Legislature(2013 - 2014)HOUSE FINANCE 519
02/06/2014 01:30 PM House FINANCE
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB299 | |
| Fy 14 Supplemental Budget Overview: Office of Management and Budget | |
| HB266 || HB267 | |
| Fy15 Budget Overview: Department of Law | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| += | HB 266 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 267 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
HOUSE BILL NO. 266
"An Act making appropriations for the operating and
loan program expenses of state government and for
certain programs, capitalizing funds, and making
reappropriations; making appropriations under art. IX,
sec. 17(c), Constitution of the State of Alaska, from
the constitutional budget reserve fund."
HOUSE BILL NO. 267
"An Act making appropriations for the operating and
capital expenses of the state's integrated
comprehensive mental health program."
2:26:16 PM
^FY15 BUDGET OVERVIEW: DEPARTMENT OF LAW
2:26:21 PM
MICHAEL GERAGHTY, ATTORNEY GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF LAW,
began the PowerPoint presentation, "Department of Law FY15
Budget Overview." He spoke to Slide 2:
Mission:
The Alaska Department of Law prosecutes crime and
provides legal services to state government for the
protection and benefit of Alaska's citizens.
Core Services
· Protecting the safety and financial well-being of
Alaskans
· Fostering conditions for responsible development
of our natural resources
· Protecting the fiscal integrity of the State of
Alaska
· Promoting good governance
Mr. Geraghty turned to Slide 3, which contained a
departmental organizational chart outlaying the three
divisions: Criminal, Administrative Services, and Civil.
Mr. Geraghty spoke to Slide 4, which listed the FY15
operating budget requests by division. The department would
be taking a 5percent reduction in general funding from
FY14.
Mr. Geraghty continued to Slide 5, which contained a bar
graph showing the percentage of the total department's
budget by fund group. The percentage of general funds
(UGF&DGF) in the Department of Law's budget was 64 percent
in FY06 and is 68 percent in the FY15 governor's request.
2:28:55 PM
Mr. Geraghty spoke to Slide 6, "Key Statistics." The slide
listed planned personnel reductions, the bulk of which
would be the loss of 6 attorneys and 1 law office
assistant. The attorneys were divided between the criminal
and civil division and three of the positions were
currently vacant. He thought that remaining attorneys could
work across divisions.
2:31:41 PM
Mr. Geraghty turned to Slide 7, which showed the
department's share of total agency operations. The
department's general fund budget grew by $19.1 million
between the FY06 and FY15 governor's requests, an average
annual growth rate of 4.1 percent. The department's total
FY15 governor's request general fund budget equaled $191
per resident worker. In FY08, the department's percentage
of all agency overall operations was 1.1 percent, and had
been as high as 1.5 percent in FY12. In FY15, projections
were at 1.2 percent. The main reason the department's
budget had fluctuated was because of the need to use
Outside Counsel for cases such as BP Corrosion, TAPS and
the Fast Ferries. Personal services had increased $25.5
million between FY06 and FY14.
2:33:00 PM
Representative Gara inquired what the blue line across the
bars represented. Mr. Geraghty responded that he was
unsure.
2:33:42 PM
DAVE BLAISDELL, DIRECTOR, ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DIVISION,
DEPARTMENT OF LAW, interjected that the red lines
represented the total agency budget of $63 million. He
added that the blue line represented the percentage of
agency budget to total state agencies budgets.
2:34:33 PM
Mr. Geraghty continued to Slide 8, which showed the
continued budget growth compared to the 10-year plan for
all funds. He shared that spikes for the department were
the result of large cases such and BP Corrosion, TAPS, and
Point Thomson. The flatter growth curve in out years did
not project any of those cases. Mr. Geraghty said that
Slide 9 reflected the same comparison using only general
funds.
Mr. Geraghty addressed Slide 10, which was a pie chart
detailing personal services as 75 percent of the
department's budget.
2:35:53 PM
Mr. Geraghty directed committee attention to Slide 11,
which listed the adjustments to the FY14 management plan
that would be needed to arrive at the base. He said that
one-time items had been removed and statewide items had
been re-added.
