Legislature(1997 - 1998)
02/13/1997 01:35 PM Senate L&C
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= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SENATE LABOR AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE
February 13, 1997
1:35 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Loren Leman, Chairman
Senator Jerry Mackie, Vice Chairman
Senator Tim Kelly
MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Mike Miller
Senator Lyman Hoffman
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
SENATE BILL NO. 65
"An Act relating to domestic animals, to food, and to the Alaska
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act; and providing for an effective date."
HEARD AND HELD
SENATE BILL NO. 73
"An Act relating to the citizen review board and panels for
permanency planning for children in state foster care; extending
the termination date of the Citizens' Foster Care Review Board; and
providing for an effective date."
HEARD AND HELD
PREVIOUS SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION
SB 65 - No previous action to record.
SB 73 - No previous action to record.
WITNESS REGISTER
Ms. Connie Sipe, Director
Division of Senior Services
Department of Administration
3601 C St., Ste. 310
Anchorage, AK 99503-5984
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 73.
Mr. Scott Calder
P.O. Box 75011
Fairbanks, AK 99707
POSITION STATEMENT: Opposed SB 73.
Ms. Angela Salerno, Executive Director
National Association of Social Workers
525 Main St.
Juneau, AK 99801
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 73.
Ms. Diane Worley, Director
Family and Youth Services
Department of Health and Social Services
P.O. Box 110630
Juneau, AK 99811-0630
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 73.
Ms. Janice Adair, Director
Division of Environmental Health
Department of Environmental Conservation
555 Cordova St.
Anchorage, AK 99501
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 65.
Mr. Jim Cantor, Assistant Attorney General
Department of Law
1031 W. 4th Ave., Ste 200
Anchorage, AK 99501
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on SB 65.
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 97-6, SIDE A
Number 001
SB 73 FOSTER CARE REVIEW BOARD
CHAIRMAN LEMAN called the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee
meeting to order at 1:35 p.m. and announced SB 73 to be up for
consideration. He said it had been introduced at the request of
the Governor.
MS. CONNIE SIPE, Director, Division of Senior Services, explained
that the Citizens Foster Care Review Board by statute is placed in
the Department of Administration and the Division of Senior
Services is its administrative home. She said she has a background
in health and social services with issues regarding foster care and
she is the spokesman for the administration on this bill.
She said the statute that currently exists creating a Citizens
Permanency Planning Board and local review panels was passed in
1990 with a $579,000 appropriation to start the Statewide system
including staff, a Statewide advocacy board, a planning and
standard setting board, and local panels who would actually provide
review of the foster care cases handled by the Division of Family
and Youth Services (DFYS). She said that the statute wasn't really
implemented and all program activity ceased. In FY 91 unexpended
funding was reappropriated and there was no program funding for FY
92 because it was not requested in the governor's budget.
In 1993 the legislature appropriated $125,000 for a pilot program
in Anchorage funding the program for eight and a half months in FY
94 and Governor Hickel appointed panelists in October '93. The
program is working now with an annual budget of $134,000 which
funds two social workers and a clerk at three-quarters time. None
of them can work a full year or at full-time. She said the statute
is now only partially implemented. The Statewide board has not
been convened because the statute requires that the citizen members
be members of local operating review panels. Since there are no
local citizen review panels, except in Anchorage, there is not a
pool of other citizens from which the Governor can appoint to the
State-level board. Therefore, the State-level Board does not
exist. Currently, there are about 16 trained volunteers in
Anchorage who review cases of foster care children.
The Governor's bill is meant to revitalize this program. The
administration has looked at trying to find a way in today's fiscal
climate to get the program spread Statewide as originally intended.
