Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

and how the city can make age-friendly policies and programs. So as I'm going through this, you're going to see that we're not just talking about the things that are stereotypically older adult. Older adults use every city service, everything that happens in the city, Older adults are starting businesses, older adults are using services, older adults are having a good time. So older adults are part of every decision that we are making as a city. And so we are a body that is to advise you in that capacity. And so here it is in our charter. We were created by ordinance on February 5th, 2019 by recommendation of the 2018 mayoral task force on aging. Our responsibilities in ordinance are to study the demographics of the city by age, identify needs of older adults, age 55 plus, ascertain services, infrastructure, determine gaps, and then as I said, make recommendations and advise the board, mayor, and other city officials. I go. So an age friendly city is a more livable city for all. So we became part of the AARP network of age friendly states and communities in July of 2019 by recommendation of that same 2018 task force. Last year, we launched our 2025 to 2028 Age Friendly Little Rock Action Plan, focused on four domains of livability. Communication information, housing, transportation, health services, and community supports. Our commission has one commissioner for each of the seven wards, plus eight at-large members, and each member serves four-year terms. We recently had a presentation to our commission, thanks to our vice chair, about the roles of commissioners, and I thought it best to share that back with you all in this takeaway that I mentioned about coming to us. So ward commissioners are there to know the ward's neighborhoods, to hear from older residents and groups, to build a working relationship with their ward director, and bring ward-level patterns back to the commission. For our at-large commissioners, they're looking across wards. They're noticing city-wide patterns, guarding against fragmentation, and asking whether recommendations serve all of Little Rock equitably. Commissioners also serve as a bridge. So as a commission, we are here to listen to older residents and neighborhoods and make decisions and make recommendations and pass it up to the full commission and the city leadership. And then it's supposed to move back. So we can also be a conduit back to older residents and neighborhoods to share information, to translate ideas, This isn't a checkbox, this is a channel of communication. So we can be there to co-create policy, to host public forums, to be an incubator for ideas, to flag when there are friction points with older adults on any decisions being made, to amplify voices, to translate ideas, and to connect people to one another. So the duties of commissioners, of course, attending our monthly meetings, third Thursday, 1230 to 130, West Central Community Center. Actively participate in one of those four action plan committees of the domains that I mentioned earlier. Attend at least one regular board of directors meeting a year. So you'll be seeing these faces and more at board of directors meetings going forward. And then establish a working relationship with the city director. And so you'll hear later an ask for you all to make that connection as well. And of course, listening, connecting, and representing is a big part of that. So our current commissioners and their assignments to different committees. So myself and Gail Chote are with the Transportation Committee. We're the Chair and the Vice Chair. We have Joan Deal, who is the Secretary and the Committee Chair for Health Services and Community Supports. We also have here Joe Akeke from Ward 4. We're still assigning him to a committee, but we'll get him assigned to one soon. Same with Kat from Ward 5, and she'll be assigned to a committee here soon as well. We have two commissioners who are pending reappointment from this body. We hope that happens next week, fingers crossed. And then we still have, so counting those two that are pending, we have Ward 3 and 3 at large and Ward 7 that are missing that we need commissioners recruited to. Not only that, but we also have several collaborators at our table, several that are consistent. Of course, our Parks and Recreation Department, thank you to the team that is constantly helping us and responding to last minute requests like today. Thanks, y'all. We, of course, have AARP Arkansas, UAMS, Arkansas Geriatric Education Collaborative, Central Arkansas VA, Alzheimer's Arkansas, LifeQuest, and many, many more that are in the works, that have been working with us in the past, or project by project working with us. So next, why does this matter? We wanted Little Rock to be an age-friendly city, but why? So we are an aging city, we're an aging country. So one in three residents in the city are over the age of 50. From 2010 to 2020, Little Rock's proportion of people under the age of 60 decreased and people over the age of 60 increased. And that means their median age is increasing in this city. And our older adult population is growing faster than our child population. This is true across the country and even more pronounced in rural areas, especially in Arkansas. And Little Rock is attracting more older adults than other cities, according to some reports this year. But our state still ranks low for older adult well-being. When we think about why to do this, of course, there are many things that are specific to older adults, especially economically. People 50 and over contribute $8 trillion to the US economy as consumers, workers, and stimulants for new markets. Older adults are starting businesses more frequently each year, and often those businesses last longer than those started by younger entrepreneurs. Older adults are also community anchors through volunteerism, civic engagement, caregiving, philanthropy, storytelling, and many, many more roles that they play. But most importantly, like I mentioned before, a more age friendly city is a more livable city for everyone. So the AARP Livability Index measures each neighborhood, city, county, and state across those domains of livability I mentioned earlier. The city improved from 2024 to 2025 in every domain except for transportation and engagement. So you can see here, this is the overall score from 2024 to 2025. It went from 48 to 50. And then this is the breakdown by domain. You can see engagement went down by one point. Transportation went down by two points. Neighborhood scores, particularly around security, went up quite a bit. And then housing and health bumped up just by one point as well. We use this data and we use a community assessment we made several years ago to guide our decision making, our plans, the action plan that we got approved last year. And there are several areas of improvement. I'm not going to go through all of them, but it lines up with much of what we just saw with that data and where we can continue to make headway in this city. As well as assets that we have as a city that we can lean on to meet those needs. So some successes. So we have the Senior Center. So thank you board for approving that funding in September, 2022. Renovations began last year and hopefully very soon that will be ready to go. Not gonna give a timeline, but hopefully that'll be ready to go soon. We provided input on the center from the very beginning and will continue to do so. The topic of next month's meeting is actually on the standard operating procedures and different roles and questions that are coming up as we're developing programs for the senior center. We have launched an age-friendly business certification program. This is the first of its kind in Arkansas. It's supported by AARP Arkansas, the Better Business Bureau of Arkansas, the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, and other community collaborators. So local businesses can get certified through practical training and small accessibility improvements to benefit every customer. That's things like barrier-free spaces, clear signage, accessible restrooms, and supportive staff. There is a link that you can go to, but it's on the Better Business Bureau website. So if you're a business in the city, go through this training and get certified. We also helped write a grant with the city of Little Rock that the city won. This is a grant to help establish the Wakefield Opportunity Hub at 7414 Doyle Springs Road. This is going to be a neighborhood based mini city hall supporting older adults with staffed computer stations, bilingual navigation assistance, accessible space improvements, and age friendly community programming. And older adults will be trained as peer navigators to help build digital literacy skills. And then of course, we've written several letters to you all, so two of those have seen some progress. We clarified the rules around virtual attendance for boards and commissions, particularly for our demographic. We got new lighting installed at the front door of City Hall to prevent trip hazards. And the pending ones are the reappointment that I mentioned earlier, and several recommendations on boards and commission application and appointment processes. Work is underway on those. So some opportunities for impact. So we have some goals for this next year. First off, fill all the seats on the commission, number one priority. Also commissioners meeting with their city director at least once. We would love to support and win additional AARP challenge grants and other grants for the city and other organizations in the city to support older adults. We plan to launch an updated age-friendly webpage on the city website, integrate services and resources at the senior center after a successful opening, including a revamp of our summit and expo that is usually done annually, and we're skipping a little bit so we can build up the anticipation for the senior center. We're receiving some livability data from AARP that's broken down by neighborhood. And we plan to analyze that and to help inform city officials, including you all, neighborhood by neighborhood on some of the scores and things that are coming up in that by your neighborhoods. We also hope to launch a training on age friendly practices and decision making for city staff and commissions. And of course, advance other action plan goals that we have. So some timely recommendations, because it behooves myself to do that right now. There is a Pulaski County hazard mitigation plan being renewed this year. And we are asking that you seek and incorporate our feedback in that. We had a conversation as a commission after the January winter storm about the impacts, particularly on older adults and how the city can better improve the response specific to older adults. And we would like to be part of that planning process. It is also property tax appeal time, so it's a good time to talk about homestead tax credit and the age 65 or disabled homeowner property tax relief. And of course, several other services that make housing and utilities more affordable or that prevent other housing issues in the city like writing wills. So we are asking that these services and resources get integrated into programs that the city is running. So that as older adults are being served, it is connecting them directly to those things. Getting them signed up for that property tax relief, because it freezes their property taxes right then and there. Or getting them to write their will, because we don't need any more heirs property issues than we have in the city. Also follow through on recommendations on the board and commission process. It's about budget time, so fully fund senior affairs programs and staff through parks and recreation. And of course, ensure the targeted neighborhood of funding that we have as a city is being utilized in all areas to its fullest, and that it aligns with our action plan. Couple of event announcements. So we have a film screening coming up. The documentary is No Place to Grow Old. This is gonna be on September 10th, Thursday, September 10th, from 6 to 8.30 p.m. at Cal's Ron Robinson Theater. It's free admission. This is a documentary on the systemic challenges and personal stories of the growing number of older adults experiencing homelessness across the country. So we really encourage you all to come out to that. Anybody, please come to this. It's going to be a great conversation with hosts as pictured above. And we're excited to bring this conversation to light because it is a growing issue in this city as well. And then another announcement, ADU4U design competition. So we have an award ceremony on September 11th from 12 to 4 at the city center. So we would like you to come to that as well. We have helped our Little Rock and other groups pull together designs from local architects and designers. And so this award ceremony is a chance for you to see the winning designs to inspire what could be possible for backyard cottages that fit into our neighborhoods, fit into our climate, and that meet the expectations of the 2025 ordinance that you all passed. While flexibly meeting residents as they grow older at every stage of life, we know that ADUs are a great And so this is one reason why we're supporting this. And finally, some ways you can help. So recruit older adults to become peer navigators for the Wakefield Opportunity Hub. There is a flyer that is out on the table out there, so please take that and recruit older adults. We also ask that you recruit commissioners to fill the vacant commissioner seats. We have flyers for that available as well. We ask that you meet with your ward rep and or your at large representatives, say hello to them when they visit board meetings. Please follow up on our letters in a timely manner, we love that. And then recognize Senior Citizen Day next Friday, August 21st. So just a final reminder, whenever you're making a decision, please contact us to ask how we'll impact older adults and how the city can make more age friendly policies and programs. Thanks.

