SPRINGDALE -- Issues from how to protect the medically vulnerable to whether investment strategy on taxpayer money in state accounts should change came up Tuesday at a town hall meeting hosted by Gov. Asa Hutchinson on his proposed reorganization of state government.
Hutchinson plans to propose a government reorganization in the next regular session of the Legislature -- assuming he is re-elected. The governor faces both primary and general election opposition. The next legislative session begins in January.
Tuesday's noon meeting at the Don Tyson School of Innovation is one of several the governor is hosting around the state. The next is today in El Dorado. The meetings are to discuss how government would be reorganized from 42 state departments reporting directly to the governor to Hutchinson's stated goal of fewer than 20.
Hutchinson said any reorganization plan will require Legislative approval and broad public support, he said. Public input into designing a plan will also ensure public needs are addressed, he said.
At least eight members of the Legislature attended Tuesday's meeting. The governor also brought administrators from the state Department of Finance and Administration, the state Department of Health and other entities. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge also attended.
State government hasn't had a major reorganization since 1972 under ex-Gov. Dale Bumpers' administration. There's no estimate of how much money a reorganization would save by eliminating redundancies, Hutchinson said, but he said he's confident savings will be "in the tens of millions" of dollars a year.
The most-discussed topic brought up among the 50 or so attending was whether a reorganization would increase the risk of moving more elderly and disabled from home health care to nursing homes and other institutions.
Both the governor and Ann Purvis, deputy director for administration at the state Department of Health, acknowledged the state struggles against a bias. Both public and private health care providers seek to move the disabled and elderly into institutions, even in cases where health care provided in the patients' homes is cheaper, Purvis said.
Why such a bias exists is something this state and others are still trying to determine, Purvis said in comments after the meeting. The risk of more people being moved into institutions during the shuffle of reorganization is a good point, she said. The matter was raised Tuesday by Kati McFarland of Bethel Heights, the Democratic candidate for the state representative's race in District 90.
On the matter of whether reorganization would affect state investments, Hutchinson reminded the audience investment strategy is the responsibility of the state treasurer.
NW News on 05/09/2018