Legislature(1993 - 1994)
03/29/1994 01:00 PM House CRA
| Audio | Topic |
|---|
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HOUSE COMMUNITY AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS
STANDING COMMITTEE
March 29, 1994
1:00 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Harley Olberg, Chairman
Representative Jerry Sanders, Vice Chair
Representative Con Bunde
Representative Ed Willis
Representative John Davies
Representative Bill Williams
MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative Cynthia Toohey
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
SB 330: "An Act relating to water quality enhancement,
water supply, wastewater, and solid waste grants;
the Alaska clean water fund; the establishment of
the Alaska clean water account, the Alaska
drinking water account; and providing for an
effective date."
PASSED FROM COMMITTEE WITH INDIVIDUAL
RECOMMENDATIONS
SB 294: "An Act relating to canned salmon classics; and
providing for an effective date."
PASSED FROM COMMITTEE WITH INDIVIDUAL
RECOMMENDATIONS
*HB 502: "An Act relating mandated municipal activities or
services."
HEARD AND HELD OVER
(* First public hearing)
WITNESS REGISTER
KELLY GOODE, Legislative Aide
Senator Rick Halford
Capitol Building, Room 111
Juneau, AK 99801-1182
Phone: 465-4958
POSITION STATEMENT: Staff to Senator Halford, Prime Sponsor
of CSSB 330
KEITH KELTON, Director
Division of Facility Construction and Operation
410 Willoughby Ave., 1st floor
Juneau, AK 99801
Phone: 465-5180
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported CSSB 330
TERRY OTNESS, Legislative Aide
Senator Robin Taylor
Capitol Building, Room 30
Juneau, AK 99801-1182
Phone: 465-3873
POSITION STATEMENT: Staff to Senator Taylor, Prime Sponsor
of SB 294
PATRICK WILSON, Plant Manager
Icicle Seafoods
P.O. Box 1147
Petersburg, AK 99833
Phone: 772-4294
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 294
REPRESENTATIVE MARK HANLEY
Alaska State Legislature
Capitol Building, Room 515
Juneau, AK 99801-1182
Phone: 465-4939
POSITION STATEMENT: Prime Sponsor of HB 502
DANIEL MOORE, Capital Budget Officer
Municipality of Anchorage
632 W. 6th Street
Anchorage, AK 99519
Phone: 343-4496
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported HB 502
SCOTT BRAND-ERICKSON, Attorney
Municipality of Anchorage
632 W. 6th Street
Anchorage, AK 99519
Phone: 343-4496
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported HB 502 with conceptual
amendments
KENT SWISHER, Executive Director
Alaska Municipal League
217 Second Street, Suite 200
Juneau, AK 99801
Phone: 586-1325
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported HB 502 and conceptual
amendments
PREVIOUS ACTION
BILL: SB 330
SHORT TITLE: WATER QUALITY FUNDS AND GRANTS
SPONSOR(S): SENATOR(S) HALFORD; REPRESENTATIVE(S) Mackie
JRN-DATE JRN-PG ACTION
02/14/94 2834 (S) READ THE FIRST TIME/REFERRAL(S)
02/14/94 2834 (S) CRA, FIN
02/24/94 2958 (S) CRA RPT 3DP
02/24/94 2958 (S) ZERO FISCAL NOTE PUBLISHED(DEC)
02/24/94 (S) CRA AT 9:00 AM BUTROVICH RM 205
02/24/94 (S) MINUTE(CRA)
03/12/94 (S) FIN AT 10:00 AM SENATE FIN 518
