ALC Hospital, Medicaid, and Developmental Disabilities Study Subcommittee
February 19, 2026
Senator Jane English Good afternoon. Welcome to the subcommittee. We have a few number of things today. Glad to see everybody here this afternoon. And one of the things we’re going to do first, I’d like to recognize the Arkansas Community Colleges Leadership Institute folks are here. If you all would stand please so we can recognize you. Thank you. Very glad to have you here and we’re going to have a quick update on the reimbursement rates under the Living Choices assisted living waiver. So Secretary Mann, if you would grace us.
Janet Mann Thank you, Chairman. Janet Mann, DHS Secretary. Just a quick update. We provided our monthly letter as an update on the assisted living cost report process. We have begun the new cost reporting period this January. We have had a phone call and set up a conference calls with the providers and the contractors, and we are moving forward with that. And as that process moves through, we will bring you more updates.
Senator Jane English Thank you very much. Now we will have a discussion of the– an overview of the current status and developments regarding TANF and SNAP. So co-chair Representative Bentley.
Representative Mary Bentley So colleagues, we didn’t get to finish this at our last meeting, so we finally get to come and finish. If you’ll turn to page 13 in the report that we’ve got in your folder there under today’s agenda. If you will turn to Page 13, that’s where we left off with Mary Franklin, our friends from DHS. So we’ll take off from there. So ladies, if you will recognize yourselves and we’ll let you guys begin.
Mary Franklin Good afternoon, I’m Mary Franklin with the Department of Human Services. I’m the director of the Division of County Operations. Making sure y’all can hear me okay.
Representative Mary Bentley We hear you great. Thank you.
SNAP Work Requirements
Mary Franklin All right. Okay, starting on page 13, we will walk through some changes in the SNAP work requirement that have been brought about through federal law changes in The One Big Beautiful Bill that was passed last July. So SNAP recipients aged 18 to 64 who don’t have responsibility for a child under age 14 living in their home and who are considered physically and mentally able to work must follow the time limit rules to keep their SNAP benefits.
And those time limit rules are they can only qualify to receive SNAP for three months out of a 36 month period if they are not meeting this work requirement or exempt from this work requirement. But to meet the work requirement they need to spend at least 80 hours each month doing one or more of these activities here below, working, volunteering, participating in the SNAP employment and training program, or participating in an employment and training program other than SNAP E&T.
There are individuals, as I said, that are not subject to this work requirement and our next slide walks through that with more detail. So here are these SNAP recipients would not have to follow those time limit rules, which includes those that are younger than 18 or age 65 or older, if they have responsibility for a child under age 14 who resides in their home, if they’re not working because of a physical or mental health reason, if they’re pregnant, taking care of a child younger than age 6 or someone who needs help caring for themselves, if they are already working at least 30 hours per week.
Then the time limit doesn’t apply to them. Or if they are earning $217.50 or more a week. And that amount because it equates to federal minimum wage for 30 hours a week. If they’re getting unemployment benefits or they’ve applied for unemployment benefits, if they are going to school or college or training programs at least half time, if they are meeting the work rules for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in our transitional employment assistance program or if they are participating in drug or alcohol rehabilitation program.
he One Big Beautiful Act did remove some exemptions that had previously been allowed to the SNAP requirement to work. Previously there was an exemption for homelessness, there was an exemption for veterans, and there was exemption for individuals who were aged 24 or younger who were in foster care on their 18th birthday. Those exemptions are now removed based on the new federal law and we have updated our policy rule to be in alignment with that.
The One Big Beautiful Act also added new exceptions for Indians, also referred to as Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Indigenous people, tribal members. Those federal definitions have now been included in our Arkansas rules for an Indian, an urban Indian, and a California Indian as defined in the federal law. All right. And the next part of our presentation is about SNAP employment and training with just an overview of who our current providers are in a high-level overview of SNAP Employment and Training.
Employment and Training programs
On the next slide, what we have identified here for you are the different elements or components– we call them components– that are allowed in SNAP employment and training for those who are participating in SNAP employment and training. There is a component called job retention to help those who aren’t working to retain that job and keep working.
There is job search training, supervised job search, volunteering, basic skills instruction, career or technical education programs or other vocational training programs, English language acquisition, work readiness training, and work experience. Basically like work experience. And our providers this federal fiscal year include the Arkansas Employment Career Center.
They provide vocational training components, certified clinical medical assistant, certified pharmacy technician, entry level cyber security, and certified nursing assistant, and along with case management services, job retention, job training services. Those are the specific vocational training opportunities that they offer.
Their projected budget for the federal fiscal year of 26 is a little over $1.5 million. They are projecting serving approximately 520 individuals and their catchment area counties, residents of these counties, they can serve Arkansas County, Faulkner, Jefferson, Lonoke, Prairie, Saline, Cleveland, Grant, Lincoln, Perry, and Pulaski.
We also have Adult Education as one of our SNAP employment and training providers. They provide statewide coverage with the exception of Mississippi County, and that is only because the Northeast Community College in Mississippi County is also an employment and training provider.
And they provide these same services in that county, but they provide job retention, job search training, supervised job search, volunteering, basic foundational skills instruction, career and technical education, including certified nursing assistants, medical aide, pharmacy tech, heavy equipment, and other programs they offer.
They also offer English language acquisition, work readiness training, and work activity as components. Their projected budget is a little over $2.7 million and projected to serve 1,000 recipients in this fiscal year.
Shorter College is also one of our SNAP employment and training providers, and they serve Pulaski County. They offer child development, criminal justice, Christian leadership, E&Trepreneurship, and business analytics, and computer science as their vocational offerings. They also offer basic and foundational skill instruction, general studies, GED, and their projected budget is right at $97,000 and projected to serve around 52 clients.
And then we also have Arkansas Northeastern College, as I mentioned earlier. They serve Craighead, Mississippi, Crittenden, and Poinsett counties. And they offer vocational training components, including the work or wage program, career technical education programs, including certified nursing assistant, medical aide, pharmacy tech, heavy equipment, and they offer general studies, GED. And projected budget for them is a little over $470,000, projected to serve 100 clients this year.
