HOUSE BILL NO. 291 "An Act extending the termination date of the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault; and providing for an effective date." 2:49:45 PM REPRESENTATIVE GERAN TARR, SPONSOR, explained that the bill would extend the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (CDVSA) through June 30, 2028. The council was set to sunset on June 30 of 2022 and action needed to be taken quickly. She noted that there was a sunset provision in statute that would trigger an audit, which members had copies of in their bill packets. Representative Tarr highlighted some of the audit report conclusions. She read from the audit report (copy on file): The audit concluded that the council generally operated in the public's interest by funding and monitoring Alaskan domestic violence and sexual assault programs and prevention activities. The council served as the central coordinator for related services throughout the state, conducted meetings in accordance with council bylaws, effectively met most statutory duties, and did not duplicate the efforts of other entities. Representative Tarr referred to page 13 of the audit which listed the audit findings. The audit recommended that the council address its statutory responsibility to consult with the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) to formulate standards and procedures, that the council's executive director implement written procedures to ensure that public notices were posted timely, and the director should improve grant award and monitoring policies and procedures. She relayed that the council was interested in meeting the recommendations. Representative Tarr indicated that the bill would add some additional positions to the council. The council was currently comprised of four public members and five state members, and the bill would add a fifth public member. This individual would be part of an Alaska Native organization. The addition was recommended to ensure that Alaska Native communities were represented. The bill also proposed that the governor confer with the council and the Alaska Native Women's Resource Center (ANWRC) to appropriately fill this position. An additional government agency member would be added to the council to balance the additional public member. The issue of whether the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority (AMHTA) wanted to participate in the council came up in the House State Affairs Committee. She relayed that the executive director of AMHTA was very interested in the trust having a seat on the council. 2:55:08 PM Representative Rasmussen thanked the bill sponsor for bringing the bill forward. There was funding that had been secured to offset the rising cost of utilities for many of the groups that belonged to AMHTA, and she thought that funding would be irrelevant if the bill did not pass. She hoped the legislation would be passed into law. Co-Chair Merrick invited the Legislative Auditor to the table. 2:55:49 PM KRIS CURTIS, LEGISLATIVE AUDITOR, ALASKA DIVISION OF LEGISLATIVE AUDIT, conveyed the conclusions of the audit. She read from page 7 of the audit: The audit concluded that the council generally operated in the public's interest by funding and monitoring Alaskan domestic violence and sexual assault programs and prevention activities. The council served as the central coordinator for related services throughout the state, conducted meetings in accordance with council bylaws, effectively met most statutory duties, and did not duplicate the efforts of other entities. The audit also concluded that the council should improve document retention, access to the Battering Intervention Program (BIP) database, and timeliness of annual report submission and regulation changes. In accordance with AS 44.66.010(a)(5), the council is scheduled to terminate June 30, 2022. We recommend the legislature extend the council's termination date six years, to June 30, 2028. Ms. Curtis referred to the reports on page 9 that showed financial information about the council's expenditures and revenues. The grant funding increased substantially during the audit period as a result of increasing federal funds. She referred to page 25, which depicted the schedule of grant payments. It showed which entities were receiving funds in various locations in Alaska. There were four recommendations beginning on page 14 of the audit: Recommendation No. 1: The executive director should allocate resources to ensure the annual report is submitted in accordance with council bylaws. Recommendation No. 2: The executive director should improve training to help ensure document retention procedures are followed. Recommendation No. 3: The executive director should work with the Department of Law (LAW) to expedite regulatory updates. Recommendation No. 4: The executive director should continue to work with DPS and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) to improve access to the BIP database. Ms. Curtis noted that the improvements under Recommendation No. 4 would require that new users of the BIP database be subject to a background check and fingerprinting. She indicated that the new requirements would make the process cumbersome to users. She relayed that management's response to the audit began on page 29. The commissioner of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the CDVSA chair both agreed with the findings and recommendations of the audit. Co-Chair Merrick moved to invited testimony. 2:59:46 PM BRENDA STANFILL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALASKA NETWORK ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT (ANDVSA), supported the passage of HB 291 and adding two additional seats to the council. She explained that ANDVSA was different than CDVSA and that people often mistake one for the other. She indicated that ANDVSA was made up of the membership of the direct service providers within Alaska. The providers met quarterly to discuss possible improvements in the field, how to support one another, and to note potential statistical trends. The network worked in tandem with the council to ensure that issues were being worked on throughout Alaska in a unified manner. Both entities worked toward ending domestic violence in Alaska but had distinctly different roles. Ms. Stanfill indicated that ANDVSA members worked together on the ground to provide support to victims while CDVSA worked to ensure that funding was being dedicated to the cause and was being spent in the way it was intended. The network relied on the council to hold quarterly meetings to allow space for individuals to speak about what was happening in their communities. The council