03/14/94 3187 (S) FIN RPT CS 6DP SAME TITLE
03/14/94 3188 (S) PREVIOUS ZERO FN APPLIES (DEC)
03/16/94 (S) RLS AT 00:00 AM FAHRENKAMP
ROOM 203
03/16/94 (S) MINUTE(RLS)
03/18/94 3268 (S) RULES RPT CS AND CAL 4DP 1NR
SAME TITLE
03/18/94 3268 (S) PREVIOUS ZERO FN APPLIES (DEC)
03/18/94 3271 (S) READ THE SECOND TIME
03/18/94 3271 (S) RLS CS ADOPTED UNAN CONSENT
03/18/94 3271 (S) ADVANCED TO THIRD READING UNAN
CONSENT
03/18/94 3271 (S) READ THE THIRD TIME
CSSB 330(RLS)
03/18/94 3272 (S) PASSED Y15 N- E5
03/18/94 3272 (S) EFFECTIVE DATE SAME AS PASSAGE
03/18/94 3278 (S) TRANSMITTED TO (H)
03/21/94 2895 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME/REFERRAL(S)
03/21/94 2895 (H) CRA, FINANCE
03/21/94 2916 (H) CROSS SPONSOR(S): MACKIE
03/29/94 (H) CRA AT 01:00 PM CAPITOL 124
BILL: SB 294
SHORT TITLE: PETERSBURG CANNED SALMON CLASSIC
SPONSOR(S): SENATOR(S) TAYLOR; REPRESENTATIVE(S) Grussendorf
JRN-DATE JRN-PG ACTION
02/11/94 2788 (S) READ THE FIRST TIME/REFERRAL(S)
02/11/94 2788 (S) CRA, FIN
02/24/94 2958 (S) CRA RPT 1DP 2NR
02/24/94 2958 (S) ZERO FISCAL NOTE PUBLISHED(REV)
02/24/94 (S) CRA AT 9:00 AM BUTROVICH RM 205
02/24/94 (S) MINUTE(CRA)
03/12/94 (S) FIN AT 10:00 AM SENATE FIN 518
03/14/94 3187 (S) FIN RPT 6DP
03/14/94 3187 (S) PREVIOUS ZERO FN (REV)
03/14/94 (S) RLS AT 0:00 AM FAHRENKAMP
RM 203
03/14/94 (S) MINUTE(RLS)
03/16/94 3243 (S) RULES RPT 4CAL 1NR 3/16/94
03/16/94 3244 (S) READ THE SECOND TIME
03/16/94 3245 (S) ADVANCED TO THIRD READING UNAN
CONSENT
03/16/94 3245 (S) READ THE THIRD TIME SB 294
03/16/94 3245 (S) PASSED Y15 N3 E1 A1
03/16/94 3245 (S) EFFECTIVE DATE SAME AS PASSAGE
03/16/94 3251 (S) TRANSMITTED TO (H)
03/18/94 2862 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME/REFERRAL(S)
03/18/94 2862 (H) COMMUNITY & REGIONAL AFFAIRS
03/18/94 2885 (H) CROSS SPONSOR(S): GRUSSENDORF
03/29/94 (H) CRA AT 01:00 PM CAPITOL 124
BILL: HB 502
SHORT TITLE: MANDATED MUNICIPAL SERVICES
SPONSOR(S): REPRESENTATIVE(S) HANLEY
JRN-DATE JRN-PG ACTION
02/14/94 2382 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME/REFERRAL(S)
02/14/94 2382 (H) CRA, FINANCE
03/22/94 (H) CRA AT 01:00 PM CAPITOL 124
03/29/94 (H) CRA AT 01:00 PM CAPITOL 124
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 94-15, SIDE A
Number 000
CHAIRMAN HARLEY OLBERG called the meeting to order at 1:06
p.m. He noted for the record Representatives Willis, Davies
and Bunde were present and stated a quorum was present.
Number 028
SB 330 - WATER QUALITY FUNDS AND GRANTS
KELLY GOODE, STAFF TO SENATOR HALFORD, stated "By way of
background, in 1987 Senator Halford sponsored by request of
DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation), the Alaska
Clean Water Fund. This year DEC came again to Senator
Halford and asked him to sponsor the bill before you. The
bill (SB 330) received one change...it's a Rules Committee
substitute and it did not affect the actual bill, it
affected the existing language in the law. It was a very
simple change and it changed the word `guaranteeing' to the
words `collateral security' on page 3, line 16. That was
the only change made in the Senate from the original
introduction..."
