HOUSE BILL NO. 104 "An Act creating and relating to the address confidentiality program; and providing for an effective date." 10:07:44 AM Co-Chair Foster asked the sponsor to introduce the bill. REPRESENTATIVE DONNA MEARS, SPONSOR, introduced the bill with prepared remarks: There's a small but important group of people in the state that have reasons to keep their addresses out of the public record. This includes peace officers and correctional officers who may be targets of retribution due to their roles in the justice system. It also includes victims of domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault, and other people who have protective orders. The purpose of a program like this is to allow someone who faces these serious threats to be able to participate fully in everyday life without further endangering themselves or their families. HB 104 creates an address protection program for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, peace officers, correctional officers, and their families. There are many times an address must be provided in order to participate in society. This includes voting, working, sending children to school, and much more. HB 104 establishes a program whereby these at risk individuals can receive mail at a centralized, anonymized P.O. box. Mail received by the state on behalf of enrollees will then be forwarded to participants home address, which will remain confidential under penalty of law. Representative Mears asked her staff to provide a sectional analysis of the bill. 10:09:27 AM TALIA EAMES, STAFF, REPRESENTATIVE DONNA MEARS, reviewed the sectional analysis (copy on file): Sec. 1: Adds the program to the duties of the Department of Administration. Sec. 2: Creates the program. (b) requires a Post Office Box as a substitute mailing address for enrollees and instructs the department to forward mail to participants. It charges the department with protecting confidentiality and requires regulations to govern enrollment and withdrawal. (c) describes eligible participants as people sheltered by a protective order for domestic violence, stalking, human/sex trafficking or sexual assault, and their parents, guardians, children, and household members. It also admits peace officers and correctional officers. (d) prevents registered sex offenders from enrolling in the program. (e) requires state and municipal agencies to accept the P.O. Box. (f) describes the eligibility period. (g)prevents the department from charging a fee. (h)allows access to confidential addresses subject to a search warrant. (i)establishes penalties for unlawfully revealing a protected individual's address. (j)defines certain terms. Sec. 3: Establishes a transition period for the department to adopt regulations to implement the program. Sec. 4: Lets the department begin promulgating regulations immediately. Sec. 5: Sets an effective date of Jan. 1, 2026 for the rest of the bill. 10:11:39 AM Representative Mears provided more context for who the bill aimed to help. She explained it pertained to individuals who were doing various things to protect their locations such as moving and anonymizing their voter records in places the option was available. She explained that there was not the ability to be anonymous in other places where individuals needed to protect their identity. The bill would provide additional layers in order for individuals to be safe. She detailed that an individual could be anonymous with their address by obtaining a P.O. box, but if the individual was being stalked and they moved to a small community, just knowing the community a person was living in would be a threat to their safety. She noted there was invited testimony to help provide more context. 10:13:24 AM KEELY OLSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STANDING TOGETHER AGAINST RAPE (STAR), ANCHORAGE (via teleconference), testified in support of the bill. She considered it to be a critical piece of legislation. She read from prepared remarks: Prior to working at STAR, I have worked as a victim advocate with the prosecuting attorney's office in Washington State and managed a domestic violence shelter program in Montana. Both states had address confidentiality programs, which were essential tools used by victim advocates to assist someone with stalking or highly bodily risk to be safer. These efforts were combined with comprehensive safety planning and emergency relocation plans. The address confidentiality program helps save lives and helps survivors cope with the constant fear of their address being compromised. I applaud making the program accessible to law enforcement and peace officers. I have worked with those in law enforcement who either go by a different professional name or to try to keep their locations from being searched. I know people who work in the public sector who placed their homes in a family member's name to protect their address, particularly in places where residential property can easily be searched, and people can be located through that. Ms. Olson thanked Representative Mears for sponsoring the legislation. She explained that it was not a program for everyone. She noted it was not a substitute for a P.O. box for example. She added that it was not convenient as it was her understanding that only first class mail could be transferred. She shared that in the 30-plus years of her domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy, she had only worked with a handful of people who were appropriate for the address confidentiality program. She