The next slide gives you some details about our annual characteristics of participants in SNAP employment and training and these are for the federal fiscal year 24. The 25 outcome numbers are not yet available, so this is for 24. But the characteristics of participants in SNAP employment and training, we had 2,561 voluntary participants.
There were no mandatory participants in 2024. 76.61%, or 1,962, of those individuals had received a high school diploma or the equivalency of a high school diploma prior to participating in SNAP employment. And then 22% did not have that equivalency or diploma before entering SNAP employment and training. There were 41% of those volunteers who were identified as an ABOD, an able-bodied adult without dependents, who would be subject to our time limit rules if they were not participating or working or exempt.
There were no participants learning the English language. We had about 30% male and about 70% female. And the age range, the largest age range that participated was between age 18 and 35 at 53%. And we had about 36% who were between age 36 and 49, and around 9 percent that were aged 50 to 59.
And on the last page of this presentation is some information about the outcomes for that federal fiscal year. And as part of our outcome reporting and measuring, we look two quarters back after someone completed SNAP employment training. And we found that of those 886 who, when we did the look back, who had completed SNAP employment and training two quarters prior, 451 of them were working, had unsubsidized employment in that second quarter after participation in SNAP Employment and Training, 50.9%. And their median quarterly wage in that quarter for those individuals was $3,627.95.
We looked again in the fourth quarter after completion of participation in SNAP employment and training and there were 585 individuals in that group and 241 of them or 41% did have unsubsidized employment in the quarter after completing SNAP employment and training.
And then the fourth metric there tells you that of the 1,609 participants who enrolled in SNAP employment training and were assigned in either an educational training, work experience or on the job training component, that 45.31% of them completed that component.
Representative Mary Bentley All right. I’ve got a couple of questions. If members after me have some, just let me know. But as we move forward into our new SNAP requirements with the work training, do we see anything different going on?
I know when we had talked before, Mary Franklin, what the folks at the DHS office would do is simply hand someone a form and tell them, this is where they need to go to get training. Are we doing anything more to help those folks get connected? Are we having any specific county we’re going to be doing anything different moving forward, as these things become mandatory, not just voluntary?
Mary Franklin So we will, our staff during the interview with our client. Because we not only have to notify our clients in writing about the work requirements, we also have to give a verbal explanation.
And we do that in the eligibility interview. And during that eligibility interview, as we make the shift to mandatory employment and training from voluntary, we will be discussing that in detail, determining if they are exempt, determining if they are already working enough to be compliant or doing some other activity that makes them compliant and letting them know whether or not they’ve been identified as someone who is mandatory to participate in SNAP employment and training.
We’ll be discussing with them the providers that are available based on where they live. And we will find out if they are willing to do that, they will do that, and understand the consequences if they don’t. Of course, that’s a policy change that we have not yet brought you, but we will be bringing you soon. But essentially it will result in the loss of benefits for them if they refuse to participate.
But if they agree to participate, we will make the referral directly to that provider on their behalf for the provider to pick up and take the next steps with them on getting them involved in employment and training.
Representative Mary Bentley Okay, great, that was what I was looking for. So I was just looking at some other information that we received from the audit that we got about the amount of money that you guys are receiving in 2024 for E&T training. So you were getting 11 million. And this is some information that we received for E&T training.
So do you feel like you have enough funding– so I guess I’m asking you– enough funding to make sure that we can get adequate training done for those that want to go to work or are required, I guess, mandated to go to work at this point? Do we need to add any more vendors? Do we think we’re adequately covered with vendors to make sure we have some options for folks to get some work training?
Mary Franklin So I think we have enough to get started and then see how it goes and then can make adjustments as we go. Part of how we offer this training is by partnering with providers who have funds that are eligible to match with federal funds. So for example, let me use Adult Education because they are our biggest provider with the most coverage throughout the state.
They have funding that is eligible for match, and they have a mission that serves our population anyway. They provide Adult Education services to Arkansans. And those Arkansans that are SNAP recipients, this program works as a good fit for them because they’re serving our population and partnering with us. As a SNAP Employment and Training Provider, they can bill us for the services they provide to SNAP employment and training participants and then get half of their money back. So they’re going to serve them anyway.
They’re serving them with funds that are eligible to match with FNS for SNAP Employment and Training. We have an agreement with them. We have them included in our state plan that’s approved by FNS. And so the amount that they have to match, we can request the federal portion of that in our state plan and get additional federal funds that way. That’s maybe more than you wanted to know.
But that’s how we operate. And recruit providers is we look for providers that don’t require an additional spend of state general revenue. That works as a good fit to maximize that funding and then to help them help us help our SNAP participants and help them by potentially giving them funding to expand their services because they’re getting some of that money back. And as far as reimbursements go, we have appropriation and funding set already. And how much we need ultimately will depend on how many people participate versus choose not to participate. So I think we have enough to get started.
Representative Mary Bentley Thank you. Senator Petty.
Senator Jim Petty Sorry about that. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have three questions, not necessarily related to each other. But just curious, is there any report or any information that you gather that can show a cross utilization of these on one individual? For example, someone’s receiving SNAP. They’re also participating in the SNAP E&T. And maybe as part of that, the Adult Ed benefits. Just conceptually big picture right now, is that something that we already get or we already track?
Mary Franklin So if they are participating in SNAP E&T, they have to be a SNAP recipient to start with. So anybody that participates in SNAP E&T has to be a SNAP recipient. And then if they’re working with one of our providers, we know who they are working with. So that information we can track, yes.
Senator Jim Petty Okay. And so where I was headed with that is, is there a way for us to determine the total public benefit that someone that is participating in SNAP, in the training and all they are receiving. So just doing the math on the Adult Ed a minute ago, it was around 2,720 to 2,900 per participant.
There’s that cost if they’re participating in that, plus there’s the cost of the actual SNAP benefits themselves. And then maybe any other public benefits. Is there a tracking mechanism for that so we know the participants, some individual may be working through the E&T and receiving SNAP benefit and it’s $12,000 worth of public benefit versus $2,700 Adult Ed only.
