SENATE LABOR AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE February 13, 1997 1:35 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT Senator Loren Leman, Chairman Senator Jerry Mackie, Vice Chairman Senator Tim Kelly MEMBERS ABSENT Senator Mike Miller Senator Lyman Hoffman COMMITTEE CALENDAR SENATE BILL NO. 65 "An Act relating to domestic animals, to food, and to the Alaska Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act; and providing for an effective date." HEARD AND HELD SENATE BILL NO. 73 "An Act relating to the citizen review board and panels for permanency planning for children in state foster care; extending the termination date of the Citizens' Foster Care Review Board; and providing for an effective date." HEARD AND HELD PREVIOUS SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION SB 65 - No previous action to record. SB 73 - No previous action to record. WITNESS REGISTER Ms. Connie Sipe, Director Division of Senior Services Department of Administration 3601 C St., Ste. 310 Anchorage, AK 99503-5984 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 73. Mr. Scott Calder P.O. Box 75011 Fairbanks, AK 99707 POSITION STATEMENT: Opposed SB 73. Ms. Angela Salerno, Executive Director National Association of Social Workers 525 Main St. Juneau, AK 99801 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 73. Ms. Diane Worley, Director Family and Youth Services Department of Health and Social Services P.O. Box 110630 Juneau, AK 99811-0630 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 73. Ms. Janice Adair, Director Division of Environmental Health Department of Environmental Conservation 555 Cordova St. Anchorage, AK 99501 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 65. Mr. Jim Cantor, Assistant Attorney General Department of Law 1031 W. 4th Ave., Ste 200 Anchorage, AK 99501 POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on SB 65. ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 97-6, SIDE A Number 001 SB 73 FOSTER CARE REVIEW BOARD  CHAIRMAN LEMAN called the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee meeting to order at 1:35 p.m. and announced SB 73 to be up for consideration. He said it had been introduced at the request of the Governor. MS. CONNIE SIPE, Director, Division of Senior Services, explained that the Citizens Foster Care Review Board by statute is placed in the Department of Administration and the Division of Senior Services is its administrative home. She said she has a background in health and social services with issues regarding foster care and she is the spokesman for the administration on this bill. She said the statute that currently exists creating a Citizens Permanency Planning Board and local review panels was passed in 1990 with a $579,000 appropriation to start the Statewide system including staff, a Statewide advocacy board, a planning and standard setting board, and local panels who would actually provide review of the foster care cases handled by the Division of Family and Youth Services (DFYS). She said that the statute wasn't really implemented and all program activity ceased. In FY 91 unexpended funding was reappropriated and there was no program funding for FY 92 because it was not requested in the governor's budget. In 1993 the legislature appropriated $125,000 for a pilot program in Anchorage funding the program for eight and a half months in FY 94 and Governor Hickel appointed panelists in October '93. The program is working now with an annual budget of $134,000 which funds two social workers and a clerk at three-quarters time. None of them can work a full year or at full-time. She said the statute is now only partially implemented. The Statewide board has not been convened because the statute requires that the citizen members be members of local operating review panels. Since there are no local citizen review panels, except in Anchorage, there is not a pool of other citizens from which the Governor can appoint to the State-level board. Therefore, the State-level Board does not exist. Currently, there are about 16 trained volunteers in Anchorage who review cases of foster care children. The Governor's bill is meant to revitalize this program. The administration has looked at trying to find a way in today's fiscal climate to get the program spread Statewide as originally intended. They did not think asking the legislature for a renewal of the $580,000 a year funding would be successful and so they have slightly changed the statute so that they think the system can over the next year and a half or two go Statewide, but with a modest increment in funding. They propose to slightly reduce the size of the Statewide board number of public officials who are appointed to the Board, and make the government officials voting members because to encourage a more active interest. To ensure the views of citizens are dominant SB 73 says they must constitute the majority of any quorum on any official actions taken. She said there is a belief that the public entities, like the court system, the public defenders, the Office of the Public Advocate, etc. want citizens review to work - for all cases, not just a few as happens now. This bill would require that every single case that comes through DFYS that is required to have reviews of children and their foster care placement would come through a citizen's panel for review at every required hearing step. By doing that they believe, and have reached an agreement with Family and Youth Services, that DFYS would make theirs the official hearing. By federal law to receive federal money that helps support children in foster care, Title 4E in the Social Security Act, requires certain events to trigger reviews of a child's