that were previously procured using the traditional or the most advantageous proposal method. And I want to bring to the committee’s attention, the second one that is mentioned here in the table with the Department of Military, they contacted us prior to the meeting and requested for this contract to be pulled. So it is not under consideration today. You’ll see that later in the packet. I’ll point it out to you. 

So technically, the only one that you’ll see today is the UCA contract with Leapfrog Technologies. Also in this letter, you’ll see that they provide an update about their review and creation of the revised rules in response to Section 19 of Act 782. They state that they have completed their work with Ikaso to review and revise portions of the procurement rules and that the governor’s office is reviewing them. And once the governor office reviews those final rules, OSP will begin the promulgation process. 

So moving to the RFQ for this month, that’s under item D1. We have one for this month. It is with the Disability Determination Social Security Administration. This is a $1.2 million RFQ for medical consultant services for case processing and reviews. That’s the one RFQ for review today. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Any questions, members? Seeing none, do I have a motion for–. Second. All in favor say aye. Opposed say nay. Congratulations. We’re going to move down to D2, construction related contracts. 

Katie Walden Thank you, madam chair. On page 4 of your D packet, you’ll see the construction related contracts for your review today. There are seven of them. The first one is with Arkansas Tech with Miller Boskus and Lack Architects. This is a new contract for on call architectural services for the university. 

Number two, Department of Health with Batson Incorporated. This is s new original contract for professional engineering and architectural design services for Department of Health. 

Number three, with Northwest Arkansas Community College with Core Architects. This is Amendment 1 to an existing contract to increase and add time to this contract for schematic design services, design development and construction documents. 

Number four, on the next page, also with NWACC, this is a contract with Crossland Construction. This is a new contract for 7.1 million and this is relating to renovations on the NWACC Benton County campus to provide repairs and renovations from the May 2024 tornado. 

Also number 5 with NWACC with SCM Architects. This is an architectural services contract for schematic design services, design development and construction services. 

Number six with University of Arkansas with Core Architects, this is amendment one to an existing contract. This increases this contract by $8.4 million, and it is for full design services for the Maple Hill North Student Housing Project. 

Number seven, with University of Arkansas with Seals Construction Incorporated. This is amendment two to an existing construction contract for services provided with the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and Arts. And this particular amendment is relating to infrastructural improvements that the school needs to make. This includes concrete paving, stormwater structures, and road widening. These are the construction contracts, Madam Chair. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you. Members, do you have any questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion for review? Second. All in favor say aye. Opposed, say nay. Congratulations. Now we’re going to move down to item D3, intergovernmental contracts. 

Intergovernmental Contract

Katie Walden Thank you, madam chair. There is one intergovernmental contract for your review today. It is between the UA Little Rock and Arkansas Tech University. This is an original contract for $65,000 and it is for provision of entrepreneurial and small business services to the designated geographic territory. This is federally funded by the US Small Business Administration for the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center. This is the intergovernmental contract. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you. Members, any questions? Seeing none, I have a motion to review. Second. All in favor say aye. Opposed, say nay. All right, thank you. We’re going to move down to item D4, which is out-of-state contracts.

Out of State Contracts

Katie Walden  Thank you, madam chair. The first contract in out-of-state contracts is for Arkansas Teacher Retirement with State Street Bank and Trust Company. This is amendment 12 to an existing contract and it expands the scope of this existing contract to provide for the extension of four foreign markets in the management and attendance services trade settlement safe heaping and reporting of domestic and international securities for the Teacher Retirement investment system. 

Number two, Department of Commerce with AEDC with Michael Baker International. This is amendment one to an existing contract. It increases the contract by $3.6 million. This is for professional services for broadband grants, systems and services. 

Number three, Department Of Education with the College Entrance Exam Board. This is Amendment one to an existing contract, and it is to provide for Arkansas schools to offer the PSAT to selected grades if chosen by students for the spring of 2026. 

Number four, Department of Health with Waystar Incorporated. This is amendment three to an existing contract and this is for clearinghouse services provided by Waystar. This includes verifying claim eligibility, transmitting EDI information, compliant claims and management. 