Mary Franklin So we can, we definitely can identify recipients who receive Medicaid, who receive SNAP, who may be participating in TANF or Work Pays, or who are in our SNAP Employment and Training Program. So we can, yes, answer that question for the services that we offer. And then how far we could track beyond that would depend on data matching with other agencies.
Senator Jim Petty Got you. A couple more if you don’t mind, Madam Chair. So in doing that, that’s not something that you automatically track, but the data is there. Is that what I’m hearing? Okay. And then last question. So on the Adult Ed, the $2.7 million in budget, is that funding that goes out to the local Adult Ed organizations that you were talking about or is that just the state level budget and funding?
Mary Franklin So our agreement is with the state level Adult Ed. And they have sub agreements with different colleges and providers out in the counties.
Senator Jim Petty So for example, I personally believe our Crawford County Adult Ed does a good job with theirs. They would have a sub agreement with the state agency and they would receive a portion of that 2.7 million?
Mary Franklin Yes.
Senator Jim Petty And so back to the Madam Chair’s question. I hear throughout, not just them but throughout, that maybe the Adult Ed budgets are a little tighter than they once were. I’m not trying to debate that issue right now. But is there an area where we could look at leveraging our resources out more to our local adult ed organizations.
Mary Franklin Well, I would not be the– I can’t really speak to their budget or whether or not the budget is tight with Adult Ed. And at this point, if they were able to expand or provide services, additional services and had additional money that could be matched, we could always look at requesting additional funds for that match. Or if they were going to serve more recipients, we’re open to that. It’s just, I think it will be an evolving process as their needs become available or their ability to match with our federal funds.
Senator Jim Petty Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Representative Mary Bentley Thank you. Representative Beaty.
Representative Howard Beaty Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to make certain that I understand, because I got some calls in the past about SNAP E&T. In the past, voluntary participants were eligible under the program, and now they’re no longer. Is that correct?
Mary Franklin So when we make the shift from voluntary to mandatory, we will shift and serve mandatory recipients only. And that does go back to making sure we have funds and budget to serve those who have the requirement. So that is a change we’re making.
Representative Howard Beaty And that’s a decision made at the department level?
Mary Franklin Yeah, I mean, yes, to maximize those resources and make sure that we have funds there to serve the mandatory recipients and not have to defer them because of lack of funding.
Representative Howard Beaty So have we come up with a plan for some of the voluntary and how we can fill the void there and backfill some of that?
Mary Franklin We can take that back as a discussion point and talk about it.
Representative Howard Beaty We need to do that.
Mary Franklin But we can also refer them to other programs potentially outside of the SNAP Employment and Training Program.
Representative Howard Beaty I’d like to know what those other programs are. Do you have a list of those that you could share with the committee?
Mary Franklin Yes, we can. There are programs through WIOA. There are other job training programs that are not SNAP Employment and Training related.
Representative Howard Beaty Thank you.
Representative Mary Bentley Representative Garner.
Representative Denise Garner Thank you, madam chair. I’ve got a question about verification processes. Are we going to get there or is that part of the presentation? Or can you tell me, is now a good time to talk about how participants are going to verify that they’re working and they’re doing all the things that they need to be doing? Is that an in person kind of thing or is it an online kind of things or do we know yet what the verification process will look like?
Mary Franklin For SNAP?
Representative Denise Garner Yes. For SNAP and work requirements and all of the extra requirements.
Mary Franklin So, in the SNAP program, we verify income, we verify if someone is disabled, we check data sources like Social Security to see if they’ve been determined disabled by Social Security. We also accept evidence that they turn in from a medical provider that says they are disabled or they are mentally or physically unable to work. So in SNAP, this is a verification process.
Representative Denise Garner Right, and I understand that part. It’s the number of hours that they’re working or the number of volunteer hours that they are taking on. Who’s going to verify that and how often are they going to have to do it?
Mary Franklin We get that verification at application and at recertification. If they’re volunteering, they have to provide us documentation from the organization they do volunteer work for those documents.
Representative Denise Garner And how often does that have to be done?
Mary Franklin Our SNAP recertifications for the vast majority of our recipients are every six months.
Representative Denise Garner So every six months someone is going to have to come to y’all and say, I’m working this amount of time or I’m volunteering this amount of time, or something has changed?
Mary Franklin Yes.
Representative Denise Garner Okay. And to do that they come in person?
Mary Franklin They do not have to apply in person. Now people can apply in person at a local office. They can send us applications by mail. They can apply online, by phone. But they all have an eligibility interview, which may or may not be in person.
Representative Denise Garner I understand the first one. I’m talking about afterwards, just that re-verification and the re-certification. How often are they going to have, if they have a job, how often are they going to have to take off work to do that? Or do they have to? Can they do it online?
Or are we making it easy for these folks to keep the jobs that they’re in or keep the volunteer hours that they are maintaining, whatever it is they’re doing to keep their SNAP benefits, are we making it as easy as possible to make that happen?
Mary Franklin So the eligibility, the interview is a requirement. So we have to do that interview every time we take an application or a recertification.
Representative Denise Garner So every six months they have to come in person? Okay.
Mary Franklin Well, they have an interview. It can be by phone, but they have to have an interview. It can by phone. And we are able to offer, before 8 o’clock or after 5 for those individuals that specifically request.
Representative Denise Garner Yeah, that’s the kind of thing I’m trying to get at, is what we need to be telling folks that they need to do to make sure that they’re kosher with everything they need to be doing to meet their requirements.
Mary Franklin We do try to work with our clients. It is a requirement to have the interview, but it doesn’t have to be in person, which can take longer, like you said, take off work, drive to a location, do an in-person talk as opposed to a phone call.
Representative Denise Garner One more, Madam Chair? Is that online and easily found? Or can you make sure that we have that to send our constituents?
Mary Franklin To apply online?
Representative Denise Garner No, just the process of applying and then recertification and what they have to do to maintain those benefits to make sure that people know that they’re working or volunteering or whatever, all the new requirements.
Mary Franklin All the new requirements? We can send you that information.
Representative Denise Garner That’d be great. Thank you.
Representative Mary Bentley Representative Barnett.
