Uncategorized – Arkansas Nonprofit News Network
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Uncategorized – Arkansas Nonprofit News Network
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Double the impact — support ANNN’s investigative journalism
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Fri, 05 Nov 2021 14:37:07 +0000
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Traditional newspapers are disappearing. Social media is too often filled with misinformation and clickbait. As more local news outlets shrink and die, we're losing access to the in-depth, investigative journalism Arkansans desperately need.
The good news is that you have the power to give better journalism to our community!
With your support, the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network (ANNN) will continue reporting stories in 2022 that would otherwise be neglected. Best of all, when you donate now, NewsMatch will DOUBLE your donation!
We can't be sure what next year will throw at our community, but with your support, we can keep providing free access to in-depth, investigative journalism.
I wanted to revisit a few stories ANNN reported on in 2021 that I'm so proud of:
Our investigation into the crack that shut down the I-40 bridge to Memphis for almost three months — and the state’s lack of answers about how bridge inspectors missed the problem for years.
A closer look at the strange-but-true story of two chemistry professors at a South Arkansas university accused of making meth in a school laboratory. (Note: One of the two men, Terry David Bateman, was acquitted by a jury Oct. 27. The other, Bradley Rowland, pleaded guilty to several drug-related charges on Nov. 5.)
‘Kids feel like they’re being erased’: Inside the clinic targeted by Arkansas’s new anti-trans law.
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Support the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network
/index.php/2020/11/06/support-the-arkansas-nonprofit-news-network/
Fri, 06 Nov 2020 20:45:03 +0000
This year, the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network has fulfilled its mission to report on stories that matter to Arkansans. Among the highlights:
*A critical look at the pandemic’s toll on Arkansas teachers.
*The stories of Arkansas poultry workers facing COVID-19 on the job.
*An investigation into Arkansas’s unique criminal eviction law in a partnership with ProPublica.
This is slow, steady journalism, reporting that’s not beholden to the news cycle. It takes time and expertise to produce.
I founded ANNN in 2016 because I knew from experience as editor of the Arkansas Times that, aside from the largest news operations in the country, like The New York Times and NPR, most newsrooms lack the resources to do sustained reporting on complicated topics.
ANNN is able to hire writers, editors and photographers thanks to funding from grants and donations. Its reporting is then distributed for free among some 20 media outlets statewide, including radio and TV stations, newspapers and websites.
There’s never been a better time to support ANNN’s work. Through the end of the year, all tax-deductible donations will be matched dollar for dollar, thanks to the NewsMatch fundraising program. New recurring monthly donations will also be matched at their 12-month value.
We are also pleased to announce the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network now has its first dedicated staffer. In October, Benjamin Hardy became editor of ANNN.
Hardy was a longtime editor at the Arkansas Times, where he broke the Justin Harris rehoming story and steered a subsequent child welfare reporting project that helped prompt major reforms of state policy. He's an expert on Arkansas health care policy and deeply knowledgeable on politics and government. He was a 2018 Association of Health Care Journalists fellow, and in 2019 he was a research reporting fellow at ProPublica. He's also been the most frequent ANNN contributor and a key partner behind the scenes in developing the nonprofit.
In past years, ANNN has produced important stories on Rusty Cranford, a former lobbyist at the center of a massive corruption scandal in the state legislature; Arkansas’s juvenile justice system; and the state’s work requirement for Medicaid recipients. Help us continue this important work. Contribute to ANNN at arknews.org or by sending a check to the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, P.O. Box 250746, Little Rock, 72225-0746. Donations are tax-deductible.
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Robin Raveendran and Person 9 in the Cranford/Preferred Family Healthcare web
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Sat, 30 Jun 2018 02:45:16 +0000
Preferred Family Healthcare and was associated with Cranford. This individual is not explicitly accused of criminal wrongdoing in the federal information on Cranford, but according to the government, Person 9 was involved in Cranford's efforts to seek policies that benefited PFH and other behavioral health providers.Person 9 was also affiliated with an advocacy organization for health providers that paid income directly from the dues providers were charged for membership to Person 9, Cranford and then-Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, according to the federal information.
