Legislature(1997 - 1998)
04/01/1998 10:05 AM Senate FIN
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MINUTES SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE 1 April, 1998 10:05 a.m. TAPES SFC 98 # 108, Side A (000-594) Side B (594-572) CALL TO ORDER Senator Bert Sharp, Co-Chair, convened the meeting at approximately 10:05 a.m. PRESENT In addition to Co-Chair Sharp, Senators Donley, Torgerson, and Parnell were present when the meeting was convened. Senators Pearce, Adams and Phillips arrived shortly thereafter. Also Attending: KIM METCALF-HELMAR, Special Assistant, Office of the Commissioner, Department of Community and Regional Affairs; DWIGHT PERKINS, Special Assistant, Office of the Commissioner, Department of Labor; MIKE GREANY, Director, Division of Legislative Finance and aides to committee members and other members of the Legislature. via Teleconference: From Anchorage: DAVID BUNDY, Alaska Bar Association. SUMMARY INFORMATION Co-Chair Sharp announced the committee would hear bills in a different order than listed on the agenda. CS FOR SENATE BILL NO. 223(FIN) am "An Act relating to the age requirement for purposes of senior housing programs and requiring the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation to establish the age requirement, which may not be less than 55 years of age, for occupants of certain senior housing; relating to the senior housing revolving fund; repealing the senior housing bond account; relating to bonds to fund senior housing loans; repealing a provision relating to the interest rate on senior housing loans made by the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation; and providing for an effective date." Co-Chair Sharp reminded the committee they had approved a substitute for this bill, the "P" version, dated 3/30/98. But it had not been moved out of committee. Senator Torgerson moved Senate Finance Committee Substitute for SB 223 Amended from committee with accompanying zero fiscal note and individual recommendations. There was no objections and Co-Chair Sharp ordered the bill moved out of committee. SENATE BILL NO. 334 "An Act relating to guidelines and standards for state training programs; and relating to the Alaska Human Resource Investment Council." Senator Torgerson moved for adoption of Amendment #16. He explained the amendment, saying the first part referred to Page 11 Line 8 and talked about reporting requirements. This talked about a contract entered into by state agencies relating to training, which needed to come under Sections F and G. This amendment would delete Section G, which was not the intent, he said. The second part of the amendment addressed Page 11 Lines 20- 24, which would create another account in the General Fund called the Alaska Human Resource Investment Account. According to Senator Torgerson, the idea was to access a fee against programs that would go into the account for separate accounting. An earlier amendment passed the other day gave the council authority to assess the management fee against the programs. He told the committee he felt the council instead could adopt regulations to administer the subsections. He didn't want to create a separate account within the General Fund. There were no objections on the amendment, and Co-Chair Sharp ordered Amendment #16 adopted. He asked the committee if there were any further amendments to be offered. He pointed out a memorandum from the Drafter referring to technical clean-up language done on Amendments #9 and #11. Senator Torgerson said his office had reviewed the comments and agreed with the drafter's changes. Senator Torgerson moved to adopt Senate Finance Committee Substitute for SB 334, Version L dated 3/31/38 as amended. There was no objection and Co-Chair Sharp so ordered. Senator Torgerson moved Senate Finance Committee Substitute for SB 334 Amended with individual recommendations and accompanying fiscal notes with updated comments explaining there was no new money allocated. There was no objection and the bill moved from committee. CS FOR SENATE BILL NO. 263 (TRA) "An Act relating to secondary roads; and providing for an effective date." Co-Chair Sharp noted two proposed amendments to the Transportation Committee version that the committee had not yet acted on. Senator Torgerson moved for adoption of Amendment #1. He started by speaking to the bill, which would create a new category, called Secondary Roads. Then the secondary roads across the state would be in competition with each other for ranking, he added. In his opinion, the state currently wasn't upgrading or paving any of them because they came under the Community Transportation Program and they don't rank high enough to ever get taken care of. What SB 263 would do, he continued, was set up the additional category. Amendment #1 would allow the Legislature to appropriate up to $20 million federal funds into this category, he concluded. Senator Parnell asked if Senator Torgerson was trying to establish a level of funding. Was he trying to set a level of "up to" $20 million, or did he want "$20 million or nothing", Senator Parnell wondered. Senator Torgerson understood the point with regard to possible future appropriations that could be smaller. He responded that currently