Arkansas Legislative Council: Claims Review – October 12, 2009
Posted on October 12th, 2009
Date & Time: Thursday, October 12, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Location: Room 171, State Capitol
Committee Information: Members on Committee
Agenda: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/Lists/Meetings/Attachments/12257/I7830.pdf
Attachments: none
This committee is assigned all matters pertaining to claims referred from the Arkansas State Claims Commission.
1:00 pm – After looking over the agenda, this may end up being one of those meeting where my readers will wish they had those moments of their life back that they spent reading today.
1:05 pm – The stack of materials provided for review today is about two inches thick.
1:07 pm – The chairman, Rep. Flowers called the meeting to order. She made no opening comments and when immediately to the first agenda item. The item (B) was reviewed without question or comment.
1:09 pm – A claim (Agenda item C1) was filed for an unspecified amount against the AR Highway and Transportation Dept. because there was no stop sign. $100,000 was awarded to the claimant by the claims commission. Rep. Tommy Lee Baker asked to have a representative from the AR Highway Dept. The explaination was that they did not know the stop sign was down. There was conflicting testimony, a witness said it was down three weeks prior to the accident but a AHTD employee said the area was patrolled the week before and it was not down.
1:13 pm – Another claim (B2) was awarded against the AHTD for a dept. vehicle improperly parked on the NLR Broadway access ramp. Partial liablity was found and the claimant was awarded $20,000.
1:15 pm – This was a claim (item C3) by a person who was pursued by a state trooper for expired tags. After the claimant stopped his vehicle, he ran into the woods, away from the officer, at which time the state trooper fired two shotgun blasts at him, one of which struck him in the back, leading to the claimants paralysis. The State Police denied liability and argued both that the officer’s use of force was objectively reasonable and that the claimant was comparatively at fault. The Claims Commission found that the State Police was at fault and awarded $750,000. Rep. Gaskill is asking why the person ran from police. The answer was that he was being treated for severe depression. Apparently the state police was aware that he was mentally ill and feared the claimant was armed. The representative for the Claims Commission opined that the reason for the award was likely because the because the claimant was shot in the back. Coloniel Phillips testified that he disagreed with the Claims Commission. The representive for the Attorney General said that they respectfully disagree with the Commission’s decision because he felt like the Claims Commission only considered one side of story of the events that transpired. This committee may approve, disapprove, or send the decision back for further review. The claimant had been sitting on the side of the road when first observed by the state police. When the trooper finally returned to investigate the claimant then made dangerous manuevers to flee in his vehicle. The trooper recieved information that they had had a commitment order and had to call out the SWAT team for him in the past. Now testimony reveals that the was not shot in the back, but in his front right side of his stomach. The claimant was apparently carrying a guitar case that appeared like a weapon in the dusky conditions. Senator Laverty has asked several good questions to get the information this committee needs to be aware of. Senator Laverty has asked again, what was the deciding factor. Rep. Flowers is denying Senator Laverty’s question on the grounds that Mr. Hodge’s ability to speak for the commission. Senator Laverty again appealed for the ability to ask the question based upon precident that the committee has practiced in the past. Rep. Flowers relented. Apparently the first shot that was fired struck the claimant in the front and was not a serious injury. It was the second shot that was fired was the one that struck him in the back. I wish we had had some more discussion on this. A motion was made to approve which was passed.
1:48 pm – Item C4 was another down stop sign and decison against the AHTD for $30,000.
1:49 pm – The claims commission DENIED (Item D1) the widow of a Deputy Sheriff who died of heart attack in the line of duty who was seeking addtional death benefit. [I guess you have to run from police at high speed and have a record of violent mental illness for the Claims Commission to award you money.] They are claiming that the filing is untimely. The committee reviewed the commissions decision as presented.
1:57 pm – The claims commission denied a claim by a psychologist dismissed by the Dept. of Workforce Education. He was seeking 30 additional days of compensation after notice of termination. The claim was for $5,588.80. The commission believes that this is not a breech of contract because the Dept. had no obligation to use his services at all. This claimant is not a state employee, but rather a professional contractor. There are claims that the person is a whistle blower and there is a suit in federal court. This does not seem to be a breech of contract and there are alot of things going unsaid. Apparently this person was being terminated with cause but no one is saying so. The Department had previously changed the structure and had personnel in place “in house” to provide those services. The chair was unable to determine the vote on the motion. Upon beginning the role call, it was discovered that a quorum was not present. This terminates the meeting and all other items must be considered in the next meeting.