The description of Person 9 appears to match Robin Raveendran, the former PFH executive — and former longtime staffer at the state's Department of Human Services — who was arrested Thursday in a separate case, charged in Independence County with two felony counts of Medicaid fraud after an investigation by the state's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.
PFH has a vast network of 47 service providers in Arkansas that has brought in tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding, state grants and contracts with the DHS. The nonprofit has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing, but it has been at the center of a number of indictments and pleas in federal corruption cases involving lobbyists and former Arkansas lawmakers, as well as the affidavit for Raveendran's arrest warrant on state charges. Cranford — also a former PFH executive — admitted to bribery, kickback and embezzlement schemes involving PFH funds in his plea agreement earlier this month. The federal charges against Cranford are not directly connected to the new charges against Raveendran, which involve alleged improper billing practices while he was at PFH — but the affidavit alleges that Cranford worked aggressively along with Raveendran to influence state policy in ways that would allow the alleged billing fraud scheme to continue. The DHS announced Friday that it was suspending Medicaid payments to PFH, and exercising contract termination clauses in existing contracts, after the Office of Medicaid Inspector General notified the department that it had determined that there was a credible allegation of fraud against PFH, based upon the affidavit for Raveendran's arrest.
Raveendran and Person 9
Shortly after Cranford's plea, on June 11, the Arkansas Times called Raveendran to ask about Person 9. Raveendran said that he was heading to a meeting and would call back. The following day, an attorney representing Raveendran, Jordan Tinsley, called and stated, "Mr. Raveendran has no comment on any of the ongoing matters related to Mr. Cranford or Mr. [Jeremy] Hutchinson at this time. I can neither confirm nor deny the identity of Person #9. The identity of various people that had business relationships with Mr. Cranford have not been publicly revealed by prosecutors, and the reason for that is that these people are uncharged and their reputations are at stake and they're deserving of privacy. ... The identity of those unnamed persons in the indictment are not revealed for a reason and out of respect for that reason, we can neither confirm nor deny anything related to that at this time." Tinsley did not return calls today asking for comment following Raveendran's arrest.
According to the federal information, Person 9 worked for PFH from March 23, 2014, to December 1, 2017, and was a "former Arkansas state employee." That closely matches, within one day, Raveendran's employment with PFH; according to the affidavit for his arrest warrant, he worked at PFH from March 24, 2014, through December 1, 2017. PFH confirmed that these dates were accurate. (Raveendran's LinkedIn page apparently shaved off a few months, stating that he worked from PFH from March 2014 through October 2017.)
Raveendran also matches the description of a "former state employee" — he previously worked for the DHS for around 28 years. From August 1984 to April 2003 he was senior audit manager; from May 2004 through February 2014, he was Program Integrity director. In 2013, his Program Integrity director position moved from the DHS to the Office of Medicaid Inspector General — the same office that determined Friday that there was a credible allegation of fraud against him.
Raveendran is executive director of the Alliance for Health Improvement (AHI), which represents mental health care providers in the state. The AHI is not listed as a client of the Cranford Coalition — Cranford's lobbying firm — on its disclosure filings. However, Raveendran clearly had a close working relationship with Cranford, which likewise matches the description of Person 9. In April of 2015, Raveendran joined the Cranford Coalition as "authorized personnel," as reported in an updated disclosure filing by the lobbying firm that year. In the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit affidavit, he is described as "one of Cranford's closest associates." The affidavit also states that PFH hired Raveendran on Cranford's recommendation and that Raveendran worked directly under Cranford at PFH.
