Senate Public Health Committee

January 15, 2025

 

Senator Missy Irvin I call this meeting to order. Excited. Welcome to the Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee. Very excited to have all of the senators that have decided to join this committee and be with us this morning. I think it's going to be-- we do excellent work. This committee sees a lot of different issues on Public Health, welfare and labor, environmental issues, all kinds of different things. And so welcome to the new members. We're excited to have you. And the returning members, we're glad that you chose to stay on.

 So happy to have you guys all here. I wanted to introduce Senator Dave Wallace. He's the vice chair of this committee. So thank you so much for that, stepping up. We also want to just go around the room and have the members introduce themselves and the Districts that they represent. So starting with Senator Wallace, we will go down from there. If you want to use your microphones, please. And there you go.

 

Senator Dave Wallace Dave Wallace, District 19, which is most of northeast Arkansas.

 

Senator Missy Irvin Senator Payton.

 

Senator John Payton John Payton, District 22, which is from Heber Springs to Walnut Ridge and from Pleasant Plains to Hardy.

 

Senator Fredrick Love Good morning, everyone. Fredrick Love, District 15. That is Pulaski County.

 

Senator Greg Leding Good morning, Senator Greg Leding, District 30, which is most of Fayetteville. It's my first time on Senate Public Health, but I did do two terms in Public Health in the House and decided for my last session I wanted to come back where the real action is.

 

Senator Ricky Hill Senator Ricky Hill, District 11, which makes up part of northern part of Pulaski County around the airbase and about 75% of Lonoke County. It's my first year on Public Health, so I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish.

 

Senator Missy Irvin Thank you. So excited to have all of you on here. Of course, Senator Penzo and Senator Flippo will waltz in when they get the chance and opportunity. I also wanted to introduce our Bureau staff that we have. I would just let them go ahead and introduce themselves.

 

Shanice Davis Good morning. My name is Shanice Davis and I'm just happy to be here.

 

Sarah Julian And I'm Sarah.

 

Senator Missy Irvin Sarah Julian. She's our administrative assistant. And we have Jessica Biel is our attorney at BLR. So a lot of the draft language and draft bills, if you are working on them, Jessica Biel will be your point of contact there. And she is our attorney that also advises our committee as well. She does an amazing job. Cathy Howell is also an attorney with BLR that works on a lot of our issues as well. So we appreciate them all, their diligence over the years. They have worked tremendously hard for this committee and I just publicly-- and they watch. They watch us now online. And so I appreciate their diligence. 

I want to review and adopt the Senate committee rules. Are there any questions about those? If not, do I have a motion to adopt? All right. And second. All those in favor say aye. And opposed. Ayes have it. Rules are adopted. 

Just housekeeping, leave your folders here, obviously, and after each meeting, the staff will make sure that they collect everything and get all that gathered up for us for the next meeting. We will have presentations. If you as a member want to hear specifically from a different agency or department, let me know and we can do kind of an introduction. We can do that formally within the committee or we can arrange just to have some information sessions for you as well. I think it may be helpful and we can get that scheduled. 

This Senate Public Health Committee meeting will be in this room, 272. But at 10:00 on Wednesdays, we will try to be systematic with our business and try to get through that as best we can on just Wednesday meeting. If we have to go to two day meetings, we will try to do that either on a Monday or a Friday, just depending on what our Senate schedule looks like. 

So other than that, the other thing I will tell you is I will try to work with sponsors of bills so that we have a real clear agenda for each meeting as to what we will actually be hearing and considering that day. So we're going to try to be more directive about that. I will try to text you the different bill numbers that we know and we'll make sure that the public also has a very clean agenda so we know exactly what bills are going to be heard. 

So I'm going to try to work and coordinate with members who are sponsoring different bills so that we know exactly that they're coming here today and that this is the bill that you're going to be considering for the next day so you can read it and and have the conversations you need about that. So that's the way I kind of operate this committee because we have so much that comes to us. We just need to be a little bit more systematic and methodical and organized in how we consider all of the bills that come to us. 

So that has worked well. And Senator Sullivan helped me last session as vice chair, really coordinate that. And so I would just also urge you, as members of this committee, talking to other legislators, House members or senators, just to say, notify the chair to let her know if you're going to run that bill or not, so we can just all help each other with that. Obviously, I have the ability to call a meeting at the call of the chair. You're familiar with that. All your agendas are prepared two days before each meeting and sponsor notifications will be sent to all members who have bills by email. 

I will say that there are some special rules that we have in place. I want to go over those real quick. Health legislation that specifically changes scope of practice of medical professions and special introduction deadlines require that it must be introduced in the first 15 days of the session. And our staff will do a really good job of tracking that for us. And no action can be taken on those bills until 15 days after introduction. 

Any bill that-- yes. [comment off-mic] Yes. Yes. Any bills that will impose a new or increased cost obligation for health benefit plans also need to be filed in the first 15 days as well, so that the fiscal impact statements can be started and prepared. And the deadline for scope of practice bills is January 27. And there's a handout regarding these important dates and deadlines in your folders. 

And I will just say, the other thing that I think is important is just understanding the rules. And we're going to operate by those rules. Okay. Now, I want to recognize and introduce people that are here with us this morning from the public that you're probably going to interact with. And those are different agencies that are here, organizations, entities, lobbyists that are just familiar faces to the Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee. So with that, I will start right here with Mr. Cook.

 

Unidentified [Introductions off-mic]

 

Senator Missy Irvin Excellent. Okay. Thank you. And I'm sure we'll have others that will come in from periodically as well. So thank you all so much for your hard work for the state of Arkansas. It is so recognized that we sitting at this table do a lot of work, but you all do a tremendous amount of work too. And I think Arkansas has a great partnership with our private sector organizations and groups and businesses, and we accomplish a lot together. Sometimes we agree and sometimes we don't agree. 

But generally, at the end of the day, I know everybody's heart is really about trying to make Arkansas the best state it can for the health care for our citizens. So thank you for your work and your diligence. Really, I have loved every minute of being on Public Health and being in this role. So with that, is there any other business to come before this committee? Any questions from members of the committee?

 

Senator Ricky Hill I guess the important question is when are we going to do pictures?

 

Senator Missy Irvin Do what?

 

Senator Ricky Hill When are we going to do our pictures?

 

Senator Missy Irvin Gosh. Okay. It'll probably be next week. We'll try to schedule a picture on the front of these steps right over here for our committee picture. And I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Missy Irvin. I represent District 24, which is Stone County, Searcy County, a little bit of Newton County, all of Van Buren County and a big portion of Faulkner County and a little bit of Cleburne County. Primm, specifically the big town of Primm, which I'm real proud of. So north central Arkansas is basically what I represent. I'm very passionate about rural health care.

And I know you're going to see some issues in this committee coming up about maternal health and different types of issues. But what we do really, really is significant. The work and the policy we do is significant on the lives of citizens in a very personal way. So I would just ask you, as members of the committee, really read these. We got to do our jobs. We got to do it well. 

So with that, if there's nothing else to come before this committee, thank you again for serving. And I look forward to a great session with everybody. Thanks. We're adjourned.