Number 060
KEITH KELTON, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF FACILITY CONSTRUCTION
AND OPERATION, said "We want to thank the Senator for
introducing this piece of legislation... This bill affects
two statutes. It's our municipal matching grants program,
which builds water and sewage treatment facilities to a 50
percent matching ratio with incorporated communities and it
affects the Alaska Clean Water Fund. That is a loan program
which currently provides money, primarily from the federal
government, to build wastewater facilities through a loan
provision, again to incorporated communities. The
amendments to the loan fund are to get us positioned to take
advantage of upcoming federal legislation. There's three
competing bills in U.S. Congress right now which will
establish a similar water loan program to the wastewater
program. This amendment to our statute, if passed, would
allow us to be in the position to accept and administer the
federal program, assuming it's adopted this year...
Basically, what both of these provisions are attempting to
do, is make it easier for Alaskan communities to obtain
funding for building water and sewage treatment plants. I'm
talking about incorporated communities primarily, first
class are the one's that have been able to take advantage of
it. Some of these changes will be able to accommodate some
of the larger second class communities as well."
Representative Sanders joined the committee at 1:10 p.m. and
Representative Williams at 1:11 p.m.
MR. KELTON continued, "The actual bill has 17 sections to
it. The first five sections relate to the matching grants
programs. Basically we're accomplishing two things in this
change. The existing statute has been around since 1972 and
has been amended probably a half a dozen times for various
legislative add-ons and program changes from the federal
law. It's become very convoluted and redundant. So one of
the major emphasis is to rewrite that and streamline it...as
well as cleaning a major provision. When the bill was first
adopted back in 1972, it was to address the federal EPA
(Environmental Protection Agency) construction grants
program that at that time provided 75 percent grant funding
to communities to build wastewater facilities. The EPA
program is long since history, but the provision still
remains in our statutes related to that. That provision
says, `State funding can be no more than half of the
nonfederal participation.' So when they have 75 percent
federal funding, that meant the remaining 25 was split
equally between the state and local government. Since that
program was now gone, we've created a set of circumstances
where communities are really not interested in trying to get
the federal dollars... So we are recommending that the
federal limitation be taken out of the statute and say,
`State money can be matched by either local or federal
dollars up to any limit that they can obtain.' So they'll
go out and seek as many federal dollars as they can. We
think that that will actually save the state money in the
long run... The other provision that we're actively looking
for change on: The 50 percent matching grants provisions in
this bill had been applied uniformly to all communities,
regardless of size. That has posed a problem for the
smaller communities. Generally, a community under 1,000 has
no ability to raise the 50 percent match that's been
associated with this program. So we're proposing and these
percentages are strictly a starting point, anybody who wants
to propose alternatives is certainly welcome to do so.
We're trying to target this legislation a little closer to
the governor's matching grants bill. So what we're
proposing is communities under 1,000 would only have to come
up with a 15 percent local match. And communities between
1,000 and 5,000 would have a 30 percent local match.
Anything over 5,000, the percentage would stay the same.
This would enable a lot of the smaller communities to be
able to take advantage of the state's program to build their
water and sewer system. The larger communities have never
had a problem. The smaller communities are served by the
Village Safe Water Program. There's been a group of
communities between 1,000 and 5,000 that really had
difficulty in financing their sanitation improvements..."
Number 210
MR. KELTON concluded, "The rest of the bill starting from
section 6 through 13 addresses the Alaska Clean Water Fund
and...there was an existing bill passed in '87...that
allowed us to take advantage of the loan program waste water
facility. Basically, all we're doing now, other than some
cleanup amendments under that statute, would be authorizing
the state to adopt a program to administer the federal
program on water supply loans should it pass this
congressional session... We strongly endorse this bill as a
mechanism for providing financial alternatives for funding
that aren't currently available."
Number 230
REPRESENTATIVE CON BUNDE asked about the specific funding
sources of a water and sewer project in Kake.
MR. KELTON replied, "In this particular case, they had a
$500,000 appropriation from the state before they ever went
and found the federal dollars. It was a $1,000,000 project
and as soon as they got a half a million dollars in federal
dollars, they had $250,000 from the state that they couldn't
spend, so they couldn't build the project. They had to go
out and obtain additional dollars or else give up the state
money and in this case, they had no way of obtaining
additional funds. What happened in this case, $250,000 of
the state's (dollars) were reappropriated and went through
the Division of Administration's matching grants program so
they could match the state dollars. There's a real
prohibition against seeking the federal dollars because it
has always been easier to get the state dollars. We're
trying to reverse that..."
REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE concurred, "That trend is going to
change..."
Number 269
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN DAVIES asked, "Clean Water Fund, Clean
Water Account, Drinking Water Fund, Drinking Water Account,
could you help me understand the relationship between
those"?
MR. KELTON replied, "When the legislation for the Clean
Water Account and fund was first established, it was the
legislature's desire to establish first, a program that
would allow us to use the federal dollars and that is the
fund. In addition to that, it was desired by the
legislature to establish a separate account that, should the
legislature want to appropriate money to a loan program that
went beyond the federal match requirement. And the problem
with doing it all under the fund, is the constitutional
prohibition against having the dedicated revenue source. We
can have a dedicated fund, as long as we're doing it in
compliance with the federal law. Since they wanted to go
further than the federal law, and by doing that they had to
set up a separate account to go further than the federal law
where the interest from loan repayments would not come back
to the account, but would go back to the general funds.
That's the reason for having the two distinctions. All
we've done in the Drinking Water portion of this is to
duplicate the parallel structure that was already
established under the Clean Water Account and fund. Should
it be the desire of the legislature not to maintain the
account provisions of this, that would be an easy matter to
strike both of those provisions...(as) state dollars are
probably not going to ever be available to capitalize that
account anyway, so it would probably be of no major
consequence if those two sections were struck. The only
thing is if we were ever in a position where it wanted to be
funded, you wouldn't have the mechanism to do it. It
doesn't cost us anything to leave."
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "So the funds are in fact
dedicated funds under the authority of the federal
appropriation."
MR. KELTON said, "That is correct. There's approximately
$62 million in the Clean Water Fund between state and
federal dollars. There is nothing available currently in
the Drinking Water Fund."
Number 322
CHAIRMAN OLBERG asked, "Is this the money that's
appropriated and generically called Village Safe Water? Is
this the fund it processes through?"
MR. KELTON said, "No sir, that is an entirely separate
program. Village Safe Water Program are funds that come
directly to the Department (of Environmental Conservation)
for administration in village Alaska. These funds are
primarily to benefit the larger urban communities. I should
have mentioned one thing...on the loan program for the
drinking water fund and account, one of the things that we
see as a useful use for that money is to build water
filtration systems for any place in the state that needs
them. The Clean Water Act requires that all surface waters
be filtered. This is posing some significant financial
hardships on some of the larger seafood processing areas
such as Unalaska, Kodiak, Cordova that all use surface
waters. By having this loan provision available, we will be
able to provide them low interest loans to comply with this
unfunded federal mandate."
Number 348
REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE asked, "The Alaska Clean Water
Account...is that a dedicated fund and how does that mesh
with the prohibition against dedicated funds?"
CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "It's a separate account. The general
fund of the state of Alaska is made of probably hundreds of
subaccounts."
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES pointed out, "The legislature can
appropriate it for any purpose whatsoever."
Number 379
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES moved that CSSB 330 be moved from
committee with individual recommendations. There were no
objections.
Chairman Olberg called a brief at ease from 1:26 p.m. to
1:27 p.m., when he brought forth SB 294.
SB 294 - PETERSBURG CANNED SALMON CLASSIC
Number 395
TERRY OTNESS, STAFF TO SENATOR ROBIN TAYLOR, PRIME SPONSOR
OF SB 294, stated "We introduced this legislation at the
request of the Petersburg Chamber of Commerce. The
Petersburg Chamber last year implemented a `canned salmon
classic' whereby the person who comes closest to guessing
the number of cases packed by the canneries, wins. The
chief purpose of the legislation is to allow for the
promotion of Petersburg and the canned salmon industry.
Receipts are used to fund the prize, of course, finance the
Chamber of Commerce operations and hopefully, if this
passes, with enough funds to fund a scholarship, as well.
