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Arkansas launches ARIES pilot to put SNAP and Transitional Assistance into one eligibility system
Summary
DHS said Arkansas has completed statewide implementation of Medicaid in the new ARIES eligibility system and launched a Release 2 pilot adding SNAP and Transitional Employment Assistance in five counties; DHS reported multi-year costs and said the system aims to centralize applications, support multiple languages and be mobile-friendly while retaining paper/phone access.
Mary Franklin, director of county operations for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, briefed the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee on ARIES (Arkansas Integrated Eligibility System), describing the system as a single platform for Medicaid, SNAP and Transitional Employment Assistance and noting that health-care components were implemented statewide earlier in the year. "We have fully implemented health care or all Medicaid in the new ARIES system," Franklin said, and added that today DHS started the Release 2 pilot to bring SNAP and T into ARIES in five counties.
What ARIES will do: DHS said ARIES will replace multiple legacy systems and allow a single application for all household programs, a worker portal that reduces duplicate data entry, and automation to handle tasks previously done manually. The portal is mobile-friendly and supports English, Spanish and Marshallese; clients will be able to upload documents, check case status and opt into email or text alerts. Franklin said DHS has preserved alternative channels: paper applications, county offices and phone assistance will continue to be available for clients who do not or cannot use the portal.
Pilot scope and schedule: DHS said the pilot counties are Carroll, Hot Spring, Independence, Lafayette and Pope and represent about 6% of the state's caseload. The rollout plan calls for the pilot through October, a November wave covering half of remaining counties, and completion in December when health care, SNAP and T will be consolidated in ARIES.
Costs and oversight: Franklin provided multi-year cost figures for ARIES: approximately $111.1 million in state fiscal 2020, $88.3 million in state fiscal 2021, and a projected $68.3 million for the current fiscal year; DHS told lawmakers the project remains on budget within the approved contract. She added DHS has conducted testing since January 2020, provided robust staff training, simplified notices to a fifth-to-seventh-grade reading level, and developed short instructional videos. "The new application is longer than I thought it would be...but in the focus group, they said it's okay," Franklin said, describing user feedback about a single, comprehensive form.
Committee questioning: Lawmakers asked about save-and-resume features (Franklin said online applications can be saved and continued later), whether ARIES provides immediate referrals to workforce services (DHS said resource links and a referral avenue with the Arkansas Department of Veterans Affairs are included; direct in-application buttons are limited), and whether the portal is available as a native app (DHS said no app; the website is mobile-friendly). DHS committed to ongoing outreach and multilingual training materials and said it will monitor pilot results before statewide expansion.
Ending: The committee filed the ARIES report after the briefing. DHS said it will continue to share pilot results and training materials with the committee as implementation progresses.
