SB 164-PEACE OFFICER/VPO: ELIG., STDRS., DEFIN.  4:02:07 PM CHAIR REVAK reconvened the meeting and announced the consideration of SENATE BILL NO. 164, "An Act relating to the crime of impersonating a peace officer; relating to the powers of the Alaska Police Standards Council; relating to the definition of 'village police officer'; and providing for an effective date." He asked Commissioner Price to introduce the bill. 4:02:42 PM AMANDA PRICE, Commissioner, Department of Public Safety, Anchorage, Alaska, introduced herself and Bob Griffiths. She stated that SB 164, relating to police standards, is an opportunity to address one arena of the public safety crisis in rural Alaska. It will ensure that Alaska has rigorous and enforceable standards for employing police and village police officers throughout Alaska. She continued the introduction paraphrasing the following excerpt from the governor's transmittal letter: The bill proposes amendments to AS 18.65, Police Protection, to provide that a person may not be appointed as a police or village police officer if the person has been convicted of a felony, a sex offense defined in AS 12.63.100, or a crime involving domestic violence as defined in AS 18.66.990. The legislation further clarifies that the Alaska Police Standards Council has the power to set standards for employment for village police officers by regulation and may investigate when there is reason to believe an officer or a village police officer does not meet minimum standards for employment. In addition, this bill would include a definition for village police officer in statute. Establishing in law the standards and qualifications for the employment of police and village police officers, will ensure that individuals who are appointed to these important positions of trust and authority in our communities, are qualified to hold such a position. COMMISSIONER PRICE stated that SB 164 will discourage people with criminal records from applying for these positions. She continued, "We do have anecdotal stories of individuals who have criminal records from down in the states who seek these positions of authority in our village communities because they know they can attain them." She said that is a concern. 4:05:14 PM BOB GRIFFITHS, Executive Director, Alaska Police Standards Council (APSC), Alaska Department of Public Safety, Juneau, Alaska stated that the intent of SB 164 is to enhance rural public safety by ensuring that police officers have the appropriate qualifications. He acknowledged that in some rural areas and communities, unqualified individuals have been hired to serve as village police officers. These candidates were not just inadequately trained to do the job, but some are convicted felons, sex offenders, and people or domestic violence offenders. He noted several instances in which APSC learned, after the fact, that individuals on active probation for these offenses were knowingly hired by community leaders. He said the council is asking the legislature for assistance in addressing this disconcerting pattern. MR. GRIFFITHS explained that the Alaska Police Standards Council was created in 1972 and charged with establishing professional standards for training and hiring police officers. The council quickly adopted two sets of standards: 1) an urban, road-system standard for officers that required a higher level of training and education; and 2) a rural, off-road-system standard that required less training. He said the reduced requirements for the less stringent standard was intended to compensate for the geography and cultural challenges in rural areas. The latter officers became known as village police officers (VPOs) and only exist in regulation, not in statute. The current regulations set out minimum standards for hiring and training both types of officers. Felons and people convicted of crimes of moral turpitude are prohibited from serving. He said urban agencies have consistently adhered to these standards, but rural communities have struggled to comply. He acknowledged that for years APSC has wrestled with its responsibility to track and train village police officers and enforce the regulations. MR. GRIFFITHS opined that the current problem is a culmination of multiple factors. These include exceptionally high turnover for VPOs, the dynamic nature of leadership in rural communities, and a dearth of interested or qualified candidates. He said most community leaders will also cite the lack of resources but SB 164 does not address that. He pointed out that the legislation to establish APSC did not include enforcement authority. The council's authority was limited to enforcing the rules on individual officer qualifications and training. Thus, when rural communities fail to report who they hired or fail to respond to official communications, APSC's ability to enforce the regulations is impeded. In fact, city managers, mayors, or local leaders who hire VPOs often do not know the hiring rules. He said the Alaska Municipal League (AML) has helped with outreach to educate these leaders and urge compliance, but it has been a challenge. 