You got to press it. Do it now.

Just two quick comments, one for the rest of the commissioners who are here, thank you, and also to the board. All the commissions that I'm on, and that's three, have been discussing the letter about appointments. And right as the meeting started, I noticed I had an email from the Sustainability Commission with another page of recommendations for things, because we met about it last week. And then to the board, Blake and I have a meeting with the city manager on an upcoming Friday to talk about that.

What's the issue about the appointments? What's the issue? Oh, by having a holiday gathering. Well, not yet. I'm with you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate all the work you guys do. All right. Mr. Starlings and Ms. Sheridan.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the city board. As part of our ongoing stewardship of the city's medical insurance plan, we're taking a clear look at the funding options available to us. We've asked JTS, our benefit strategy consultant, to provide a straightforward overview of how each funding model works and what it would mean financially for the city. This is an informational session to prepare us for the decisions that are ahead of us in the weeks ahead. With that context, I'll introduce JTS to walk us through the funding options and how each supports responsible cost management. We welcome your questions. Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much. My name is John Starling and I've got Charles Angel with here with me to start our presentation. The idea was just to have a basic, very high level educational on how self-funded insurance works, the pros and the cons to it. So we can have an open communication. We ask for questions. But the timing of this is even more relevant when we look at the current status of health care, health insurance, and as specifically as it applies to our program. So I'm gonna let Charles take it from there.

Thank you, John. Again, the intention tonight is to be purely educational, and we don't want to take too much of your time. We just want to make sure that you guys are seeing everything that we're seeing, because in conjunction with your Human Resources Department, we have been monitoring claims throughout the course of the year. And as we started to notice some really ugly trends in April and May of this year, we started to really try to dive down and find what we could do to potentially bring you all solutions as you entered into your budget period. So just to give you a little historical background, we took over as the consultant in May of 2021. As you fast forwarded through those next four years into 2024, we were able to save the city $5.4 million in premiums without affecting your employees' benefits at all. So one thing at JTS, we're not going to come to you and say, oh, look, we got a savings because we pulled your employees' deductible from $1,000 to $6,000. That's not a savings. That's a cost shift onto your employees. So we left the plan designs the same, the same copays, the same deductibles, the same coinsurance amount. But we're still able to save that $5.4 million. by pulling some other levers. I want to be very candid with you tonight. We feel like we've probably pulled about all the levers we can on the fully insured side. Again, I would defer to John, but the last couple of years have started the trend a little more in the wrong direction. We have gotten rate increases over the last two years. Thankfully, those have not chewed up the full reserve that we'd built of that $5.4 million. But as we look at where we are now, I just want to give you some high level numbers. Over the last 12 months, we're running 142% loss ratio. So just a very high level way to look at that. For every dollar we send in in premium, Cigna is spending $1.42 to pay our claims. And the trend is getting worse. So if we look at the last six months, it's 150% loss ratio. So same math, just for every dollar we send in, $1.50 gets spent. So with that being said, just to give you a very direct look at where we are, the first numbers that we're seeing as a renewal this year have come in at a 35% increase. That is an incredibly high number. Knowing that, we knew the budgetary implications for this board would be very important, so we wanted to get in front of you as quickly as possible. It's only six months of data, but given the fact that we're trending up, I think we really need to prepare for some different ways to potentially mitigate that and see if we can work those costs back down. I'll pause for questions momentarily, but a few options that we think we can look at would be carving out our pharmacy and our specialty drugs. You guys, if you watch television, you see there's many advertisements out there for a drug. If you know the name of it, it's probably very expensive. So there are some ways we can carve those things out and deliver some more savings there. Benefit and plan design changes. We try to avoid these things, but at some point, if the finances get too far the wrong direction, sometimes we have to add additional options to give employees some more choices and rate those things accordingly. Eligibility restrictions can come into play. There's guardrails that we can use. Direct contracting with facilities and with doctors, as well as narrow networks. These things can really help drive employees to centers of excellence, which can get them better results, as well as a lower cost for the plan. There's also a clinic strategy that we're already implementing together with Human Resources. We've looked at the Samaritan Fund and additional carriers that JTS has the exclusive right to broker. So we don't want to come and just scare you tonight, but we want you to understand the financial reality of where we are and that we may need to look at some different funding options as we move forward.