Currently, under regulation there is a 50 cent per ticket
limitation on these types of affairs and this would remove
this limitation. This limitation would prevent the chamber
to raise the price of tickets to $2 and allow it to join
other state-sanctioned classics such as the Nenana Ice
Classic. Tickets would be sold throughout Southeast Alaska;
it's been endorsed by most of the communities. In fact,
most of the communities have agreed to allow ticket sales in
their communities. And the Alaska Trollers Association
supports this legislation."
CHAIRMAN OLBERG asked, "You say the ticket limit is 50
cents? Doesn't the Nenana Ice Classic charge two dollars
per ticket?"
MR. OTNESS said, "Right. To go above that limitation you
need to have this type of statutory sanction."
PATRICK WILSON, PLANT MANAGER, ICICLE SEAFOODS, PETERSBURG,
testified via teleconference in support of SB 294. He said,
"I am also the Chairman of the Canned Salmon Classic and I'm
the treasurer here of the Chamber. Last year we kicked this
idea off. The main reason was to draw attention to
Petersburg...and we were positively received last year...
We hope this Canned Salmon Classic will draw attention to
the seafood industry... We're hoping to raise funds for
scholarships for graduating high school students..."
Number 469
REPRESENTATIVE BILL WILLIAMS moved to pass SB 294 out of
committee with individual recommendations. There were no
objections.
Chairman Olberg called an at ease from 1:33 p.m. to 1:35
p.m., when he brought forth HB 502.
HB 502 - MANDATED MUNICIPAL SERVICES
Number 486
REPRESENTATIVE MARK HANLEY, PRIME SPONSOR OF HB 502,
testified saying, "Basically, what the bill does is says,
`after the effective date of this act, anything that we pass
on to local governments we should fund.' It's a good
policy, I think, because just like the federal government
keeps mandating things to us and doesn't pass on the
funding, the state has a similar policy of doing it to local
communities and it's easy for us to pass these things on.
There are practical problems with how you actually implement
it and I think it's good to get this discussion going. As a
general policy, it makes a lot of sense and we've talked to
the municipalities; they're supportive, I believe, of this
thing because they continually see us, whether it's the
senior citizen's property tax exemption, which we originally
funded at 100 percent...and of course, in this year's
budget, we're not funding any of it, but they still have to
provide it...and there's lots of other examples. I think
that municipalities just want to know that if we're going to
mandate something, we're going to pay for it..."
Number 508
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "Having been a former municipal
assembly member, I appreciate the intent of this, but
Representative Hanley indicated that there were some
problems...and one of them that occurs to me is that perhaps
to be able to distinguish between mandates and fundamental
requirements of local government..."
REPRESENTATIVE HANLEY said, "The whole intent of this was to
try and get some debate going and answer some of these
questions...I think some of the municipal people will be
able to address some of that... I would also note with a
statute as this is, it's really appropriation power that's
constitutionally mandated to the legislature so it's a
little bit tough on the enforcement side, even with a
statute in here if we choose not to appropriate something,
it may not get appropriated and there may not be recourse
against the state."
REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE asked the sponsor "to share your
perspective of the problems that you see."
REPRESENTATIVE HANLEY said, "Initially, folks had approached
me to do a constitutional amendment for this and I was
concerned...if we work through some of the language in the
statute, it's not in the Constitution. We're not going to
get required to pay for police protection...people are
providing those services. So with the statute, there is
more flexibility. That is the problem, trying to define or
think of circumstances in the future where we might choose
to mandate something that we don't want to fund... It would
be any new laws enacted after this point.."
REPRESENTATIVE ED WILLIS asked, "This just applies to
anything in the future?"
REPRESENTATIVE HANLEY replied, "It is intended to start from
this point and go forward with new laws rather than try and
address the incredible number of things that local
communities (do)... It was an attempt to say `from this
point forward, we will debate these issues one by one and
say if we're going to require something then we should fund
it.'"
REPRESENTATIVE WILLIS said, "The Senior Citizen Property Tax
Exemption: If, for example, suppose the legislature after
the enactment of this particular law decided to lower the
caps to reduce the funding to this program, would the fact
that we changed the caps then put that amended legislation
under the umbrella of this particular bill"?