4:12:10 PM MR. GRIFFITHS stated that as part of the outreach effort, APSC identified 47 VPOs serving in 18 communities that the council did not know about. One community reported having three officers but a community official could not provide their names. Just one of the 47 VPOs has completed the necessary two-week training and achieved APSC certification. He said APSC identified 55 communities that have no law enforcement other than the Alaska State Troopers (AST). What is more alarming, he said, is that 38 incorporated communities that are off the road system have never responded to a request from APSC. He said the APSC owes it to constituents in rural Alaska to do better. SB 164 is intended to clarify and strengthen existing regulations by amending the statutes to clearly disqualify individuals from serving as a peace officer if they have been convicted of a felony, or a misdemeanor sex or domestic violence crime. Additionally, it will add a disincentive for anyone who is disqualified for those reasons from seeking such a position. He said APSC regulations reflect the policy of the council as authorized by the legislature. Given that the policy is occasionally violated, APSC felt it was time for the legislature to clearly articulate its policy on acceptable conduct for police officers charged with ensuring peace and public order in these communities. The hope is that with the weight of law, compliance will be elevated statewide. MR. GRIFFITHS said in recognition of the disparity of resources between urban and rural communities, SB 164 does not increase existing training and hiring requirements. It simply puts what is in current regulation into statute. 4:14:56 PM MR. GRIFFITHS paraphrased the following sectional analysis for SB 164: Sections 1 and 2 work together to clarify that an individual who is ineligible to become a police officer or village police officer in Alaska due to disqualifying criminal history may be prosecuted for impersonating a peace officer. This is done by amending the definition of "peace officer" under AS 11.81.900 to exclude individuals who have been convicted of certain crimes, and by adding a new subsection to AS 11.56.827 to clarify that it is not a defense to prosecution for impersonating a peace officer if an individual was employed as a peace officer at the time. Section 3 of the bill amends AS 12.62.400 concerning national criminal history records checks to clarify that the department of public safety may submit fingerprints to the Federal Bureau of Investigation prior to issuing police certification to a village police officer. Section 4 of the bill amends AS 18.65.220 concerning the powers of the Alaska Police Standards Council to clarify that APSC has the power to adopt minimum standards for employment of village police officers, and to investigate when there is reason to believe a village police officer does not meet these standards. Section 5 makes conforming changes to AS 18.65.230 concerning Alaska Police Standards Council training programs and pre-appointment criminal records checks. Section 6 amends AS 18.65.240 concerning police officer standards to include village police officers. Section 7 adds two new subsections to AS 18.65.240. Subsection (e) would explicitly prohibit appointment of a police officer or village police officer, even on a probationary basis, an individual who had been convicted of certain crimes. New subsection (f) would provide that the Alaska Police Standards Council has the power to establish standards for village police officers by regulation. The Alaska Police Standards Council has been setting standards for village police officers in regulations for decades, however village police officer is not currently defined in statute. Section 8 amends AS 18.65.290 by adding a definition for "village police officer" in statute. Section 9 provides that section 1 of the Act, and the change in definition for peace officer in AS 00.81.900 within Section 2 of the act will apply to offenses committed on or after the effective date. Section 10 provides for an immediate effective date. 4:18:18 PM MR. GRIFFITHS offered to answer questions. 