And I think the relevance to this is the timing is such that these options that we just laid out, most of them are not available as a fully insured plan. for us to be able to activate or look at any of these options to try to contain some of these costs and or mitigate these costs, we really need to be on a partially self-funded basis. And I know that is a scary word, but there are ways to where we can capitate our risk. If we're looking at a rate increase of this magnitude, we have to consider every single option. And that is what we intend to do. Are there any questions before we move on with the educational?

Let's just keep going to finish the presentation. Perfect.

Thank you, Mayor. So fully insured is where we are currently, where we've been. I'll be quite candid. Fully insured is kind of the easy button, right? Everything is packaged into one area. You still have all the pieces that you would have in any other option. You still have a third party administrator. You still have a network. There's still stop loss baked into that. It's just all put into one package. The premium is the premium. You know exactly what you're going to pay every month, depending on eligibility. And the risk is on the carrier. But as we've seen, sometimes when everything is prepackaged and easy, sometimes that's the most expensive option as well. And to John's point, we don't have any options when we get delivered a fully insured plan. The formulary is the formulary. The network is the network. We can't unbundle any of those things and put in a narrow network or carve out our pharmacy. It's just not allowed. That's not the way fully insured works. So that's where we have been. There's some upside to fully insured. Again, it's easy to budget for. You know exactly what you're going to spend based on eligibility. The downside is you can't customize anything basically with fully insured besides what your deductible is and what your co-pays might be. Second option you'll see up there is level funded. It's kind of training wheels, if you will, as we move towards a self-funded option. Really, it looks and feels very much like a fully insured plan. The premium is still the premium. It's technically on a self-funded chassis, but they still give you a direct premium based on enrollment each month, and that's what you pay. It has all those components as well, but you can potentially keep some surplus if you have a good year. We haven't seen a surplus in a couple of years, and I'll be candid with you on the level funded options. Traditionally, they put more into the admin costs than they do the claims bucket. So it's difficult, I would say, to see any kind of a surplus on a level funded plan. But it is possible. The big thing on that there is the on the excuse me on the level funded portion, though, is you also cannot carve out your stop your pardon me. You cannot carve out your PBM. You cannot change your network. You still cannot customize your plan. So level-funded doesn't give you a whole lot more functionality than fully insured. The last two options are self-funded, where you're completely bundled with a carrier. So you would use a Cigna, a Blue Cross, a UnitedHealthcare. You'd use their network, their third-party administrator, their stop-loss potentially, their pharmacy benefit manager. The risk now starts to move a little bit towards the city. You still have that stop loss in place so you can manage that risk and keep it where you can easily budget for it. But now this is where you can start to receive some of those rebates back on your pharmacy. And those numbers can be staggering. We will get into that. But then really, if you get into the unbundled, self-funded, this is where we feel like you can realize the majority of your potential savings, because that's where you can get into the other functions like a narrow network, like direct contracting. You can carve out those specialty drugs on option three or four. But specialty drugs tend to be a large percentage, 40 or 50 percent of our pharmacy spend with only one percent of our population on a specialty drug. If that gives you any idea what the price points on those end up being. So this just kind of gives you a little side-by-side view at the pros and the cons. So if you'll see the fully insured and the level funded, that's what I was talking about there where the city just pays a fixed amount. It's pretty easy. We get a bill. We look at it. We say we have X amount of employees on employee only, Y amount on family. We pay the bill. That's with fully insured or level funded. On the self-funded side, Everything is kind of unbundled. So we pay the administration fees. That's our third party administrator that actually pays the claims for us. Our stop loss premiums again, so we can mitigate that risk and then actual claims. I'll tell you, if you're on a self funded plan the first month, you won't pay very much in medical claims because the hospitals don't have them in yet. So you'll see it kind of catches up later, but you pay those actual claims. So you have to kind of budget for those ebbs and flows on claims because they will change. You're also paying your own there. So you look who pays it. That's actually the carrier. So that can be a good or a bad thing. If you have a bad year, you can pay more in claims. You have a good year, you're paying out less. You would keep that savings. Do we know year over year if we're going to have a good year or a bad year? We do not. But again, we want to go back to the stop loss to really help us mitigate any true risk there. So that's where you get into the claims data. And I personally think, and I'll defer to John on this, but I believe that getting your claims data is how we can truly strategize and customize your plan to pull some of these things back that have been happening. Because right now, we get very limited claims data. A couple times a year, we get a look at simple claims versus premium, maybe some large claimants, but we don't really know what's driving it at a timely fashion at all. but if you are self-funded you are going to have full monthly detail every month to see exactly what's going on on our health plan so we can see which strategies we need to use to customize your plan in order to mitigate those costs so i mean and

to that point that those claims are detailed to the point that we actually have software that we can plug it in that predicts the outcomes based off the utilization of what that person may have in the future and how it would impact us, how we need to change our plan designs, benefits, whatever we need to do. but more importantly, knowing what we have coming so that we can prepare for it. As a self-funded plan, stop loss covers that unexpected large claimant so that we can capitate our risk. But that's for the 12 months moving forward. After that, we have to prepare what's coming for the next iteration, the next year and the next year. So having that specific data allows us to really try to understand what is driving our claims. At a fully insured level, while Cigna gives us very good data, It is nowhere close to what we can get on a self-funded basis.

I'd like to point out that's not a Cigna issue there. No fully insured carrier gives proprietary data. They give somewhere around what state mandates they give to us. The beauty of being self-funded is it's no longer proprietary data for the carrier. That's our data as the City of Little Rock because we're paying those claims. So that's really what allows us to get there. So you see the typical fits on fully insured. That can be for any size group. Traditionally, you'll see that under 200 on the fully insured side. Level funded, 50 to 250 employees start to sneak into that. Most of your employers that are 200 to 300 employees and up, though, really start to consider self-funded because at some point these rate hikes, like I think we will quite possibly be looking at for 2027. Just get to a point where you can't replicate that year over year. It's no, it's just becomes cost prohibitive.

Do you want to get this? Go ahead. Okay.