Representative Lincoln Barnett Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a question, and it’s really, as it relates to able body, I think you referred to it as ABOD. Do you have any data currently on the total percentage of recipients that would be classified as ABOD? And then I want to know how many of those ABOD are college students, just in general.
Mary Franklin So, there are around 19,000 able-bodied adults without dependents. But I would like to confirm that number because the definition of what an able-bodied adult without dependents has recently changed based on this federal law. Because it also now includes parents with children aged 14 and up, where they wouldn’t have been included before.
So I want to vet that number. I think that number is close, but it may be low because it may not include those parents that have now been added or the 54 to 64 year olds that have now be added. But it’s going to be around 19,000, possibly more that are not exempt. Okay, that are not currently meeting the requirement or exempt
Representative Lincoln Barnett So my next question, if I may follow up, how will the work requirement impact students that are in college that are receiving benefits that may not be a part of the E&T program?
Mary Franklin So being in school or college at least half time makes you compliant with the work requirement for SNAP.
Representative Lincoln Barnett Thank you.
Representative Mary Bentley Representative Beaty.
Representative Howard Beaty Thank you, madam chair. I just want to kind of follow up on what representative Garner was looking at, too, about the interview process. And I had one of the other members want me to ask about how long that interview process takes, the timing of that. How long of an interview and how long does that interview take?
Mary Franklin Well, it’s going to vary a little bit depending on how many household members there are that we need to ask about.
Representative Howard Beaty Let’s say they’re four household members. Give me an estimate for four household members.
Mary Franklin I would give you an hour.
Representative Howard Beaty An hour?
Mary Franklin About an hour.
Representative Howard Beaty Okay. And then the question I wanted to ask– I wanted to get that one out of the way to begin with. My question’s going to go back on the error rates and the verification and the outcome of getting that information from that interview entered into the system because the other side of the penalty side of the error rate.
And where we have historically been in Arkansas, if I look at that right, that’d be a 10% penalty on the average that we would have to pay once they start enforcing penalties. What I would like– and you don’t have to do it today– but maybe at our next meeting, what I would like to request is that you make us feel better about your audit process and how you get information from that interview that’s correct and into the system correctly.
Because I think at one of the last meetings when we discussed this issue and we asked who was making the error, was it on the provider of the information or was it on staff and input, and I think you gave me a number of like maybe 63, 64% of the error was in-house and not from the recipient side.
So I’d like to know how you’re addressing that, provide us a little oversight on that and how we get that information from the recipients in the system and make certain that that information is correct, especially if we’re going to be repeating this every six months. If we’ve got that level of error rate, it just seems prime to repeat those same errors. So I know you’ve got some plan.
You’ve been working on that because we don’t want the penalty. Because it wouldn’t be fun for any of us to sit around and talk about that. And we’re going into fiscal and looking at budget and I don’t see that money in your budget. So that may be at the next meeting or if you want to talk about it now and share some information there.
But I’m willing to give you a little more time to provide us a good response on that because it needs to be.,You need to share with us everything you’re doing on this issue because it’s going to be very important.
Janet Mann Yes, sir. Thank you for the question and the discussion on the error rate. It is at the forefront of what we are trying to work on. We’ve been, I think we’ve been very, tried to be very transparent about that. We will bring the plans. We are looking at it. We’re going to be judged on timeliness and accuracy.
And so we are looking at every county office. We were looking at our procedures and our process and how to quality check that almost on a daily basis so that we can address the offices that are doing it well and then take what they are doing well with maybe some offices that are struggling with their rate and see how we address that.
But we’re trying to break it down to the county office so that we can address it on boots on the ground. So, yes, sir, we will bring that back for y’all.
Representative Howard Beaty And just a quick follow up. Maybe that’d be good, too, to see which offices are the problems. Maybe that would be something for those of us that are in the room. If it’s my office or one in my district, I’d want to know that.
Janet Mann Yes, sir. I think we’re looking at it or trying to look at it as a positive way of a little friendly competition from county to county. That’s how we’re framing it.
Representative Howard Beaty That’s exactly the way I’d be looking at it too.
Representative Mary Bentley Representative Nazarenko.
Representative Jason Nazarenko Thank you, madam chair. Thank you all for the information. I had a question kind of in line with representative Garner’s. But back to the comparable work fair that was the volunteers and comparable work fair, can you give me an example of what comparable work fair is, what volunteerism looks like? And then kind of to her point, how would that be tracked? How will that be quantified? And then making sure that it’s tracked each, I guess, six months.
Mary Franklin So comparable work fair, that is more of an outdated terminology. But volunteering basically is the best way to understand what we do. But an individual participant can volunteer at a nonprofit, a church, state agency or local government entity and get documentation for us to verify that they volunteered, how many hours they volunteered so that we can use that in the case record to make sure they are meeting the requirement through that or a combination of that and some other activity.
Representative Jason Nazarenko Okay, great. Now, I think that was kind of my, where I was looking at is like, what’s going to qualify the organization or whatever? How will that organization become part of that? Is it a city or municipality that can come in and say we’ve got programs going on in the city and we could use volunteers and then those volunteer hours could be tracked as well?
Mary Franklin We don’t assign those activities. Our clients can seek out and secure that volunteer opportunity themselves and bring us back documentation where they’re volunteering, who’s the supervisor we could contact so that we have documentation in our record that they’re meeting that requirement.
Representative Jason Nazarenko Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank You, Madam Chair.
Representative Mary Bentley You’re welcome. Representative Brown.
Representative Karilyn Brown I don’t have a question right now. Thank you. I changed my mind.
Representative Mary Bentley Okay, Representative Rose, you’re next.
Representative Ryan Rose Thank you, Madam Chair. I had two questions. On page 18, you list the following components. I’m not going to try and go through 111 at a time or anything, but I was just curious if you have any metrics on some of these for, like, number of participants that you’ve served, who did supervised job search, or who took basic foundational skills instruction or any number of those things.
Some of those job search training, job retention, maybe you do have metrics. I don’t know. But some of those I would think are definitely easier to track than others. And so do you know if you have metrics on those now, or is it something you could track moving forward?
Mary Franklin I believe this is information we can get for you.