Number five with DHS and Deloitte is a new special procurement contract. It is originally established at $110 million. And since this is a special procurement and it’s the first time the committee’s seeing it, we provided this special procurement justification letter in your green packet today. So you’ll see that attached to your packet. And this is to establish a contract with an initial term of three years for the maintenance and operation of the Arkansas Integrated Eligibility System for DHS. 

Number six, DHS, Division of Aging Adults and Behavioral Health with Medsphere Systems Corporation. This is another original special procurement. So you’ll see these letters second in your green packet. This original contract is to initiate an agreement for the State Hospital electronic health records and patient billing system. 

Number seven, DHS with DCFS, Premier Biotech Incorporated. This is amendment four to an existing contract for drug screen confirmations and drug challenges for FY27. 

Number eight, DDS, DCFS with Timothy Hill Children’s Ranch. This is an original contract for a qualified residential treatment program. 

Number nine, DHS, Division of Medical Services with Guidehouse Incorporated. This is amendment 10 to an existing contract to add funds for the assistance with preparation, training, and review of the completion of centers for Medicare. 

Number 10, on page 12 of packet D, we have DHS Division of Medical Services with Guidehouse Incorporated. This is also a special procurement that you’re seeing for the first time. So the third set of letters in your green packet is about this Guidehouse contract. This contract is originally established at $2 million and is for the assistance with preparation, training and review of the completion of the centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. 

Number 11, DHS DMS with Health Management Systems is amendment one to an existing contract for automated data matching systems. 

Number 12, DHS Division of Medical Services with Health Managements Systems is amendment two to an existent contract. And this is for the Arkansas Health Insurance premium payment program. 

Number 13, DHS DMS with Verida Incorporated. This is for non-emergency medical transportation services in the selected service region. This is amendment one to the existing contract and it increases it by $6.3 million. 

Number 14, DHS with Division of Provider Services and Quality Assurance with Public Partnerships LLC. This is counseling and financial management services for self-directed independent choices programs. 

Number 15, DHS with Handel Information Technologies. This is with the Division of Youth Services. This is for the deployment of the Right Track System where DYS and its service providers around the state connect remotely to the Right Track System. And this is for the entry of information as well as providing for placement and billing data. 

Number 16, Department of Public Safety Division of Emergency Management with Motorola Solutions. This is amendment one to an existing contract and it is for site equipment and installation services for the Arkansas Wireless Network sites. 

As I mentioned previously, contract number 17 with the Department of Military was pulled. 

So we’ll move to number 18, Department of Transformation and Shared Services Building Authority with Ybanez Enterprises Incorporated. This is amendment 6 to an existing contract for janitorial services for the Hendrix building at 616 Garrison in Fort Smith, Arkansas. 

Number 19, Department Of Veterans Affairs with Health Dimensions Consulting Incorporated. This is for health auditing services at the North Little Rock and Fayetteville Veterans Homes for Medicaid reporting. 

Number 20, Department of Veterans Affairs Superior Linen Service. This is a new original contract for linen services at the Fayetteville Veterans Home. 

Number 21, Northwest Arkansas Community College with SHI International. This is an original contract for tracking of all non-credit learner data. 

Number 22, University of Arkansas with Deloitte Consulting. This is amendment two to an existing contract. This is to support institutional data conversion, reporting, analytics, integration, development, and post implementation support of the Workday Student System platform. 

Number 23, U of A with Fort Hill Associates. This is for an audit of all the construction services that are provided on the U of a campus. 

Number 24, UCA with LeapFrog Technologies. This is an original contract for CourseLeaf, which is catalog information, curriculum, and syllabi management platform services. 

Number 25 with UCA is with Payer Matrix. This is amendment one to an existing contract. And this addresses prescription drug costs for specialty drugs by dealing with alternative funding programs accessing grant programs and other related services. These are the out-of-state contracts 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Senator Bryant, you’re recognized. 

Senator Joshua Bryant I’ve got a few that I’d like to call up, starting with Department of Commerce AEDC for item number 2. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Can someone from the agency come down please.

Edward Bailey Good afternoon, my name is Edward Bailey. I’m with the Arkansas Department of Broadband, Department of Commerce, State Broadband Office. I’m the Deputy Director. I go by Lane, my middle name. 

Broadband contract

Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you for being here. I’m right over here. Just curious on this contract. Can you give us kind of an idea of where we are with the grant program and that area is covered. And then the last statement says total projected cost remains the same as the original bid. Are we talking about this contract? Are we talking about all contracts related to implementation of broadband? 