2:36:40 PM
Mr. Geraghty spoke to Slide 12, which showed the increments
that had been added back in and the deletion of the 7
aforementioned positions. Reduced expenditure levels were
1.5 percent of the total budget. He said that the
department would work to curb the use of outside council
and to improve vacancy rate management. He noted that there
were two attorney positions that were partially funded by
the Department of Corrections.
2:40:05 PM
Mr. Geraghty turned to Slide 13. The slide contained a pie
chart that broke down the priority programs as a percentage
of the budget FY15 management plan.
Mr. Geraghty directed committee attention to Slide 14,
which listed the numbers for the FY15 priority programs
totaling $93,458.4.
Mr. Geraghty addressed Slide 15, which listed the return on
investment for the Civil Division budgets in FY12 and FY13.
2:42:27 PM
Mr. Geraghty continued to the individual topics pictured on
Slides 16 through 24. He said that between 2010 and 2012,
the state had 6 convictions for Medicaid fraud. Since 2012,
the state had had 72 cases charged, 44 convictions,
restitution judgments in excess of $225,000, 21 cases were
pending with restitution expected between $1 million and $3
million. He said that Medicaid providers had been suspended
and payments had been suspended for claims that were under
suspicion. Mr. Geraghty shared that in summer of 2013 he
had instituted a change in the department's plea
negotiation policy, mostly for serious crimes, which
eliminated the ability of the persecutor and the defense
attorney to agree on a sentence resulting in the case
having to be resolved by a judge. He believed that the
policy chance had been successful.
2:46:31 PM
Mr. Geraghty spoke to the backlog of appeals. He said that
in the court of criminal appeals had a significant backlog
of appeals that had built up over the past few years. He
shared that currently, between the time between when a
notice of appeal was filed and the briefing was completed
was approximately 500 days. He said that many of the
appeals were sentence appeals and could be handled by civil
attorneys.
2:49:56 PM
Mr. Geraghty moved on to the issue of the Voting Rights
Act. He said that the state had challenged the coverage
formula provision, which had required the state to pre-
clear all election changes before they could be
implemented. The case was dismissed with the Department of
Justice agreeing that the requirements were null. The
effort should reduce the re-appointment fights in the
future, which should result in saving to the state. He
continued to the Katie John case. He stated that an amicus
brief had been filed by 14 states in support of Alaska's
Certiorari Petition, which he believed spoke to the merits
of the case and the issue of encroachment of federal
authority on state's rights.
2:51:16 PM
Mr. Geraghty spoke to the Endangered Species Act. He
related that the major species implicated were the polar
bear and the bearded seal. He relayed that the state had
won the critical habitat case before the district court.
The critical habitat established by the National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) covered 187,000 square miles of
the state; the rule was currently on appeal to the 9th
circuit. He spoke to the challenge of the bearded seal
designation, which was based by NMFS on a 100 year model.
He hoped for a decision in the current year. He said that
the stellar sea lion was still designated that litigation
would most likely resume on the issue.
2:53:05 PM
Mr. Geraghty opined that Alaska's right to access and
manage land was an ongoing issue. He spoke to the case of
John Sturgeon who was prohibited from using a hovercraft
inside the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. He said
that the state was appealing the case with Mr. Sturgeon,
and that other cases were pending. He stated that the
Roadless Rule continues to be litigated as well as the
Lease Sale 193 among others.
2:55:18 PM
Mr. Geraghty discussed consumer protection. He shared that
he was working on the issue of on-board port shopping
programs that were nefarious and unethical. He said that a
consent decree had been negotiated with the three on-board
promotion companies that served the cruise lines working in
Alaska.
2:59:33 PM
Mr. Geraghty spoke to Slide 24, which listed challenges
faced by the department:
· Increases in the number of criminal cases brought to
trial
· Increased facility costs
· Gasline funding
· Elections issues in 2014
· Effective use of outside counsel
Mr. Geraghty said that in 2011 the department tried 130
cases in Anchorage, 2012 148 cases were tried, and in 2013
176 cases were tried. He stated the all of the state
offices in Western Alaska faced challenges, but that Bethel
was the priority. He relayed that the Fairbanks office had
been moved, which had added expense. He listed other
facility challenges.
