Legislature(1997 - 1998)
04/23/1998 03:45 PM House HES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
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+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SSHB 340 - TESTIMONY AT CINA HEARINGS; CHILD ABUSE Number 1765 CHAIRMAN BUNDE announced the next item on the agenda was SSHB 340, "An Act relating to child abuse and neglect, child-in-need-of-aid proceedings, delinquency hearings, and review of cases involving certain children who are in the custody of the state; relating to the crime of endangering the welfare of a minor; relating to disclosure of information about children and their families; amending Rules 3, 7, 10, 15, 17 - 19, and 22, Alaska Child in Need of Aid Rules; amending Rules 3, 7, 10, 12, 21, 23, and 25, Alaska Delinquency Rules; and providing for an effective date." He asked the sponsor, Representative Mark Hodgins to come before the committee to present his bill. Number 1784 REPRESENTATIVE MARK HODGINS, Sponsor of HB 340, directed the committee's attention to the sponsor substitute before the committee. Number 1800 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN made a motion to adopt Sponsor Substitute for HB 340, Draft 0-LS1106\P as the working document. There being no objection, that version was before the committee. Number 1820 REPRESENTATIVE HODGINS said this Act implements an enforceable penalty for false reporting of child abuse or neglect and endangering the welfare of a child with respect to intoxicating liquor or a controlled substance. It gives notice of all hearings and an opportunity to be heard at all hearings for a child in need of aid to the child's grandparents, child's current and previous foster parents, and the child's health care providers. It also gives a foster parent or grandparent the right to disclose confidential or privileged information about a child in need of aid to a government official or their employee. The court cannot find a child in need of aid solely on the basis that the child's family is poor, lacks adequate housing or lives a lifestyle that is different from the generally accepted lifestyle of the community. Number 1865 CHAIRMAN BUNDE noted the committee recently passed legislation introduced by Representative Dyson very similar to SSHB 340. He asked if there was a problem with overlapping. MR. HODGINS said Representative Dyson's bill is identical to sections in SSHB 340 and as long as the language remains the same, there's no problem. CHAIRMAN BUNDE referred to the provision relating to notification of grandparents and asked if reasonable effort was sufficient; in other words a hearing wouldn't be held up while the grandparents were being tracked down. MR. HODGINS replied it would be reasonable effort. Number 1903 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN noted that Representative Dyson's bill was currently in the Judiciary Committee with several proposed amendments. He asked if Representative Hodgins would be tracking SSHB 340 with that bill or would HB 340 stand alone. MR. HODGINS said he had anticipated the child in need of aid language being put in one bill; however, a couple different vehicles were chosen. There are some areas in SSHB 340 that are similar, but not overlapping. He called on Gary Cadd to provide more specifics. Number 1953 GARY CADD, Researcher to Representative Mark Hodgins, Alaska State Legislature, explained there are several areas that overlap and this particular bill goes further in notifying grandparents and foster parents. Number 1982 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN expressed concern that if both pieces of legislation were to pass, there might be conflicting sections. MR. CADD said it may be more appropriate for the Department of Health and Social Services to comment on that issue, but for the most part, it's the same language, but SSHB 340 allows for more people to be involved in a hearing. CHAIRMAN BUNDE commented he would like to take testimony via teleconference at this time. He asked Diana Buffington to present her testimony. Number 2020 DIANA BUFFINGTON, President and State Coordinator, Childrens' Rights Council of Alaska and Chairman, Alaska Task Force on Family Law Reform, testified offnet from Fairbanks. She said one section had been left out of HB 375 which was the false child abuse allegations. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary testified in 1996 that nationwide over a million children a year are abused and neglected. While these numbers may be staggering, the nation should also be concerned about the nearly two million false and unsubstantiated reports of child abuse and neglect that are filed wrongfully and in some cases, maliciously. The Executive Director of the Child Welfare League of America admits 62 percent of the allegations of child abuse and neglect are false and child protection agencies across the United States have estimated false and unwarranted allegations up to 80 percent. Ms. Buffington said high level of false allegations lead to more severe cases going uninvestigated, under-investigated or slipping through the cracks entirely. Most false allegations are made by the residential parent who has recently separated or divorced to gain control of the custody settlement. She pointed out that Section 2 of SSHB 340 would address the false allegation issue. Number 2108 MS. BUFFINGTON said a good job was done up to a certain point on the recent audit of the Division of Family and Youth Services (DFYS). The audit touched on reports of harm prioritization, the screening and investigative process and workload adjustment. The 1997 reports of harm in Alaska are staggering at 15,547 statewide, with 10,529 reports of harm assigned for investigation, 3,740 workload