the Administration has the $220 million federal funds broken down into three categories. The intent of the amendment was to set up a fourth category and assign the $20 million into that category. To answer the question if it was all or nothing, he said he'd be happy with a lesser appropriation so long as the funds went to the secondary roads. He stressed that he would also like to see the full $20 million go to the program. Co-Chair Sharp noted that the $20 million of the current ICETEA appropriation would amount to less than ten-percent of the total allocation. There was some discussion agreeing to this observation. Senator Adams asked what affect this would have with other funding such as the National Highway System or the CTP. Senator Torgerson replied that if there were no other appropriation to increase the amount of ICETEA, this could have the affect of ratcheting back those other programs if the full $20 million was put into this program. He noted that under the current ICETEA the State Of Alaska was a winner and would have enough funds to cover this allocation without reducing the other programs. Senator Parnell still struggled with the language. He wanted to understand if Senator Torgerson was trying to not straightjacket the Legislature into making a choice between $20 million and nothing. He suggested the amendment be changed to insert the words "or less" after "$20 million". Would that still meet the intent, he asked. Senator Torgerson pointed out that the other programs were not followed by "or less". If was all subject to appropriations, but he didn't want the impression to be if the Legislature didn't appropriate $20 million, there would be nothing, he stressed. He said he would be happy to be receiving some higher degree of priority for paving secondary roads by the Department of Transportation. He also noted that this bill would sunset in five years, so it would not continue forever. Senator Parnell asked if the Legislature appropriated $20 million, what would be the required General Fund match. Senator Torgerson estimated the match to be roughly 10%, or about $2 million. Senator Adams maintained his objection, and spoke to that objection. He stressed that he still didn't know what would be the impact on the three existing programs. He didn't know what the impact would be on the urban and rural communities. Senator Donley asked how this would affect secondary municipal roads that were already paved, but in poor conditions. He referred to state-owned roads in Anchorage. Senator Torgerson told him the CS adopted in the Senate Transportation Committee changed the description from exclusively gravel roads to include asphaultic roads. Senator Donley asked how that would apply to Abbott Road in his district. Senator Torgerson guessed Abbott Road would not be eligible under this project. There was further discussion on the condition of Abbott road and other unimproved gravel roads. Senator Donley said the State could turn that road over to the City of Anchorage, but that the city didn't want it because it was in such poor condition. Senator Torgerson stated that his intent with this bill was to take care of the roads that hadn't received any attention. He spoke of an allocation of around $80 million that was in the CTP. He said there was another amendment that would come up later that would take care of some of Senator Donley's concerns. Co-Chair Sharp asked if the scope of Senator Donley's favorite topic was AMATS. Did that cover secondary roads, he wondered? Senator Donley discussed the state-owned roads being turned over to the municipality, who didn't want them due to their poor condition. Senator Torgerson speculated that the problem was the current ranking system. He referred to Department of Transportation and Public Facilities trips to Circle Hot Springs where they set up the ranking system. He said it was frustrating. Senator Torgerson said he did not have an objection to changing his amendment to put a higher ranking on roads to be transferred to local governments. Co-Chair Sharp asked for a roll call taken on Amendment #1. The count was 4-1 (Senator Adams nay.) Co-Chair Sharp ordered Amendment #1 adopted. Senator Donley spoke to Amendment #2. He said Section 1 of the amendment would put into statute a process by which the department currently developed the STIP. This didn't make any change he said just lay out what they actually used now and what categories they used. Section B would also further identify that. Section C would set out a provision in determining the priority for the STIP, that at least 40% of the ranking would be based on the volume of use on the road. He reminded the committee how during the interim, they reviewed how DOT&PF set their priority when they developed the STIP. Currently, the volume of use is only used for the NHP in urban roads, not for rural roads. In his opinion, this was very discriminatory. Section D of the amendment would require at that least 40% of the funds would be going into the rural and urban road sub-category. The remaining could be allocated at the department's discretion. Senator Adams wanted to know if this amendment would follow along with the federal guidelines for acceptance of federal funds. Senator Donley responded