3:03:57 PM
Co-Chair Stoltze expressed appreciation for the
department's work on victim's rights. Mr. Geraghty replied
work would continue on the issue.
3:06:26 PM
Co-Chair Stoltze inquired what the relevance was of telling
the committee what percentage his department's budget was
of the total agency budgets. Mr. Geraghty thought that it
was useful to track what percentage of a state budget an
agency spent.
Co-Chair Stoltze did not appreciate the departmental
comparisons.
3:08:32 PM
Co-Chair Austerman commented that past chairmen had found
the information helpful. Co-Chair Stoltze agreed that the
charts could be useful.
Co-Chair Stoltze queried the return on investment for
successful cases and agency advice. Mr. Geraghty said that
it was hard to quantify.
3:11:07 PM
Co-Chair Stoltze said that he was speaking to federal
litigation. Mr. Geraghty reiterated that it was hard to
quantify.
3:12:25 PM
Representative Costello asked for Mr. Geraghty's opinion on
the amount of time and energy the state spent dealing with
issues related to federal overreach. Mr. Geraghty replied
that the department spent a lot of time dealing with the
issues. He shared that much time had been spent on the
Pebble Mine issue. He spoke again to the Sturgeon Case. He
thought that it would be hard to measure the time spent,
but that it was an ongoing battle.
3:14:54 PM
Representative Costello requested a short overview of the
status of the RS2477 issue. Mr. Geraghty responded that the
district court judge granted a summary judgment to the
native allotment holders that were involved in some of the
trails in the Chicken area. He stated that the judge
believed that it was an issue that should be decided by the
9th circuit.
3:16:44 PM
Co-Chair Stoltze thought that the issue would be better
addressed by the Citizens Advisory Committee on Federal
Areas. Mr. Geraghty said that the Chicken claims were the
main cases the state was dealing with, but that there were
more, smaller cases that the department was handling.
3:18:03 PM
Vice-Chair Neuman probed the issue of Medicaid fraud. He
understood that the department recovered $1 million to $3
million per year. Mr. Geraghty replied that there were 21
cases pending where the restitution available would be $1
million to $3 million.
Vice-Chair Neuman asked where the recovered funds would be
used. Mr. Geraghty said that the funds would be returned to
the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS).
Vice-Chair Neuman understood that the department saved $15
million per year by discovering Medicaid fraud. Mr.
Geraghty replied that when there was credible evidence of
fraud DHSS would suspend payment. He said that in those
cases the projected money saved was $15 million.
3:21:03 PM
Representative Gara commented that the number of non-
violent offenders in prison had grown significantly. He
asked whether the department could work with the Department
of Corrections and the governor in order to compose a list
of criminal sentences and misdemeanors that had been
changed to felonies, but were non-violent crimes, that
could be examined in order to reduce the prison population.
Mr. Geraghty thought that the problem was multi-
dimensional. He said that studies had shown that one-third
of defendants would not reoffend, another third would
reoffend no matter how much help they received, and the
final third rested in the middle. He said he would be happy
to study the issue.
3:25:13 PM
Representative Gara thought that there had been a
substantial increase in the non-violent offenders. He
requested that a hard look be taken in order to find
solutions. Mr. Geraghty assured the committee that the
issue would be examined.
Representative Gara discussed the department's plea policy.
He requested assurance that the policy was fair and
equitable. Mr. Geraghty that there were exceptions to the
policy for individual case reviews.
Representative Gara asked what would happen if a person did
not commit the crime. Mr. Geraghty said that if the person
did not commit the crime then they would not go to trial.
He countered that if the person did commit the crime, there
should be no fear of taking it to trial.
3:29:49 PM
Representative Munoz expressed appreciation for the work
done by the department.
3:30:50 PM
HB 266 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.
HB 267 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.
Co-Chair Austerman discussed housekeeping.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| Dept of Law FY 15 Overview House Finance (3).pdf |
HFIN 2/6/2014 1:30:00 PM |
LAW Overview Budget HFIN |