Representative Ryan Rose And that kind of leads into my next question. I’m sure you’re already on top of this. And it’s one of those when we’re not on your side of the equation, we don’t know how long it takes to aggregate all these things. But you’ve got the FY 24 annual characteristics. And it says the FY 25 is not currently available. Do you know when you’ll have the FY25s?
Mary Franklin Soon, very soon.
Representative Ryan Rose Ballpark, months, weeks, years?
Mary Franklin I think by the end of March.
Representative Ryan Rose All right, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for the presentation.
Representative Mary Bentley Thank you, Representative Beck.
Representative Rick Beck Thank you, Madam Chair. My question has to do with the annual outcomes. Do we track any of those by the vendors themselves, like what each vendor that you’re utilizing, what are their outcomes? I’m assuming the ones that you gave us is just everybody grouped together type of outcomes. Do you guys track them by individuals, vendors?
Mary Franklin Let me take that back. I believe that is something we could– if we know who completed the component, I think we can get to who was the provider that assigned them and worked with them for that component. So I believe that’s information that we can provide.
Representative Rick Beck Just to follow up? The other is, I noticed that, just doing some really quick math, that there is some by participants, vendors, how much. And some of them, the highest– I’m rounding off these numbers– now the highest numbers were at about $4,700 and the lowest number was about $1,900 for the vendors, just the average cost for the vendors. And I was wondering if we had that data too.
I’m always looking for what they call the secret sauce. One of your vendors has that one piece that seems to make them perform above the others, one element or whatever. So I guess that’s what I’m looking for there. But there are some discrepancies between the amount per participant, the cost per participant.
So I think the annual outcome, you might find that your highest vendor has got the best outcomes, which would validate that. But maybe not. And if we could get that data, it would certainly be appreciated.
Mary Franklin Yes, sir. You’re looking for cost per participant by provider compared to how many clients they served, how many of those clients completed the activity they were assigned?
Representative Rick Beck Right. Kind of just putting all that data together. Thank you.
Representative Mary Bentley Thank you. Representative Garner. Representative Garner, turn your mic back on.
Representative Denise Garner Sorry about that. The question is about ABOD and who is actually in that database. Do we have age groups? Or when you’re talking to these folks, do we know how old they are, who they are and the reason that they say they can’t work or that they’re not working? I’m wondering, I mean, I’m sure there are folks that are out there that just don’t want to work or don’t feel like they have to or whatever.
But I’m also concerned about some of these smaller communities where there just are not jobs. What is the reason that they are giving that they aren’t working and what can we do to help with that? I’m sure there’s some that just don’t. But my guess is there are a lot of reasons that people aren’t working. Do they not have transportation? Can they not get– whatever the reason is? But I’m just wondering if you gather that data or if someone does.
Mary Franklin So, the new definition based on the new federal law that was passed in July of able-bodied adults without dependent for SNAP, they are 18 through 64 years of age. Obviously, it was 18 through 54. And they are also 18 through 64 with a child age 14 or older in the home with them. So that’s our universe.
Now, within that universe of who is an ABOD, able-bodied adult without dependents, we then look at who’s working already, who is compliant or exempt from the time limit because they are already meeting the requirement, who’s in school, who is disabled. And all of those things, we would verify that status.
As we make the determination, is this person meeting the requirements or not? Because if they’re not meeting it, they can only be in the SNAP program for three months out of a 36-month period. And then we have to take them off of SNAP or that’s an error. That’s an accuracy problem.
Representative Denise Garner I understand that. But these 1,900– or what was it?
Mary Franklin Around 19,000.
Representative Denise Garner Yeah, these 19,000 people, how many of those fit in these categories? And those that don’t fit into those categories, that actually are not working and don’t fit into the those, how can we decide, how we can determine the age group of that– I mean, 18 to 64 is, that’s way too wide of range for us to figure out why they’re not working.
Mary Franklin Okay, so I think you’re asking for, could we give you an age breakdown of the individuals we’ve identified as ABODs in our SNAP program?
Representative Denise Garner Right, so those folks that don’t fit these other requirements.
Mary Franklin Those that are at risk. We call them the at-risk, the group that’s at risk because we can’t identify an exemption or compliance for them for the at-risk group.
Representative Denise Garner What is that age group and is it all old people? Is it all young people? There’s a big difference in the reason, I think, that they’re probably not working. And what is it that we can help them figure out how to meet some of these requirements as opposed to losing their SNAP benefits?
Mary Franklin We can gather that.
Representative Denise Garner Thank you. And I know U of A just put out a report. Arkansas Advocates has a report out. Feeding America has a report. There may be some of that information out there somewhere else. But I trust y’all to have Arkansas’s data if you can get it.
Representative Mary Bentley Senator Petty.
Senator Jim Petty Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a constituent that’s watching online and they had a comment that maybe there, and someone touched on it a minute ago, but maybe there needed to be more teeth in ensuring that they complete these programs. Do you have a thought or a comment on what we could do to add more teeth so we don’t have someone that gets halfway through a program, spends half of the $2,700 in employment training and then quits just because they’re tired of it or whatever. Do you have any thoughts on our ability to put some teeth in finishing what you start?
Mary Franklin The shift to mandatory SNAP employment and training from voluntary adds more teeth, so to speak, to the process. Because if we determine that you’re a mandatory participant and you don’t accept the referral, you refuse it, then we go into what is called a sanction process. The first offense for that sanction is one month loss of eligibility.
If you have a second sanction, it’s a six month loss of eligibility. If you have a third sanction, it’s a year. So there will be more teeth. And the same would be true if someone says, I’m going to participate and they go to participate and then they stop attending class or stop doing the things they’re supposed to do to cooperate with the employment and training provider. There would be that same process.
But the first thing we’re going to do is find out, do they have a good reason? Is there a good reason why someone couldn’t finish that training? Because there are things that happen, hospitalization, sick family member, death in the family, transportation broke down and had no way to get– there are things. We would look at that. And then if there was not a good reason why they could not complete that, then that would evoke the sanction process for that individual.
Senator Jim Petty Just one thought. That’s good to know and to hear. And I agree that this should add some more teeth. But back to the discussion around the verification process, do we do anything to verify that they really did have a death in the family? Or was it that uncle that has died four times? What do you do? Is there any verification process in there?