Raveendran and Entity I
According to the federal information, Person 9 "employed Cranford as a lobbyist to represent the interests of health service providers." According to the Cranford Coalition's disclosure filings, the Arkansas Behavioral Health Providers Association (ABHPA) was a client of Cranford's during the relevant period. It is unclear whether Raveendran has any affiliation with ABHPA, although the group worked on many of the same issues as the Raveendran-led Alliance for Health Improvement. It is also possible that the AHI is Entity I in Cranford's plea. There is no public record of the group employing Cranford as a lobbyist, but the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit affidavit states that "the full scope of [Cranford and Raveendran's] relationship is the subject of an ongoing investigation involving multiple companies, including one of Raveendran's companies, Alliance for Health Improvement."
According to the federal information, Entity I "was a private 'provider' association focusing on community health." It was "formed to advocate for issues relating to 'providers' at the Arkansas state legislature and in state departments while also increasing communications between those entities." Entity I was associated with Cranford, employed as the group's lobbyist; with a state senator (now identified as Jeremy Hutchinson) "who was allegedly employed as their attorney"; and Person 9, "who organized the provider meetings and assisted in training, education, and policy making."
The federal information on Person 9 — teaming with Cranford and Hutchinson
If Person 9 is in fact Raveendran, the federal information depicts examples of how he worked with Cranford and Hutchinson to influence policy in ways that would benefit the bottom line for health care providers like PFH, as well as using a provider group to funnel money to them.
Providers paid dues of $5,000 and $10,000 per year for membership into Entity I. Cranford, Hutchinson and Person 9 all received a percentage of the membership dues in exchange for their work for Entity I — income that came directly from these provider dues, according to the federal information. Hutchinson was paid $8,125 by Entity I in early 2015, around the same time that he began receiving payments as an attorney from PFH affiliates.
On March 4, 2015, Person 9 sent an email to Hutchinson and Cranford regarding a statute that defined independent contractors as opposed to employees: "We need to file a shell bill to take care of this issue, it may be possible we should be able to work this out with Workforce, however, just to protect us we want to a shell bill." The email suggested a specific revision that would have been favorable to healthcare providers. Hutchinson filed the shell bill in 2015; a separate bill eventually enacted the requested change — "the same specific revision to Arkansas law as that forwarded to him by Person 9 and Entity I," according to the federal information.
A player at the Capitol
The news of Raveendran's arrest — and his apparent connection to separate activities described in the federal information on Cranford — will raise eyebrows at the Capitol, where Raveendran has been a major player in healthcare policy debates.
Raveendran, representing the AHI, was appointed by Governor Hutchinson to his Advisory Council on Medicaid reform in 2015 (Raveendran was also appointed by the governor to the Criminal Justice Task Force in 2015). Raveendran has been a vocal advocate on behalf of behavioral health providers, with a seat at the table on issues involving Medicaid managed care and payment reform. The Raveendran-led AHI, as well as Cranford's listed client, the Arkansas Behavioral Healthcare Providers Association, were both heavily involved in discussions with the legislative Health Reform Task Force. In February of 2016, AHI, ABHPA, and a third group, Mental Health Council of Arkansas, presented a plan for provider-proposed reforms and projected cost savings. In the summer of 2016, the task force recommended that DHS hold discussions with these three groups regarding certain rules and policy changes, at least some of which likely influenced the task force's final recommendations.
Raveendran and PFH
The activities described in both the information on Person 9 in Cranford's federal plea information and the affidavit for Raveendran's arrest warrant on state charges took place when Raveendran was working for PFH. The information in Cranford's plea suggests that Cranford was highly successful — with the help of various insiders, including Person 9 — at influencing state policy in a way that benefited PFH. The affadavit for Raveendran's arrest warrant states that Raveendran and Cranford also had considerable success in fighting "to keep the Medicaid vulnerabilities [Raveendran] exploited in place" to carry out the alleged billing fraud scheme.
PFH did not respond to queries sent by the Arkansas Times on June 11 asking whether Raveendran left the company on his own or had his employment terminated, and asking whether his departure was connected to any of the wrongdoing described in Cranford's plea.
Once Raveendran was arrested, PFH issued a new statement Friday, distancing the nonprofit from its former employee and confirming that he was terminated:
"As the documents charging Robin Raveendran clearly show, Preferred Family Healthcare has been cooperating extensively with this investigation. Raveendran was let go from PFH in 2017. PFH continues to work with government authorities to uncover misconduct by several former leaders and employees of the organization. We are committed to cooperating and providing any information which will ensure that any individual whose actions may have violated the law are held accountable.