REPRESENTATIVE HANLEY said, "It says, `A law enacted that
requires a municipality to perform a new activity or
service' and I would think that would be covered, `or
increase the level of any activity or service.' So, if you
were lowering the cap, that would I think, be a reduction of
the responsibility..."
Number 596
REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE pointed out, "Should we suddenly
establish a new city, then how (would) the traditional
services (yet to be provided) fall under this bill"?
REPRESENTATIVE HANLEY replied, "If somebody chooses to
incorporate then they come under the current mandates that
are already in the statutes so they would also be required
to fulfill whatever level of service, just like these cities
that are already providing that, that would be the current
law. It's not based on a new city coming into effect, it's
based on the legislature passing a new law to add something
else to any community... It's not going to exempt things
that have already happened...it's a problem. It seemed
easier to force the debate into the future, one by one, as
we passed new laws..."
CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "I don't know how it could be any
clearer that we're not going to change anything that's
happened historically. We're going to act differently after
the effective date of this legislation as far as the state's
relationship with municipalities."
DANIEL MOORE, CAPITAL BUDGET OFFICER, MUNICIPALITY OF
ANCHORAGE, testified via teleconference in support of HB
502. He said, "The municipality, of course, has been
experiencing quite a few mandates, mostly from the federal
level in the past. There are state mandates...that have
negatively impacted the municipality. Our primary concern
is...the potential escalation of unfunded state mandates in
the future which would probably be caused as a result of the
state trying to deal with declining revenues... State
mandates as defined within the language of HB 502
constitutes any law to provide a new activity or service.
We believe that mandates aren't necessarily bad, however,
when they go unfunded or when there's no agreement to
participate in the funding. We believe the municipality is
forced to give artificially high priority to these mandates.
As a result of having unfunded mandates, there's an
artificial high priority, takes priority over basic
services. A municipality must still pay for these out of
increased taxes or, if the funds are not available, services
are then cut. The municipality believes that as the state
struggles to balance its budget now...the practice of
burdening local governments with unfunded mandates will
increase. The legislature therefore needs to pass
legislation similar to HB 502 in a timely manner so that
future legislatures will be discouraged from unfairly
burdening local government. Attached with our testimony is
a list of actual unfunded mandates that have occurred in the
past..." (A copy of this list may be found in the House
Community and Regional Affairs Committee Room, Capitol Room
126, and after the adjournment of the second session of the
18th Alaska State Legislature, in the Legislative Reference
Library.)
MR. MOORE continued, "HB 502 is designed to have an
effective date for future mandates. At this time the
municipality would just like to encourage legislatures to
still work on addressing past unfunded mandates, especially
the senior citizen's property tax exemption. Our position
is either to provide full funding for it or to at least give
the municipalities the option of opting out of the
program... This particular example of an unfunded state
mandate is the municipalities greatest example of the degree
to which the state has forced local government to provide
funding for mandate... On a final note...there's about four
points that the municipalities' Department of Law has
brought up... One is being the way we define the word `law'
in the bill... Another, deals with who with the state would
actually administer this type of law. And in addition,
there's other issues in terms of how it gets funded from
year to year..."
Number 709
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "I'm still trying to understand
if we can differentiate between what might be called
fundamental requirements of local government versus mandated
additional requirements that the state government might put
on top of that."
TAPE 94-15, SIDE B
Number 000
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES referred to the list provided by the
Municipality of Anchorage. (A copy of this list may be
found in the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee
Room, Capitol Room 126, and after the adjournment of the
second session of the 18th Alaska State Legislature, in the
Legislative Reference Library.) He pointed out, "Equipment
and staff time to monitor chlorine levels in pools: This
would be public swimming pools and spas... They don't
require that you operate pools, but they require that if you
operate a pool that you do it in a safe manner. Can you
comment on that kind of a distinction? That's kind of a
second order mandate, in my view."
SCOTT BRAND-ERICKSON, ATTORNEY, MUNICIPALITY OF ANCHORAGE,
testified via teleconference, "Your questions can be
answered in a similar fashion. Other states have by
constitutional provision or statute, set out limitations on
mandates. Two examples, Massachusetts and California have
extended programs in the past classifying whether a
particular service is a fundamentally local government
requirement or a new mandate or with the pool example...and
the suggestion that we would have is, we don't actually know
a quick way to answer all of these questions because they
tend to depend upon the facts and the particular service.