2:45 pm – Meeting adjourned.
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Legislative Joint Auditing – October 8, 2009
Posted on October 8th, 2009
Date & Time: Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 9:00 AM
Location: Room 171, State Capitol
Committee Information: Members on Committee
Agenda: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/Lists/Meetings/Attachments/12129/I7832.pdf
Attachments: none
The duties of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee shall be to provide for the auditing of each department, institution, board, commission, office, and agency of the state government for the purpose of furnishing the General Assembly with information vital to the discharge of its constitutional duties. (A.C.A. 10-3-407)
9:08 am – Rep. Hoyt called the meeting to order and presented opening remarks. The minutes of the previous meeting adopted.
9:10 am – Sen. Glover presented the Executive Committee Report. It was adopted without question or comment.
9:11 am – Rep. Pyle presented the report on Counties and Municipalities. There are several issues with repeat findings with city officials who failed to attend the Legislative Audit that were held until the officials appear before the committee. Some were referred to the Prosecuting Attorney. The report was adopted without questions or comment. Here is a link to those audits covered in this report. Take a close look at the report for Helena / West Helena.
9:14 am – Rep. Cheatham presented the Educational Institutions report. There were issues referred to the Prosecuting Attorney. The report was adopted without question or comment. Here is a link to audit reports covered by this subcommittee.
9:16 am – Rep. House presented the report on State Agencies. Details of this report can be seen in yesterday’s blog post. The big thing is the audited personnel not appearing before the committee. Rep. Hoyt, chairman, made the point at while the subcommittee may not have subpeona power, the full committee does and he believe that the committee should support them. Senator Faris agreed and pointed out that the message communicated should not be some weak statement but have to put some teeth in the language. These audit reports can be found here.
9:22 am – Sen. Hendren made the point that there needs to be more consequences, perhaps cutting off revenue.
9:24 am – Senator Jimmy Jeffress has made a motion that the people involved need to be informed that they will be subpeonaed if they do not appear before the subcommittees.
9:26 am – I believe that I have heard this motion every year that I have been down here. The legislators seem to be more frustrated than I have heard in the past and are perhaps more likely to follow through with consequences than has traditionally been the case.
9:29 am – Sen. Faris said that sometimes the terminology communicates urgency for compliance. He has suggested a change in the language for the next session from “invitation” to appear to “compelled” to appear. The motion by Sen. Jeffress passed.
9:35 am – Another problem the legislature faces is the failure of the local prosecuting attorneys to actually bring charges against those discovered to allegedly be committing various forms of fraud, waste, abuse, and other breaches of law by the Legislative Audit Committee.
9:38 am – The Audit Report for Newton County is currently being presented. It was taken out of order to accomodate legislators that need to leave early to attend a funeral. This report looks like the a book and contains some very serious offenses. This report has been referred to the FBI. Here is a link to this report.
9:46 am – We are currently reviewing the Performance Audit for Selected Programs of the Consolidated Incentive Act for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. This audit report may be viewed here.
9:49 am – We are now reviewing the Special Report for the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development Development District for the Northwest Arkansas Solid Waste District. This report can be reviewed here. Rep. King asked if we could have a representative of the ethics commission come to the next meeting to answer some of the questions the legislators are presenting. The concern here is members of boards being awarded contracts over which they have influence as a member of the board.
10:16 am – Senator Laverty asked that report be adopted with the exception that it could be pulled back for evaluation by the ethics commission. Motion passed.
10:20 am – Committee adjourned.
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Legislative Joint Auditing: State Agencies – October 7, 2009
Posted on October 7th, 2009
Date & Time: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Location: Room 130, State Capitol
Committee Information: House Members on Committee
Agenda: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/Lists/Meetings/Attachments/12132/I7834.pdf
Attachments: none
1:32 pm – Representative House called the meeting to order, meeting minutes approved.
1:34 pm – The first audit of the Lottery Commission has been made, there was very little activity on this because it was done earlier in the process. There were no findings.
