The Arkansas Legislative Council on Friday authorized the use of a total of $6.3 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to aid hospitals in DeWitt, Harrison and Lake Village, and $5.8 million of the federal funds for improvements at the Arkansas Fire Training Academy based at Southern Arkansas University Tech.
The council also approved the use of $5 million in state restricted reserve funds to provide incentives for the development of film and television production in Arkansas, and the use of $500,000 in restricted reserve funds to support physical security enhancement and other measures to assist "nonprofit ideology-based/spiritual/religious entities" in preventing and responding to terrorist threats and other extremist attacks.
The council approved the state Department of Human Services' requests for the following amounts of American Rescue Plan funds for emergency aid relief to hospitals:
— $3.44 million for Chicot Memorial Medical Center, a licensed 25-bed critical access hospital in Lake Village.
The hospital has identified several opportunities that will equip the hospital to expand services, increase revenue, improve existing services to enhance the hospital's situation, and sustain the only hospital in Chicot County, according to its sustainability plan for 2023.
— $1.54 million for the DeWitt Hospital and Nursing Home, a licensed 25-bed critical access hospital in DeWitt.
Converting the hospital to a rural emergency hospital will allow the hospital to reallocate space and resources from inpatient and swing-bed services to outpatient and the skilled nursing services, according to state Department of Finance and Administration consultant Alvarez & Marsal Public Sector Services. The consultant said additional rural emergency hospital funding will be used to primarily support monthly payroll, but also could be used to expand community-needed health care services and upgrade facility equipment.
— $1.36 million in American Rescue Plan funds for the North Arkansas Regional Medical Center, a licensed 174-bed general hospital in Harrison. In 2022, the Legislative Council voted to send the North Arkansas Regional Medical Center's request for $10 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds back to a committee, after then-state Rep. Michelle Gray, R-Melbourne, said she didn't favor the request because she didn't feel like closure was imminent for the hospital.
Sammie Cribbs Roberson, president and chief executive officer of North Arkansas Regional Medical Center, said in a letter dated Sept. 30 to the state Department of Human Services that the medical center will continue with action items to improve its operating margin.
"The organization will continue to implement growth strategies, reduce labor cost, manage supply cost, evaluate opportunities for contract enhancements with payors, and evaluate opportunities to improve vendor contracts to enhance the operating margin," she wrote in her letter.
"All efforts will be focused to ensure long-term sustainability," Roberson added.
State Department of Finance and Administration spokesman Scott Hardin said $13.7 million of the $60 million in American Rescue Plan state fiscal recovery funds set aside for hospitals is unallocated after the council approved the three requests for hospitals Friday.
The $5.8 million in federal American Rescue funds requested for Southern Arkansas University Tech will be be used for enhancements and improvements to existing buildings and programs at the Arkansas Fire Training Academy and the construction of a specialized Emergency Medical Services training facility, SAU Tech interim Chancellor Gaye Manning said in a letter dated Nov. 28 to the Department of Finance and Administration's Office of Budget. The estimated cost of the Emergency Medical Services training building is $4.05 million.
In March 2021, President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act that is designed to help the United States recover from the economic and health effects of the covid-19 pandemic.
Arkansas was awarded $1.57 billion in American Rescue Plan state fiscal recovery funds, and the unallocated balance has declined to $321.9 million after the council approved the requests for the three hospitals and SAU Tech, Hardin said.
STATE RESTRICTED RESERVE FUNDS
The council approved the state Department of Public Safety's request for $500,000 in state restricted reserve funds for the department to support physical security enhancement and other measures to assist "nonprofit ideology-based/spiritual/religious entities" in preventing and responding to terrorist threats and other extremist attacks.
The council decided to require the department to report which groups the grants are awarded to and how much each group is allocated.
Last month, state Department of Public Safety Chief Fiscal Officer Karen Perry told lawmakers that Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders "promised to aid the Jewish community during the recent rise of antisemitic rhetoric crime, and this will allow funds for [the Public Safety Department] to provide grant funding to support security enhancements for nonprofit organizations."
The department will call the program the Right to Worship Safely Grant program. It's modeled after the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program, according to Cindy Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Public Safety Department.
As part of the Right to Worship Safely Grant program, eligible ideology-based/spiritual/religious institutions and organizations under section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (or exempt from tax under section 501(a) of such code) must develop a formal investment justification that addresses each initiative proposed for funding to support physical security enhancements and other security activities for the prevention, protection against, preparedness for, and response to terrorist threats or other extremist activities, the Public Safety Department's Research and Planning Division said in a document.
These investment justifications must demonstrate how the proposed projects address high-risk terrorist threats and/or extremist attacks, the Public Safety Department's Research and Planning Division said.
In addition, the investment justifications must demonstrate the ability to provide security enhancements consistent with the purpose of the program and guidance provided by the state Department of Public Safety, according to the department's Research and Planning Division document.
State Department of Public Safety Secretary Mike Hagar told lawmakers on Tuesday there have been no limits set on the size of the grants through this program.
"... truthfully, we don't know if we are going to receive five or 500 [applications] and we don't know if it is going to ask for $500 or $500,000, " Hagar said. "So the committee is just going to look at it once all the applications are received and ... go through and try to just make the determination to where we can help the most people possible with the amount of money that we have based on the need they present in their application."
Hagar said the committee will be comprised of eight members.
According to the timeline for the grant program, the program would begin accepting applications Jan. 1 and the deadline for application submissions would be Jan. 15.
The grant program committee would meet to review grant application submissions from Jan. 15-31, the grant program would announce the grant recipients Feb. 1 under this timeline, and the grants would be distributed to recipients from Feb. 12-March 1 under the timeline for the grant program.
The fiscal 2024 grant program would conclude Feb. 28, 2024, and all grant funds must be spent and all unused grant funds must be returned to the department's fiscal office, based on this timeline.
The council on Friday also approved the Arkansas Economic Development Commission's request to transfer $5 million in state restricted reserve funds to the commission to provide funding to incentivize development of film and television production with the aim of creating a thriving film industry in Arkansas.
Any unobligated funds not committed to a film or television project by June 30, 2024, would be returned to the restricted reserve fund, state Department of Commerce Chief Financial Officer David Bell wrote in a letter dated Nov. 14 to state Department of Finance and Administration Secretary Jim Hudson.
The council decided to require the commission to report which companies are awarded these incentives and how much each company receives.
Arkansas Film Commissioner Christopher Crane told lawmakers on Tuesday that he expects probably seven or eight companies would receive incentives through this performance-based program.