Mary Franklin We would be looking for an obituary or program from the service.
Senator Jim Petty So you do independently. It’s not just an honor system?
Mary Franklin Yes.
Senator Jim Petty Okay. Thank you
Representative Mary Bentley Okay. Looks like we’re ready to finish the report.
Janet Mann Madam Chairman, you’re ready for us to move to community engagement?
Representative Mary Bentley Yes, ma’am.
Janet Mann Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Thank you.
Medicaid Community Engagement Requirements
Mary Franklin All right. Now we’re going to shift topics and talk about Medicaid community engagement requirements. These community engagement requirements for Medicaid were also enacted by the One Big Beautiful Act back in July of 2025. They must be implemented, not just in Arkansas. This is a federal change nationwide.
They must be implemented by January 1 of 2027, and it applies to individuals aged 19 to 64, very similar to SNAP. And in Arkansas, this will apply to our ARHOME category, our Arkansas Health and Opportunity for Me category, which is also referred to as the Medicaid expansion population. We have already been preparing for that change. It is a big change.
The penalties for not implementing that could include loss of federal financial participation, which is funding that we use to operate the Medicaid program. So it’s very important. We will be in compliance, and we’re working very hard to get there.
But Community engagement, the goals are to help preserve the federal funds, to build skills for our Medicaid recipients, and help them to attain more economic independence, and also to help with workforce shortage issues. If there are able-bodied adults who receive these services, the goal of this and community engagement requirements is to help them get more engaged in the community and then overall help them with their health and wellbeing and also help with labor shortages to help our economy overall.
So there are around 217,000 ARHOME recipients and they will be subject to community engagement requirements per the federal act. And they will either have to have engagement hours or be exempt. And I’ll talk a little bit about how we’ll verify that. So individuals in our ARHOME program between 19 and 64 will have to show that they’re employed 80 or more hours a month, that they’re doing work program participation in a work program or training program, educational program or doing community service.
But they will have to meet that 80-hour requirement. If they are exempt, some of the populations that may be exempt from the community engagement requirement include disabled veterans, caregivers, pregnant and postpartum women, and individuals determined to have special medical needs, medically complex conditions that prevent them from working.
Verification, the verification requirements in the federal law, this is different. You all know that we had a work requirement back in 2018. This federal requirement is different in that, even at application, we will have to be looking to see if the person would have met community engagement requirements the month before application or been determined exempt.
So that is something that is different than what we have seen before. In addition to that, we have to verify every six months that the individual is exempt or meeting work requirements. We are going to do that, and CMS, the federal law encourages us to do that, but we are going do that as much as possible in an ex parte way.
We’re going to check data sources. Because we also do SNAP and we have SNAP in our system. We’re going to see what verification we have in SNAP that would apply to community engagement for Medicaid. We are going to use data sources to see what we can verify about community engagement on the front end without having to ask the client, provide me some proof.
So that will be our first step in the process to see what we can get on our own through data. But we will also give the client an opportunity. They will always have an opportunity, if we’re not able to verify things through data, to verify it themselves and provide that to us. We also have a plan, and we actually have a procurement.
It is out for bid and proposals now to procure a customer service center that will involve an outbound verification center process so that we will have a partner that after we try our ex parte verification process, clients that we are going to have to ask for additional information, we are also going to engage this vendor to help make those outbound phone calls, texts, emails to help try and individually reach clients in addition to the official notice that we’ll send out through our system.
So we’re going to have that vendor on board in attempting to assist clients, reach clients, make sure they understand and see how they can help them get the verification we need to establish that they are engaged in the community, meeting the requirements or that they should be exempt because of some medical issue that they have. We have been working on this since around September of last year. We have a large part of our team working on policy, working on data.
We are working looking at what else we can add to the data that we check, what is reasonable for us to add, what else can we add to help increase the ex parte verification so that we don’t have to ask as much of our individual clients. We are planning to– this is such a big change and it can have such an impact on our customers’ eligibility. We’re going to soft launch this in July of this year.
The requirement and the actual penalties won’t go into effect until January of 27, but we’re going to soft launch this so that, as we are communicating with our clients, we’re going to check those data sources and we’re going to let them know, if the requirement was in place today, here’s what we know about you: that you’re already working, you’re meeting the requirement, or we’ve not been able to verify that you’re meeting the requirements through work or school or a type of disability or medical condition we’re aware of. If the requirement was in place, this is what you would need to do to show us that you’re meeting the requirement.
So we’re going to have that process going on between July and December to help our clients get ready and to help them know and understand exactly where they stand when January comes and this requirement is in effect. So we’re drafting policy. We’re drafting requirements for system changes. We are working with state longitudinal data system to see what data we can use through the data system that we already have in place.
And we are also working on communications and starting that process to educate not just our clients, but the community and stakeholders about what’s coming and how they can help clients get ready. And I think at this point we can take questions that you may have about Medicaid community engagement.
Representative Mary Bentley Representative Garner, did you have a question?
Representative Denise Garner A quick one, and I think you’ve answered most of it. But so this customer service person or group will start July 1st. Is that the first time that these folks will know that the changes are going to be made? I’m just hoping that we can do that as early as possible so that they can make sure that they’re doing the things that they need to do before January, even July to January. That scares me a little bit to think that they can find work or volunteer opportunities in some of these places. And maybe there’s not that many that will need that.
Mary Franklin Our provider that we’re in the process of procuring may not be on the ground ready to go in July, but there are other things that we will have in place as far as notifying them through our renewal process. We’re going to have a media campaign. We are going to have meetings with stakeholder groups.
We’re going to be doing things similar to what we did to prepare for the unwinding from the pandemic. If you recall, we did a lot of engagement outreach. We’re going to be doing all of those things, including messaging to clients through the renewal process or the application process: If this requirement was in place today, you would either be meeting it, great job, or you would not be meeting and we would need additional information from you.
And here are things that you can do to make sure that you meet the requirement, including volunteering, working. Or if you have a condition that prevents you from working, or if you’re a caregiver, if you’re a caregiver for someone outside your home. That can be hard for us to verify, especially if you are taking care of your mom and you’re not getting paid, there’s not going to be a data source that we’re necessarily going to know that.