"Sadly, these charges show a concerted effort to deceive PFH by Rusty Cranford and a small group of former leaders, who are no longer employed because of those actions. We understand this is an ongoing process and likely not the last action taken against former employees and vendors. We continue to cooperate with authorities as they follow the facts and the evidence, including information we are providing.
"The alleged actions of Mr. Raveendran do not reflect the values of PFH. While we cannot change the past misdeeds of others, we are committed to a new path forward by continuing to implement new and thorough processes and procedures. We are grateful to the more than 4,000 employees who continue to provide critical services to individuals throughout Arkansas and the four other states we serve."
PFH announced late Friday that it plans to appeal the DHS' decision to suspend Medicaid payments to PFH and exercise contract termination clauses in existing contracts.
Shortly before Raveendran was let go, three top executives at PFH were put on leave in November 2017 after they were implicated in kickback schemes by the plea agreement of Pennsylvania lobbyist D.A. Jones last year, then fired outright in January. A fourth top executive was put on leave this month after being implicated in Cranford's plea.
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Arkansas public schools taking advantage of federal free-meal program
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Wed, 06 Jun 2018 19:45:20 +0000
FOOD PROGRAM A 'NO-BRAINER': Patty Barker says most school districts would benefit.
Until recently, students who got free or reduced-price lunches in Fordyce schools found themselves the subjects of taunt. Word would get around about who received government assistance, and "there was always a stigma attached to it," Fordyce School District Superintendent Albert Snow said. "Many parents would do anything to get off that list."
Not anymore.
Now, Fordyce is one of 58 Arkansas school districts and charter schools that allow all students to eat breakfast and lunch for free, thanks to a federal student nutrition program. The Community Eligibility Provision — commonly referred to among school officials as CEP — is a section of the federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. President Barack Obama signed the bipartisan act into law in 2010. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee supported the law and joined a statement from the White House praising its passage.
"A breakfast or a lunch tray needs to be filled with foods that will give the energy [students] need to be active and succeed in school," first lady Michelle Obama said after the signing of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
CEP eligibility is limited to districts or schools with at least 40 percent of their students certified for free school meals. Instead of collecting individual program applications detailing household income, the percentage can be gleaned through the use of data showing students receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly referred to as SNAP, or food stamps) or Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF). This data is verified through other government agencies.
For eligible districts, the CEP does two key things: First, it relaxes income reporting requirements for school districts, easing the burden of annually seeking and collecting detailed statements from parents. Second, it reimburses districts by a factor of 1.6 for every student documented as eligible for free and reduced-price meals, taking into account a historical undercount of needy students.
In exchange, districts must provide all student meals at no charge, even to those whose parents earn enough that their children would otherwise be ineligible to participate. The districts must make up with their own funds the cafeteria costs not reimbursed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which funds the free and reduced-price meals program.
Without CEP, generally only students whose household incomes are below 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Limit — $46,435 for a family of four, for example — would be eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch.
Snow said the program is getting rave reviews in Fordyce, which has an enrollment of 800 students in grades K-12. Fordyce has lost a paper mill and suffers from other economic troubles; the superintendent estimates about 70 percent of his students would be eligible for free or reduced-price lunches without CEP.
"We're a fairly high-poverty area, so providing two meals a day for our kids is a great benefit for many of them," he said. "We'll continue doing it as long as it's not draining any finances, but right now we're able to maintain break-even status."
Some education and health advocates in Arkansas are urging more districts to follow suit and sign up for CEP.
"It's a boon to school personnel that they don't have to deal with applications. It helps with administration, and more students are getting fed," said Cory Biggs, associate director of Forward Arkansas, a nonprofit organization that works with districts on innovations.