4:19:14 PM SENATOR KAWASAKI asked if the cultural and economic challenges in rural Alaska that he mentioned still exist and how this bill will help address them. MR. GRIFFITHS said the bill might not fix those problems, in fact, those problems have worsened. The bill will help the APSC address rural communities not following the regulations, which will become statute. It will address one element in the process. SENATOR KAWASAKI recounted that 47 village police officers are unaccounted for, that 55 villages are without police presence and 38 villages did not respond when contacted. He questioned how much of the issue is due to a lack of communication and how this bill will solve the problems the state is trying to solve. MR. GRIFFITHS said the issue identifies a definite breakdown in communication. The APSC's resources are by phone, e-mail, and mail. If these attempts currently fail, they may likely fail in the future. The APSC has partners such as the Alaska Municipal League, which has offered assistance to do outreach to the communities. The APSC also partners with the Alaska State Troopers (AST), who are valuable resources to the council. COMMISSIONER PRICE added that the department also evaluates the element of positive unknown. Some rural communities do not know how to hire a village police officer. If the law informs them of the state's expectations, one positive impact may be an additional step of readiness for communities. She acknowledged that this bill will not solve all of the challenges, but it will allow the state to indicate that those individuals with a violent offender history should not have positions of significant authority. The likelihood of an individual officer responding to someone that the person has previously victimized is much higher in a small community and the trauma inflicted to the victim and community would be immensurable. 4:23:49 PM SENATOR COGHILL opined that codifying the requirements is good. He referred to Section 1 to the provision that will clarify that it is not a defense to prosecution for impersonating a peace officer if an individual was employed as a peace officer at the time. He asked whether that defense could currently be used. MR. GRIFFITHS said no. Someone who is currently an appointed law enforcement officer taking enforcement action would not be subject to this statute. The intent of the bill is to change the definition of a police officer so an officer who is a felon is not considered a police officer even if the individual was sworn in. CHAIR COGHILL said that comports with his understanding. He added that this is the first time that the village public officers (VPOs) will be codified in statute. He predicted this will improve communication between the department and the communities. He related his understanding that communities will incur additional costs to conduct background checks on applicants. He asked what communities could expect to change with passage of SB 164. MR. GRIFFITHS said the current requirements to hire urban or rural police officers include a fingerprint-based background check and a rudimentary background investigation. This could mean making a few phone calls to prior employers or it could be a comprehensive one conducted by the Anchorage Police Department or the Alaska State Troopers. He did not envision that the bill would add any additional requirements for rural communities, but it will allow the APSC to provide rural communities with assistance and advise them that the AST and APSC will process the fingerprints for them. He acknowledged that taking fingerprints would pose challenges for some communities. He related his understanding that the AML will provide background investigations at no cost to the villages. CHAIR COGHILL asked about the nexus between village public safety officers (VPSOs) and village police officer (VPOs). He also asked if additional requirements will be added for VPOs and whether this bill separates them. He related his understanding that the current requirements are in regulation. 4:28:24 PM MR. GRIFFITHS said VPSOs and VPOs are often confused. He explained that a VPO is a police officer appointed by city or a police department. A VPSO is a grant-funded individual who works for a nonprofit grantee of the Department of Public Safety. Both are peace officers with different classifications, but these two classes of officers have different authorities and slightly different requirements. There would not be any elimination of VPSO eligibility due to the passage of this bill, he said. 4:29:36 PM COMMISSIONER PRICE added that a legislative working group has been reviewing the village public safety officer (VPSO) program. One recommendation would include potential certification for the VPSO program. Currently, VPSOs are not identified as police officers so the APSC has not developed a certification process. The Department of Public Safety has recommended a certification process be developed so all officers, including the VPOs, VPSOs, municipal or borough department officers, and Alaska State Troopers meet the minimum state identified standards for law enforcement officers. SENATOR COGHILL envisioned that regulations will be adopted. He asked how the standards will be enforced. He related his understanding that most of this would fall under Title 29. He suggested that some communities will be held to a new degree of accountability. MR. GRIFFITHS said enforcement of regulations will be through the Administrative Procedures Act. Currently, the APSC has regulation changes in process that parallel this Act. He did not anticipate the need to modify those regulations at this point but that may change, depending on the final outcome of the regulations. CHAIR COGHILL asked if there are conversations about higher training levels. MR. GRIFFITHS answered yes, but a lot of additional training is not anticipated. The hope is that the 46 officers who have not completed their training will want to do so. The only VPO academy is located in Bethel and training is offered several times per year. He said the department has had some discussion about expanding the training by rotating it into hub areas. However, training expansion is still under discussion, subject to resource limitations. 