Looking to end the “silos” that make navigating the state’s bureaucratic maze of welfare and workforce programs overly challenging, consultants recommend that Arkansas create a cabinet-level agency to oversee food stamps, Medicaid and job training.
Consultants from Alliance for Opportunity, the Virginia-based consulting firm the state hired last year, told the Arkansas Legislative Council Hospital, Medicaid and Development Disabilities Subcommittee on Monday that the state needs to better integrate its social services and job training programs if Arkansas wants to become a more attractive destination for businesses.
The solution, the consultants said, is to consolidate the state’s various welfare and job training programs so they are administered by a single state agency, overseen by a cabinet-level official that would report to the governor.
The consultants explained Arkansas social assistance programs, which include food stamps and Medicare, are “siloed” from the state’s job training programs that help people get back to work.
The proposal calls for Arkansas to have a “one-door” system where federal and state employment and social services programs would be combined into “an integrated state workforce agency.”
Those services include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), to help connect people to open jobs, training and education.
The fact that the state is currently administering those programs under separate agencies means the state is losing “millions of dollars that could be redirected from administration to customer services for both business and worker populations,” according to a presentation from the consultants.
How exactly the plan would be implemented is unclear, but the consultants likened the proposal to a plan Utah made three-decades ago, where the state created one agency that administers food stamps, job training and assistance for needy families.
Mason Bishop, principal with WorkED Consulting, told the committee the state’s lack of “a comprehensive workforce system,” where those seeking public assistance could also get help with job training, means Arkansas lacks the ability to better address its low labor force participation rate — ranked 42nd in the nation — and attract more businesses.
Bishop said he and the other consultants working on the study reached such a conclusion after interviewing workers at the state’s various workforce and public assistance, who told them the connection between the two was “non-existent.”
Organizing the state’s workforce and public assistance programs into one agency “creates a culture of work around all of these programs,” Bishop said.
The consultants also recommended a single case management system that tracks those in the welfare system over the long-term and that the General Assembly pass legislation to designate Arkansas as a single state workforce area, which would do away with the system where job training and matching is done on a regional level within the state.
Leslie Ford, a senior fellow with Alliance for Opportunity, said some social services case workers told the consultants that when applicants have questions about childcare, housing or job services, they had to use Google to come up with answers.
Rachel Barkley, executive director of Alliance for Opportunity, said the disconnect between social and job services will only become more pronounced once new work requirements, which are part of the One Big Beautiful Bill that President Donald Trump signed into law in July, take effect.
She said once those new work requirements take effect, a person on Medicaid may not know where to go to find a job or workforce training.
“Where is that referral happening, how do they get connected to the workforce training?” Barkley said. “And if they don’t, then you run the risk of them just falling off the rolls if they don’t get a job.”
The report comes at the behest of Act 145, which the General Assembly passed in February, calling on the state to commission a study on how the state is allocating its dollars for workforce.
State Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville, co-chair of the subcommittee overseeing the report, said when the consultants submit the final version of their study, it will likely serve as the basis of legislation when lawmakers meet for the next regular session in 2027.
“It gives us a good path forward,” Bentley said after the meeting, adding that the current system means “people have been trapped in poverty forever in our state.”
Article reposted from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Photo credit: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette / Staci Vandagriff.