ALC Occupational Licensing: Jan. 15, 2026

Representative Stephen Meeks All right, everybody, I’ve got 1:30. So we’ll go ahead and get started. I call the meeting to order. So welcome everyone to the first Occupational Licensing Review Committee Subcommittee for 2026. If you would please keep Senator Wallace in your thoughts and prayers. He’s a little under the weather, so he wasn’t able to join us today. But we’ll get down to business here. 

The first thing we need to do is have a review of the reports from the two that we’re going to be doing today. We’ve got the Arkansas State Board of Nursing and the State Board of Register– if I can read correctly– the State Board of Registration for Professional Soil Classifiers. So we’ve got two interesting groups today. 

So we’ll go ahead and get started with the Arkansas State Board of Nursing, if y’all would come forward. We’re scheduled to have Ashley Davis, David Dawson, and Matt Gilmore. All right. Thank you all for being here this afternoon. If you would, when you get settled, please introduce yourselves to the committee and then you’re welcome to make any opening statements you might have. 

Matt Gilmore Matt Gilmore, Department of Health. 

Ashley Davis Ashley Davis, Director, Arkansas State Board of Nursing. 

David Dawson David Dawson, General Counsel for the Board of Nursing. 

Representative Stephen Meeks All right, and then again, any opening comments you’d like to make on the state of the licensing. 

Matt Gilmore Well, thank you for your time this afternoon. You just heard the director and her general counsel introduce themselves. They’ll just make a few opening statements and comments about the board and their licensure process, then we’ll take any questions y’all have. Thank you. 

Board of Nursing 

Ashley Davis This is just an update on where we are. The Board of Nursing was created in 1913 with the purpose of oversight for registered nurses. In 1948, we added the regulation of LPNs. And in 1995, we added advanced practice registered nurses. Currently the board regulates 72,000 nurses. There are eight types of nursing licenses, one level of certification that began in 2005, and one level of registration that will begin in 2026. 

The protection of the public occurs through the licensure of qualified nurses, setting standards for nursing education programs, setting standards for maintaining competency, and disciplining nurses for violations of the Nurse Practice Act. All states in the United States license all levels of nursing. 

RNs and LPNs are required to pass a standard national licensure exam in order to be licensed. And advanced practice registered nurses are required to obtain national certification in their area of specialty. The LPNs in Arkansas receive a certification of graduation. Their program length is about one year, and currently there are 14,000 actively licensed LPNS in the state of Arkansas. 

Registered nurses received associate degrees or bachelor’s degrees and there are currently 49,000 registered nurses actively licensed in Arkansas. Advanced practice registered nurses receive a master’s degree or a doctorate degree, and we currently have 8,000 actively licensed advanced practice nurses in Arkansas. That’s made up of certified nurse practitioners, which we have 6,700 of those. 

CRNAs, which we had about 1,100, clinical nurse specialists, which we have about 140, and certified nurse midwives, which we around 60 actively licensed in Arkansas. Medication assistants are required to be a CNA first, and then they must complete a 115-hour course. Their role is to administer medications in long-term care facilities. And currently we have 820 MACs in Arkansas. 

We are in the process of launching a registry for dialysis patient care technicians. National data suggests that that number may closely mirror that of the MACs as far as how many we may have in Arkansas. They are required to currently be employed as dialysis techs, have completed or be enrolled in a training course, and they must obtain national certification within 18 months. 

The board provides regulatory oversight by receiving and investigating complaints against nurses and MACs. And the board receives approximately 2,200 complaints a year. And that’s my update. But I’m happy to take questions 

Representative Stephen Meeks Okay, I got a few. Just to make sure I understand, you were saying on the CNA and the dialysis, were you saying max, as in we can only have so many of those? Or was I misunderstanding that? 

Ashley Davis I’m sorry, medication assistant certified. So MAC. 

Representative Stephen Meeks MAC. OK. I was just thinking that just seemed kind of weird that we would have a maximum number of CNAs that we can have in the state. With that in mind, I know in the past Arkansas has faced shortages of nurses in the past. How are we doing right now in the profession, as far as having enough to provide for the needs of our citizens? 

Ashley Davis That’s a very complex question. Because if you were to look at our number of licensed nurses, we do have enough to fill the needs. However, we have shortages in certain areas, and we have a lot of actively licensed nurses who are not practicing as nurses right now. So, I would say we have a vacancy issue more so than a lack of licensed nurses. But that’s a complex problem that there’s lots of people– the Arkansas Center for Nursing, which is our workforce center, they spend a lot of time looking at that balance. 

Representative Stephen Meeks Okay, so there’s room for more, it sounds like. 

Ashley Davis Yeah, absolutely. 

Representative Stephen Meeks The next question that I have is, it looked like you said there’s about 2,000 complaints in the state based upon nurses. Obviously, we can’t go into any one particular case, but could you give us an idea of generally what you’re seeing with those complaints? What kind of complaints are we seeing? What tends to be the most typical ones that we see? 