So the recommended next steps, proposals have come in. We're starting to review those now on this on the self funded side. They're not firm because the carriers will all want full data through August before we can firm that up and know really what the liability is on that. As I told you, it looks like our renewal on the fully insured side is coming in around 35%, which obviously we want to find something lower than that and continue to negotiate that. We'll be scoring those responses in the next three weeks. We'll also do the negotiations there because as this board has seen before, just because something is the first shot in doesn't mean it's what the carrier is going to finalize with. There's usually some room in there that we can we can get them to come down. And we have been quite successful the last couple of years getting Cigna to come down quite a lot. Number three is to really project worst case scenario for you all as you go into the budget session and let you know what the city's claims history is. Again, the software John spoke about to look at the trends that we see out there and the pharmaceuticals and see where we can shave some of that to let you guys know exactly what you'd be looking at on the budget. And number four would be your board recommendation to you all. Say, listen, we believe these are the finalists, and we believe these are the two or three options that would look the best, give you the total potential cost there, worst case and best case, and you all would make a decision.

And I think one thing that is important to note is this. We are not saying that you need to be self-funded. We are not saying that you need to be fully insured. What we're saying is we want to explore everything because we need to at this point. And what we are our job is to go back and find every possible solution that's out there, whatever it may be. It may be easy. It may be hard. It doesn't matter. We need to do that to present that to you so that you can make an informed decision on what is the best for the city. And we're trying to do that as timely as we can. It is August the 11th and we already have a renewal back. That is that is about as good as we've ever gotten. So that does give us a little bit of time to try to figure out what we really need to look at. But it also gives time to make these considerations for budget, because at this point, when we are running at one hundred and fifty percent claims to premium, then a thirty five percent renewal is not a terrible renewal on a fully insured side. I would just be honest with you, but that is not sustainable. for the city either. So, do we have any questions?

Thank you so much. We'll start with Director Capiris.

Thank you, Charles. You did a great job. You're very good at explaining that. Just put numbers on 150 percent. What are we in the red on for the first six months? How many dollars are we in the red?

If we did, we did projections, assuming that we considered at the same rate, acknowledging that most people that are in this in the large climate area have hit their deductible. So now we're picking up 100 percent. We're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of six to nine million dollars. That's for half a year. That's for the whole year. So I'm sorry. OK. Yeah. So three to four million dollars is what we're as a shortfall at a minimum right now. Now, I will point to this, and this was not our intent to come in and talk to you all about the health, but at the same time, we need to make sure that you all understand where we are and what we're trying to work with. Our pharmacy has increased by 50%, 45% this year. It increased by 40% last year. When we took over, It was $3 million in change on the pharmacy spend alone. It is now somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million at the end of 12 months. That is unsustainable, but that is not something that we have any control over as a fully insured plan. If we go to the self-funded side on that, what we typically see is somewhere in the neighborhood of a 30% savings. on the pharmacy alone. That's probably on the low end. But that's $3 million of this possible $6 to $9 million increase that we're looking at. It's worth, like I said, it's not easy. But at the same time, desperate times, difficult times, man, we have to look at all these things.

The second question is, and I've got a series of questions, but the second one is how many employees do we have that are insured by the city?

Right around 2000? 2200, excuse me.

And how many claimants of that 2200 are making up the bulk of that six to nine million dollars? I think people need to understand that it doesn't take many.

So I will tell you that there are, if I remember looking at it correctly, there are six claimants over $500,000. largest claimant being at $2.1 million at today's date. Another claimant is closing in on the $2 million. Of that, I believe there's somewhere around probably, I'm going to say, 75 to 90 large claimants, which would be claimants over $10,000. So if you look at that, the total spend on our large claimants, do we have those numbers? I thought we had them.

Bear with me.

And we have some information that we can obviously hand out on claims.

Well, my point is that it doesn't take many claims out of 2,200 to get us to this number.

Our top five claimants equate to around $3.5 to $4 million. Excuse me, they're topping $5 to $6 million. And two years ago, our ratio was...

To the good to us, right? Correct. So basically what's happened since you've taken over is we've gone like this and now we're back up.

When you look at it, the curve, we started out at about, I believe, $18 million. We got it down to $14.5 million. And in the last two years, we have trended back up to roughly $200,000 over the $18 million that we were at.

So another question, as we are considering self-funded, how much money does Nick need to have in the bank for us to do that?

I wish it was that easy.

I mean, I live in this world and you do too, but no one else does but me. So they need to understand just an idea of what numbers we're talking about.

So let's put it in perspective of what we know. If we have an offer of 35% and that looks like about a $9 million increase. So we know that there's $9 million right there. If we made no changes and we got no better offers, that's a budget number in and of itself. If we think that we could cut the pharmacy by going self-funded out and we could save somewhere between three and six million dollars, which is realistic, that gets that number back down. The downside to that is we do have five very large, large claimants. When you go self-funded, there's a negotiation with the stop loss carriers to where we're going to have to pick up some of that. And so It's a I don't have the crystal ball in front of me. We will not have finalized stop loss rates, probably about 120 best, probably 90 days out, which puts us in a little bit of a time crunch. Not a little bit, a lot. But this happens every year. We go through the same conversation every year. It's like, I wish I think you and I talked probably three years ago. I wish we would have gone self-funded three years ago. But you know what it is. I wish, I wish. But the reality is we're now on the upslope. And I know y'all see the paper. Y'all see the news. This isn't just us. The state's underfunded by $30 million or at least something to that effect that I saw. We're about to possibly lose Medicaid, expanded Medicaid coverage for 200,000. I'm not making a political statement. But if those 200,000 don't have care paid for or covered, they become uncompensated care. Our hospitals are dying as it is right now, which means that we as employers are going to subsidize all that, which means our cost goes up. It's the environment we're in. I wish I had a beautiful answer or a great answer to all this.

But it would require us having to put away a certain amount of money that you will tell us at some time, and it's probably a two-figure number.

Yes. Okay. I would agree. To fund this appropriately. I'm sorry.

He was talking about the first two. I track with it.

Yeah, I mean, you look at it as we're going to put back nine million or six, seven million or somewhere in that range if we stay fully insured.

John, just one second. Nick, if you'll come up, please. Let's just be easier for the board members to make sure everyone is aware. I just want you to state certain it's like you're in court. What's our current health care budget?

I want a lot of explanations.

What's our current health care budget? You handle it.

Well, right now, we are, I'm sorry, I'm Jenny Bradford.

I'm the benefits and risk manager.

Right now, we are on track to be at about $18.5 million for our premium.

I understand that. What was in the budget that we passed in 25, 426? That's another thing, too.

Yeah, I was going to say, it was right at $18 million.