Edward Bailey This refers to this contract only. This contract is with Michael Baker International. It’s actually a partnership. Also, the other partner is a company called Ready.Net. Michael Baker International is the engineering firm that we send out to inspect the construction of these broadband networks that we’re funding. 

So Michael Baker does the inspections of the construction work and they also do the hands-on review of the receipts and all the finances before we make any reimbursements. Ready.net provides our software, our mapping software and our grants management software. It’s all in one package. 

So this is a contract, a partnership that covers all of that work. And yes, we’re still within the original amount that was awarded two years ago, and this is the two-year extension of that. As far as the overall program goes, we are on target. We were one of the first states for the BEAD program, the billion dollar program, to have final approval from the NTIA at the US Department of Commerce. 

And where we are right now, that final approval was received on December 4. And we’ll have six months now to get that through here, through ALC, which the earliest we could bring it to ALC would be February. We’re looking at either the February or the March when we will present all of those broadband projects to ALC for appropriations approval. 

If we get that approval, then we will look to get all of the sub-grant agreements signed with the various– I think it’s about 20 different ISPs to build the remaining broadband projects. That’s about 77,000 homes. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Okay, and so this contract puts them in front of the ISPs to make sure they’re doing it appropriately? 

Edward Bailey Yes, sir. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Okay. That answered my question. Thank you. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you. Senator Rice, you’re recognized. 

Senator Terry Rice It’s for this one, too. Don’t run off too quick. And I’m sorry, I got distracted on the front part of your testimony. Does your contract today cover the final round of funding that’s coming from the feds? 

Edward Bailey Yes, sir. 

Senator Terry Rice So that’s got to be completed within the next two years?

Edward Bailey Oh, no. The contract, we’re wrapping up the second year of a contract that can be extended up to seven years. 

Senator Terry Rice But this contract will take it out to the end of the Fed, this next large round of Fed? I say the next, it’s probably the last large round to finish up. 

Edward Bailey The BEAD program, all of the projects have to be completed within 4 years of signing of the subgrant agreements. And those subgrant agreements have to be signed within the next 6 months. 

Senator Terry Rice Okay. But if you’re going to be there– this is for two years? I’m sorry. I didn’t look at it. 

Edward Bailey Yes, sir. For two years. We will need another two year extension.

Senator Terry Rice There’s going to be a need for supervision to finish the program, right? 

Edward Bailey Yes, sir. 

Senator Terry Rice Okay, that’s what I was covering. There’s going to be a future need, too. And y’all didn’t get to come in on the first part that we wished you had been there when there was some problems. And I do appreciate y’all coming in and getting started on that. I wish we’d had you back earlier when they did have problems. 

Edward Bailey Appreciate that. Yes, sir. We will have to come back for another extension in a couple of years.

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Representative Richardson, who’s your question for? We are done with you at this time. Thank you. Can we have somebody come down from DHS? What part of DHS? 

Representative Scott Richardson Item number 5 and 15 both. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Can someone come down from the agency, please? Division of Youth Services is 15. And number five, if I can get to it, is DHS. And if you introduce yourself for the record, please. 

Kim Gardner Good afternoon. Kim Gardner, Office of Information Technology, DHS. 

Michael Crump I’m Michael Crump, Director of the Division of Youth Services. 

Mary Franklin Mary Franklin, Director of the Division of County Operations for DHS. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh You’re recognized, Representative Richardson. 

Sole source software contract: Deloitte

Representative Scott Richardson Thank you, madam chairwoman. So thank you so much for being here. I know we talked earlier about item 5 and you provided a lot of information that was very helpful. And so I really appreciate that. The last question that I have remaining on this particular item, it still revolves around sole source. 

And I know we kind of hit on that a little bit. I did get the letter from the procurement, the approval letter, and I appreciate that. But I still come back to the same element. The letter itself stipulated that because this was created by them, that it made sense for them to continue to maintain it, essentially. And although I don’t necessarily disagree with that mentality, my concern is around the state having systems that can’t be maintained by other vendors. 

And so I guess if you could help me understand why we feel like that this is the only vendor that could provide those services, it would help me feel a lot more comfortable about this particular contract. 