that, for the first time, it would set out everything that is done now into statute. It would then add additional criteria, which he said was not listed in the federal requirements. He pointed out that all STIP projects were re-submitted to the federal government for approval before work was begun. Senator Adams asked if Senator Donley thought this could jeopardize receipt of federal funds, which Senator Donley responded that he didn't think would. Co-Chair Sharp asked what was the current description of the CTP category, and if the amendment would change that. Senator Donley replied that it would have the exact same description, only the subcategories would change. Co-Chair Sharp clarified that Sections C And D would give guidelines to the department on how to rank projects and determine allocation procedures based on the amount of money allocated to the total CTP category. Senator Donley affirmed that. Senator Torgerson moved to amend Amendment #2. He read his amendment into the record. "Page 2 Line 17 New Subsection E, would read, The department shall give priority to upgrading unimproved or hot asphaltic roads if the department receives a request for the transfer of that road or a portion of that road to a municipality under this section." He said that basically the language to the main body of the bill on Page 1 Line 14 he word-smithed to add "hot asphaultic." Senator Parnell worried that the language "municipalities" was too limiting. He wanted to know if that would leave out any local governments. Senator Torgerson responded that he felt the term was all encompassing and the only entity that could be left out might be an unorganized government wanting to take over a road. There was no objection to the Amendment to Amendment #2 and Co-Chair Sharp ordered it adopted. Amended Amendment #2 was now on the table. There was no objection and it was adopted. There was discussion on the version of the fiscal note, and if it applied to the amended bill. Senator Torgerson moved Senate Finance Committee Substitute for SB 234, as amended out of committee with accompanying fiscal notes and individual recommendations. There was no objection and Co-Chair Sharp so ordered. SENATE BILL NO. 234 "An Act extending the termination date of the Board of Governors of the Alaska Bar Association." Senator Adams moved for adoption of the CS for SB 234. Senator Pearce announced that she was not going to offer that version because it was not what was discussed at the subcommittee meeting. In her opinion, the Drafter misunderstood the intent of the subcommittee and therefore Version E of the Workdraft was not what was discussed. Senator Adams removed his motion. Senator Donley moved to amend SB 234, Line 6 to change the number "2002" to "2000". Senator Adams objected. His reason was because of the recommendation of the Auditor suggesting the date extend the sunset date out to six years. He wanted to know why the request was now being made to reduce the date to two years. Senator Donley responded saying there was a continuing question on the Bar Association's carry-over of approximately $1 million. As it related to its budget expenditures, he felt it was important to review this again after a couple of years. With that, Senator Adams removed his objection. Senator Donley noted on the record that he was a member of the Alaska Bar Association, but didn't feel that constituted a conflict of interest. Senator Parnell noted the same. Co-Chair Sharp ruled there was no conflict of interest and that they would both be required to vote on this legislation. There was no objection to Amendment #1, and Co-Chair Sharp ordered it adopted. DAVID BUNDY testified on behalf of the Alaska Bar Association to the bill. He told the committee he was surprised to see there was a desire to move the sunset date up to two years. He spoke of the surplus of funds and said it had been the association's position from the beginning that they did not operate on state funds. They did their best to manage their funds economically and efficiently, he said. They planned their budgeting out well beyond two years from now, which had been summarized in the audit. He said he didn't see any reason that would change. It would be an expensive process for everybody to go through. He felt it would be unnecessary to through this again when there was no prospect that things would be significantly altered from what they were now. This concluded public testimony on SB 234. Senator Pearce spoke of the subcommittee conversation talking about the fact that the vote to elect members of the board of the ABA should be done by mail, which was already done. The discussion then centered on voting for the officers of the association and the requirement of members of the bar to be in attendance at the annual convention to participate in the officer election. Senator Pearce talked about the distribution of area and population in representation. This system would bring diversion to the board, by rotating the residency of the presidency even though Anchorage has the highest percentage of attorney seats on the board. She added that the professional dues charged by the ABA were higher than charged by most other professional associations in the state. Many attorneys