Yet the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance estimates that only 57 percent of eligible districts in Arkansas have signed up for CEP. For most districts, joining CEP should be a "no-brainer," said Patty Barker, the No Kid Hungry campaign director for the Alliance.
The Child Nutrition Unit of the Arkansas Department of Education has conducted trainings and offered presentations at conferences about the benefits of CEP, department spokeswoman Kim Friedman said, and the number of districts participating in CEP has grown over the past five years, she said.
The Mineral Springs School District and Little Rock Preparatory Academy, a charter school, were the first to take advantage of CEP, in the 2014-15 school year, the first year it was available in Arkansas. The next year, 22 districts and charter schools signed up. The number more than doubled to 45 in 2016-17 and increased to 58 in 2017-18, according to the Department of Education.
The USDA says it "recognizes that CEP is not a good fit for all schools," especially those with lower poverty rates. Even those that meet the 40 percent eligibility threshold could have a tough time funding the meals not reimbursed by the federal government.
Friedman notes that the percentage eligibility within a district "has to be around 62-63 percent, so when the 1.6 multiplier is applied it will equal 100 percent." This allows the districts to be reimbursed for all meals served. Any lower percentage means there is a balance that must be made up by the districts.
Providing free meals to all students isn't a new idea. Some districts have been doing so through a USDA program known as Provision 2, which has been around since 1980. It works much the same way as CEP in that districts must make up the costs for students not eligible.
There are some differences, though, between CEP and Provision 2. According to the USDA, Provision 2 eligibility is based on actual free and reduced-price meal applications, not SNAP or other data used under CEP. That means that initially districts must perform more paperwork with Provision 2 than with CEP. And, there is no 1.6 multiplier used to increase reimbursement as under CEP.
For some districts, it may still make sense to remain on Provision 2 instead of switching to CEP, Friedman said.
In Arkansas, 11 districts remain on Provision 2. Little Rock has 30 schools on Provision 2 and is the only urban district on the Provision 2 list. Among the larger districts on CEP are Hot Springs, Jonesboro, West Memphis, Pine Bluff, North Little Rock and Jacksonville/North Pulaski.
Regardless, the student benefit is the same under Provision 2 or CEP. "All children eat at no charge to the household for meals at school," Friedman said.
Shortly after the Lake View school funding decision of 2002, Provision 2 caused a bit of a stir at the legislature. The revised school funding formula for 2004-05 added extra money for districts with high poverty rates, which was based on free and reduced-price lunches.
But the funding formula didn't take into account the districts claiming the 100 percent free and reduced-price lunch rate through Provision 2. That led to inflated poverty counts, which funneled a combined $11 million extra to 10 districts. Legislators tweaked the formula in 2005 to better account for Provision 2 and to more accurately fund high poverty districts.
Some superintendents sued over the lost state funding, prompting the late Rep. Jodie Mahony (D-El Dorado) to call them "clowns." The superintendents lost their suit.
Today, Provision 2 and CEP haven't created any controversies, not even from anyone complaining that the federal government shouldn't be spending money on school lunches, advocates say.
Most opposition results from local school officials being "resistant to change just in general and not wanting to read through federal regulations," Biggs said.
Vivian Nicholson, breakfast program director with the Hunger Relief Alliance, said some districts think providing free meals to all students will be too much trouble, but once they hear from other districts, "they are sold" on the idea.
"It takes away the peer pressure that 'I'm free and you are paid,' " she said. "We stop that 'I'm poor and you're not' with CEP. It's part of the school day. We all ride the bus. We all have desks. We have books. We all ought to eat together."
June 30 is the deadline for more districts to sign up for the program.
This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. Find out more at arknews.org.
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Sharing the Goods for the greater good
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Wed, 06 Dec 2017 22:17:12 +0000
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'REWIRE, NOT RETIRE': That was David Gill's plan after retiring as executive director of Ferncliff. Now, as director of outreach, he's helping other nonprofits through Ferncliff's Sharing the Goods program.