They did not think asking the legislature for a renewal of the
$580,000 a year funding would be successful and so they have
slightly changed the statute so that they think the system can over
the next year and a half or two go Statewide, but with a modest
increment in funding. They propose to slightly reduce the size of
the Statewide board number of public officials who are appointed to
the Board, and make the government officials voting members because
to encourage a more active interest. To ensure the views of
citizens are dominant SB 73 says they must constitute the majority
of any quorum on any official actions taken. She said there is a
belief that the public entities, like the court system, the public
defenders, the Office of the Public Advocate, etc. want citizens
review to work - for all cases, not just a few as happens now.
This bill would require that every single case that comes through
DFYS that is required to have reviews of children and their foster
care placement would come through a citizen's panel for review at
every required hearing step.
By doing that they believe, and have reached an agreement with
Family and Youth Services, that DFYS would make theirs the official
hearing. By federal law to receive federal money that helps
support children in foster care, Title 4E in the Social Security
Act, requires certain events to trigger reviews of a child's
placement out of their home. When the State is audited they receive
money that helps pay for foster care placements. DFYS is already
conducting in-house reviews usually with one or two outside citizen
members of a review panel on children's foster care cases. This
would stop so there would be no duplication of effort and keep
costs down.
DFYS would become the staffing for the panels. Currently the staff
sets up the hearings which is a very time consuming process. There
is a long list of people who need to be notified: interested
relatives, tribal entities, social service agencies, foster care
parents, court members, and lawyers; they have to research and
search for certain parties; they have to go through the DFYS case
and pull out summaries or materials for the panel members to review
before they come to the review.
The two three-quarter time social workers in Anchorage have their
hands full just training new panel members as others drop off and
setting up the number of cases they do now. They do 250 - 300
cases per year; probably less than half of all cases in Anchorage.
They do not function in any other town in this State. This bill
would make the commitment that DFYS would be staffing the citizen
panels. However, the Citizens Foster Care Review Board has
regulation power under this statute and their staff would turn
their efforts toward setting policies and procedures for how the
cases were set up and planned. The Statewide Board would use its
staff to do training and constant recruitment in the other judicial
districts.
Number 181
She emphasized that this bill tries to revitalize this system and
make it go Statewide. She noted the fiscal note is $141,800 for
the first year, about $20,000 are one-time costs. That would add
one full-time person in the Executive Director position classed as
a range 20 and bring the two social workers and clerk to full time.
She said they are very handicapped by lack of computers and don't
have a xerox machine. The Senior Services Division loans them lots
of things. This would give them enough money to travel and hold
training in other judicial districts. There would be an overall
increase in the budget from $134,000 per year by a standing
increase of about $120,000. The Board would be reactivated by the
Governor and there would be appointment of citizens throughout the
State.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked for questions from the committee members and
there were none. He said it was not his intention to report this
bill from committee today, but he wanted to get a quick overview of
it as he has some concerns with DFYS.
MR. SCOTT CALDER said he represents primarily himself and he is
also associated with Concerned Parents For Reform. He has been
following this issue very closely for the last few years. He has
been very active in getting the Citizens Review Panel for
Permanency Planning to become a reality because of the
victimization he, his son, and family have suffered with the social
service agencies and the court system. He thinks it couldn't have
possibly occurred had there been an implementation of the Citizen
Review Panel for Permanency Planning. He said that SB 73 does
everything necessary to establish what he had hoped to see not
happen on this panel.
MR. CALDER said he read the position paper from the National
Association of Social Workers, but he didn't support some of the
things it said like, "SB 73 would ensure a fresh perspective and
aggressive stance on achieving permanency." He thought the
existing laws already do and SB 73 would diminish that affect. He
said that SB 73 is not needed to bring citizens' review to the
communities. AS 47.14.220 requires the Governor to appoint local
panel members. He thought it wouldn't be a problem for him to find
five people willing to do the job, but he thought the obstacle was
that the Governor had not made the appointments.