Kim Gardner Thank you for your question. We did a lot of research as we were preparing to determine which procurement strategy we should go. And we actually looked at some of our neighboring states as well as some other states that were also using this platform with Deloitte. 

And we had seen examples where they had tried to move to a different M&O vendor to support their platform and they were not successful. And so we did not want to create a situation for us here in Arkansas. We wanted to mitigate that risk, especially looking at some of the upcoming changes that we had in front of us. And so that was one of the drivers for making that decision to stick with Deloitte. 

Representative Scott Richardson So the idea was because other states were not successful with other vendors, you felt like that we wouldn’t be successful? 

Kim Gardner Primarily using the next gen platform that we are using with Deloitte. We looked at two other states, specifically Texas and Connecticut, who had that same platform and tried to move to a different vendor to support it. They were not successful in those efforts. And so, yes, we thought it best to consider maintaining a relationship with Deloitte for M&O. 

Representative Scott Richardson  Just for clarification purposes, the software that we’re using wasn’t specially built for the state. It is a provided software as a service through that particular vendor. Is that correct? 

Kim Gardner That’s my understanding. And we’ve customized it quite a bit. We’ve enhanced it since we implemented it in 2022. 

Representative Scott Richardson So migration to another vendor would mean a requirement of a new software? 

Kim Gardner Correct. 

Representative Scott Richardson And the customizations to go along with that. 

Kim Gardner Correct. 

Representative Scott Richardson Okay. All right. Thank you for that one. Madam Chair, do you want me to go on to my other question on the other item? Or, I don’t know, is there any other questions on this one? 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Get back in. I think Senator Bryant has a question. Senator Bryant, you’re recognized.

Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you, madam chair. I guess, same question. I was elected to the House in 2021. And a bill that I ran when Mr. White ran DHS was dealing with this system and its development and how excited they were. I think the argument I had was we’re going to pay for it and it’s going to get developed and then we’re going to own it and maintain it. 

So why jump into a contract with, I think it was Equifax that was saying, Hey, I can do what ARIES is going to do. We can do it differently and we can implement and cross sector with different federal agencies and it’d be a better product. And I remember this agency pushed back on that saying give ARIES a chance. 

But now I’m seeing here four years later that we are going to do hundreds of millions of dollars in perpetual care and maintenance for this system. So is it possible that the agency can look and say, yes, we’ve downloaded a bunch of money in the system, but it’s going to cost us X amount of millions dollars a year regardless of the system we choose. And maybe there is a competitor, a third party vendor that can do this. 

Because I think agencies as a whole have a problem spending millions of dollars on software and then trashing them. And so not saying that what we’re going to ask is new, but is it possible we look to see what we can spend as a third-party versus a system that we have just some pride in? 

Mary Franklin Senator Bryant, thank you for the question. I’m going to try to answer it. I can tell you one thing I have learned throughout the process of design, development, and implementation for the ARIES system, the Arkansas Integrated Eligibility System, this system integrates the rules for all the programs we administer in county operations, Medicaid eligibility rules, SNAP eligibility rules, the transitional employment assistance rules, as well as Summer EBT now that it’s a new program that we’ve added. 

And the systems are very complex. The contract, the actual work on the contract started in 2019. And I would say we had it fully implemented during 2022, May of 2022. And the system is not at end of life. It’s still fairly young. And these systems, the recommendation is to look at what do you do 12 to 15 years down the road. We did not want to replace anything. We feel like we needed longer to get our return on investment because it is costly to build a system like this that’s integrated. 

We retired four other separate systems that our team was using in order to get to the place where we have ARIES and we don’t have staff entering information in more than one place for the same client. And we did also not want to take the risk of an increased cost should we go out for competitive procurement or the possibility of a new vendor coming in and that not being successful. 

Given things that we knew were going to be on our plates or that are on our plate now– and I can tell you, you never really finish building an IT system. There is always a rule that needs to be changed or a process that you’ve determined there’s a better way to do it. We can make this change in the system and become more efficient and do work more quickly or more accurately. So we went this route. 

And it even included federal approvals to do it this way, including, the state plus federal approvals, basically to get us the best bang for our buck, the best ability moving into the future while we continue to use this system and make sure we get our return on investment before we consider making any changes or rebuilding a system. I hope that helps. 

