Legislature(2023 - 2024)ADAMS 519
05/09/2024 01:30 PM House FINANCE
Note: the audio ![]()
and video ![]()
recordings are distinct records and are obtained from different sources. As such there may be key differences between the two. The audio recordings are captured by our records offices as the official record of the meeting and will have more accurate timestamps. Use the icons to switch between them.
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| SB74 | |
| SB75 | |
| SB118 | |
| HB275 | |
| SB104 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | HB 400 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | SB 205 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | SB 170 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| += | SB 74 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | SB 75 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | SB 118 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 275 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 223 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | SB 104 | TELECONFERENCED | |
HOUSE BILL NO. 275
"An Act relating to sexual assault examination kits;
establishing the sexual assault examination kit
tracking system; and providing for an effective date."
2:26:37 PM
LISA PURINTON, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF STATEWIDE SERVICES AND
ACTING LEGISLATIVE LIAISON, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY,
introduced herself. She thanked the committee for hearing
the bill. She asked a colleague to provide an overview of
the legislation.
DAVID KANARIS, FORENSIC SCIENCE LABORATORY CHIEF, ALASKA
STATE CRIME LAB, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY (via
teleconference), relayed that the bill would require the
Department of Public Safety (DPS) to develop and operate a
sexual assault kit tracking system. Second, the bill would
establish timeframes for all of the stakeholders who would
handle a kit including medical providers, law enforcement,
and the crime lab and testing. Third, the bill would enable
victim survivors to track their kit through status updates
in the system. Fourth, the bill added a section to the
Victims Bill of Rights. He asked if Co-Chair Foster would
like a review of the summary of changes.
Co-Chair Foster responded affirmatively.
Mr. Kanaris reviewed a summary of changes (copy on file).
Amendment A.3 changed Section 1, page 2, line 3 and
required law enforcement to send kits to an accredited
laboratory within DPS within 20 days of receiving notice
from the healthcare provider. The amendment decreased the
current turnaround time for law enforcement by 10 days.
Amendment A.4 changed Section 1, page 2, line 20 and
required the laboratory receiving the completed kits to
complete a DNA test on the sexual assault examination kit
within 120 days (reducing the timeframe down from six
months). Amendment A.5 added a new section to AS
12.61.010(a), the crime victim statute, to include the
right for victims to be notified of the location and
testing date of the sexual assault examination kit. He
asked if Co-Chair Foster would like a review of the
sectional analysis.
Co-Chair Foster relayed that he would move to public
testimony.
2:29:59 PM
Co-Chair Foster OPENED public testimony.
TARA HENRY, NURSE, ANCHORAGE (via teleconference), shared
that she had previously testified and had submitted written
testimony. She was available for questions related to the
timeframe from a medical perspective. She explained that
forensic nursing groups were not supportive of a seven-day
deadline and were hoping for a 10 to 14-day timeframe due
to the extensive amount of work after a sexual assault exam
was completed and the timing it took to complete the 60
plus pages of documentation required in order to finalize a
sexual assault kit.
Representative Josephson looked at page 3 of the bill,
which specified the healthcare provider gathering the
evidence shall gather the kit and notify the appropriate
law enforcement agency within seven days. He asked if it
was the portion of the bill Ms. Henry was referencing.
Ms. Henry responded affirmatively. She explained that after
forensic nurses completed examinations there was a 60-page
document to fill out the medical forensic documentation.
She explained that it took several hours to complete the
documentation. She detailed that a seven-day timeframe was
not long enough for nurses to see patients and finish all
of the documentation due to the timing of their shifts. She
elaborated that if nurses had to meet the seven-day
deadline it would force staff to work beyond their
regularly scheduled 12-hour shifts or to come in to work on
their days off. Financially, the requirement would burden
hospitals with overtime costs and would result in would
increase burnout and staffing shortages. Hospitals
represented by union nurses would end up facing union
grievances. She relayed that forensic nurses would support
a longer timeframe of 10 to 14 days, which would allow them
to finish charting without overtime.
Co-Chair Foster asked Ms. Purinton for any comment on the
topic.