adjusted and not assigned for investigation and 1,278 reports were unaccounted for in the audit. She pointed out the audit does not indicate, except on page 12, how many 1997 cases were confirmed with the child left in the home, confirmed with the child removed, unconfirmed closed, unconfirmed (indisc.) and invalid. Number 2266 MS. BUFFINGTON spoke in support of SSHB 340. She added that it's time the DFYS quit considering foster families as babysitters. Many foster parents feel they have little say in the parenting plan and little or no input in case hearings. Sponsor Substitute for House Bill 340 will give foster parents more participation in the child's future. CHAIRMAN BUNDE thanked Ms. Buffington for her comments and asked Martha Hodson to testify at this time. Number 2275 MARTHA HODSON, Representative, Guardians for Family Rights, testified via teleconference from Kenai in support of HB 340. She said, "There's a lot of information that parents either don't understand or (indisc.) that they can't understand at the time when these things are going on, that's an area I get into or I try to, but without the information, it's hard for me to help them understand." She discussed the problems grandparents in the Kenai area are having with supervised visitations with their grandchildren, amongst other problems, which is totally uncalled for. She admitted that the grandparent's issues are definitely different from the parental issues in CINA proceedings. MS. HODSON stated she supports SSHB 340; there's good parts and bad parts in all legislation. TAPE 98-48, SIDE B Number 0002 MS. HODSON continued with a discussion on the impacts of false reporting. She referred to the DFYS audit and said there were a number of cases in Kenai that could not be accounted for in the audit. CHAIRMAN BUNDE thanked Ms. Hodson for testifying the asked Walter Gauthier to testify at this time. Number 0135 WALTER GAUTHIER, Representative, Guardians of Family Rights, testified via teleconference from Homer in support of SSHB 340. He agreed that it is somewhat duplicative of HB 375 but without the other 40 some pages of additional governmental power. He referred to page 6, Section 10 and page 13, Section 24 and expressed concern that the phrase, "The court's official records under this chapter may be inspected only with the court's permission and only by persons having a legitimate interest in them" is repeated twice in regards to both CINA courts and delinquency courts. He said the Guardians of Family Rights has been filing numerous reports to the Alaska Judicial Council and the Judicial Conduct Commission concerning judges who do not follow their own CINA court rules and procedures. The current law states that a parent has a right to a copy of the court file and a copy of the recording of the court hearing. Oftentimes these are the only evidence and documents that parents can get. The language regarding the inspection of records only with the court's permission disturbs him because no court or judge likes having their decisions overturned or criticized and if left up to the judge, the permission will not be granted. MR. GAUTHIER stated he supports SSHB 340, but he suggested the language be changed to reflect that parents still have a right at any time to the court files and court hearing tapes. CHAIRMAN BUNDE asked Edgar Boyko to present his remarks at this time. Number 0322 EDGAR PAUL BOYKO testified via teleconference from Anchorage. He commented on the legitimate concern expressed by Chairman Bunde of the potential overlapping between this legislation and HB 375. His opinion is that SSHB 340 is a good bill that's needed and agreed with the last speaker that perhaps the sponsor should consider amending the issue of access to court records. The sponsor has recognized the legitimate interests of foster parents, but has not addressed the fact there is no standard given to when permission should be given and denied. He expressed concern that this bill might be sidetracked because of similarities with HB 375, which in his opinion has many problems. He considers SSHB 340 to be a good bill and should go forward. CHAIRMAN BUNDE noted the overlap or duplication he had referred to was with HB 366 sponsored by Representative Dyson. He asked if there were any questions of the sponsor. He announced the committee would not take any action on HB 340 because it was the first hearing. He suggested that Representative Hodgins get together with Representative Dyson to discuss the strategy for SSHB 340 and HB 366. Number 0540 REPRESENTATIVE DYSON noted he and Representative Hodgins have been communicating and coordinating. CHAIRMAN BUNDE asked the representative from the Division of Family and Youth Services to come before the committee at this time. Number 0589 THERESA TANOURY, Administrator, Child Protective Services, Division of Family and Youth Services, Department of Health and Social Services, said the issue of false reporting is interesting and she appreciates the sponsor's concern about false reporting. She said it is not appropriate for the system to be dealing with false reporters, but she added that false reporting is very difficult to prove and most of the time people are making good faith efforts in reporting. She explained the department does not capture false reports; in other words the numbers of reports that may be viewed as false are not captured. With regard to the 1,000+ reports in 1997 that were not considered legitimate reports of abuse and neglect, she said reports coming into the division fall into one of two categories. The first category is insufficient information where the reporter has not given the division enough information to determine abuse or neglect and/or enough information about the family or