elaborated that the program was beneficial for individuals whose lives were uprooted sometimes repeatedly in their efforts to escape an obsessed stalker. Usually, the stalker was a person of means who was able to hire private investigators. She expounded that the stalker may have moved on with their life and have another relationship, but they were obsessed with the particular person. The stalker hired private investigators to surveil the person's immediate and extended family members, they scoured the social media of the person's friends and manipulated and tricked the friends into providing information about the victim's location. She explained that the stalker did not give up and was not dissuaded when the victim moved to another state. Ms. Olson explained that in domestic violence shelters it was not unusual for a victim to be transferred from another state to escape stalking. She highlighted that there were certain things that made people particularly vulnerable in Alaska, such as property owners, voter registration, and DMV. She noted that the program would not be suitable for someone with shared custody agreements or where continuing contact was forced on a person by the court. She relayed that children were a liability in the situation because they could be forced or manipulated into sharing a private location. She thanked the committee for its attention to the matter. She reiterated her support and greatly appreciated the committee's work to increase safety for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. 10:17:54 AM Co-Chair Foster moved to the next invited testifier. DEREK BOS, CHIEF OF POLICE, CITY AND BOROUGH OF JUNEAU, JUNEAU (via teleconference), spoke in favor of the legislation, which created an address protection program for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, peace officers, correctional officers, and their families. He read from prepared remarks: As a law enforcement officer, I have witnessed first- hand the trauma sustained by victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. That trauma is only exacerbated when they are stalked, harassed, and continually targeted by the offenders who initially assaulted them. Address confidentiality protects these individuals from further victimization. Further, law enforcement officers are frequently the target of unwanted harassment, stalking, and physical retaliation by offenders, offenders' families, or arbitrary members of the public who are just angry with law enforcement in general. As a law enforcement officer, I have personally experienced this. There have been multiple occasions throughout my career where I have been targeted at my home, by offenders whom I have arrested. There have been other occasions where random members of the public who are angry with police in general, who have no relationship with me whatsoever, have come to my home intent on causing me physical harm, just because I am a police officer. Far worse, there have been other occasions in which dangerous individuals have come to my home, intent on causing harm to my family, targeting them because they are related to me. They've done this as a means simply to retaliate against me. My family has been innocent in all of this. I would also like to highlight the 2013 assassination of the Colorado Department of Corrections Executive Director Tom Clements who was targeted by a prison gang and murdered at his home in the presence of his family because of his position. Home should be a place of peace and relaxation. Coming home should not be a thing that triggers stress, anxiety, or fear. In closing, I would like to state that from a law enforcement officer's perspective, House Bill 104 is pivotal for supporting the safety of our survivors and victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence, human trafficking, as well as essential for enhancing safety of our law enforcement and correctional officers who protect our communities day in and day out. Again, thank you very much for letting me testify this morning. 10:20:58 AM Co-Chair Foster OPENED public testimony. LAUREE MORTON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ALASKA NETWORK ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT, JUNEAU, read from prepared remarks: Thank you for the opportunity to testify on HB 104, Address Confidentiality Program. My name is Lauree Morton. I'm the Deputy Director for the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault; the membership organization of domestic violence and sexual assault response service providers. The Network supports HB 104 and thanks Rep. Mears for bringing it forward. Address confidentiality programs are one tool in part of a larger safety plan. Safety planning will explore the necessity of subscribing to the program and afford the victim an opportunity to balance the potential gains in participating, against any detriments. Violence frequently escalates when people who choose to cause harm believe they are losing control of the victim. One of the most dangerous times for victims is when they attempt to leave. If victims are successful in escaping, the person causing harm will usually focus energy on finding and stalking the victim; often searching public records for the new address. Stalking can include tactics like: • Sending unwanted letters or emails • Following or spying on the victim • Driving by or waiting around at places frequented by the victim such as home, work, or school • Leaving or sending unwanted items, "presents", or flowers for the victim to find • Looking through the victim's property such as trash cans, mail, or cars. Stalking increases the risk of intimate partner homicide by three times. Among female victims of attempted and completed intimate partner homicide by male partners, in the 12 months prior to the attack: 85 percent of attempted and 76 percent of completed homicide victims were stalked. The address confidentiality program will provide enhanced safety options for survivors. Will the program be used frequently? I think it will be used occasionally when the circumstances are extreme, the danger real, and secrecy is critical to a victim's survival. We appreciate the ability given to the department to set standards in addition to protective orders when making enrollment decisions. There are times and situations where protective orders are not in the best interest of the victim, when lethality is particularly high and providing information through the protective order is considered placing the victim at greater risk. In such situations it will be even more beneficial to allow the victim to enroll in the address confidentiality program. Thank you for taking public testimony today and for your thoughtful consideration in moving the bill forward. 10:24:56 AM Representative Allard stated that she thought HB 104 was a good bill, but she was not happy with the fiscal note. She directed a question to Chief Bos. She provided a hypothetical scenario where a person on the sex offender registry was being stalked. She wondered if under the bill the individual's address could be confidential. Chief Bos asked for clarity on the question. Representative Allard stated she was asking about a sex offender. Chief Bos replied that a sex offender was not eligible for the address confidentiality program. Representative Hannan thanked Chief Bos for his testimony and work for Juneau. Representative Jimmie stated that many survivors went back to their home communities to reconnect with family and cultural traditions. She asked how the program ensured they could do so without compromising their safety. 10:27:05 AM Representative Mears answered that if someone was returning to their home community, their mail could go to a central address rather that indicating they had returned to their home community. She explained it would be a P.O. Box located likely in Juneau or Anchorage so that it may appear the individual was still living somewhere else. Representative Jimmie asked about rural communities. Representative Mears replied that the P.O. box would be centralized in a larger city like Juneau or Anchorage so it would appear an individual's mail was going there. Once the mail was collected by the state it would be mailed out to an individual's confidential address. The individual's actual address was protected by the state so that it would appear perhaps, they were living wherever the P.O. box was located. Representative Jimmie asked what resources were in place for individuals to access programs if they were struggling financially after relocating. Representative Mears replied that she did not have information on hand about other available resources. She relayed that the program would not cost anything to survivors. Representative Jimmie asked how the program would coordinate with local tribe councils and victim service organizations to connect survivors with the service. Ms. Eames replied the fiscal note included money for some advertising working with different programs, which would include heads of communities, often tribal councils in rural communities. She added that one of the reasons the bill was important for remote communities was that in small villages, all a person had to know was what community an individual was in and the first person on the street could tell someone exactly where the individual was living. The centralized P.O. box would be located in Juneau or Anchorage and mail would be forwarded to the community without mention of the community name. Co-Chair Foster noted that the meeting would recess shortly. He asked if any committee members had questions to the three testifiers. Representative Tomaszewski directed a question to Chief Bos. He shared that he went out knocking on constituents' doors and felt safer with an officer in the neighborhood. He understood that sometimes police officers were required to bring their police cruisers home. He asked there would be something for police officers who were being targeted where they did not have to bring their cruisers home and park in front of their house. Chief Bos responded that he could not speak to any other agency, but the Juneau Police Department (JPD) would work with an officer and would not mandate they take their patrol car home or they would provide them with an unmarked car or facilitate them driving a personal car to work. He elaborated that JPD would not require an officer to take a marked car home if there were any concerns, threats, or known issues. Co-Chair Foster relayed that the committee would come back to the bill when the meeting resumed after floor session. He reviewed the schedule for the remainder of the meeting. 