2:34:41 PM
Ms. Purinton replied that DPS understood the concerns. The
intention of the bill was to ensure that time frames were
set up for each aspect of the tracking process in order to
make the process more transparent for victims and to allow
them to identify where their kits were in the process (from
the time they consent to an exam to the time the kits were
processed by the lab). The tracking software started from
the time the kits were logged from the manufacturer though
the time the lab finished testing of the kit. The portion
currently missing was from the medical providers because
everyone else had a specified timeframe. For example, law
enforcement would have 20 days under the legislation and
the lab had 120 days. The timeframe for the medial
providers was not meant to make anyone miss timelines. The
goal was to include established timeframes in order for the
kits to be completed as quickly as possible. There was a
companion bill in the Senate and the timeframe for medical
providers had been extended. She explained that training
the previous summer for all participants (law enforcement,
advocacy groups, and medical providers) used the seven-day
timeframe, which would need to be adjusted if it was the
will of the committee.
2:36:42 PM
Representative Hannan asked Ms. Henry if the forensic
nurses had expressed their concern to DPS that a seven-day
timeframe was unrealistic and that a 14-day timeframe was
not objectionable.
Ms. Henry responded that DPS had worked with a forensic
nurse named Angie Ellis. Initially for the training the
nurses started with a seven-day deadline to determine
whether the timeframe was reasonable. The training started
the past July and nurses had determined that meeting the
seven-day deadline was very difficult. She reported that
the process was taking nurses closer to 10 to 14 days.
Other forensic nurses including the forensic nurse expert
consulted by DPS expressed concerns to the crime lab and
department. The nurses had submitted letters of opposition
voicing their concerns.
Representative Hannan stated her understanding that DPS
wanted some timeline for medical providers because there
currently was not one.
Ms. Purinton responded affirmatively. There was currently
no timeline for medical providers.
Representative Hannan asked for verification that if the
House version of the bill included the Senate's 14-day
timeline it would satisfy DPS's concern that there was a
timeline allowing victims to understand the parameters and
track the process.
Ms. Purinton agreed. The department was trying to ensure
there was transparency for victims.
2:39:31 PM
MAXINE DOOGAN, COMMUNITY UNITED FOR SAFETY AND PROTECTION,
FAIRBANKS (via teleconference), shared that the group
represented Alaska's current and former sex workers, sex
trafficking victims, and allies. She testified in
opposition to the bill because she was concerned about the
insufficient attention to the privacy of sexual assault
victims. The group was specifically concerned about the law
enforcement and DNA database's access to victims' DNA. She
highlighted a case in San Francisco where the police kept a
rape victim's DNA and used it to crossmatch on a burglary
case five years later. She relayed that did not support
keeping DNA on file after sexual assault examination kits
were processed for law enforcement agencies to access
whenever they want. She stated it created an untenable
situation for sexual assault victims to have to choose
between getting justice or maintaining their privacy. The
group hoped that the bill would include a provision to
protect rape victims' DNA from being used by contractors
responsible for the databases for various things.
Additionally, she believed the bill should be restrictive
on how law enforcement could access DNA. She was
disappointed that the bill did not include those things
thus far.
Co-Chair Foster recessed the meeting for House floor
session.
2:41:53 PM
RECESSED
5:18:27 PM
RECONVENED
Co-Chair Foster continued with HB 275. He asked to hear a
review of the fiscal note before returning to public
testimony.
5:21:10 PM
Ms. Purinton reviewed the DPS fiscal note, OMB component
527 dated May 4, 2024. She explained that the bill required
DPS to have sexual assault kit tracking software. She
detailed that the department took advantage of federal
funding available to secure the software for the sexual
assault exam tracking application. The department had
procured the software and it was implemented in the field.
The federal funding also fully funded two staffing
positions to enable the department to deploy, implement,
and develop the training and management of the software.
Ms. Purinton relayed that unfortunately the grant funding
was expiring in September 2024 and the fiscal note would
cover the cost for the ongoing licensing and maintenance of
the application and to continue with one of the two
positions. She explained that now that the application was
fully deployed, DPS believed it could manage the
application, training, and outreach with one position. The
FY 25 costs were partially offset to cover the first fiscal
year that would still be covered by the federal grant and
the $177,500 would continue for the remaining personal
services costs for FY 25. The funding would cover the
single position and ongoing maintenance and licensing costs
for the application, in addition to some travel and
handouts related to law enforcement training and other
stakeholders using the application throughout the state.
The outyears included ongoing costs for the position and
incremental annual cost for the software licensing at
roughly $1,000 per year.
Co-Chair Foster returned to public testimony. He thanked
Ms. Morton for coming to testify.