All right. Thank you. That's it. So board members, what they're sharing with you is we're going to be over budget, number one. Let's be clear, which is not uncommon. That's the reason why we have cash flow. That's the reason why we have budget amendments. And we have a very good health insurance, clearly, because a lot of our members use it. As we shared and what we're really talking about, 10 to 15 percent of our workforce is really making up most of these claimants, which is the reason why we have to be focused on prevention, which is the reason why Sheridan Jenny advocated for this health clinic that will be going inside the 12th Street substation here. Hopefully they'll open pretty soon along with what's going on with the fire department and police department, what they utilize with protein. on Murray Street. So we're going to be over budget, which we generally always are because you can't project an illness and what kind of illness you're going to have. What we have to understand and would direct the comparison will often tell you and everyone's right, we've been talking about going self funded for several years. The only reason why we've never done it, even though we may have wished to have done it, is because during the climate it was cheaper from a budgetary standpoint to go fully insured. And we were looking at the amount of money we would have to put into reserves. And that's really the kicker. You got to have the reserves because you're going to have an employee or an employee that could cost you three to four million dollars. And you just got to take into that. So it's not a gamble, but you got to take an educated guess. And right now, if we're already projecting 35%, John is correct. It's not sustainable. We could probably do it, but sooner or later, it's going to burst in our face. If we don't, if we don't do the self-funded, I think this is probably the best time. I think director computers would agree clearly. We want to look at every option available. But essentially, it's a little bit more than $18 million and 30% of $18 million. We're looking somewhere around $22, $23, maybe $24, $25 million for the next budget, which then cuts into other things that we have to fund for this city. So just thinking in that context. And so the city manager, myself, and Sheridan and Jenny What we're going to grapple with is, do we take the educated guess now to move forward with self-funded? But even with that, let's just say self-funded, we can probably slice and dice with the pharmacy, which I think will be very helpful. But we still got to understand, we still got to put away at least $10 to $15 million in reserves. And that's also an educated guess and gamble. No matter what we do, we've got to cut some large checks.

And let me just say, I'm not casting any aspersions. I voted for every one of these things and every time we got ready to go self-funded, they came back with a rate that we just could not do. And I agreed every time we did it. You know, everything—think of all the money you could have made if you'd done the stock when you wanted to do it and you didn't do it. But it's just a fact. A couple more questions. You mentioned that there's some people that you deal with that no one else deals with that we might be able to talk to. Who is that?

I'm sorry, what was the question?

Charles said that there's some people that you all have access to that no one else has access to that we might look at for the insurance.

So we have the ability to quote with the Arkansas Municipal League.

So that would be an option too?

It is, and we've worked with the Municipal League over the last several years, and we know that there may have been some impacts.

And then the last one is something that we have always said we wouldn't do, but I agree with the Mayor. If you say we have $10 million extra or $7 million extra we're going to have to budget, is that about what you're saying?

10 to 15, that's it.

A lot of money.

Yes.

I hate to bring this up, but are you going to start looking at the hard choices of dependents, how we take care of that? I mean, we're in a place right now where we have, to me, we have money coming in, we've got more money coming in if I look at what Nick tells me each month. If we can get a little bit more concise, 74 pages the other night was a little much to read, but it was good. We're going to have to start making some hard choices. So are we going to at least talk about the option of dependence and other things like that on how to keep this manageable?

Absolutely. We're going to look at every option that's out there, present it to the board, and then let you all decide on what makes sense.

And while we will look, I don't want our team members who are watching this very closely right now, we're going to maintain a top tier insurance package. I want to be very clear. there are other things to be cut before we start cutting things that impact our team. I want to be clear on that.

Absolutely. And I agree with you. But I think we just need to at least hear all the options so people understand what you're doing to fully vet this problem. Because that's a $10 million out of our budget all of a sudden is going to be a lot of money. And if we've lost, if our ratio is is going to lead to $8 or $9 million by the end of the year in a negative. 30% renewal rate would be a pretty good renewal rate, in all honesty.

In addition, I'm saying this now, and it's already recorded in union language. I mean, if we got to cut a certain amount of checks that impacts our budget, board members and union members will be calling. I'm letting you know now. At the end of the day, we got to take care of health insurance for our employees. We may have to revisit union agreements, not necessarily. We're not going to take anything away. It's just things we've grown accustomed to. As we move forward, we may not be able to do because we got to pay for health insurance. So just as they call you, if we happen to make any decisions that impacts that, that's what you call economic. What's the it's a language in the contract that gives that ability that we can revisit revisit may mean We just don't do certain things we've done in the past that we would do in the future. Be very clear that everyone needs to understand that when you get those phone calls, because we've got to take care of the health insurance for every employee. But again, nothing's happened. That's right. We're just starting this early. We're just starting early. It's not November. We're good.

So Mayor Scott, I'd like to point out exactly what you said, that all we're doing is looking under every rock. We're not recommending any funding mechanism, any carriers. I know Municipally can be scary. Self-funded can be scary. We just want to look at everything and see what's there. Things have changed with self-funding over the last decade. Things have changed with Municipally over the last decade. So we just want to make sure we're looking at everything, showing this board all the options that are available, and you all will make a decision at that point. Again, I agree with you totally, Mayor Scott. I grew up in a public sector household. My father was the human resources director at City of Fort Smith, and he retired from the state of Arkansas. So I understand what that means. We must keep benefits strong for our employees. That's why I'm proud of the fact that when we came in, we were able to generate those savings without cutting any benefits for employees.

Well, and the last thing, are you going to look at a closed panel as a way of saving money?

And when you say a closed panel, a narrow network?

Yes.

Absolutely. We're going to look at every option, and then it's for you all to decide whether the savings are worth.

And lastly, I want to thank the mayor and you all for coming in earlier and talking about this. I'd rather talk about it in the heat of the summer and know what the options are so when they come up, everybody isn't surprised when November comes along.

So thank you.

Thank you all. Thank you.

Director Phillips? Then Director Hines.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to Director Comperes because a couple of my questions he addressed. I do want to follow up something that was just said to make sure I understand it. The narrow network. I know we're just talking options. Yes. No decisions. I understand that very clearly, Mayor. But if we did the narrow network, that would change the benefits to the employees, right? Because then they would have different their provider may not be in that network. Am I understand that correctly? Correct.

You can you can you can when network has different components to it, one component would be narrowing the network of providers so that it would steer more of our insurance to those providers, which would cause them typically to lower their rates. But that would mean that there would be other providers that may not have access to insurance, which would then deny those insurance access to whom they want to go to. That's just one way on the network. The other part of it would be direct contracting. with certain facilities and providers to get a better rate than maybe we were getting with our current network or the network of any whatever network provider we went with.

So the coverage would stay the same, but we would use a narrow network to get better rates. So instead of going to Dr. Joe, you go to Dr. John and you still get the same level of coverage.

Correct. And you could and you could we've done it before where you could tear out Providers to where this is a tier one provider. We know that this is a Lower copay for the employees than they currently have or the same copay But if they choose to go to someone else that is not a centers of excellence or is not in our network Then they would pay a higher copay so it would create steerage toward a certain provider facility, but we have no That's just an option. We're going to present we would obviously look at all the different providers and and facilities, and it would be up to you all to see whether or not that was worth. That was worth the inconvenience it might cost to some of our insurance.

Yeah, understood. And I share the mayor's position that we got to keep. It the same for our employees, so we understand we got to look at every option, but that's definitely where my heart is at this point. Second question, as it relates to the stop loss under the fully, I mean, the self insured. Can you give an example of what that number would be and how that would play out so we can understand it from a conceptual standpoint?