4:33:41 PM CHAIR REVAK asked how many VPOs are in Alaska. MR. GRIFFITHS said the APSC has identified 57 VPOs in the state. He suggested there are more, but he is uncertain of the number. This bill will help the APSC to identify them and get the VPOs on the track for training and certification. In further response, he stated that this bill will affect the [57] officers. 4:34:45 PM CHIEF JUSTIN DOLL, Anchorage Police Department (APD) and Chair, Alaska Police Standards Council, Anchorage, Alaska, said, as chair, it has been interesting to learn about challenges that law enforcement faces in rural Alaska. He said he has lived in Anchorage and did not understand the challenges officers face in rural Alaska. The APSC has been frustrated because it wants to set reasonable yet high standards for law enforcement in Alaska and to enforce them. He said that is much of what the council does, including reviewing incidents and background for officers who have applied and been rejected. Some parts of rural Alaska, in an attempt to deal with the challenges of attracting, hiring, and retaining qualified applicants, have bypassed all of the existing regulations and hire people whose backgrounds are not appropriate for law enforcement. He said SB 164 will codify the regulations that some communities have ignored. He added that in the past year, additional focus on law enforcement in rural Alaska has revealed some of those deficiencies. Consequently, more people are aware of the issues. He related that some law enforcement officers have felony convictions for domestic violence or sexual assault, which most people would agree is not reasonable. Everyone has the right to have the law enforcement officers serving in their communities be subject to reasonable minimum standards and backgrounds. More importantly, the standards need to have some "teeth" to allow the department to enforce and assess penalties if a locality does not follow those standards. He advocated for uniform standards for law enforcement officers in Alaska. As a regulatory body, the council has the ability to take action on individual applicants, but not on a government entity that is hiring and employing individuals as law enforcement officers. 4:38:34 PM SENATOR COGHILL asked if there were qualifications in addition to the minimum standards in current regulation. CHIEF DOLL answered yes. Law enforcement applicants must be of good moral character, without any criminal convictions or other conduct that is inconsistent with a law enforcement profession. He said the council has been working for several years to obtain tools to enforce these standards. 4:40:43 PM SENATOR KAWASAKI referred to the APSC's minimum qualification sheet in members' packets. He related his understanding that currently a VPO who has a prior felony, sex crime, or domestic violence conviction could still become a village police officer (VPO). CHIEF DOLL said he did not believe so but deferred to Mr. Griffiths who is the subject matter expert for all tiers of law enforcement. 4:41:44 PM MR. GRIFFITHS said VPOs cannot have a prior felony conviction or criminal conviction of a crime of moral turpitude. The qualifications do not specifically identify "sex offense" or "domestic violence" crimes, but the council's interpretation has been to include those crimes as factors for denying applicants. In further response to Senator Kawasaki, he said the current requirements are articulated in existing regulation and the bill will state in statute that those crimes are reasons to deny applicants. He reiterated that the council has interpreted these crimes as a means to deny VPO applicants, but this will place it in law. 4:43:46 PM CHAIR REVAK opened public testimony on SB 164. 4:44:22 PM NILS ANDREASSEN, Executive Director, Alaska Municipal League (AML), Juneau, stated that the AML welcomes this legislation, offered by the governor, and recognizes the important contribution it makes to further enhance public safety in Alaska. This bill potentially would affect 100 communities. There are currently 39 known VPOs serving in the state, but there may be more VPOs in communities. This discrepancy may be due to the lack of staff or resources to meet the reporting requirements, he said. He reported the combined population in the 39 communities with VPOs is 19,000 Alaskans. The average number of employees of these political subdivisions is 8. The combined budgets of the 39 communities is $30 million, with an average budget of $860,000. The combined