Ashley Davis I do actually have some numbers from the previous fiscal year. Some of our highest complaints that we work or nurses who apply to become nurses that have positive criminal backgrounds. We do some investigation into that. Fraud, deception and misrepresentation is another big one. But I would say misappropriation, drug abuse issues and criminal investigations are also a very high number. 

Representative Stephen Meeks And then the last question I have, and then I’ll see if any of my colleagues have any, right now it looks like you’re spending about $4 million a year, have about an $8.5 million fund balance. Of course, the law’s three years, so not quite there, but you’re kind of getting into that area. 

I also notice it says you don’t really do any kind of training program or outreach. Is there any opportunities to do that to try to help promote nursing in some of those rural areas that we could use some of that fund balance for? Do y’all look at that? Or is that out of your purview for how we could utilize that extra money? 

Ashley Davis I think that we have a lot of work with our nursing associations in doing that and so we support them in doing that. And some areas that we are looking at is with our nurses in our alternative to discipline program. We require them to go to support groups and we’re looking at ways that we might could help them pay for the cost of that, particularly if it’s a nurse-led support group. So we are kind of looking at different ways. 

Matt Gilmore And I might just add, Director Davis and her staff do go around the state, work with the schools and provide some guidance and some that are struggling in different categories of their licensure or accreditation. So they support that as well. 

Representative Stephen Meeks Do y’all do anything with concurrent credits in high schools to try to help with that career path, try to promote that any? 

Ashley Davis We do not necessarily work with them one on one, but the Arkansas Center for Nursing, which is our workforce center, we do give them a grant to do some of that outreach and try to get our numbers of actively working nurses higher. And so they do engage in that. 

Representative Stephen Meeks Okay, excellent, excellent. Okay, Representative Bentley, you are up. 

Representative Mary Bentley Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for being here today. And I was just a tad bit late getting back here, so you may have covered this. But with the high volume that we have of complaints and nurses that have to be investigated, and from what I understand, it’s been taking up to two years sometimes to get those cases completed. 

Do we need to relook at that system and maybe add more staff or something to get where it’s quicker than the two-year turnaround time? Or am I wrong when I was told it takes up to two years sometimes to you get these cases completed? 

Ashley Davis You’re not wrong in that there is an opportunities for us to be more efficient. And that’s been one of my number one things that I have done since I’ve taken the role is to look for those opportunities. Some of the things that I have identified is more about how we are documenting that. So, for instance, we have nurses who have been charged criminally and so we open a case when that happens. But they may not have adjudication of that criminal charge for two years, three years. 

And so that case is remaining open on our books while we wait for the criminal system to make an adjudication on that case. And so we’re looking at ways that we can identify that to where it doesn’t count on our open case time necessarily. So there’s other opportunities like that for better documentation on what exactly is going on with the case so that it doesn’t appear as if all cases take that. 

I will say that I ran some numbers and our average length is 191 days. And that includes those cases that take years because we’re waiting on that criminal adjudication. But we are working on processes. We have, with the help of the Department of Health, have added some extra help positions to hopefully increase that efficiency. But that is one of my number one priorities, yes. 

Representative Mary Bentley Great, thank you for that. So I think that’s all the questions I have for now. Thank you, Chairman. 

Representative Stephen Meeks All right. Anybody else? Going once, going twice. Okay. All right. Seeing none, thank you all for being here. Without objection,l that report will stand as reviewed. Second on our agenda for today we have the professional soil classifiers. So we have our gentlemen from the Department of Agriculture. I’ll grab my agenda here. And once you get settled in, if you would, please introduce yourselves to the committee and then you’ll be recognized to make any opening comments. 

Chris Colclasure Chris Colclasure, Director of the Natural Resources Division at the Arkansas Department of Agriculture. 

Matthew Ford Matthew Ford, chief legal counsel for the Arkansas Department of Agriculture. 

Soil Classifiers Board

Chris Colclasure All right, good afternoon members. What you have before you is the occupational license for the soil classifiers. Soil classifiers were established by the state in 1975, and that has been administered by the Arkansas State Board of Registration for Professional Soil Classifiers. That board was later abolished in 2023 and moved to the Natural Resources Commission, which is where it’s housed right now. 

It’s a very small group of individuals, a very niche profession in that it has to be focused on being extremely knowledgeable when it comes to soils. The requirements to be a soil classifier is that you have to have a four year degree and that you have a certain number of hours in biological sciences, earth sciences, and soils classes. 

And so those professions across the state typically are going to be folks that design septic systems, do wetland determination, they can do nutrient management work, but obviously very skilled and very knowledgeable when it comes to soils. I think we have 29 right now that are registered in the state of Arkansas. Again, very niche. If you look at other states, the numbers tend to be relatively low like that because it is a niche profession. So with that, be happy to take any questions. 