Senator Joshua Bryant I guess it does. But what’s the cost we’ve spent so far? 2019 was kind of the initial contract. 

Kim Gardner I believe where we are on our current contract with total projected cost is a little over 400 million, but that includes DDI, so that portion of DDI, then how far we are into maintenance and operations. But we also had some other work that we did around the pandemic, where we added to the total projected cost of this contract to help support the business operations when they had some staffing shortages. That, I believe, is around the estimated total projected cost to date. 

Senator Joshua Bryant So it’s today it’s $400 million? 

Mary Franklin I think it’s around $439 million for the existing contract that comes to end of life at the end of this month. And this new contract for M&O to continue maintenance and operations is that–

Kim Gardner –is the number you have in front of you, the 259 million. 

Mary Franklin So it is significantly less than what we have spent the first seven years because of the big lift of design, development, and implementing this entirely integrated system with rules engine that has the policy built into it to help us make sure we do consistent determinations. 

Senator Joshua Bryant So how long will that $259 million take us before you’re back needing more? 

Mary Franklin The 259 is the total for seven-year total projected cost. And the first three years is the 110. That’s the specific request today. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Okay, so $259 million for seven years of a $439 million system. So I guess it goes back, would the agency entertain any other vendors to come and say, Hey, I can do that for 10 million for 20 years and it’s the same product? Or is it, we’re committed to this system for seven years? That sounds like that’s what the agency wants to do. Okay. Thank you. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh I have a question. When you were talking about that you built a system to combine four into one because they were entered in four different places, how much money did that save us to have one provider versus those four? Did that save any money? 

Mary Franklin I don’t have those numbers today. I can tell you we retired the system we called ANSR. It got us off mainframe. It also retired another system that did Medicaid only. It was called Curum. So maybe it was three. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh If you can just get us those numbers by Friday. Just send it to staff so they can send it out. Okay. Representative Richardson, you’re recognized. 

Representative Scott Richardson Thank you, Madam Chairman. Again, so just to be clear, I know I asked this question already, but I wanted to go back to it just to clear. The system itself, the software underlying that we configured, that we made our own, that software is only provided by this vendor? 

Mary Franklin So NextGen was developed by Deloitte. What they have built here belongs to us. And they used NextGen as the base platform and then built it out to our specifications and continue to make changes to it as we determine necessary or we need to implement new rules. 

Representative Scott Richardson So we own the source code for the underlying software, the primary underlying core software? I know I’m trying to get into this just to make sure that I understand. Again, I’m coming back to the same question that I’ve had before. We go to a sole source as if there are no other companies out there. 

And if this is their software, we’re committed to their software, we have no choice but to leverage them to continue to maintain this and provide us updates, it is what it is. I would have objected in 16 when this was first considered. But if this is, we’re locked into this vendor because this is only their software and we cannot, other than go to a different software, we have no other recourse, then that’s a separate statement. 

So I guess I’m just trying to understand, are we locked into the vendor? Are there any other opportunities at all for another company to come in and provide the same services on the existing software that Arkansas, I guess, owns at this point?

Mary Franklin A competitive procurement was an option that we considered. So I think to answer your question, we could have done a competitive procurement to see if another vendor bid and qualified to maintain the system. 

But in our research and in our weighing of the pros and cons and ultimate cost, we felt like the best direction was to request approval for the procurement at the state level and at the federal level and were ultimately approved both at the state level and by the federal partners, CMS and FNS, to move forward with this special procurement contract. 

Representative Scott Richardson So I’m going to restate what I think I heard you say: That there are other vendors that could provide us the exact same services, but because of the nature of the relationship and existing knowledge, we chose to not go and do a competitive bid just to stay with the same one. 

Mary Franklin Yes, sir. 

Representative Scott Richardson Would you like for me to move on to 15? 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh No, if you’ll hold on just a second. Senator Bryant has one more question. Then you can get back in. 

Senator Joshua Bryant I just got one quick question. Who is the end user of ARIES? What state employee keys in the data that would give us a thumbs up or thumbs down that it was worth the $439 million we spent. Because two, four, three years ago, plenty of state employees were not thrilled. I’m curious now that time has passed what those answers would be. 