5:24:34 PM
LAUREE MORTON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ALASKA NETWORK ON DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT, thanked the committee for
hearing the bill. She shared that the Alaska Network on
Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (ANDVSA) fully
supported the legislation. She was thankful for individuals
who had not had the hard experience of sexual violence and
the experience of gathering evidence from intimate parts of
their body. She stood with those who had had the
experience. She hoped everyone could agree that the ability
for a person to see the progress of the evidence as it
moved through the system was critical. She stressed that it
should be a victim's right. She asked members to imagine
being able to use the small mercy to see the status and
location of the kit at any time. She stated that the bill
would enable individuals to check the status of their kit
without having to call someone in the system, wait to hear
back, or worse to have their request get lost in the
shuffle of the other person's busy day. Establishing the
right to know the status and location of the evidence and
putting in statute the mechanism to enact that right was a
small critical step with a huge impact on the wellbeing of
someone who had experienced sexual assault.
Ms. Morton underscored that the bill would give individuals
a piece of their autonomy that was ripped away. She
appreciated that the tracking also provided for a systems
review to allow the state to see where the process ran
smoothly, where missteps appeared, and may indicate what
could be done better. The agency was invested in seeing the
system improved timeframes to get the evidence through the
process and believed the timeframes established were good
first steps. Additionally, ANDVSA realized that with more
information the timeframes may need to be loosened but
hopefully they would be shortened. She thanked the
committee for its time and support for the victims of
sexual assault. She urged the swift passage of the bill.
She added that for the last 20 years she had been one of
the trainers for sexual assault response teams. She was
available for any questions about the process.
5:27:32 PM
Co-Chair Johnson remarked that there had been a number of
bills and legislation around sexual assault kits. She
recalled former Representative Geran Tarr's bill, and she
thought the legislature had funded a substantial amount of
money to ensure backlogs were cleared up. She had called
the state crime lab at the time and had asked how many kits
they had waiting to be processed. She shared that the
number had been minimal compared to what the legislature
had been told. She stated that the crime lab had not had a
chain of custody for some of the other kits because exams
were taken in small village or town police departments and
sometimes victims had decided they did not want the kit
processed. She stated it had turned into something where
kits had been tested but there were no charges pressed and
the kits had lost chain of custody. She thought the crime
lab was basically caught up and that a lot of money had
been spent to get to that point.
Ms. Morton responded that the crime lab had done a
significant amount of work in getting caught up with the
backlog. She relayed that after Representative Tarr's first
bill that gave the crime lab one year to start getting the
kits in order, the timeframe was reduced to six months. She
relayed that the timeframe in the bill was reduced to 120
days (four months). She reported that the crime lab
believed it may be able to reduce the time a bit more, but
not down to immediately because the tests run took time to
develop. The four months and perhaps a bit quicker seemed
to be an appropriate timeframe. The bill was about kits
moving forward. She confirmed that in the past a kit may
stay with the Municipality of Anchorage or Juneau, but
currently all kits were sent to and held in the state crime
lab. Some of the kits were directly processed and sometimes
victims had the evidence gathered in an anonymous kit. She
explained that anonymous kits were not processed unless the
victim decided to move forward. She noted that in some
cases kits were processed and somewhere along the way a
victim decided they no longer wanted to cooperate with law
enforcement. She clarified it did not mean the kit
information could not be used.
Ms. Morton relayed that a perpetrator's DNA evidence went
into the national CODIS [Combined DNA Index System], but
the victim's DNA did not. The crime lab had a process about
whether they kept victim DNA to perhaps determine the
difference between a victim's DNA and a perpetrator's DNA.
She explained that there was an information form that was
filled out so that victims were given the opportunity to
understand how the system worked and how information was
contained, which victims had to agree to. She stated that a
lot of progress had been made since former Representative
Tarr first took up the issue. She shared that there was a
framework called "the six pillars" of appropriately
responding to sexual assault; Alaska had instituted five of
the pillars. The sixth pillar was to put the crime victim
right into statute, which would be implemented by the bill.
She reiterated that progress had been made and the backlog
had been reduced. She believed more staff had been hired
and that one of the fiscal notes talked about the need for
a given number of staff. Strides had been made in being
able to better move forward with cases.
5:33:58 PM
Co-Chair Johnson asked for verification that DNA was not
tested in a scenario where a sexual assault was reported
but law enforcement chose to not follow up or charge
anyone. She asked if the DNA was kept as evidence. She
wondered if DNA collected from anyone by law enforcement
was kept on record somewhere.
Ms. Morton responded that someone from the crime lab would
need to answer the question. She clarified that she had
been speaking about anonymous reporting kits where the
victim chose not to go forward with the testing of a kit.