tax revenue is just over $3 million. He stated that roughly 10 percent of their overall revenue is derived from sales taxes. The rest of community budgets are made up of federal and state grants and other assistance, including revenue from bingo and fees for utilities. MR. ANDREASSEN said community assistance, which was reduced in the past five years by 50 percent, is about $3 million for these 39 communities. These communities will see an additional $300,000 in revenue reduction again this year. All but four of the 39 communities are on the Division of Community and Regional Affairs stressed community list. This means these communities lack the sufficient capacity to meet many of the current requirements such as elections, audits, and workers' compensation. Some believe these communities are differentiated from urban communities by geography and culture. He argued that the difference is tax based because these cities do not have the tax base to provide services for residents. Still, these communities are working hard to fulfill residents' expectations. 4:47:22 PM MR. ANDREASSEN said he could juxtapose these 39 communities with 39 urban communities that have municipal law enforcement in place to contrast the differences in the communities. These urban communities have all adopted the same powers under Title 29 for police powers. Their combined public safety budgets total $270 million, or roughly $75 million more than the Department of Public Safety's budget, or nine times the budget of all the VPO communities. He said he called many of these communities and overwhelmingly heard that SB 164 would improve public safety in the state. However, rural communities overwhelmingly believe that this bill will not change the reality of the lack of access to a qualified pool of candidates, nor will it augment the capacity of local governments to recruit and retain qualified officers or comply with existing standards or new statutory requirements. MR. ANDREASSEN acknowledged that these issues are part of a larger conversation, but he offered his belief that this bill will provide an opportunity to offer incentives to these stressed communities by funding this mandate. He said a mandate is clearly necessary, but it is also necessary to provide funding for the requirements that come with these responsibilities. He encouraged the committee to amend the bill to make communities eligible for a base level of funding to offset the cost of the required police professional liability insurance. This funding could help communities provide uniforms, bullet-proof vests for officers and housing, where necessary. This funding could also help ensure these officers have funding to travel to obtain training. He said this funding is essential if the goal is to increase communication and provide local governments a means to comply with statutory requirements of the state. 4:49:51 PM MR. ANDREASSEN offered to follow up on Title 29 questions. He further commented on the definition of VPO. These incorporated cities and municipalities are the only ones eligible to have police powers in a rural area. He suggested that it may be time to update the statutes that were adopted in 1972. 4:50:32 PM CHAIR REVAK asked for his testimony in writing. 4:50:55 PM BRITTANY MADROS, Tribal Government Specialist, Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC), Fairbanks, Alaska, testified in support of SB 164. She said she provides technical assistance to the 37 tribes within the TCC region on tribal court systems and public safety. She agreed with the sentiment of SB 164, particularly about background checks to disqualify sex offenders from becoming law enforcement officers. However, precluding felons and domestic violence (DV) offenders from applying as VPOs could be catastrophic without a waiver process or time limit. A nonviolent felony from a person's youth could prevent someone from applying years or decades later. A misguided shouting match between siblings or a roommate that led to an arrest and conviction could keep them from applying if it resulted in a harassment or domestic violence charge. She said TCC respectfully asks the committee amend SB 164 to address the felony or DV issues, similar to the foster care regulations that allow someone who may have had a barrier crime secure a foster care license. She noted that the TCC was not previously asked to comment on the bill. 4:54:19 PM KATIE BOTTZ, representing self, Juneau, Alaska, testified in support of SB 164. She said police officers should be held to a higher standard and be accountable since they enforce the laws. As a victim of sexual abuse, she said she supports the provisions that disqualify law enforcement applicants who were convicted of sexual abuse crimes. She asked members to please move the bill forward. 4:56:02 PM CHAIR REVAK closed public testimony on SB 164 and encouraged the public to submit written testimony to senate.state.affairs@akleg.gov. He held SB 164 in committee for future consideration.