also commissioned studies and ensured that the administration was aware of the work that was being done on the ground. She reiterated that the network strongly supported the addition of two seats to the council. She shared that when she began working in behavioral health 25 years ago, the shelters in the state were being filled up with individuals with substance abuse issues and it was unclear what should be done to address the problem. The issue was just as pervasive today, and there was still no appropriate solution. Additionally, Alaska Native people were overrepresented in every shelter in every situation in the state. She thought it was important for there to be a designated seat on the council for a representative from an Alaska Native organization. It was also important for ANWRC to have a voice in selecting the induvial who would get appointed for the seat. 3:05:06 PM DIANE CASTO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COUNCIL ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, thanked the committee for hearing the bill and Representative Tarr for introducing it. She appreciated the audits and reviews of the council because they brought about improvements. She relayed that in FY 18 there was an in-depth audit done through funding from the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA). It was a long and complete audit and there were 14 recommendations, which was a significant amount. The audit was a catalyst for change and brought about critical improvements in the council's process. For example, the council began to require federal funding be given to grantees as reimbursement, not an advance. The changes improved the council's work, but also placed a large strain on the agency's funding. Overall, it made the council better. In FY 21, there was an audit of the chief financial officer (CFO) of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the three federal grants from DOJ programs were examined. She shared that there was only one recommendation from that audit. She thought all the changes the council had made were significant and overall improved the program. 3:08:56 PM Ms. Casto relayed that CDVSA was created in 1981 to build a sustainable structure to fund and support community-based services and to address the needs of victims, survivors, and others impacted by domestic and sexual violence. Ultimately, CDVSA was created to accept federal money and distribute it appropriately to address these needs. In addition to the nine-member board, there were nine full- time staff members at the council. The council funded 35 community-based agencies serving Alaskans impacted by domestic violence and within the agencies, managed a total of 101 grant awards. There were many grant types included within the 101 grant awards. Another finding in the audit in FY 18 was that the council was comingling its grant awards, but when there were separate funding services, there needed to be a separate grant award. The council managed 26 victim services programs and 18 enhanced service programs, which included child advocacy centers, legal services, and mental health services for youth. There were also 13 community prevention grants and a total of 10 BIPs that were approved by the state. 3:12:02 PM Ms. Casto indicated that the council had made progress on the recommendations made in the most recent audit. She spoke to the first recommendation, which was for the executive director to allocate resources to ensure the annual report was submitted in accordance with council bylaws. There were a number of challenges in 2020 and 2021 due to the significant drop in federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was also an 18-month period where the council only had six to seven staff due to vacancies and hiring difficulties during the pandemic. As of Monday, April 4, 2022, the council would be fully staffed for the first time in two years. She noted that there was a perception that there was a lack of transparency in the council, but all information and minutes from the quarterly meetings was required to be posted on the state's website for publicly noticed meetings. The council was not trying to hide anything by not having an annual report available on time. The following year's report would be on time and would be released soon. 3:15:23 PM Ms. Casto spoke about the second recommendation of the audit which was to train staff to ensure document retention. She indicated that the more important element above training staff was to ensure that the many changes that had been made were operationalized better. At the time the audit had occurred, all staff were not yet up to speed on the new operational changes. She thought that the council was now "out of that forest" and that everything would be well documented going forward. Ms. Castro referred to recommendation 3, which was for the executive director to work with the Department of Law (DOL) to expedite regulatory updates. During the audit, DOL appointed a regulatory lawyer for the council to have at its disposal. Once legislative session was over, the council would be in the queue to distribute regulatory information to the public. Anything in current regulation that was not in-line with federal requirements was covered in special conditions for the grant awards. Although the regulations were not up to speed, all of the grantees that were receiving funds adhered to the federal requirements due to the special conditions written into the grant awards. 3:18:21 PM Ms. Casto continued to the topic of recommendation 4, which was for the executive director to work with DPS and OIT to improve access to the BIP database. She felt strongly that BIP was a critical piece of ending domestic and sexual violence. The council needed to have strong prevention programs, available services for victims, and services to address the root causes of abusive behavior. All three elements were vital to make progress. She explained that when she first came to the council, she reviewed all of the programs and one of the programs in particular horrified her because it was not being properly managed. The mismanagement was due to insufficient funding and the person who had been managing the program resigned, and then the position was removed altogether. She made it her mission to tackle the issues with the BIP program. Ms. Casto indicated that she started a work group in April of 2021 to determine how to build successful programs that would impact behavior. She needed data which she was told was not available when she first joined the council. She investigated and discovered that there was a database, but that all OIT employees that were aware of the database had since resigned. The council was currently working with OIT and the IT program within DPS to move the database to a different platform, such as a cloud-based platform, to make it easier for grantees to access the database and enter data. She reminded the committee that the process currently required fingerprinting to access the database. The process became so egregious that it was no longer deemed worthwhile to submit data. She hoped that the new system would be completed within the next six months and that it would require everyone to submit data. The influx of data would inform the council's decision on what needed to be added to the BIP system. 