So, it’s going to be about just educating as much as possible to help people know how they can get us the information we need and to learn as we go what other data sources we may be able to use to help with that process.
Representative Denise Garner Great. And if you would just let us know how we can get that information out as well, that would be extremely helpful. Thank you.
Janet Mann Yeah, I would just like to add, we are working on the communication and the toolkits. We’re working on a landing page on our website with the details attached. We will bring those to y’all also.
Very much taking some of the lessons learned from unwinding on communication and multiple forms of communication and with all different groups. Anyone that will talk to us, we will talk to them. That is the approach that seemed to work really well during the unwinding and we’re going to use that approach again.
Representative Mary Bentley Representative Beck.
Representative Rick Beck Thank you, Madam Chair. My question has just a little bit. I do appreciate it. I think it’s great to kind of start this in July. That’ll be great. But as far as the decisions that would be made, I’m talking about July or whatever, where would those decisions be made? I’m just going to preface that with this.
I know some things when you’re dealing with the local office, they say, Well, that goes to Little Rock. And then they’ll tell us whether we have everything, you have everything you need. So is that going to be like a local type deal where the people in the local offices will be able to say, okay, yeah, you are meeting the requirements or you might want to take a look and provide us this additional information? So will that be local or will that be something that was done in more of a centralized office?
Mary Franklin That’s going to be a combination of things. And part of what will happen through these next several months is we will be promulgating a rule about how we will implement this community engagement requirement in the ARHOME program.
The guidance from CMS is still evolving and we really don’t expect to have it all until June. So we are developing, making plans, implementing things based on our interpretation of the federal law and the limited guidance we have gotten so far. So, we are also prepared to have to change some of that based on the actual full guidance that we get from CMS. But we will be developing policy.
The data sources we check, we’ll consider them verified. There won’t be anything for an individual to follow up on if we’ve determined that this is a data source that we can use and consider verified upon receipt. That data source will be telling us whether the person meets the requirement or not. But we will also have– staff will have to be involved, absolutely, in the process. Because if we’re not able to verify things with data and a client turns in information, that information has got to be reviewed to determine, does this meet the requirement.
So if it’s check stubs, those are pretty easy. They’re either working enough to meet the requirements or they’re not. If it’s a medical statement, we’re actually going to be developing an optional form for people to use. We won’t require that specific form, but an optional form if they choose to use that, to help us– we’re streamlined and, is this person disabled? Are they dealing with a condition that’s medically complex?
They may not be permanently disabled, but they’re going through chemotherapy. So right now, they’re not able to work. And that was just an example. So it’s going to be a combination of verified data sources and then verified information that clients return to us that are looked at and evaluated by a caseworker.
Representative Mary Bentley Okay, thank you all so much for your work and your effort in bringing this report to us. We look forward to hearing from you again next month. Thank you all very much.
Alliance for Opportunity Audit
Senator Jane English So Representative Bentley and I will kind of go over the audit that we had completed by the Alliance for Opportunity. And you all have hopefully had a chance to read through that. And some of the facts that are in there are really quite interesting and kind of gives us a roadmap of where we maybe need to be going.
So one of the things this subcommittee is tasked with in the legislation was looking at social work, social programs, and workforce development reform. So while we sat here today and talked about SNAP and Medicaid and those as programs, we really haven’t talked about employment first and these programs as support systems to help people in there to get a job and to have a job.
So we’re probably talking about 165,000 people that we’re going to be having come on here shortly. So I think though the goal of the audit was really to look at what we’re doing and what’s successful and what isn’t successful. We have some number of really good things going on in the state but we also have some programs that spend a lot of money but don’t really produce any results.
And I think that we’ve spent probably 50 or 60 years with federal dollars coming in for all kinds of training programs and programs just like what we’ve been talking about, but people aren’t any better off. So you have to ask the question about, why is it we’re spending all this money and how do we do a better job of that?
So we have an opportunity right now with the federal government is really interested in some innovation and some new opportunities and ways to look at things in a couple of different areas. One is this employment and making sure that people have the education and the training to be able to get a job, not just to fill out the forms but to have that.
So what we have right now is the federal workforce program, which is TANF and SNAP, which only a small percentage of people who are involved in that. And then the Department of Workforce Services that has WIOA. And if you look through this book, I mean through our audit, you will see that most of that stuff has just not been successful at all. We spend a lot of money, but we don’t really produce a whole lot of results.
And when we had the Zoom call with Nick Moore, who’s the Assistant Secretary for Adult Education and all, one of the things that he was really talking about that the administration is looking at is how do we use these programs as part of a solution? How do we look outside to our own state efforts to what we want to do for people to make sure everybody has an education and training.
And that’s starting right now in the fifth grade where we have children already learning about what those possibilities might be and we have those opportunities for our high school students to be able to do apprenticeships or to have work-based learning or all these kinds of things that are important for the future.
And that’s what we need to be thinking about, is how do we build that talent pipeline for the future and use all the resources we have in the state to make that happen? In some cases, some of the programs that the people are going to don’t really produce the results and they don’t have all the options out there that they ought to have to be able to say, this is something I want to do, rather than, there’s only four things that you get to do. One of them is truck driving. We just gotta be able to move beyond that.
And there’s so many things going on in the state right now that people just don’t know about that all of these recipients should have an opportunity to take advantage of that. Anyway, this is a much bigger deal than I think we thought it was going to be in the beginning.
And it’s one of those things that I think Representative Bentley and I are hoping that this committee and the administration will be able to work together to be able to come up with some solutions and a vision for what we want to be and how we want to get there. So Mary?
Representative Mary Bentley Well, I just think we have a very unique time where we have the federal government on board with us doing some new and unique things and us having an opportunity with workforce and with SNAP and all these things working together. We’re really at a critical time.
So I appreciate this committee and what we’re doing. We just need to look and see what we can do together. Again, we’ll take the administration being on board and what can we do to take our workforce dollars and really make them work across the state. Because I know that many of you like me are from rural Arkansas.