10:32:50 AM RECESSED 4:08:21 PM RECONVENED Co-Chair Foster asked his staff to review the fiscal note for HB 104. BRODIE ANDERSON, STAFF, REPRESENTATIVE NEAL FOSTER, reviewed the fiscal note from the Department of Administration, OMB component 2333. The note included a request of $297,100 in personal services, $3,000 in travel, $112,800 for services, and $10,600 for commodities, for a total of $423,500 in FY 26. The funding source was the general fund. The fiscal note included funding for two new full-time positions in FY 26. He noted there was a fluctuation in appropriations starting in FY 27, primarily in the services and commodities lines. The department recognized there would need to be regulation changes if the bill went into law. The department highlighted that changes from previous fiscal notes resulted from an increase in personal services, services, and commodities due to eligible participants. The second page of the fiscal note explained that the two positions included a business service projects manager 2 and an administrative officer. The note included travel funding for the positions to attend a three-day conference by the National Association of Confidential Address Programs. Contractual services costs were for the estimated number of participants and the cost of getting mail to the participants. The commodities line included a startup expense including the purchase of equipment. The department noted that if the number of participants increased, the cost of the program would increase. He directed detailed questions on the fiscal note to the department. 4:12:00 PM Co-Chair Foster noted the Department of Administration was available online for questions on the fiscal note. Representative Hannan stated that the fiscal note changed, but it was her understanding the legislation had not changed. She asked why the calculation in the number of participants had increased dramatically between the two versions of the fiscal note. BRAD EWING, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF SHARED SERVICES OF ALASKA, DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION (via teleconference), relayed that the department had reviewed other states with address confidentiality programs when developing the fiscal note. He detailed that the bill was broader in scope in terms of eligible participants when compared to other states. He elaborated that there would likely be more participants in the program due to the inclusion of correctional officers and peace officers; therefore, the department had increased the number in the fiscal note. Representative Hannan asked what would change for the department that would drive the cost so high. Mr. Ewing answered that an increased number of participants would increase postage cost and supplies for the program, as well as department staff working with participants, developing materials, and engaging with various agencies and nonprofits to help share information about the program and answer participants' questions. Representative Hannan asked if the department was anticipating the participants would need the same amount of support whether they were a survivor of domestic violence (who the outreach and services would be extended to) or a police officer (who likely had a clear understanding of programs and resources). 4:15:17 PM Mr. Ewing replied that he imagined there would be differences in the amount of work that would go into engaging with the different potential participants in terms of outreach, training, and materials. He did not know exactly what it would look like, but he believed it would be slightly different depending on the participant. Co-Chair Foster CLOSED public testimony. Representative Bynum understood the intent of the bill that was trying to protect people in bad situations. He referenced the inclusion of peace officers and correctional officers. He stated that extending protection to people that may have exposure to people who may not like what they were doing would open the door up quite a bit. He used officers of the court and elected officials at the municipal and state level as examples. He asked why the bill was not constrained only to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Representative Mears replied that the core of the bill and the impetus was for protection of individuals with protective orders, which is where the movement started across the nation in many states. Since then, there was recognition that there were other individuals who could use protection and there had been advocacy for police officers and correctional officers. She agreed there could be an expansion of the program, but she supported expansion as a phase 2. Under the bill, there was no fee to participants and the number of potential participants was unknown. She suggested that if the bill was extended to additional categories of individuals, perhaps a subscription program could be established as many of those individuals would have more [financial] means and a more stable environment. 4:19:47 PM Representative Bynum thought it would be better if the bill contained a narrower window. He did not intend any offense to police and correctional officers. He started it was not generally a secret where officers lived. He thought the bill should be aimed at protecting individuals with court orders. He did not want to extend the program beyond those individuals currently, especially given the fiscal note. He asked what was preventing someone currently from having their mail delivered somewhere differently than their home. He stated that many people in his community and surrounding areas used P.O. boxes. Representative Mears shared a story provided by Senator Jesse Keihl who was carrying the companion bill in the Senate. Senator Keihl knew a woman who was under a protective order and had a P.O. box. When the woman went to get her mail, her stalker was there waiting for her. She noted that the woman recognized the man and was able to get out