the child to proceed. Second, is the non-child protective services category in which the division does a risk assessment based on the information given by the reporter and determines the report doesn't include child protection concerns. This category has to be documented and the reason for placing the report in this category must be explained. She noted these are not considered legitimate reports and are above and beyond what the division refers to workload adjusting. MS. TANOURY informed the committee of a national study on false reporting by the Kempe Center which found that very few reports are considered false reports and that of those reports that are considered false, many of them are in divorce/custody situations, which are very hard to investigate. She stated, "One of the things the study found was that of the number of divorce situations that happen and the ones that are contested and then the ones that actually come to our attention are those in which there's such severe conflict going on that maybe - you never know - maybe there is some abuse, somebody needs to check on the child, but there are lots of allegations. It is difficult to investigate, but at the same time it's a horrendous conflict going on within two parents struggling over a child or the child's caught in the middle. So there is some grounds to understand that maybe there should be somebody checking on the family and being involved." Number 0815 CHAIRMAN BUNDE assumed that in order to have a legitimate report, the department has to know the identity of the reporter. MS. TANOURY said the department does accept reports from anonymous reporters. CHAIRMAN BUNDE asked if it was fair to assume that someone making a malicious report wouldn't give their name. MS. TANOURY said there are anonymous reporters and mandated reporters. Number 0870 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN asked, "Are we talking about a perception here because the teleconference indicated 62 or greater and most of those were by the resident parent. Is there a perception that if that person was thinking that there were that high a percentage of false reports and you're indicating it's very low, is it because they're saying 'well, okay there was a report of a problem and when they got there, there was just a difference of opinion and that was okay' - you're saying that same difference of opinion though may be a bonafide report because that's systematic of maybe a bigger problem. So, are we talking about that wide difference there in statistics because of perception or different sets of statistics?" MS. TANOURY thought there may be some difference in terms of what is called "reports" and how those reports are categorized. She said the division also has a category called "invalid" which means the division may have gone out to investigate the report, but didn't think the report was valid. Some people feel that is a false report, but the division considers a false report as someone maliciously making a report against someone that is not right to do. Number 0960 REPRESENTATIVE BRICE referred to Section 2 and asked if the statement "knowingly makes a false report: would be considered malicious intent. REPRESENTATIVE PORTER said, "This would require an element of proving knowledge that the report was false which is tantamount to saying intentionally making a false report. That's a high standard - that's a tough standard." REPRESENTATIVE PORTER said, "I am interested in the categorization of the complaints. I just - as we all did I think - received some information from the municipality of Anchorage Health Department on child abuse reporting and there's two different types of categorizations; one reports and one substantiated reports. Yet there's an abundance of folks telling us we're the highest state in the nation in child abuse and I've had a theory of my own for a long time, but I think that that's not quite correct: We happen to have one of the most educated public and tough reporting laws that exist in the United States and the three or four categories of - short of substantiated complaints that you have seems to indicate that we get all sorts of reports and that the statistics that the municipality, at least, put together, we're the same as the rest of the United States - 15 out of 1,000 kids. So, I don't know - I would, for what it's worth, beg the department to use that statistic rather than the reported statistic considering that we have facilitated reporting to the nth degree which is very good, but not to use it." Number 1095 REPRESENTATIVE BRICE commented this legislation will make it a crime to knowingly report that a person suspected there was abuse and neglect. In his opinion the use of the world "suspected" is a major hole. Number 1154 DEBORAH DOWNS, Child Protection Services, Division of Family and Youth Services, Department of Health and Social Services, said there appeared to be some confusion in semantics - some people are making the assumption that when the division designates a report of being unsubstantiated, that equates to a false report. She wanted to clarify that those are entirely different situations. She further stated, "Also, regarding Representative Brice's question, I think the issue of false reporting is the intent - the word used in here is "knowingly". If a person has cause to believe that an injury has taken place or a child is neglected or at risk and makes a report, that is not making a false report. However, if the person is knowingly making up the information being provided and are aware that it's a false report, it's the intent that is the difference. CHAIRMAN BUNDE closed public testimony and said SSHB 340 would be heard at a future hearing.
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