Recently, a church in Atkins paid about $600 for nearly $6,000 worth of flooring, doors and other construction and home supplies to fix up a residence owned by the church. Camp Mitchell, Heifer Ranch and Family Home of Little Rock were able to redo their bedrooms with new Tempur-Pedic mattresses, which retail for around $1,200, for only $95 per bed. That bargain shopping happened in a 10,000-square-foot warehouse 10 miles west of Little Rock where, as part of its outreach ministry, Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center has launched a marketplace of goods available at deep discounts to nonprofits and churches. The new program, Sharing the Goods, is a partnership with Good360, an Alexandria, Va., charitable organization that has distributed $9 billion in goods to more than 6 million people around the world since it was founded in 1983.
Good360's model is one its leaders have described as "mutualism," as opposed to altruism. In exchange for significant tax write-offs, corporations such as The Home Depot and Bed, Bath and Beyond make large-scale donations to Good360 of products that, perhaps because they were overstocked or returned, might otherwise end up in landfills. Good360 then makes the items available to nonprofits, which can purchase them at deep discounts to help further their missions.
Ferncliff is a Community Redistribution Partner of Good360 — one of only 30 in the U.S. and the only one in Arkansas — which means that it's set up to receive truckload-sized shipments from Good360 corporate donors and make those goods available to nonprofits for purchase. Ferncliff prices its inventory at discounts of 75 percent or more.
"We want it to be a bargain for the nonprofit or church, and we also want to charge enough that we're not taking money from the camp [to operate Sharing the Goods]," said David Gill, director of outreach and mission engagement at Ferncliff.
The inventory is available to browse at sharingthegoods.org. Any nonprofit, in Arkansas or elsewhere, can fill out an application form on the website to become a member of Sharing the Goods and purchase items online, which must be picked up from the warehouse within three days.
Ferncliff is the exclusive recipient of product donations of a number of Central Arkansas outlets of Good360 partners, including The Home Depot, Tuesday Morning and Pottery Barn. Whatever the stores want to get rid of, Ferncliff takes, per its Good360 agreement.
"If they call, we pick it up," Gill said. "It could be 26 bathtubs. We take it and smile. The next load might be Martha Stewart cubbies. Or we got 400 doormats one time."
Gill retired as executive director of Ferncliff in January. He spent 20 years heading the 1,200-acre camp, which the Presbyterian Church founded in 1936. In addition to holding summer camp, the facility hosts corporate retreats and this year opened a nature preschool. In 2005, through a grant from Presbyterian Women, Ferncliff built its warehouse to serve as a Disaster Assistance Center in partnership with Church World Service and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. It's one of only two warehouses in the country that receive and distribute Church World Service Gift of the Heart kits, which include such items as school and hygiene supplies.
Sharing the Goods takes up about 3,000 square feet of the warehouse, with the balance occupied by the Gift of the Heart kits and a woodshop, where a group of retired handymen called the Over the Hill Gang build things for Ferncliff and other nonprofits (an application form is at ferncliff.org/outreach/programs/over-the-hill-gang).
Managing Sharing the Goods allowed Gill to "rewire instead of retire," he said. He appreciates the entrepreneurial aspect of the program and is working to figure out the logistics of managing inventory. Forty nonprofits have joined the program since it launched in late summer. The more that join, the better Ferncliff will have a sense of what sort of goods it should be looking for from the truckloads it can purchase through Good360, he said. David Gill's son Joel, who took over as executive director of the camp earlier this year, described the ideal arrangement of Sharing the Goods as a sort of co-op, where Ferncliff is a buyer for nonprofits. "That's a way for us to extend our mission of creating positive change in the world and for them to extend their mission as well," Joel Gill said.
Ferncliff has budgeted about $25,000 for the program in its startup year and so far it's about breaking even, David Gill said. "We're just trying to figure this out and not lose our shirt," he said. But that doesn't mean they don't see growth potential. They've already had plans drawn up to expand the warehouse, and they believe the way the program benefits not just Ferncliff but potentially all Arkansas nonprofits could appeal to grantmaking foundations.
This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. Find out more at arknews.org.
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