of the situation. She highlighted that particularly in small communities, the location of P.O. boxes was known. She explained that if a person's mail was being forwarded to a larger community like Anchorage or Juneau where the mail was centralized and sent out, it was not possible to know where they were. Representative Bynum asked if the services were not currently available. He noted that in his community there were services for forwarding mail. For example, there were many people who lived out of state for half the year and their mail received in Alaska was forwarded. He understood it was very important to try to protect the individuals [the bill aimed to protect], but he wondered if the legislation tried to make solving a problem too complicated. Representative Mears responded that the bill applied to anything that would generate a public record. She explained that sometimes services could not be used because they required a real address. She asked her staff to elaborate. Ms. Eames explained that there were fees associated with a post office box and many times people fleeing violence did not have a lot of resources and had a lot of other things going on. She explained that having a program that centralized the mail for them, so they did not have to think about that issue, was significant for people in the situation. She explained that under the bill, municipalities had to accept the centralized mail. Under the program, an individual would be able to use an address they would not otherwise be able to use in a different situation. For example, for voting purposes, individuals could have another address they could put in that otherwise may not be accepted. She noted that in villages where the only way in was via boat, even if there was a post office, it was not hard to find someone just by knowing what community they were in. 4:25:07 PM Representative Bynum asked about the scope of the number of people the bill aimed at helping. He remarked that the bill had a pretty big fiscal note of $400,000 per year and if it was only aiming to help a small group of people, he was trying to understand the fiscal benefit was. He wondered if there was a way to do something in the law to make records confidential on public records. He thought there may be a better way to protect the individuals without creating more bureaucracy in the state. He highlighted that the state was strained for funds and there were many agencies helping people in the situations. He noted there were organizations directly helping people in Alaskan communities that would help. He wondered if alternatives had been explored. Representative Mears deferred the question to Keely Olson with STAR. Ms. Olson replied based on her experience with the address confidentiality programs she had worked with in Washington State and Montana. She explained that while those programs were constrained to domestic violence and sexual assault survivors with protective orders or a letter vouching for them from a domestic violence/sexual assault agency or prosecutor's office, over her 30 years of experience, she had only worked with a handful of people who needed the program. She elaborated that it was not a common response and went hand in hand with a lot of safety planning. She detailed that meant coming up with plans for monitoring one's safety and being responsive to any kind of threat including alarm systems, changing patterns from day to day, and sometimes relocating. Ms. Olson explained that the Montana address confidentiality program resided in the secretary of state's office and had two staff who were the only individuals with access to the addresses. The program had been implemented in 2006 and in 2023 it had 68 participants with only 20 receiving mail on a regular basis. The staff processed the mail and forwarded it to the confidential address. In 2006, the program cost $50,000 to implement, with a total cost of $375,000 over the subsequent 17 years. Ms. Olson stated that while she applauded making the bill open to peace officers and law enforcement officers, she believed that as they found out more about the constraints of hiding their address and potential relocation that domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking victims were faced with, they would not find it conducive to their daily lives. She listed precautions that someone who was being harassed and stalked went through including relocating (sometimes to a different community), forgoing voting, registering their vehicle with DMV, social media, and removing themselves from their families' and friends' lives to protect themselves. She explained that the program did not replace a P.O. box that most people could get if they wanted to keep their address secure. She underscored that there were people who would not stop looking for their victims and who would pay money to have someone surveil and track their victims. The address confidentiality program was for those extreme situations. She did not believe the fiscal note matched the everyday use of the program. She reiterated her earlier statement that over 17 years, the Montana program had 68 participants and only 20 people who were receiving mail on a usual basis. She stated it was her experience with the type of program could and should help. 4:32:28 PM Co-Chair Foster asked the sponsor for any closing comments. Representative Mears thanked the committee for hearing the bill. She was available for questions offline. HB 104 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further consideration.