So the so the way that Jennifer, if you want to talk about that, because typically what the stop loss is in on a per employee per month basis. So they charge for every employee, every member that's on the plan. So it may be five dollars and twenty eight cents per member. And then the family gets a separate per employee per month fee. The reason that we like self-funded is because all of this is out in front of us. We know exactly what the administrative costs are for every single provider. And you really can dig down and find out who is truly the lowest cost and how can we get it to the bottom. But if you want to talk about that.

It would cap your risk, though, is that the question you were asking? Yes. Yes. It would just mean, it would depend on what we set it at. So you probably start looking at like $250,000 for a claim.

then anything over that amount the reinsurance carrier would reimburse the city for if the member went over that amount and i'm assuming it's kind of inverse effect if you go higher on the stop laws that fixed costs are lower yeah that's correct so we'll look at a wide range just to see what makes the most sense okay understood just like our my personal insurance with my deductible if i want a higher deductible then i pay more vice versa right it's all numbers yeah that's it and that's once you once you get all the numbers in front of you becomes clear

At what point does that specific deductible, that that reinsurance, at what point does it make the most sense based off of all the results that we've had in the past? So that specific is per individual and then the aggregate is over everything so that we can actually come back to the city and say, if we have the absolute worst case that we could ever have, here is our biggest risk. And that's where you would have the money sitting in reserve. for that occurrence.

And when we get to the budget season, y'all will be able to, I know you said it's going to be a tight window, but you'll be able to present that number and the corresponding reserve amount to us so we can make that decision, correct? Correct. Okay. Correct.

And then once you're fully, the biggest opportunity, especially with the way our pharmacy is trending, is the pharmacy space. That's the biggest opportunity for the largest amount of savings that would have very little, if any, impact on our employees. That's why I say the pharmacy side of it is the easy button for the employees and for us. And then these other different levers that we have are just for you all to look at, look at the impact, and then look at the savings and see what makes sense.

And again, for clarity, easy button under the self-insured umbrella only under the self-insured that's right okay and my last question i know that we said that the potential rate increase is 35 percent uh i know that we're early on and their first offer isn't their best offer and i understand if we look like we're going self-insured their best offer may not be their best offer i i get all that but do you have any concept of what the difference is for us if we were going to have a 35% increase staying fully insured. Um,

what the savings would be for next year if we went self-insured is there any way to think about that in big picture so part of the problem that we run into on the fully insured side is actually being able to have visibility to the very specific data because on a self-funded side we can actually pull the data and we can actually predict and we can price and we can take it to stop loss we know exactly right what it would be they will reprice everything at different at the different carrier levels where they will tell us exactly what they would save us at fully insured because the data is not that specific it's hard for us to get it down to a very detailed number so what we're going to come back with more than likely is here's your fully insured option here are all the competitive options we need competitive rates below the current renewal to be able to nobody's going to move down without something that's better and so that's why we're looking at all the different options that are out there

going to show you what that renewal is and what that means to the city and then we're going to show you what the corresponding line is between the worst case scenario and the best case scenario if we're self-funded and that's what i was getting i just want to make sure that we'll have the opportunity to say if we go this way this way is x million more dollars if we go this way is y million more dollars and that way we can make the decision in those terms as well.

One hundred percent. That's the only way that you can make up. Yeah.

And that's why I just want to be clear on that. Yes, sir. I appreciate the presentation. That's all I had, Mayor. Thank you.

Director Hines and then Director Lewis.

John, thanks. Thanks, guys, for that presentation. So just to kind of simplify it, we're already going to spend we already spent a nineteen and a half million dollars this year on our insurance premiums, correct? That's correct. Yes. So everything was flat. We're going to spend that 19 million, which goes into a fund to pay our claims. So what we got to calculate is what our reinsurance over and above that is and what the reserves we need are. So correct. All right. And then that that number could be somewhere between. Ten to 20 million, depending on what we do, but at the end of the day, after we get through one year, we have our data. That's it. We have an opportunity to improve, which is we've never had, and that's kind of the Everything we've talked about data centers, data is king. That's why you see people giving away free software. They want your data. I deal with it in my business. If somebody is giving you something for free and involves a computer or your data, you're not getting it for free. Absolutely. You're probably giving up a greater asset than than what you realize. So I appreciate that. And it doesn't coming from companies that have been self-insured and doing that, will we also potentially look at high deductible HSA as an option?

Absolutely.

Okay. And I speak from one experience, the company I'm with, we've been on one for gosh, going on eight or nine years now. And when we studied it, in all cases, when we went to the high deductible plan, we looked at what our old plan was, what a different style plan would be. And in all cases, the high deductible plan actually was better for not only for the employee cost wise, but for the company because it shifted more of a cash pay type deal. But we were also able to fund seed money into the H. We still get seed money into our HSA every year to to compensate for that. There was a big enough delta on the savings that we were able to compensate.

And that's and we looked if we looked on the H.S. on the HDP side, we would definitely have to consider because that that seed money is is what does make that plan work. But for one thing is for us to stand up here and say, if we go self-funded, don't worry, the claims are going to be reduced and that's we can't do that. But we're just telling you that the only way that we're going to be able to control what is going out of control is if we move self-funded.

Director Lewis.

Yes. My question is coming from the employee perspective, how does this benefit them? Well, is it too early to tell if they're going to be paying more in insurance costs, or would they be paying less, or do we?

I'll answer that. We've made the commitment that our employees don't pay unless you have a family portion, but a single employee does not pay insurance, not when they have a family member. They pay a little bit, but we're committed to that.

Got it. So currently, compared to what they're paying now, if we go self-funded, are they looking at a possible increase, or would it stay

It'll stay the same as right now. But again, the question is not really because we're committed that our single employee. Now, if you have a family, you pay a little bit, but we're committed that the vast majority of employees won't pay anything. That's been what they've been accustomed to since the history and inception of this city. We are a government entity. We're not the private sector. So you want to have benefits that the reason why they choose to come here and I choose to come here because of salaries. Uh, and so that being said, we will be committed to that again as I again, even though it's August. But when we come back later in November, December, uh, the real question is going to be with the city board. Uh, one because this makes up, you know, 2025% of our budget. Um, if we go self funded, we still gotta find a carrot that's 10 to $15 million that we don't normally spend and we we can figure it out. But if we do that, that means we can't do certain things that we've normally done. I gave an example of union agreements. We don't have union agreement. Good thing is we don't have union agreements before us this year anyway. Um, grateful for that. But in 27, there may be certain things we can't do, because we spent 10 or $15 million this year anticipation of that. And so when you get the phone calls, that's one of those when you know, you're gonna have to listen to the people. But we make we're making a decision for the greater good in the big picture of 2200 people, all of which aren't a part of the union as well, from that standpoint, and it's in the inverse of that it let's just say because I won't be surprised if the fully insured carriers who don't want to let go of their data and things of that nature, if they want to keep us, that that 35% ends up being 15%. And it's still an increase. And we just got to make a decision. Do we want to go self-insured? Now, I will say the last few years, it was what we were faced and the money we were dealing with. We were in middle union agreements and giving raises. we couldn't turn down that discount. We may be in a situation where we can this year, but if we turn down the discount, that means we have to turn something else down in the future.