Mary Franklin So the main end users of the system would be our clerical staff for scanning and registering applications and incoming work, and then our case workers and supervisors out in the field that determine eligibility. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Okay, so your field workers and then down the road here on Capitol Boulevard here. 

Mary Franklin We have an office on Martin Luther King here in Pulaski and we have an office in Jacksonville. And we also have an office in Baseline and offices in every county of the state. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Okay. But your staff office that does it directly for the agency, not the frontline, is it here on the complex?

Mary Franklin So we have staff all over that all use the system. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Okay. All right. Thank you. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh You’re recognized. 

Sole source software: Handel

Representative Scott Richardson Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. So on 15, jumping to that one, just a couple of quick questions. One, this amendment is to revise the scope of work in this particular contract. What got revised? 

Kim Gardner So it’s my understanding with this contract, we are just bringing together a single payment mechanism for this vendor. So I do not think that we changed the scope of work of what Handel is doing for DYS, just simply pulling together two separate contracts to put it on one contract. 

Representative Scott Richardson So, it’s the same exact scope, just pulling together other contracts? 

Kim Gardner Correct. 

Representative Scott Richardson So, what is the original scope? I read the Right Track implementation, building out the network and the connectivity. What is the scope? 

Michael Crump So the scope, if I may, of this contract, it’s our case management system for youth services statewide that both my staff, our residential providers, our community-based providers around the state utilize to keep track of all the juveniles’ records, their education, their therapy, billing, all of those things. 

Nothing in the scope has changed. The separate piece was that piece that allowed us to, if we needed to, create something new in the system. For example, we had something a couple of years ago to track some information we collected for the federal government. To be able to do that, we needed to put this all in one contract because– if I have the IT person sitting here next to me that might be able to explain it a little better than me. 

But when we want someone to change this system and build something new, Handel is the only entity. It’s their proprietary system so that we needed to be able to do that rather than have two separate ones. The decision was made to put that all into one. And just to have that opportunity, if the funding is there and if there’s a need in the future to be able to build something new in the system. 

Representative Scott Richardson Well, building something new in the system obviously would be a change of scope. 

Michael Crump A new report or something of that nature, not necessarily changing the scope. So to give an example, my team that tracks therapy and all these things for the youth that are in our custody, we have a treatment plan that is followed. Every juvenile that comes into our custody they have a treatment plan after they’re assessed that dictates what type of treatment they’re going to get while they’re in custody. 

We at one time had intended to build a treatment plan into this system rather than have something separate on paper or on spreadsheets or something of that nature. So it would still be within the same scope of what they’re doing with tracking juvenile justice and case management. It would just be paying for that work to be done to develop something new within the same scope, if that makes sense. 

Representative Scott Richardson What is this amendment? I don’t see how long the length of this amendment is for? Just another year? Is that correct? 

Kim Gardner Yes. 

Michael Crump Correct. 

Representative Scott Richardson So we paid $84,000 so far and now we’re going to pay another $274,000 for one year? How much of this system is implemented at this point? 

Michael Crump The system is implemented. We’ve been using it for– I’ve been in DYS for seven years. We’ve been using it since well before I came here, the Right Track system that Handel developed. So, I believe the 84,000 piece is the authority to be able to make any of those changes if we need to. 

I know the ongoing cost for this contract is the 200 and some odd thousand per year. That’s the amount we’ve been paying every year for several years, and it includes a staff member from Handel that’s onsite that helps us maintain, if there’s any kind of problems with the system, maintain, and make sure that it operates properly.

Representative Scott Richardson So we have a– just to make sure I understand– we have software that is proprietary in nature that we had built for us, that we are stuck with, if you will, with no ability to migrate to another vendor to help us with maintenance and operations because we’ve created a proprietary environment and a proprietary connection. 

Michael Crump I believe that we would– I mean, we’ve tried in the past. We did, I believe, six years ago, we attempted to procure a new contract. We put the procurement out there with all of our things that we needed for a new system. When that procurement went through, the bids that came back were considerably more expensive than this one. 

So the decision was made to, let’s just stick with what we have, get it up to date because some of the system things were changing. Some of the Microsoft changes with Silverlight at the time. So the decision was made to stick with this because it was considerably less expensive than the other companies that bid. Handel did not, for that particular project, was not even, they weren’t bidding on that one. 