contacted her office saying that they didn't like the high dues, but the public didn't know much about the ABA. She wanted the ABA to understand that other states have taken steps to reduce the dues charged in their state. (Further conversation was illegible due to a microphone malfunction.) Bar expenses were certainly higher than other professional dues, she said. Whether the two-year extension would well serve the public, she wasn't sure. The ABA treated what they did internally different than most other professional licensing boards. Mr. Bundy requested an opportunity to respond to Senator Pearce's comments. He quantified that he was unable to hear her entire discussion because the teleconference was broken up. He didn't think it was fair to characterize the bar association as not concerned by what the Legislature felt. They took an extensive amount of time to respond to Senator Donley's earlier questions, he argued. He said they were interested in input from anyone with an opinion in the organization. We certainly listen to members and their opinions he stressed. Mr. Bundy defended the level of dues charged by the bar. Their research indicated that considering the functions the bar performed, both admissions and discipline of attorneys and continuing legal education, and that they got no state subsidy, the dues were not higher than other states that performed similar duties. Other states had discipline administered by the Supreme Court as a state function, or done on a volunteer basis instead of paid council, which he said was another way of getting a state subsidy for the bar. In his view, it was not accurate to say Alaska lawyers paid more than any where else therefore it must be too high. The organization did a great deal of research to verify that and the information was available for interested parties, he offered. He wanted to make sure his comments were noted on that point. Senator Adams offered an amendment on Page 1 Line 8 to add: "Any Alaskan that fails the Alaskan Bar license test after 25 tries is automatically a lawyer and must be President of the Bar Association and pays no dues." Senator Adams then told the committee that this was his APRIL FOOLS JOKE, and withdrew the amendment. (Laughter) Senator Adams moved Senate Finance Committee Substitute for SB 234 out of committee with individual recommendations. There was no objection, and Co-Chair Sharp so ordered. SENATE BILL NO. 233 "An Act extending the termination date of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board." Co-Chair Sharp announced that after discussion at the last meeting and recommendations and concerns of some committee members, a new CS Workdraft was prepared. This was Workdraft version H, which addressed the major concerns of the committee and the ABC board that new licenses not be established if at all possible. Senator Adams said to his understanding they were discussing the golf course. He asked where that issue was with regard to the new CS, was it in or out. Co-Chair Sharp said the "H" version would just expand the definition of a recreational site license when it involved a golf course. Senator Donley asked if the recreational site license would allow a golf cart to go around with beer on it. He stated that these licenses are really complicated and that it was amazing how strict they were. He wasn't clear if the recreational license allowed the mobile-type sales or not. Co-Chair Sharp said that according to the Drafter, in Section 2 the definition of a golf course was tightened up so that it must be a real golf course rather than a mini- golf course. Item 2 would allow alcoholic beverages sold on the site, whether it was a baseball field or a golf course as in this case. Senator Torgerson said he appreciated the definition of golf courses, but did this include mini-golf courses if they had nine holes. It was pointed out that the language said "nine holes or 2950 yards." Co-Chair Sharp noted that it should say "and". Senator Donley suggested that was simply a technical change that could be addressed along with the main motion. He moved Senate Finance Committee Substitute for SB 233, Version H with one change on Line 13, deleting "or" and inserting "and" out of committee. Senator Adams objected, saying the bill was too broad in referring to golf courses and baseball areas. He noted that many tournaments were held across the state where an increased amount of alcohol was being served. Senator Torgerson asked if the 2950 yards left out any golf courses in Alaska. He didn't know the length of golf courses. Co-Chair Sharp said to his understanding that covered all legitimate sized golf courses that weren't mini- courses or small, executive courses in neighborhoods. Senator Donley added that there might be one small course in Anchorage that wouldn't qualify. Co-Chair Sharp asked for a roll call to be taken. The Workdraft, Version H was adopted by a vote of 6-1 (Senator Adams nay.) Co-Chair Sharp announced the schedule for the next day's meeting. He stated SB 233 would be first on the calendar with Senator Donley's amendments to that bill. ADJOURNMENT Co-Chair Sharp adjourned the meeting at approximately 11:00 a.m. SFC-98 (9) 4/1/98 am
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