And Ms. Lewis, to answer additionally on the benefit side, there would be really no difference that the employee would recognize from the benefits. If we were Cigna fully insured or Cigna self-funded, they would know no difference. In fact, a lot of times with the self-funded, it allows us to reach out and get into programs to where we can mitigate or erase the out-of-pocket costs for the high claimant employees that are already suffering in the situation that they are going through. If we could do it to mitigate it to where they didn't have that out-of-pocket burden that they currently do, we can do that a lot. It just gives us the flexibility to where we could help those employees.

That's good to know.

Thank you.

Director Webb, then Director Phillips again.

Thanks, Mayor Scott. And just one clarification and then one question on the page where it says side by side at the bottom, it says that the city is well above the size for self-funding is normally considered. Yet.

Yes.

Yet we have to consider that. So what is that cutoff where that normally would not be considered and why is it? Why is there like a cutoff?

so so typically the the fixed cost so if you had the the smaller the group there's a certain there's a certain amount of fixed cost that are that are that they have to receive on a group the smaller the group those fixed costs go up to where it doesn't make sense BECAUSE YOU'D BE PAYING A LOT LESS ON THE FIXED COST BUILT INTO A FULLY INSURED PLAN THAN YOU DO ON THE SELF-FUNDED PLAN. THE LARGER I GET, THE MORE SCALE I GET. AND SO ONCE I HIT 200 TO 250, IT USED TO BE 500. WE HAVE SELF-FUNDED GROUPS BELOW 100 EVEN AT THIS POINT. BUT IT'S THE SCALE THAT YOU GET ON THOSE FIXED COST IS THE BIGGEST. AND ON TOP OF THAT, THE CARRIERS ARE NOW MORE READILY AVAILABLE. THEY'RE READY TO ACCEPT A SMALLER GROUP ON THE SELF-FUNDED SIDE. Thank you. Yes.

And one clarification at the beginning, or if you could repeat this. At the beginning you said something about the drugs like that we see on TV that we now know the names of a bunch of drugs frankly I never heard of maybe three years ago, and now I know the names of a whole bunch of those drugs. Could you repeat what you said about that?

Yes, ma'am. So I'd like to actually, what I said was we're getting more and more brand and specialty medications out there. And so if you know the name of a drug, it is almost certainly expensive, especially if you learned it from television. So the cost has gone up, but I would like to give you an example of that if you don't mind, Director Webb. So for decades, the tip of the spear for a physician for treating type 2 diabetes would be metformin. This is a very inexpensive drug. You could probably get this for $4 right now at Walmart. That's generic. Recently, over the last several years, we've come up with these GLP-1 drugs or we've improved these GLP-1 drugs. Your Ozempic, your Manjaro. They are quite a bit more effective normally for a type 2 diabetic helping with weight loss and other things. But they're a little over $1,000 a month. So we've come up with a better medication. but we've traded a $4 generic for $1,000 a month injectable. So we want to continue to give that kind of treatment to employees, but we also understand that the cost goes up with that with a new drug under patent protection. If we had a fix for that, it would be in D.C. instead of Little Rock, but that's kind of what's happened, if that makes sense.

I would tell you that our claims, when you look at the large claims, on these specialty drugs that we're referring to, typically $5,000 above per month per for the drug so you start adding it up then you get when you see orphan drugs drugs that they don't produce anymore that they have to specialize bring it in those drugs can run anywhere up to two million dollars to three million dollars a year you can't plan on this nobody can plan on this and so what can we do to try to mitigate that and that's where we go in and you're self-funded and i can actually take those drugs and move them over to where we get them paid for for the employees, but it doesn't hit us at the same level it does. Because the true cost of this drug that we pay from an insurance standpoint does not always mean that's the true cost of the drug. There's a lot of middlemen in the middle that are receiving payments in there. So on the fully insured side, you look at it, rebates probably make up, I don't know, 10 to 20%, those are going back to the fully insured carrier and the PBM, the pharmacy benefit manager. When you're self-funded, we get those. The city gets those rebates. And so that's why I say what it does is, and the word always scares me when people say it, but full transparency. We see exactly what we're paying for. We know what we're getting.

That was very helpful. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Director Fields then Director Miller.

Thank you, Mayor. Sorry, I have one more follow-up. I just want to be clear on this. I know that after one year of being self-insured, we have our data, then you can make better decisions going forward. So in your experience, do people ever, people, organizations ever go self-insured back to fully insured because the market shows that way or is this one of those things that once you do it, you're kind of there and it only makes sense to keep going because now you have the data and the transparency to make different decisions going forward.

And I would tell you that 80% of the time, they never go back. The 20% probably that may go back and forth is usually on that line of 100 to 250. Employees? That's right. And so they're really kind of not sure if they should be fully insured or self-funded. And the reality is, if I'm looking at a plan, And we've had a great run, self-funded. And then a fully insured carrier comes in and says, I'm going to take all this off your plate and save you 20%. The money still stays in the self-funded insured account. So that money is still going to be there. And we've had them go, they leave, they go fully insured.

then they get a better offer self-funded the next year they go right back and they've also got a they got a savings yeah it's already there and and it's a one-year deal right we we evaluate these year-over-year so it's not like if we say yes we're saying yes to 2035 or something absolutely okay all right thank you for that thank you mayor thanks again for the presentation was helpful thank you director miller thank you for being patient no thank you mayor i appreciate it then thank you guys for this presentation i don't live in this world

So the director of computers was saying he lives in this. I think I understand how you save money at the pharmacy, generics versus all the rest of the stuff. That's what we're talking about here primarily. That's one of the ways. The biggest is going to be brand and specialty is where we're going to save money. Okay. So I kind of understand that. Do you guys use artificial intelligence to come up with these presentations? mean i'm a lay person i think i could i could use ai and ask the benefits of all these i can have some tremendous questions for you next time you come here by using ai so you guys use ai for this stuff we we do use ai okay so we use ai more administratively in our in our offices with the things that we do from a technology standpoint payroll but also from a marketing standpoint ai is

It's hard to beat. As an attorney, though, I'm not going to rely on AI to make decisions for me, or I'm going to research and make sure that everything that we're looking at is going to be exactly what we say it is.

Well, I won't use it to make decisions, but I think if I said, show me the difference between fully level and self-funded and tell AI to come up with it, I could probably come up with a lot of questions for you, couldn't I? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor. My pleasure. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you.

Thank you.

All right, members of the board, if you looked at the agenda, any questions on the consent agenda or the modification? Director Phillips.