So rather than increase the amount that we were going to be spending per year considerably, the decision we made was to stick with the Handel Right Track system that we already had in place. 

Representative Scott Richardson So, if I understand what you’re saying, since we’re locked into this system, we’re locked into it for at least the foreseeable future with no options to do anything else. 

Michael Crump I believe if we thought there was other systems out there that could do this exact same work as well or better than what the system does, we would be able to put that out for procurement at any time if we decided to do that to try to get another system. I’m not aware of anybody that can do it for that same price or less. But in the future, I don’t believe that we’re locked in and don’t have the ability to re-procure. We could do that if we chose to. 

Representative Scott Richardson Last question. I appreciate the latitude very much, madam chairwoman. Last question for you guys. And I appreciate you being here again answering all these questions. Do we own the underlying source code for this particular element? 

Kim Gardner I’ll need to take that back, representative, and double-check how we wrote that contract when we initially began the relationship with Handel. I would like to think that we do. But I don’t want to say yes and not be sure. 

Representative Scott Richardson Okay. Thank you very much. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh I have a question. One thing that you said in your conversation was that you were combining some contracts so there’d be one pay source. So what contracts did you combine? 

Kim Gardner So we had one sole source that we have in front of us that only included development, the development work. And then we had a separate that was exempt by law that covered our maintenance and operations for Handel. And so this will combine the two. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay, and where are we at on that one that you’re combining? Is that contract done? Where is it at? 

Kim Gardner It’s this one. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh So this will turn out to be the only one that you have for them. 

Kim Gardner That’s correct. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you for the clarification. You’re welcome. Senator Bryant, you’re recognized. Representative Rye, is the question for them? Representative Rye, you’re recognized. 

Representative Johnny Rye Thank you, Madam Chairman. Let me ask y’all this, and this may be a hard answer to come up with real quick. But even if you did have another company that was as good or better, even if you did, what would be the startup cost just to transfer all the information from your system now to that system that you would be in? Do you have any idea? 

Michael Crump I don’t know exactly what it would be. I think that was one of the things when we attempted to do this before. The initial startup cost was going to be extremely expensive. And then we also looked at the ongoing yearly cost was also more than what we were paying currently under this maintenance and operation. So it was a matter of both those things were going to cost us considerably more. 

And if we were to do something, if we did find something that we thought might work, because our community based providers, our residential providers, group homes around the state, there’s a lot of different entities that utilize this system to track what’s going on with a juvenile who is in DYS custody. 

It will be something that we would be very deliberate about because we don’t want to lose all the historical information that we have in the system. It’s very important to hold on to that. So it’s something that we would have to do a lot of research. We do think about those things and look around from time to time. If we do find something at that time, we would be very deliberate about doing this. It’s not something we would do quickly. 

Representative Johnny Rye Thank you, sir. Thank you. Madam Chairman. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh I think we’re done with y’all. I appreciate it so much. Senator Bryant, who do you need? 

Senator Joshua Bryant Item 22, University of Arkansas. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Okay, do we have someone down? U of A? And if  you will come down and introduce yourself for the record, please. 

Melissa Rust Melissa Rust, University of Arkansas System. 

University of Arkansas software contract

Senator Joshua Bryant Thank you for coming down. Just looking at item 22, funding to support institutional data conversion, reporting analytics that started in 2021. Is there an end date to this contract or are we getting close to ending it? Or are you just going to perpetually increase it? 

Melissa Rust No, sir, we’re close to ending that. Several years ago, the University of Arkansas system decided to implement an enterprise resource planning system, or an ERP system, so that we could get all of our campuses on the same human resource system, same finance system, and same student information system. 

And so at that time, after a lot of research, we selected a company called Workday for the platform for HR finance and student information system. We selected Deloitte as the implementer, the consultant to help us implement the platform. And so this particular contract was for the implementation of the third piece of the ERP system, which is anything and everything that has anything to do with our students. For instance, financial aid, student accounts, academic advising, everything, scheduling and all. 

That was this third piece was the student information system. And so Deloitte has been the consultant that we retained for that purpose. This amendment is amendment two, which takes us to April 1, basically March 31 of next year. And so it’s a $2.3 million amendment to an existing contract that we should be fully implemented on the student information piece at the end of March. We are fully implemented in HR and fully implemented with respect to finance. This is the last piece. 

