The Legislative Council should hire telecommunications consultant CT&T Inc. of North Little Rock to conduct a study of broadband access to each public school in Arkansas, after the firm submitted a bid to do the work for up to $993,780, a legislative panel decided Monday.
The council's Executive Subcommittee also recommended the council hire lottery consultant Camelot Global Services of Philadelphia to conduct a study of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery's operations for a consulting fee of $149,500, plus reimbursement of travel expenses of up to $20,000.
The council is to consider the recommendations to hire the two firms during its meeting Friday morning in Little Rock.
SHI International Corp. of Austin, Texas, was the only other firm to submit a bid for the broadband study, but it failed to list a total maximum bid and schedule, and its bid is considered "nonresponsive," said Jill Thayer, legal counsel for the Bureau of Legislative Research.
High-speed broadband Internet access has been scrutinized over the past two years as both the Legislature and the governor directed committees to examine the availability of sufficient Internet in the state's public schools.
State Rep. Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, told lawmakers Monday that the Legislature needs the information that such a study would produce to make decisions in the future "on connectivity for K-12 schools and broadband."
"We are getting a lot of data that, upon attempted verification, was proving to be incorrect, so we felt like the prudent course of action was to take this into our hands as much as possible here," said Gillam, who is in line to be House speaker in 2015 and 2016.
The subcommittee's recommendation to hire CT&T of North Little Rock comes on the heels of a $71,500 study from consultant Picus Odden and Associates, reported to lawmakers last week, that Arkansas needs to gather more information to determine the cost and feasibility of providing adequate broadband Internet access to schools throughout the state.
The lack of bandwidth is starting to cause problems for school districts, which must begin giving standardized tests online. Act 1280 of 2013 by the Legislature also requires every school district to provide at least one interactive online course beginning this school year.
Private Internet providers and broadband advocates have tussled over whether the state should open up the system of high-capacity, fiber-optic cables that connect the state's public universities, two-year colleges, research hospitals and some libraries. The Arkansas Research Education Optical Network is a public-private partnership that uses Internet cable owned by the private providers and leased and managed by the public entity. Providers want to keep the network closed.
CT&T Inc.'s study would start upon the execution of a contract Friday and end with a delivery of a final report to the Executive Subcommittee on Dec. 1.
Bureau of Legislative Research officials have suggested ending the proposed contract March 1, 2015, to allow time for the consultant to appear at legislative committee meetings and still provide additional work requested by lawmakers after the consultant submits its report Dec. 1, Thayer said.
LOTTERY STUDY
The council's Executive Subcommittee signed off on a proposal by state Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, to hire Camelot Global Services Inc. to study the lottery's operations and make recommendations to improve it. The proposed contract would start Friday and end Dec. 31.
The lottery's ticket sales revenue and net proceeds for college scholarships have declined in each of the past two fiscal years.
Hickey, who persuaded lawmakers in a special session in July to pass a bill to bar the lottery from deploying electronic-monitor games through mid-March, said he decided to propose hiring Camelot Global Services without seeking bids from other companies on the basis of the firm's experience in studying lotteries in California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York and Texas, and "we feel this company will be totally independent."
Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, added that hiring the firm without seeking bids also "allows us to move forward in a more quick manner so we can have some real information ... when we go into session for members to be able to take a look at [during the 2015 session starting in January]."
Sen. Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, pressed Hickey to provide results on the state lotteries that Camelot Global Services Inc. worked on. Hickey said he didn't have any particular figures.
Hickey said there has been some private discussions among lawmakers shifting lottery operations from the nine-member Lottery Commission to the state Department of Finance and Administration, but "I think we are moving away from that."
"Maybe possibly the commission could stay in place, but maybe possibly that whoever the incoming governor is will have a little more control over something like that or possibly even the Legislature," he said.
The governor, the House speaker and the Senate president pro tempore each appoint three members to the commission under provisions of the state's lottery law enacted in 2009.
Metro on 09/16/2014