And there’s great opportunities here in Little Rock, but there’s not very many in Perry County and there’s not very many in Saline County as much as there are here. So I think it’s really important for us to make sure that we’re moving forward, but we move forward as the whole state.
That’s what I really want is to make sure that, as we looked at the map that Alliance brought forth, and a lot of our state, the only place in the county is the DHS office. So that DHS office really needs to know what in the world is going on and what’s available, not just SNAP and E&T, but what education is available in that community.
So I think we have a good opportunity with online things that we’re doing across the state. We’re really set to, I think, to be a leader in the nation. I believe that wholeheartedly, but I really think it’s going to take us working for it and getting a good plan moving forward. I’m excited. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about anything since I’ve been here at the legislature to really do something that makes a true impact on those folks that have been trapped in poverty for generations.
I’m really thinking it’s a good opportunity. I don’t want us to miss it, but it’s going to take some hard work. So I appreciate all of you being here this late in the afternoon during the week. I really do appreciate it.
Senator Jane English And we’re doing a contract.
Representative Mary Bentley Yes, so we are looking at– I think you all would look at the $55,000 that we spent with this group, I think it was really well worth it with the report that we’ve got. The audit that we got gave us some really key information. So we’d like to consider doing a new contract with them to help us to move forward to make sure that we can get good legislation moving forward.
We’ll have to have a lot of committee meetings moving forward again with agencies and get the agencies to do what they need to do moving forward. So we’ll be looking at next month the contract to bring this group to us even through Zoom and through other ways to make sure that we get a great product so that in 2027, we’re hitting the road running.
And it’s going to really take some help from them. So we will consider, our next committee meeting, just extending that contract to them a little bit to make sure. Because we have such a narrow window, right? We’ve got to get this report done. We’re looking at a short amount of time.
So I think in order to really get a good product, we’re going to need some help to get it done. We will look at that at our next committee meeting to see if we can get a little bit of help from them to make sure we get the final product where we need it to be. So if anybody has anything they’d like to share or comments or suggestions, we’re all ears.
Senator Jane English This is an exciting time. It can be an exciting time. You’ve all asked really good questions here about SNAP and the people that are in it. We’ve just got to figure out how we help so the next generation that comes along, we have half as many people applying for SNAP or Medicaid as we have right now. And that’s building a pipeline and it’s not just moving programs around, which was something we’ve done for years and years. We have an opportunity to do something really new and innovative. So we need everybody’s brain power.
Representative Mary Bentley I just want to say I think what we’ve done with LEARNs and ACCESS has really paved the way. Now we’re getting those folks that have been left behind that we haven’t captured.
Senator Jane English And make sure that all those programs that we’re implementing now are useful on into the future.
Representative Mary Bentley Yeah. Representative Brown, do you have something you wanted to share?
Representative Karilyn Brown I am an alternate on this committee, but I want to say I’m really glad to be part of this committee. And I think this work is extremely important because if we are just keeping people where they’re at, we’re not helping them improve their lives. We’re not helping our state. We’re not doing what we were sent here to do. And if we’re not helping the people of Arkansas or people who are disadvantaged, we’re just not doing our job. And I am very excited about what we’re trying to do here. And I just want you to know I’m tickled to death to be part of this. Thank you.
Representative Mary Bentley Thank you. Representative Beaty.
Representative Howard Beaty Just a question. We just got this report in, correct? Has it been released publicly?
Representative Mary Bentley Yeah.
Representative Howard Beaty It has?
Senator Jane English Yeah. It’s on the website. It’s been out there for almost a month.
Representative Howard Beaty Okay, I don’t hear a lot of people talking about it
Senator Jane English No.
Representative Howard Beaty And I think the information, if you look in the report, the information that’s in this report is very eye-opening.
Senator Jane English It is eye-opening.
Representative Howard Beaty I think the more people that invest some time reading this study, the more attention that this committee and our efforts with the other agencies will get the attention of those agencies.
Senator Jane English Thank you. We agree.
Representative Howard Beaty So I would encourage maybe staff or committee to make certain that this is sent out to all members, even those that are not on this committee, so that they can review this.
Senator Jane English I think Caitlin sent it out to everybody. Oh, yeah, all of the House members.
Representative Howard Beaty Right. House and Senate. Because I know it’s out there on the website, but I think they’ve got this in an email, right? That’s an attachment. It draws attention to it and highlights the seriousness of the problem we have in the state.
Senator Jane English So, it might be– we had a lot of time with other stuff, but maybe in our next meeting, we will sit and go through, or we could even have another meeting if people are interested in going through what was in it.
And whoever wants to show up, because we need a lot of legislators, not just everybody that’s on the committee, but we need all kinds of people coming to the table, because we need everybody’s thoughts and ideas. This is really, this is one of those things where four people can’t get in a room and decide what the world’s going to look like.
This has got to be a lot of people coming to the table. And that’s agency people, administration people, lots of folks, so we can figure out where we want to be and how we’re going to get there. And we don’t have a whole lot of time.
Representative Howard Beaty Thank you.
Representative Mary Bentley Senator Petty.
Senator Jim Petty Thank you, madam chair. And I know it’s late and I’ll be brief. But the thing that I like about this, and I think they they refer to it as silos, and why I think it’s so important that we have full engagement of not just this committee, but to Representative Beaty’s point, everybody, because the ladies do a great job at DHS, and their team, they do a great job.
But they’re doing a great job administering their programs. We need us as a legislative body and the executive branch to focus on how can we take that piece and this piece and be more efficient or serve more people or just change the trajectory of so many of the people you’re talking about.
So that’s why I am excited about where we’re headed. But it is going to take engagement. The ladies from DHS and the other departments that we’ve talked, they can do a great job in their role but we need to look at the big picture as legislators.
Senator Jane English Because you’re right. People inside of state government all run programs and everybody loves their program and they’re all tied to their program. And that’s wonderful, and they do a good job.
But we need to get past thinking about programs and thinking about what do we want to do and how do we bring those programs as the resources to help people. Not how do we just get people to sign up. Okay. Anybody else? Thank you so very much for being here. This is really important. We’re adjourned.