He also disagreed that SB 73 would "promote needed interagency
collaboration, ensure that all State Departments involved in
securing permanency for children are involved in productive
decision making." He thought that was code for they wanted to be
able to vote on the decision, but they can do anything they want
already. Current law already allows and specifies that the
Division heads would be ex-officio members. Their participation is
necessary in an advisory capacity, but in terms of making decisions
it's inappropriate for them to be sitting at a citizen review
panel. It is inappropriate to change the balance of power.
SB 73 would reduce the number of citizens on a panel which
currently has five voting members. Of these five, three would
constitute a quorum needed to carry a vote. Only two affirmative
votes would be needed in SB 73 which would change the process
considerably.
Number 286
Still referring to the position paper, MR. CALDER said that SB 73
would not increase cultural appropriateness. Indian children are
already protected by the Indian Child Welfare Act and the review
panel would simply determine whether or not there was compliance
with it.
Number 382
Another point he made is that the State would save a lot of money
by having an extra citizen review of the State's out-of-home
placements of children - not just foster care, but detention and
other settings where children are removed from their homes.
MR. CALDER said the last legislature found it necessary to extend
the sunset termination date of the citizen review panel in HB 92
which was signed by Governor Knowles on April 12, 1995. Otherwise,
he said, the laws have already been written and they are fine the
way they are. He thought it was a good idea to have only citizens
serving on the panel and to have the Governor directly responsible
for appointing the local panel members. It is also important that
the State panel produce a report by the 10th day of each regular
session so the legislature would have some idea of what is going on
with out-of-home placements early in the session.
He thought it was important that the appointed citizens had good
training and that it not be done by the people who are being
reviewed.
Number 349
He disagreed that an appropriate function of the review panel was
to impact case management for children in out-of-home placement.
He didn't think they needed another level of case management,
although he thought improvements were needed. He thought the
personnel in DFYS were already supposed to be doing these things.
He said in many cases parents of the children can't even obtain
records about what is being done to their children.
Specifically, he said, it is important to know information on the
number of children reunited with their families based on direct
inspection of the records by people who don't work in the system.
They need to know the number and recommendations and justifications
for program improvement, including recommendations relating to
State agencies and the panel review system. He said this is such
a simple, important job that has been identified for so long, that
there must be a real problem with what's going on when you have a
law that says the Governor shall appoint volunteers to review these
cases and it hasn't been done.
In conclusion, he recommended that they not pass SB 73, but simply
extend the sunset date and ask the Governor to follow through.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN thanked Mr. Calder for his testimony and said they
had no questions for him at the time.
Number 410
MS. DIANE WORLEY, Director, Division of Family and Youth Services,
supported SB 73. She explained that it is a compromise of where
they were with the original citizen's review panels and the fact
they have not been able to bring those to fruition due to funding
and different changes. She thought this was a combination of the
best of the citizen's review panel and the fact that within the
DFYS they are required by federal law to do six month reviews
already.
MS. WORLEY said she strongly supports citizen involvement in the
process. The reason they support this bill is because they are
always being asked why they aren't implementing the citizens review
panels Statewide as they are supposed to by law. The answer is
that it is out of their control. They do hear cases around the
State, but they can't do the citizen's part of that. They have
citizen participation in the 4E reviews. The problem is finding,
training, and maintaining volunteers to do this kind of work. It's
hard work needing a good understanding of the process and rules
that must be followed in order to collect the federal dollars. MS.
WORLEY emphasized the big issue is for the citizens to have
consistency and the support they need to do this job.
One of the things Mr. Calder mentioned was the power and the voting
and she wanted to reiterate that all they do at a six-month review
is go through the case to make sure they have done the planning and
have looked at all the issues. Therapists, families, and agencies
are invited to give information. The review information is taken
to the courts; any decision making is done by the court.
Number 465
MS. ANGELA SALERNO, Executive Director, National Association of
Social Workers, supported SB 73. She clarified that they are
advocating for vulnerable groups, specifically here, for kids in
foster care. They are not here advocating for DFYS.