Representative Stephen Meeks So kind of like the last question, is 29 enough to handle the need in the state? 

Chris Colclasure I mean, right now, we don’t seem to have a shortage of workers that can do the work. I mean, obviously, things can change. If you have a boom in nutrient management, for example, things like that, those sorts of needs, then, yeah, I think you would see a need to increase it. But right now we’re not seeing any major issues with the number that we have. 

Representative Stephen Meeks And then the only other question that I have, it’s not necessarily a red flag, but it looks like 29 individuals, you’re collecting $600 a year. It looks like you have $20,000 in reserves. And of course, the law, three-year fund balance. So 600 times 3 would be 1,800. So obviously we’re 10X that now. 

I understand we’re not talking a whole lot of money here, but I’m just wondering, it looks like you use some of it to pay cybersecurity expenses, but I was just curious. What can we do with that $20,000 to make sure we’re in compliance and be productive, whether it’s for educational. Just kind of curious on your thoughts on that. 

Chris Colclasure Yeah, I mean there’s some expenses that could have been charged over there since it was moved to us in 23. We had some savings in some other areas that we used to assist with this program. If you think about the program itself, it’s not super expensive. We print certificates, so there’s ink, there’s paper, there is some staff time. 

We have a very small appropriation, and it’s an M&O appropriation. So we’re looking to maybe expand that so that we can encompass some of the expenses related to salaries to administer the program. But there’s also some training opportunities that we can do with the association. We’ve also talked to them about potentially looking at upgrading the test and some of the curriculum.

Representative Stephen Meeks So you have opportunities here. 

Chris Colclasure Yes, sir. 

Representative Stephen Meeks Okay, excellent. All right, Representative McGrew, you’re up, sir. 

Representative Richard McGrew Thank you, Chairman, and thank y’all, gentlemen, for being here. And I’m going to show my ignorance a little bit today, but I’ve never heard of this classification before. As a soil classifier, can you give me an indication of what would be involved in the job of that and what the demand is for it? 

Chris Colclasure Yeah, so it’s going to be those things where you have to classify the soils. And so in most cases, probably the most common is going to be for septic tanks. And so we have a list of those providers on our webpage and if folks want to go to them or they can go to potentially somebody with the health department, a lot of times they’ll go to a soil classifier and they can assist with laying out that septic tank and that design and making sure that it’s going to perk and those sorts of things. 

Representative Richard McGrew Follow-up. So you’re talking about a perc test? 

Chris Colclasure Yes, sir. That’s part of it. 

Representative Stephen Meeks Senator English, you’re next. 

Senator Jane English So what kind of– obviously, somebody’s going to have to have a college degree. So what kinds of degrees would people get to come into this? 

Chris Colclasure Yeah, mostly going to be in the biology, earth science, physical science. So you think about the geology degrees, biology degrees. And then you have to have, I think, 15 hours of classes. So you have to have 30 hours in the biological, physical sciences and then 15 hours. 

Senator Jane English In college? 

Chris Colclasure Yes. 

Senator Jane English Before you take the curriculum that the Natural Resources has? 

Chris Colclasure Yes. 

Senator Jane English Thank you. 

Representative Stephen Meeks All right. Representative Puryear, you’re up, sir. 

Representative Chad Puryear Thank you, Chair. So, Representative McGrew brought up that where someone asked a question it makes you think of a question, so I apologize for that. But you mentioned like the designated representative in the septic world, what can these guys do that a DR could not do? I mean, would these guys supersede a DR’s decision when they say a place wouldn’t perc or just kind of elaborate on the differences. 

Chris Colclasure I don’t know that I can answer that completely, as far as the comparison between the two. All I know is that if you’re going to classify soils in the state of Arkansas, you need to be a soil classifier. And these folks obviously have extensive knowledge of soils.

 And so I don’t know what the difference would be, but typically these folks are going to be, can be on construction sites when you’re looking at complex soils. If you are building something or establishing foundations, wetland determination, but really anything dealing with soils. I hope I answered that. I may not have done a good job. 

Representative Chad Puryear Well, I could get in the weeds on that, but I appreciate you. And I’m done asking questions. 

Representative Stephen Meeks So if someone was going to come build a new multi-acre warehouse complex or Walmart was just finished building their new giant headquarters up there, these folks would probably be employed to make sure that the foundations and so forth was all– 

Chris Colclasure If they needed to classify the soils there, then they would get a soil classifier. Every project may not require that.

Representative Stephen Meeks All right, anything else? Any other questions, colleagues? Okay, all right, seeing none, gentlemen, thank you for your time this afternoon. Without objection, the report will stand reviewed. That’s the only thing we have on the agenda this afternoon. Our next meeting will be on February 19, 1:30 in this same room. Have a good afternoon, everyone.