Something that California did that we think would be helpful
would be, if there is either by in the statute or by
regulation work by one of the administrative departments
that can set up the rules for deciding what is a new
service, what is an increase in level of service and to
differentiate what is something that the local government is
deciding to do itself."
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES asked if Mr. Brand-Erickson had the
language from California and for the committee to receive
it.
MR. BRAND-ERICKSON said he would retrieve it for the
committee.
REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE asked, "In line 6 of the bill...how
would that affect cost sharing? Would you read this to say
the state would, should pay a hundred percent or fifty
percent"?
CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "If the statute says `we'll give you
half the money to do this if you want to' and you choose to
do it, it's no longer a mandate perhaps."
Number 112
KENT SWISHER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALASKA MUNICIPAL LEAGUE,
testified in support of HB 502. He said, "We continue to be
very concerned with this one and appreciative of the
legislation. Having been party to this kind of debate in
other states and at the national level...I guess I would say
that we would regard HB 502 probably as more of a statement
of legislative policy than a barrier of future enactments...
I think the fact that one would have to go to court to
implement the provisions of HB 502, would tend to militate
against local jurisdictions using it in a frivolous way
because it's not a free procedure... One thing you might
want to do as a part of strengthening the process, is
strengthen the fiscal note process that you have currently
in place. Right now that process doesn't kick in until
we're awfully late in the game..."
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "I take it what you're
suggesting here is that somehow the fiscal note process
would explicitly be required to take note of fiscal impacts
on the municipalities."
MR. SWISHER confirmed this.
CHAIRMAN OLBERG suggested a process in which municipalities
could submit fiscal notes.
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "I wonder if Mr. Swisher might
comment on what I call the second order mandate. The
situation where the state might require a municipality when
they engage in some optional activity, like operating a
swimming pool, that they operate it safely... Those things
certainly mandate some costs on your part...but that's
something you decide when you choose to operate the pool.
Could a distinction like that be made that would eliminate
that class of thing from this bill"?
MR. SWISHER said, "That would take some work with the
language. I think probably it could be. At least in my
mind there exists a fairly clear distinction between such
things as the capital matching grant program which might
require a mandate, a match from us only if we choose to
participate in it. So we don't consider it a mandate. Then
there are a series of things that get further and further
away from clarity... I think that the impracticality of
pursuing compensation for a relatively minor mandate and one
that normal people might think is probably part of what we
ought to do anyway would be difficult, expensive and
unsuccessful."
Number 244
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "I can offer perhaps a more
expensive second order mandate: The operation of a
municipal landfill. The state regulations on that can be
fairly expensive and yet they can be equally important to
public health."
MR. SWISHER concurred and said, "In some part in that we are
into what I would call a pass through mandate because often
we're dealing with mandates from the federal government
which the state is mandatorily implementing. I would think
that we could find some language that...would do that, the
kind of things you're thinking about..."
CHAIRMAN OLBERG reminded the committee, "I think the key
element is that we don't have to address anything we're
already doing, but we would certainly have to craft statutes
more carefully in the future to take all of these things
into consideration and there would have to be some way to
address federal mandates..."
Number 280
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES asked, "That's the question: ...Under
this bill, would we be required to pick up the cost of
federal mandates that are supposed to be passed through to
municipalities."
CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "Under the wording of this bill,
probably, I'd say, yes..."
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "It seems to me that we might be
able to address this issue by trying to define what I would
call... a fundamental mandate, or clear mandate and what I
would call a second order mandate... Perhaps we could
define two categories of mandate and the law could require
that we place any new law in one of those two categories and
that would force the debate on whether this was an unfunded
mandate...or some other category..."
Number 320
CHAIRMAN OLBERG offered to reschedule HB 502 for "next week"
so the committee could "reflect" on the bill.
ADJOURNMENT
CHAIRMAN OLBERG adjourned the meeting at 2:12 p.m.
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