MS. SALERNO said she they were instrumental in getting the original
bill passed in 1990. She believes that citizens will bring a
fresh, aggressive perspective to reviewing these cases which is a
very important factor in achieving permanency for children.
Because we are looking at tightened budgets, this is a way to
expand their service to other parts of the State when it has been
going on in Anchorage only for a number of years.
She clarified that the Board being formed, with members of the
administration on it, is not the voting body. That Board will
actually engender panels with citizens on them that will then do
the deliberations and voting on cases.
She said there is one concern to a number of people on page 6, line
19 stating the panel shall consist of three public members and two
members from the department. She suggested changing it to one more
public member and reducing the department members.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked if there were any questions and there were
none. He stated they would work on this bill and bring it back at
a future date.
SENATOR KELLY said he supported the legislation, but he was not
excited about the makeup of the commission with the Director of the
Office of Public Advocacy and the Public Defender on it. He wanted
more citizen participation. CHAIRMAN LEMAN said he shared those
concerns.
SB 65 FOOD/SEAFOOD/ORGANIC FOOD
CHAIRMAN LEMAN announced SB 65 to be up for consideration.
JANICE ADAIR, Director, Division of Environmental Health, explained
that within her Division are meat and dairy inspections that most
people don't equate with DEC. She said the statutes that deal with
food are very confusing because they are all over the place and
some conflict with one another. This bill consolidates all of the
DEC statutes relating to food processing and service into Title 17
which is entitled Food and Drugs. Under current law some of these
statutes can also be found in Title 3.
This legislation also proposes to delete some of the obsolete
statutes relating to bread and flour standards that have been on
the books since 1949 as well as some requirements in DEC for rabies
that they have never done.
MS. ADAIR said that currently they are required in different parts
of the statute to follow three different federal laws: the
pasteurized milk ordinance, the National Shellfish Sanitation
Program, and the Federal Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point
Program (HACCP). These are updated on a regular basis and they
have to go through a regulatory process to update the document they
have adopted by reference. This bill will allow them to
automatically update their references without having to go through
the regulatory process which helps the people who are dealing with
the federal laws who have to follow them in order to sell their
products. They always know when they are updated because they deal
so closely with the federal laws.
They propose to delete the requirement that the Department have a
field-kill inspection program for reindeer at State expense. The
State would still have the authority to do it if anyone wanted to
have one, but not at State expense. The one reindeer slaughter
facility in Mekoryuk has always worked with the department to help
defray costs for the inspections by providing the staff with
housing and meals.
SB 65 allows the State to accept the HACCP plans from processors
now rather than waiting for their effective date, December 18, 1997
because the European union is already requiring HACCP plans.
Technically, we can't accept them now because our plan of
operations is still on the books and we don't want processors to
have to do both.
MS. REARDON said that SB 65 also repeals the requirement that the
department pay for food samples it obtains to check for
wholesomeness. She said the State doesn't do that now, but there
is still a requirement on the books. We also currently have to
reimburse inspectors without receipts if they purchase the samples,
and that is being deleted.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked how much food sample is generally required for
a test. MS. REARDON said it depends on the sample. Shellfish can
be a little bit more as per the requirements from the National
Shellfish Sanitation Program. CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked if it was
picking, for instance, a few random crab - relatively small
compared to the batch. MS. REARDON answered that was correct.
MS. REARDON said she had never heard concerns expressed about this
program. The only thing she had heard concerns on was the State
paid field kill inspection program.
TAPE 97-6, SIDE B
JIM CANTOR, Assistant Attorney General, said he would respond to
questions. When he drafted the bill he was told to do a revisor's
organization along with the specifics that Ms. Reardon mentioned.
He said it was not the goal to change the way the program operated
or the way things were interpreted.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked him to flag any obsolete or awkward language
so they could make the changes. He intends to work on this bill
and have it meet their goal of making government more user friendly
to business.
CHAIRMAN LEMAN adjourned the meeting at 2:23 p.m.
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