1:35 pm – George Hopkins, director of the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System is here for the presentation of their audit with findings. There was a violation of Ark. Code Ann. 19-11-1011 which states that no payment shall be made for services rendered prior to the execution date of the contract. The firm provided information stating that ATRS staff instructed the firm to leave out dates on the invoice in an effort to “avoid confusion” about the date on the State contract and the date services began. The violation occured with two different instances involving firms Franklin Park Associates, LLC and Ennis Krupp and Associates.
1:39 pm – Mr. Hopkins has acknowledged the validity of the findings and apologized for the infraction. He stated that internal measures have been put in place to prevent this from occuring again.
1:40 pm – Rep. Dismang asked if something was going on at ATRS during the times of the infractions occured. Mr. Hopkins said there was several scheduling pressures and when those got in the way the were ignored.
1:43 pm – Mr. Hopkins said that he self reported both of these violations to Legislative Audit right after he took over in his positions. He reports that full cooperation was given by both those firm and the staff members have been identified. Those employees are still employeed in their positions. He said the decision not to terminate them was based upon if the employees stood to gain from if they stood to gain personally, or if they were just trying to accomplish and agency goal in a timely fashion.
1:46 pm – Rep. Dismang asked who is responsible for these dates being left out. Apparently the triangle of blame, involving ATRS attorneys, are all pointing fingers at another party in a circle of blame.
1:48 pm – Senator Key is asking a follow up question. He is asking if the conflicting testimonies have been pursued. Apparently the testimony before Audit is a sworn affidavit and that the conflicting stories indicate that purgury may have occured. The ATRS staff attorney claims a conference call did not occur that other parties have testified did occur.
1:52 pm – Senator Key asked if it were possible that there may be other violations associated with contracts. The auditor confirmed. Sen. Key asked the same question of Mr. Hopkins. Mr. Hopkins said that there are many instances of violations that he addressed when he took over and pointed to specific procedures to correct the violations.
2:01 pm – Apparently Ennis Knupp is the major contractor, which extensive experience for ATRS, yet in the a letter to the Division of Legislative Audit, they claim to be unaware of the state procurement procedures and state that they had no reason to believe that the Executive Director of ATRS was not complying with the laws of the state of Arkansas.
2:06 pm – Ennis Knupp was requested to be present at this meeting, they send the letter and did not appear.
2:07 pm – Sen. Bledsoe expressed displeasure with the fact that the ATRS attorney chose not to appear before this committee. Mr. Hopkins stated he had given her the permission to no appear.
2:08 pm – Rep. Dismang expressed concerned that there is no consequences for breaking the law. He is particularly concerned with the ATRS attorney. He said it is inappropriate for an employee to knowingly break the law and there be no consequences. [I find it interesting that these agencies will fine the hell out of businesses in the State of Arkansas for minor regulatory infractions, but these cats break the law with no price to pay.
2:13 pm - Senator Faris is making the point that the only guy innocent in this whole deal who has been trying to clean up the mess is the only one to show up to explain the situation. The legislators here are disturbed that the ATRS attorney and Ennis Knupp did not show up before this Audit Subcommittee.
2:15 pm - Rep. Mike Burris asked if this committee had authority to subpeona testimony. Apparently the full committee does but not the subcommittee. He is concerned about getting the letter from Ennis Knupp at the last minute today. He asked who much we pay them ber year. Mr. Hopkins said it is probably over $1 million per year.
2:18 pm - [My experience with situations like this is that the legislature will let this pass like everything else and not do a damn thing about it. Term limits have so weakened legislators with respect to the agencies that the legislature is a simpering bunch of whiners who do nothing but ask a bunch of questions but never actually take any action. The status quo will be maintained, the agencies will continue the long string of abuses, the executive director will depart, a new one will say "sorry" and no consequences will be held, and the same system repeats.]
2:25 pm – Sen. Key is asking follow-up questions about the contract dates concerning Franklin Park Associates, LLC. Mr Hopkins stridently defended Franklin Park Associates as being above board, and that they even sent letters questioning procedures by ATRS. Mr. Key made the point that this brings us back to inappropriate activity by the employees by ATRS.
