Legislature(2003 - 2004)
05/03/2004 09:06 AM Senate FIN
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HOUSE BILL NO. 451
"An Act relating to therapeutic courts; and providing for an
effective date."
This was the first hearing for this bill in the Senate Finance
Committee.
Co-Chair Wilken stated this bill, sponsored by the House Rules
Committee at the request of the Governor, "extends the pilot
program for therapeutic courts established in Anchorage and Bethel
for alcohol and drug addicted offenders out to June 30, 2006. In
addition, it repeals the sunset clause that will terminate an
Anchorage Superior Court Judge position."
DOUG WOOLIVER, Administrative Attorney, Office of the
Administrative Director, Alaska Court System, reiterated Co-Chair
Wilken's bill summary. Mr. Wooliver continued to testify the
following.
Just to give you a very brief history of this bill. In 2001
then Speaker of the House, Bryan Porter, introduced and the
legislature passed House Bill 172. And the purpose of that
bill was to create two pilot therapeutic court programs to
deal with felony DWI offenders.
The pilot programs were modeled in large part after the
pioneering work that was done by Judge Wanamaker in Anchorage.
Judge Wanamaker is a District Court Judge and established the
wellness court there [in Anchorage] where he deals with
misdemeanor offenders with significant alcohol abuse problems.
Judge Wanamaker has had great success with that program, and
Speaker Porter and the court system wanted to know if we could
replicate that success with felony level offenders; thus House
Bill 172.
In order to determine the effectiveness of these two pilot
programs, the bill required the judicial council to conduct a
study of those programs to determine their effectiveness. And
this study is important not only for your determinations in
the future as to whether or not to continue and/or expand
these types of programs, but it is important for the court as
well because they are very resource-intensive for the court,
and we want to make sure that they work. So the evaluation is
critically important. Unfortunately both the Anchorage and
Bethel programs terminate long before the evaluation has been
completed. So if you get the evaluation from the judicial
council and decide that these programs are worthwhile and
would like to continue them, both programs would have ended
over a year earlier. Attorneys are reassigned to other work;
the treatment programs are taking other participants. So all
this bill does in that regard is just extend the termination
of those two pilot programs until after the planned study is
completed and you have had the opportunity to review their
effectiveness. To our way of thinking it doesn't make a lot
of sense to terminate the programs before you have had an
opportunity to decide whether they should be terminated.
The second very important thing that this bill does is it
deletes a sunset clause that was put on a Superior Court Judge
that was added by House Bill 172. If that judge sunsets,
Anchorage basically looses a Superior Court Judge if that
sunset clause isn't deleted. That will mean not only the end
of the felony therapeutic court program, but because that
judge still spends most of her time on work not related to
therapeutic court it will have a significant impact on the
Superior Court caseload for all cases that come through the
Anchorage Superior Court.
The last time a judge was added to the Anchorage bench of
Superior Court Judge was in 1984, and since that time our
felony caseload has doubled, our children's caseload has
doubled, and other caseloads have risen dramatically. We
simply can't afford to return to a level of judicial coverage
that was established, literally, twenty years ago.
So in the end what this bill does is extends our two
therapeutic courts until after you and the court had the
opportunity to evaluate them, and it keeps a much-needed
Superior Court Judge seat in Anchorage.
Senator B. Stevens questioned fiscal note #6 for $257,200 from the
Alaska Court System. He asked whether the expenses detailed in the
fiscal note were already provided for in the FY 05 budget request.
Co-Chair Wilken referenced a memorandum he received from Mr.
Wooliver dated May 2, 2004 [copy on file], which stated that the
costs associated with the position are included in the FY 05 budget
request.
Mr. Wooliver acknowledged the apparent discrepancy. He explained
that zero fiscal notes typically detail in the analysis statement
whether existing funds would be utilized to implement the
legislation; however, the House Finance Committee directed this
fiscal note to include the existing costs. This bill would not
require any new expenses.
Senator B. Stevens clarified that this legislation would not incur
additional expense.
Co-Chair Green offered a motion to report the bill from Committee
with individual recommendations and accompanying fiscal notes.
Without objection HB 451 MOVED from Committee with zero fiscal
notes: #1 from the Department of Administration, #2 from the
Department of Corrections, #3 from the Department of Health and
Social Services, and #4 from the Department of Law, and fiscal note
#6 for $257,200 from the Alaska Court System.
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