I just wanted to give a shout out to, I guess you mayor and the city manager and the public works team. I know when we had our winter events, all of us was getting emails about why, why don't we have more snow plows and salt to deal with those issues. And it looks like we're being proactive and getting those things stocked up, um, and getting newer and better equipment in, in. um, online for us. So I know that's helpful to all of us as board members and more important to our citizens. So I just wanted to say thank you for adding that to the agenda so we can improve it.

Our pleasure. Any questions? Any planning items? What's another planning items? I know direct adcock you, uh, you want number 14. Uh, can we show the pictures on number 14? Director Webb.

Thank you. Do you want me to go ahead? Because mine's on a different item.

Is it on items that are on the agenda?

It's on 12.

Yes.

And Brad, I apologize for not asking you this earlier in the day.

Yeah, no problem.

It's a question about the difference between R4 and R5. And I haven't had a chance to look at everything yet.

Sure.

What is the difference we expect in terms of number of people?

in what number are you talking about number 12 on item 12 uh from r4 to r5 on b street oh right so it is right now it is very dense it's uh it's a non-conforming use so what they're doing is they're changing it to to r5 which is urban uh residence district CAN BE NO MORE THAN 32 UNITS PER GROSS ACRE. SO THEY'RE JUST REZONING IT THAT WAY TO COME INTO COMPLIANCE. R5 IS ACROSS B STREET FROM THAT AS WELL. SO IT CONFORMS WITH THE ZONING AROUND THE AREA. NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU.

NEW SPEAKER DIRECTOR MILLER.

NEW SPEAKER THANKS, MAYOR. BRAD, LET ME ASK YOU, I HAD A CHANCE TO LOOK AT SOME OF THESE, BUT ON NUMBER 6, What's going on there? Number six, of course, number seven. Number six, we're revoking something we approved.

Sure. Yes, sir. This was this was rezoned back in 1990, I believe. So the underlying zoning is R4. So they just want to go back over time. It had been a plan development commercial, plan development office. So they just want to go back and use it as a two family residence. So they want to revoke the plan development, go back to its base zoning and use it for two family. Okay.

So we gave them this in 90 and they want it back?

Yes, sir. I believe it may have changed hands over time. And I think the house is probably more suited to residential.

Okay. Thanks. And on number seven, We got an existing triplex and they're going to.

This is a strange one, actually. 24, it was it was approved to be a triplex. They have decided that they want to take that away reconfigure it and make it into a duplex and then a single family residence so they're going to have to do some some work that they already put into it they're going to have to take out some put in some walls put in some fire rating and stuff for the duplex so same same number of units i guess but in a different configuration yeah seems a little strange but that's fine um i'm on a roll mayor so um

On number 10, what is that? I think we talked a little bit about it. I'm trying to figure out

Sure. This is a really cool project from the folks over at Arkansas Baptist College. We've been working with them, gosh, since maybe May on this. They got some funding that they need to spend before the end of the year. And so they want to put forward, they want to develop a workforce village, Booker T. Washington Workforce Village, actually.

I mean, that's just the name, Booker T. Washington. That's the name they get. Okay.

Yes, sir. So it's going to be like a trade school. So they'll have different trade areas on these different pods, like HVAC, plumbing, some of the mechanical trades. So it's just an expansion of their campus. You'll be able to access it from 17th Street with new parking, and then they're going to redo some of the parking along 16th as well.

As I've seen, this was sort of where the, used to be President's House, and it's right east of that, that area right there. Yes, sir. And there were no neighbors that raised any concerns about?

No, sir, not at all. I think they did. I think they went out. I mean, when we met with them, we told them at the beginning that they probably needed to go do some knocking on doors and some handshaking and let everyone know what they were doing. And I believe they did it. So we didn't have anyone come to the commission Speak against it. No, it's good.

All right. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor.

Those awarded more questions. Right back up.

Mayor, it looks like that all of these houses are in one ward, except one is in another ward. We have 359 boarded up houses in this city the last time I got a list. What are our plans? I mean, during 12, and this is the first time in several months that we've looked at these. At this rate, we're going to have houses boarded up years and years and years. And I know that that causes negative on our communities. So what can we do to do more of this?

And Director Adcock, I believe we do this almost monthly, not several months. I just want to make sure we're aware of that.

Yes. Good afternoon, Mayor, Board of Directors. Mayor is correct. Director Adcock, we do come before you all at least seven times a year to bring these ordinance demos to you all. We also conduct emergency demos, and we are also giving them to our land bank administrator to see if they can go into the land bank. We also have ongoing meetings with legal to talk about the foreclosure process to see if we can get that.

Okay, so how could a neighborhood that has several of these in their neighborhood How can they get these moving ahead further in their areas?

So we do it by nuisances. So if they see anything that is boarded and secured and they continue to see homeless people in there, squatters in there, they can reach out to myself, John Jenkins, who is the code enforcement manager, and then we'll ensure that it gets to you all for a vote.

Okay. I would like to say you've done this seven times this year.

Roughly. I don't have the exact number.

I would like to see a complete list of the ones that has been done this year.

Yes, ma'am. I'll get that to you.

And Mayor, do we know anything about the building on Asher that this board several months ago asked that we take it down and it's still up?

Which one?

The used to be Mike's Grocery.

Yes, I believe this. That's illegal. Uh, from a legal standpoint, I think they're going back and forth. My last understanding.

Okay.

If we could have an update because I get and I think just for anyone, it's we live in a property rights state that's very conservative for it's very hard to take someone's property away in the state of Arkansas. We just can't go as much as we want to. You just can't go bulldoze someone's house or heirs to the properties as well. And so I want to say to this team, I mean, let's get the actual number we've done, not only last year but this year, but they're churning it out. And the timing goes along with dealing with the legal aspects of it. I'll give a great example. You take the auto zone on Asher that we took down. It took a two and a half year to three year process just to get that done because of the back and forth on the legal end and state's property rights. Anyone tells you it can just happen overnight, they're not telling the truth. And so I just want to make sure it's very clear on that. But because we've got a great legal team who works very hard and for us to be doing it seven times a month and each time it's probably 10 to 15 each time, that's getting close to 100, if not 100, a year that we're doing. Is that right? All right.

Thank you.

But we need to do more. Any more questions? Other things. Yes. Before we adjourn. Yes, ma'am. We

a notice or what?

We do yard waste every day at the point that it gets to 105 heat index based off of our supervisor, not based off of if you look at your phone, it says 105. But based off of our supervisors, when they get the 105 index number that they have their system, they get pulled those are who are in yard waste get pulled in to then go help out with solid waste which is trash pickup so we do yard waste every day and we're going to always do yard waste every day and we actually on mandatory overtime and so they'll be working on saturday and sunday as well okay yeah thank you for clarifying and may let me ask you our cooling centers are open yes they open when the temp is as well as on the weekend And that's from 8 to 7. Any more questions, concerns? Meeting adjourned.