3:22:38 PM Representative Rasmussen asked if there was anything in the database that would track offenders and the number of victims they had abused. She thought recidivism would be better if these numbers were provided. Ms. Casto responded that the council did not track the specific data Representative Rasmussen was looking for. However, there was some data that looked at whether an offender had prior victims and whether the offender continued to be engaged with victims after an incident. She thought the issue of recidivism was difficult because the only way to tell if an offender had recidivated was if the offender was caught again. The question was how to track elements beyond recidivism. The council had been researching other methods and looking at the ways in which other states collected data. Researchers found that Alaska's database was one of the best and included great information; it was simply a matter of having access to it. The database in Alaska looked at the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) of offenders, which laid a great foundation for discovering the root cause of abuse. 3:25:03 PM Representative Rasmussen thought much of the conversation was about modernizing domestic abuse policy. She spoke of a video she saw on Facebook showing abuse without repercussion. She thought there needed to be a broader discussion that looked at childhood. Ms. Casto agreed and stated that domestic violence and child abuse were interconnected. Many children experienced abuse in the home and a violent atmosphere created tremendous trauma. She started her career in child abuse and neglect prevention and the issue was important to her as well. 3:27:03 PM Representative LeBon asked for an example of the data points that would be entered into the database. Ms. Casto assumed Representative LeBon was talking about the BIP database. She explained that arrest data was not collected. She had a link that she could provide to the committee that showed all collected data. It was also important for victims to be served and protected in some way. One of the things that was found was that when an individual was going through a domestic violence class, program, or treatment, the individual would often become more aggressive because they were being challenged. Victim safety was a key piece of the program. Representative LeBon noted Ms. Casto had presented to the Public Safety Finance Subcommittee on the same topic. He was aware of a fiscal note and wondered if the fiscal note would be addressed. Co-Chair Merrick indicated she was not planning on addressing it but would discuss it if Ms. Casto was prepared. Representative LeBon noted that in 2021, the reduction in VOCA funding was consequential. He referred to the fiscal note [by the Department of Public Safety, control code PqrQf] and asked if Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (CSLFRF) funding was used to back-fill the council's budget. He asked whether she was confident in the federal funding. Ms. Casto was not confident in the federal funding. In the prior year, the council received a 34 percent reduction in VOCA funding from 2020 to 2021. It was a significant loss of money and it had been dropping significantly in recent years. It had dropped from almost $8 million in 2018 at the time of the award to $2.8 million in 2021. The council was unprepared for the substantial 34 percent reduction in one year. She noted that one of the federal grants through DHSS provided to the council three American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grants. She relayed that the council was piecing together one-time funding sources to build the FY 22 and FY 24 budgets. There were grants that the council hoped to be awarded to help contribute to the budget. She had been told that the crime victim fund, which was what supported the VOCA funding, was at its lowest level ever. The council would be seeking additional funding in FY 24 and FY 25. 3:35:32 PM Representative LeBon pointed to the designated general fund (DGF) money listed on the fiscal note. He asked where the $2 million listed came from, whether it was predictable, and whether it was subject to the sweep. Ms. Castro responded that it was predictable now and had also been predictable in the past. It was money that had been given to CDVSA in FY 18 that came about due to SB 91 and came from the marijuana tax fund. So far, the funding had been steady. She was worried when SB 91 was rescinded but the money was not impacted. The money was specifically designated to fund the 13 community-based prevention programs. Representative LeBon asked if the money was spent before the sweep. Ms. Casto responded that the money was spent and none was left on the table. 3:37:13 PM Representative Rasmussen asked if Ms. Casto knew if any of the organizations that received funding qualified as non- profits. She knew that some organizations were able to qualify and receive money through avenues like pull-tabs. Ms. Casto responded that she did not know. She had worked for organizations in the past that were able to utilize pull-tab money. She elaborated that normally the council supplemented the budget with fundraising events, but the pandemic had gotten in the way of those efforts. Representative Rasmussen noted legislation in circulation that would allow for the expansion of pull-tab requirements. The addition of electronic pull-tabs invited new participants and the amount of money was sizable. She was open to working on the issue. Co-Chair Merrick thanked the testifiers. She noted that in House State Affairs Committee there was one "do not pass" recommendation and wondered about the reason for the opposition. Representative Tarr responded that Representative Eastman voted "do not pass" because he did not support the addition of a member from an Alaska Native organization. HB 291 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further consideration. Co-Chair Merrick relayed the agenda for the following day.