She was not talking about law enforcement and whether or
not they were pursuing cases.
Co-Chair Johnson considered the federal funding that had
been received for the two positions and associated work.
She wondered if the expectation had been that federal
funding would be received and the state would later take on
the funding responsibility. She remarked that it would
still cost some money to continue on with the work.
Ms. Purinton responded that Mr. Kanaris, the state crime
lab chief, could answer the questions pertaining to the
grants. She relayed that one of the pillars was one of the
recommendations to address the significant issue with the
past backlog was to implement a tracking mechanism allowing
transparency for victims to address all of the questions
and issues where kits were sitting on a shelf somewhere and
not processed timely. The bill would provide the
transparency to allow a victim to track their kit once it a
was taken. She explained that it added transparency for
victims that did not exist before. The department wanted
the requirement codified in law in order to ensure the
application to better serve victims was continued in
perpetuity.
5:37:42 PM
Co-Chair Johnson considered artificial intelligence and a
number of things that legislators had not thought about
having to deal with before and believed that at some point
a genetic privacy law would likely be needed. She wondered
about the intended outcome was when the federal funding had
been initially applied for. She asked if it was the intent
that data would be collected, and a project would be
completed where the only work going forward was information
entered into a system when a report was taken. She observed
that the state was picking up [the funding responsibility
for] a position. She asked for background information.
Mr. Kanaris responded that when the department applied for
the competitive grant in 2020, the funding was meant as
seed money designed for inventory tracking and reporting to
help setup a kit tracking system to help the lab conduct
inventories and to make easier reporting of statistics
showing where kits were in the process at any given time.
The system was in place and operational and the department
was asking for continued funding in order to continue
providing the service, primarily for victims to make sure
they were able to track their kits.
Representative Galvin noted that one of the earlier
testifiers expressed concerned about the privacy of the
victims' data. She wondered what happened with the victim
data.
Mr. Kanaris understood that the testifier had highlighted a
past case in San Francisco. He characterized it as a
horrifying case that was an ethical violation using a
victim's sample to search against current offenses. The
national DNA index system CODIS hosted by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was extremely strict around
what could and could not go into the database. He explained
that the department had to follow all of the FBI
guidelines, which were publicly available. He relayed that
victim samples could not go into the database. He detailed
that if the department violated the rule, it would run the
risk of not having access to CODIS, which was a situation
it would never risk. Some states allowed a local version of
a DNA database. He elaborated that those states were
predominately the larger states with multiple labs that
input into the CODIS system. He informed members that those
states were probably the most at risk of having a victim
put into the system. He explained that because the state
crime lab was the only crime lab in Alaska, it did not have
a true local [DNA] database. The only kind of local
database in Alaska was a staff elimination database. He
detailed that all of the crime lab staff with access to the
DNA lab had the DNA on file in a mini database. He
elaborated in the event of a contamination or when some
other DNA was detected, it was searched against the staff
elimination database. There were some other vendors who may
have their DNA put in as well; however, there were no
victim DNA samples in the staff elimination database. The
crime lab had written policies about what kind of samples
could be included.
5:42:52 PM
Representative Galvin thought the information was very
important. She hoped that everyone was clear that the data
was safe.
Co-Chair Foster set an amendment deadline of Friday, May 10
at 5:00 p.m.
HB 275 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.
[Note: Co-Chair Foster closed public testimony on HB 275 at
approximately 5:52 p.m.]
5:43:45 PM
AT EASE
5:47:04 PM
RECONVENED
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| SB170 AARP Letter of Support rec'd 4.12.24.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
SB 170 |
| SB 205 Explanation of Changes Version A to A.A 4.26.24.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
| SB 205 Letter of Support AHFC 1.25.24.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
| SB 205 Letter of Support CIHA 1.30.24.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
| SB 205 Sectional Analysis Version A.A 4.26.24.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
| SB 205 Sponsor Statement Version A.A 4.26.24.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
| SB 205 Supporting Document AHFC Building Information 1.30.24.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
SB 205 |
| SB 170 Public Testimony Rec'd by 050724.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
SB 170 |
| HB 400 version R sectional analysis.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
HB 400 |
| HB 400 Public Testimony Rec'd by 050924.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
HB 400 |
| CSHB 400 Summary of Changes ver U to ver R.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
HB 400 |
| CSHB 400 sponsor statement ver R.pdf |
HFIN 5/9/2024 1:30:00 PM |
HB 400 |