Senator Joshua Bryant And then, so to your knowledge, do you expect the university to come back and ask for a operations and maintenance contract for Deloitte to allow the system to continue to operate the system that we bought? 

Melissa Rust Senator Bryant, I’m not aware of such. Simply am not aware. 

Senator Joshua Bryant So do you suppose U of A will own the system that was created and perform their own updates and maintenance to it? 

Melissa Rust I don’t want to mislead you in response to your question. I don’t know that I can tell you that I know that definitively. I just simply, I know what I’ve shared with you, which is that we will be fully implemented within a few months on the system. Now, obviously there may be updates, I would imagine, to the software system and all. But this particular contract is specific to the implementation of the system. There was a prior contract, obviously, for selection of the software vendor, which is different, obviously, than Deloitte. 

Senator Joshua Bryant Okay. And do you know if we own the code? 

Melissa Rust I do not know that, sir. I do not.

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you. Thank you for coming. Members, any other questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion for review? Motion. Second. All in favor, say aye. Opposed, say nay. Thank you. We’re going to move down to D5, which is in-state contracts. 

In-State Contracts

Katie Walden Thank you, Madam Chair. In-state contracts begin on page 18 of your D packet. There are 18 for your review today. The first two are with Arkansas State University. 

The first contract is with Business Communications Incorporated. This is an original contract, $225,000. This is for WebEx migration, which is migrating over to web-based phone services for Arkansas State University. 

Number two, also with ASU with Kalmer Solutions. This is a new original contract for IT advisory and M365 management services, also for the university. 

Number three, Department of Corrections, Division of Community Corrections with Safe Haven Ministries. This is to provide comprehensive community-based treatment in a 23-bed female reentry facility in Clarksville, Arkansas. 

Number four, Department of Energy and Environment, Division of Environmental Quality with Julian Bester. This is for janitorial services, continuing an existing contract. 

Then we have contracts number 5 through number 10. These are all with Department of Human Services, Division of Aging, Adults and Behavioral Health Services. This is for various providers throughout the state for therapeutic counseling services. And you’ll see each provider covers a very specific set of counties. That takes us all the way over to item D, page 21. 

Contract number 11 is also with DHS Division of Aging, Adults and Behavioral Health Services. This is with Western Arkansas Counseling and Guidance. This is also for therapeutic counseling, but it is for persons without insurance or any other payer source for medically necessary services. 

Number 12 with DHS Division of Developmental Disabilities with Ethan Leonard. This is for dental services at the Jonesboro Human Development Center, Amendment 3 to an existing contract. 

Number 13, DHS Division of Medical Services with Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care. This is the final original special procurement that you’ll see for this month. So this is the last set of letters in your green packet. This is a $7.6 million contract for prior authorization and medical review services. 

Number 14, DHS, Division of Youth Services with Edward Sherrill. This is Redental Treatment Services for youth residing in the care of DYS. 

Number 15, Department of Human Services with DYS, with KA Lancaster Incorporated. This is for pharmacy consultation services for DYS. 

Number 16, Department of Transformation and Shared Services Building Authority with BRW Incorporated. This is for janitorial services at their building at 900 West Capitol. Number 17 and 18 are both with the University Central Arkansas. 

Number 17 is with Blue Advantage Administrators of Arkansas. This is for a third party administrator services for UCA’s self-funded health insurance. 

And then similarly number 18 with UCA is with USABLE. This is for dental claims administration for their self-funded dental benefit plans. These are the in-state contracts, Madam Chair. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Thank you. Members, any questions? Seeing none, I have a motion for review. Motion. Second. All in favor say aye. Opposed, say nay. All right. We’re going to move on down to item number E1, which is service contracts and amendments without change. 

Katie Walden Thank you, Madam Chair. The last three items or the last few items for your review are the reports and communications. There are three regular monthly reports for your information. They are the contracts that were approved without a material change. They’re also the minor executed contracts. That’s E2. And number three is critical emergency procurements that occurred during the month. And those are the reports, Madam Chair. 

Representative Frances Cavenaugh Any questions? Seeing none, motion? Second. All in favor say aye. All right. Nays? Thank you. It’s passed. Seeing no other business, we’re adjourned.