2:29 pm – Sen. Bledsoe made a motion to compel the groups involved to appear before the committee. [Good for her] The simpering begins with they are trying to change the motion to “invite” rather than compel them to appear. Sen. Faris stepped up and made the statement that this is dealing with the largest single collection of money in the state government and that we needed to do more than “invite” those parties. [Good for him]. Sen Jeffress makes the point that we we need to remember that Mr. Hopkins inherited this problem.
2:33 pm – Sen. Bledsoe is restating her motion to “request” (rather than compel) those parties appear before the committee next month. Apparently a subpeona could take more than two months. The committee approved the motion. I am surprised, this is more than I have seen done in the past. Perhaps things are getting better.
2:37 pm – The remainder of the audit findings are being covered. Mr. Hopkins is again giving very detailed explanations of procedured he proactively took to put in place to correct the problems even before the audit occurred and the findings reported.
2:41 pm – Rep. Lea asked if the attorney that was involved in the issued discussed today was the same one that advised him to not attempt to collect the overpayments of double dippers. Mr. Hopkins said that they have sought outside legal advice, including the Attorney General, about the double dippers. He said he has not backed off collecting the double dipping, but that he needs to find out exactly who he can collect it from and who he cannot.
2:44 pm – The issue has been deferred pending testimony at the next meeting. This will not appear on the agenda for tomorrows meeting.
2:45 pm – Currently reviewing audit issues with the Beef Council. No questions or comments, report filed.
2:47 pm – I really wanted to go to the Counties and Municipalities Audit because I heard rumors there was juicy goings-on with the Major of Helena West Helena. But since I am not a reporter selling newspapers, I thought it was better to follow the items that most effect the taxpayers of Arkansas. So often, legislators including myself get tangled up in issues concerning $100,000 but fail to evaluate issue concerning $1,000,000,000 (a billion). Those are confused priorities.
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Joint Education Committee – October 6, 2009
Posted on October 6th, 2009
Date & Time: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Location: Room 171, State Capitol
Committee Information: House Members on Committee – Senate Members on Committee
Agenda: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/Lists/Meetings/Attachments/12247/I7829.pdf
Attachments: none
This committee reviews matters pertaining to public kindergarten, elementary, secondary, and adult education, vocational education, vocational-technical schools, vocational rehabilitation, higher education, private educational institutions, similar legislation, and resolutions germane to the subject matter of the committee.(House Rules 62.1)
This committee reviews matters pertaining to public kindergarten, elementary, secondary, and adult education, vocational education, vocational-technical schools, vocational rehabilitation, higher education, private educational institutions, and similar legislation. (Senate Rules) In case you were wondering, here are the Joint Rules for the House and Senate.
1:34 pm – Meeting called to order by Rep. Abernathy. Minutes from the last meeting approved.
1:35 pm – Mr. Richard Denniston, Superintendent of the Deer/Mt. Judea School District is providing updated information and supplying deferred answers to questions concerning the Reverse Economy of Scale Adjustment (RESA) Proposal they made at the last meeting at their school.
1:36 pm – The RESA Proposal is intended to be an objective method for waiving the 350 student limit on minimum school size for geographically isolated school districts.
1:38 pm – Dr. Tom Kimbrell, the new Commissioner of Education for the Arkansas Department of Education, is being introduced and is making introductory remarks. He is familiar to most legislators because he previously served as the Executive Director of the Arkansas Education Administrators Association.
1:42 pm – Dr. Kimbrell is saying that too often the role of the AR Dept. of Education is percieved as one of a “gotcha” organization. He intends to work to change that perception.
1:53 pm – Dr. Kimbrell said, for him, this position is like making the major leagues (referring to playing major league baseball).
1:59 pm – Rep. Cole said that there is a school in his district that has a 95% graduation rate but a 85% remediation rate. His question to Dr. Kimbrell what he intends to do to make that better. Dr. Kimbrell talked about what we can do to address remediation. He said that the remediation is based on one score, the ACT, but seemed to think that there may be a better way is to compare to national standards in reading math. The problem with that is that the higher education institutions have found that there is a very strong statistical correlation with ACT scores and the success those students achieve when they are in college.
2:06 pm – The Dept. of Education cannot dictate to the higher education institutions what they use for gauging remediation. Therefore, the Dept. will need to demonstrate the same strong statistical correlation to success with whatever alternative proposal is presented. Dr. Kimbrell said that students are not usually the cause of failure, but that “we” fail the students.
