Legislature(2013 - 2014)CAPITOL 120
04/11/2014 01:00 PM House JUDICIARY
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB254 | |
| SJR22 | |
| SB171 | |
| SB187 | |
| SB108 | |
| HB108 | |
| SB187 | |
| SB173 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | SCR 2 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | SB 173 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 370 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 254 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| += | SB 171 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | SB 187 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 60 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 108 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | SJR 22 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | SB 108 | TELECONFERENCED | |
HB 108-SURCHARGE ON FINES/ELEC. CITATION FUND
2:04:47 PM
CHAIR KELLER announced that the next order of business would be
HOUSE BILL NO. 108, "An Act relating to electronic citations;
creating the electronic citation fund; and providing for an
effective date." He said the committee has looked at HB 108,
Version O, and now he would like a motion to put Version P in
front of the committee.
REPRESENTATIVE LYNN moved to adopt CSHB 108, labeled 28-
LS0383\P, Wayne, 2/17/14, as the working document.
2:05:16 PM
CHAIR KELLER objected. [Version P was treated as if it were
before the committee.]
REPRESENTATIVE PEGGY WILSON, Alaska State Legislature, noted
that the only difference between Version O and P in HB 108 is
the last line. "All we did was update the date," she said. She
said HB 108 would create a $10 surcharge for minor offenses
(tickets), which would go to create the E-Citation Fund. The
fund would help police, troopers, and courts move to the 21st
Century by using electronic devices to issue tickets instead of
using paper tickets, she stated. Currently, if a person
receives a ticket for running a stoplight it could take up to 12
days to go through the court process. She pointed out that a
hand-written ticket may be hard to read, and an e-ticket will
eliminate many errors. With HB 108, a person will be able to
pay or appeal a ticket almost instantly, she said. Larger
Alaska municipalities received grants from a federal e-citation
program, but the money is drying up and smaller communities
still need the equipment. The court system would love for all
municipalities to have the capability, she said, and the devices
add to the safety of peace officers by reducing the amount of
time an officer has to be on the side of a road. Being struck
by a vehicle during a traffic stop is the leading cause of death
for peace officers, she added.
2:08:02 PM
CHAIR KELLER asked why a surcharge is necessary if electronic
citations are more efficient.
2:08:30 PM
REPRESENTATIVE PEGGY WILSON said most communities with the
devices received a grant from the federal government, but money
for the grants has run out, and HB 108 will allow the rest of
the communities to get the devices.
REPRESENTATIVE LYNN said that there is as much potential for
error when inputting information into an electronic device as
when writing [paper tickets]. "Garbage in, garbage out."
REPRESENTATIVE PEGGY WILSON said the problem is that the ticket
has to go through many people to be copied, and many times rain
smudges the paper.
2:10:03 PM
ARTHUR MARTIN, Staff, to Representative Peggy Wilson, Alaska
State Legislature, said HB 108 will help the state move into the
21st Century by moving away from paper ticketing. He noted that
the legislature has slowly been moving into the use of IPads,
which are more efficient but have maintenance and training
costs. The fiscal note outlines what the fund will do, and he
recollected that members were worried about using the fund for
hidden cameras and radars, but this fund would be specifically
to move the police departments into this century.
2:11:37 PM
REPRESENTATIVE LEDOUX asked how a police officer would issue an
electronic citation to someone without a computer.
REPRESENTATIVE PEGGY WILSON said they will carry something and
"just mark it off." She said, "It's kind of like our IPads. We
can put information on it and that transfers over to somewhere
else." She explained that the person who is [being cited] does
not have to have the device.
REPRESENTATIVE LEDOUX asked if the person who is driving will
get anything.
REPRESENTATIVE PEGGY WILSON said that there is a copy that gets
torn off and handed to the offender.
2:13:04 PM
NANCY MEADE, General Counsel, Alaska Court System, clarified
that the court system would not be a recipient of any funds
under HB 108; the money all goes to the Department of Public
Safety (DPS), which has the discretion to distribute it to
itself or to municipalities for the equipment. However, the
court system is very involved in electronic citations, she
added, as about two thirds of minor offense citations statewide
are filed electronically. Most of the minor offenses come from
traffic, littering, alcohol, and fish and game violations, she
explained. Currently, minor offenses have a "police training"
surcharge by statute, which is an extra ten dollars. "It was
nice and neat and we could predict how much this would collect
because it would be whatever we paid last year for police
training surcharges," she said.
MS. MEADE said there were about 60,000 minor offenses filed with
the court last year, and about $204,000 is what the court
collected for the surcharge and the money goes to the state
general fund with a notation that it go to DPS. She added that
HB 108 is estimated to generate about $200,000 from the court.
The many tickets that are unpaid are sent to the Department of
Law Collections Unit. When that happens, a person's permanent
fund dividend (PFD) can be garnished. This makes for,
potentially, another $200,000, she said, but the DOL does not
have a 100 percent collection rate since these collections are
the lowest priority for garnishing PFDs. Additionally, certain
cities collect their own funds, and that would be another chunk
of money that would go to the E-Citation Fund, she added.
2:17:43 PM
REPRESENTATIVE PRUITT asked if HB 108 will add [the surcharge]
to citations placed under windshield wipers.
MS. MEADE said tickets and citations are the same. A minor
offense is anything punishable by a fine of under $500, but the
surcharge is not added when the fine is less than $30.
REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG surmised that the citation equipment
belongs to DPS, and he asked if the court system has any
experience with purchasing and using the equipment.
2:19:53 PM
MS. MEADE stated that two thirds of citations are issued with
these "Packet Writers" in Alaska, but the court has no
experience with purchasing the equipment.
REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG asked about the DPS experience "in
ramping up to use this new equipment." He said that he is
concerned about new equipment and that it be purchased with
competitive bidding.
LIEUTENANT RICK ROBERTS, Alaska State Troopers, said DPS has
been using this equipment for the last five years, and the
Alaska State Troopers use a system called TraCS to write
citations. He stated that 23 other police agencies in Alaska
also use TraCS, and the Fairbanks and Anchorage Police
Departments use other types of software. He said they all use a
computer mounted in the police cars and a scanner to import the
bar code data from a person's driver's license. The cars have a
printer for giving a citation to the offender, and then the
information is electronically sent to the Alaska Court System,
he explained. This equipment has been purchased by grant funds
over the past five years, and the surcharge will allow for
refreshing and updating the equipment.
2:22:26 PM
REPRESENTATIVE PRUITT asked if these items would be replaced
anyway, without the surcharge.
LIEUTENANT ROBERTS noted that "we have been standing this
equipment up over the last few years with federal grant money
that had been issued to the Alaska Highway Safety Office. We've
been, in turn, applying for grants for this equipment." He said
the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has also applied for
equipment grants, and DPS has purchased equipment for police
agencies using this grant money from DMV and other sources. In
the future, as federal grant funding becomes less available or
nonexistent, DPS is looking for ways to identify funding to
replace this, not only for the State Troopers but for smaller
agencies that might not have the resources to replace the
equipment, he stated. He added that the equipment is also used
for electronic crash reports, and if this surcharge is not made
available, DPS will probably ask for capital funds or other
funds to try and refresh this equipment.
2:24:42 PM
CHAIR KELLER closed public testimony.
REPRESENTATIVE LYNN moved to report CSHB 108, labeled 28-
LS0383\P, out of committee with individual recommendations and
the accompanying fiscal notes. Hearing no objection, CSHB
108(JUD) passed out of committee.