2:07 pm – Dr. Kimbrell seemed to hint that we need to align the curriculum to the standards what “we” wish the students to learn. That seems to be an awfully loaded concept and I won’t hazard to guess what exactly what that means.
2:09 pm – Rep. Saunders asked about contracts to assist academically struggling school districts. Dr. Kimbrell acknowledged that the contract is with a national group. Rep. Saunders followed up with the statement that we “know” what it takes to properly educate a child. Dr. Kimbrell agreed and pointed to standards and processes we have in place. Rep. Saunders hinted that perhaps since we know those things, then we might be able to bring some of those functions “in-house”.
2:13 pm – Rep. Allen said that good teachers make good students and asked what Dr. Kimbrell would do to make sure we have good teachers. Dr. Kimbrell stated that he wanted to make sure that teachers were paid well.
2:15 pm – Rep. Lea asking a follow up question about testing to narrow where the disconnect to learning that occurs where children stop enjoying learning. Dr. Kimbrell was referring to something different, he was talking about a desire to learn, and excitement about learning. Rep. Lea is not happy with the answer, she is asking follow questions. She is asking about his statement, “We need to return to the past raise the stature of teachers.” She said the stature of teachers has gone down to due to some of their own actions.
2:20 pm – Rep. Clemmer is asking questions about how the department will hold teachers accountable. Dr. Kimbrell is talking about the accountablity methods that are in place. He is referring to metrics that we already use, and said that “we” are going to need to take action on what those metrics are telling us. He told a story about a teacher who was a very good teacher and spent two weeks on “Johnny Appleseed” and the kids were engaged and learned tons about “Johnny Appleseed” but not a stitch of it was on the benchmark standards. He is making the point that the teaching needs to be directed at that standards.
2:26 pm – Rep. Hobbs is asking if there is anything that the Dept. can do to make sure that the colleges are teaching teachers to teach. He said that the Dept. is working closely with the college deans and the accreditation standards boards. He said that there is not much regulatory authority to do so.
2:36 pm – Senator Broadway asked about the utilization of technology in the educaton system in Arkansas. He stole some of the content of what I was going to ask. I asked about Arkansas developing something similar to the California Learning Resource Network.
2:43 pm – Sorry about missing part of the meeting. I took a moment to speak with Dr. Kimbrell about the CLRN
2:45 pm – We are currently reviewing the update and scheduling regarding the Review of the Adequacy of the State’s Public Education System. The Subcommittees are being formed.
2:51 pm – Sen. Jimmy Jeffress is making the point that there will be a tutorial on the funding matrix. He makes the point about how important this meeting will be to attend. I think that anyone serving or intending to serve in the legislature needs to make sure they undertand the content of that meeting.
2:53 pm – Meeting adjourned.
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Arkansas Legislative Council: PEER Review – October 1, 2009
Posted on October 1st, 2009
Date & Time: Wednesday, October 1, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Location: Room 171, State Capitol
Committee Information:Members on Committee
Agenda: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/Lists/Meetings/Attachments/12031/I7815.pdf
Attachments: Click Here
This committee reviews matters pertaining to the financial operations and fiscal performances of state agencies, departments, and institutions, including but not limited to, program performance and evaluation, efficiency in the operation of agency programs and services, coordination of programs and services which require the expenditure of state funds, the stability and adequacy of the various fund and fund accounts of the state, and other matters pertaining to agency performance and accountability in the use of public funds may be referred to this committee. Matters pertaining to the organization, consolidation, merger, or abolishment of a state agency, board, commission, or program, and such other matters as maybe assigned by the Council.
1:30 pm – The first item on the agenda is the revenue. Apparently it is “not ready”, but the scuttlebutt is that it is “not good”.
1:32 pm – The Cash Fund Appropriation increase requests by the Dept. of Arkansas Heritage – Delta Cultural Center and for the Auditor of the State were both reviewed without question or comment.
1:33 pm – Budget Classification Transfer request by the Dept. of Career Education – State Operations was reviewed witout question or comment.
1:34 pm – We are now reviewing the Miscellaneous Federal Grant Appropriation Requests for FY10. The Northwest Technical Institute – Federal Direct and Equitable and the Dept. of Correction – Statewide Automated Victim Information and Notification (SAVIN) Grant II both reviewed without question or comment. Arkansas State Police, Dept. of Arkansas Heritage, one of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission grants, and the Disability Determination for Social Security Administration were all reviewed without question or comment.
1:40 pm – Rep. Dismang asked how the Appliance Rebate Program is going to work. This is administered by the Arkansas Economic Development Commissions. The Arkansas Energy Office will be providing rebates on applicances. The old appliances must be destroyed.
1:42 pm – Apparently things are very up in the air about the Appliance Rebate Program. The representative for the AEDC could not answer questions about income limits, how much will be spent on this program.
1:43 pm – Rep. English is asking if this is a component pulled from the Cap and Trade bill, and if it is similiar to the Cash for Clunkers program.
1:44 pm – Sen Broadway is making the point that before funds can be expended, Rules and Regulations need to be developed.
1:45 pm – Rep. Dismang is asking if we are being asked to figure out what to do with this money after we get it. The AEDC representative said he would have to get another expert to speak to Rep. Dismang later.
1:46 pm – Rep. Rice is asking what will be the result of overspending by the program. He points out that nationally this program is turning out to be about a weekends worth of business. He is concerned that by putting stuff out there with incomplete rules that retails are going to be wary that they will be getting stuck with insufficient funds like occured with the Cash for Clunkers program.
1:48 pm – Rep. Dismang asked that we return to that topic and we are continuing with the rest of the agenda.
1:49 pm – The remainder of the items in “E” of the Agenda were reviewed without question or comment.
1:50 pm – We are currently reviewing contracts between State Agencies. These items were reviewed without question, objection, or comment.
1:51 pm – We are now considering items for approval for appropriation and fund transfer requests from the Arkansas State Police.
1:52 pm – Rep. Green inquired if these items would still have to be presented to the full ALC. The answer was “yes.”
1:54 pm – Rep. Andrea Lea asked if the State Police Funds being considered are accumulative. They are, but they have to come before this committee to transfer those funds. Sen. Percy Malone is making the point that these funds could be placed in the regular budget. The response if that these funds are unpredicatable and do not lend themselves well to the budgeted process.
1:57 pm – Rep. Lea requested information on what the reason the fund was created originally, what it is supposed to be spend on, and the sources of revenue for the fund.
1:59 pm – Item G discussed above was approved by the committee.
2:00 pm – We are currently reviewing Emergency Transfer Requests (Agenda Item H). The Budget Classification Request by the Arkansas State Library was reviewed without question or comment. The Miscellaneous Federal Grant Appropriation Requests – FY10 by the Dept. of Higher Education and the Dept. of Correction were reviewed without question or comment. Those federal funds are probably from the ARRA (Stimulus) Program.
2:02 pm – The monthy reports are being reviewed by the committee. These reports were reviewed witout question, objection or comment.
2:05 pm – We are returning to item E.5 on the Agenda concerning the Appliance Rebate Program. Chairman Dismang is concerned about appropriating funds without a plan. Apparently there is a plan due to the DOE prior to October 15th. The grant requires a 50% match for the administration of the program. The cost will be $550,000 for administration. The cost to the taxpayers of state will be $250,000 that is not provided by the Federal Grant. There are 2.7 million dollars appropriated.
2:09 pm – Rep. Reep is asking if we don’t know how this is going to be setup, how do we know how much it is going to cost to administer. [I think the legislators are concerned that yet again the agency is asking the legislature to give them authority with no accountability.
2:13 pm – Rep. Stewart made the point that of this 2.7 million, about 20,000 would recieve about $130 bucks, but an outside vendor will make over $650,000.
2:15 pm – Sen. Broadway is begging to rubber stamp the agencies wishes. It is no wonder the agencies have no respect and run roughshod over the legislature because the legislature NEVER exercises it’s authority to manage the taxpayers money.
2:17 pm – Rep. Dismang made the point that this is taxpayers money and it doesn’t matter if it is federal or state funds he is uncomfortable approving an appropriation without rules and guidelines in place.
2:19 pm – Rep. Rice is asking if there has been any research done on both the public and private cost of administration. He voiced the opinion that the cost of adminstration seems high.
2:21 pm – The item was reviewed with the provision that it not be reviewed by ALC until a presentation of rules and regulation were put in place.
2:23 pm – Meeting adjourned.
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