placement out of their home. When the State is audited they receive money that helps pay for foster care placements. DFYS is already conducting in-house reviews usually with one or two outside citizen members of a review panel on children's foster care cases. This would stop so there would be no duplication of effort and keep costs down. DFYS would become the staffing for the panels. Currently the staff sets up the hearings which is a very time consuming process. There is a long list of people who need to be notified: interested relatives, tribal entities, social service agencies, foster care parents, court members, and lawyers; they have to research and search for certain parties; they have to go through the DFYS case and pull out summaries or materials for the panel members to review before they come to the review. The two three-quarter time social workers in Anchorage have their hands full just training new panel members as others drop off and setting up the number of cases they do now. They do 250 - 300 cases per year; probably less than half of all cases in Anchorage. They do not function in any other town in this State. This bill would make the commitment that DFYS would be staffing the citizen panels. However, the Citizens Foster Care Review Board has regulation power under this statute and their staff would turn their efforts toward setting policies and procedures for how the cases were set up and planned. The Statewide Board would use its staff to do training and constant recruitment in the other judicial districts. Number 181 She emphasized that this bill tries to revitalize this system and make it go Statewide. She noted the fiscal note is $141,800 for the first year, about $20,000 are one-time costs. That would add one full-time person in the Executive Director position classed as a range 20 and bring the two social workers and clerk to full time. She said they are very handicapped by lack of computers and don't have a xerox machine. The Senior Services Division loans them lots of things. This would give them enough money to travel and hold training in other judicial districts. There would be an overall increase in the budget from $134,000 per year by a standing increase of about $120,000. The Board would be reactivated by the Governor and there would be appointment of citizens throughout the State. CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked for questions from the committee members and there were none. He said it was not his intention to report this bill from committee today, but he wanted to get a quick overview of it as he has some concerns with DFYS. MR. SCOTT CALDER said he represents primarily himself and he is also associated with Concerned Parents For Reform. He has been following this issue very closely for the last few years. He has been very active in getting the Citizens Review Panel for Permanency Planning to become a reality because of the victimization he, his son, and family have suffered with the social service agencies and the court system. He thinks it couldn't have possibly occurred had there been an implementation of the Citizen Review Panel for Permanency Planning. He said that SB 73 does everything necessary to establish what he had hoped to see not happen on this panel. MR. CALDER said he read the position paper from the National Association of Social Workers, but he didn't support some of the things it said like, "SB 73 would ensure a fresh perspective and aggressive stance on achieving permanency." He thought the existing laws already do and SB 73 would diminish that affect. He said that SB 73 is not needed to bring citizens' review to the communities. AS 47.14.220 requires the Governor to appoint local panel members. He thought it wouldn't be a problem for him to find five people willing to do the job, but he thought the obstacle was that the Governor had not made the appointments. He also disagreed that SB 73 would "promote needed interagency collaboration, ensure that all State Departments involved in securing permanency for children are involved in productive decision making." He thought that was code for they wanted to be able to vote on the decision, but they can do anything they want already. Current law already allows and specifies that the Division heads would be ex-officio members. Their participation is necessary in an advisory capacity, but in terms of making decisions it's inappropriate for them to be sitting at a citizen review panel. It is inappropriate to change the balance of power. SB 73 would reduce the number of citizens on a panel which currently has five voting members. Of these five, three would constitute a quorum needed to carry a vote. Only two affirmative votes would be needed in SB 73 which would change the process considerably. Number 286 Still referring to the position paper, MR. CALDER said that SB 73 would not increase cultural appropriateness. Indian children are already protected by the Indian Child Welfare Act and the review panel would simply determine whether or not there was compliance with it. Number 382 Another point he made is that the State would save a lot of money by having an extra citizen review of the State's out-of-home placements of children - not just foster care, but detention and other settings where children are removed from their homes. MR. CALDER said the last legislature found it necessary to extend the sunset termination date of the citizen review panel in HB 92 which was signed by Governor Knowles on April 12, 1995. Otherwise, he said, the laws have already been written and they are fine the way they are. He thought it was a good idea to have only citizens serving on the panel and to have the Governor directly responsible for appointing the local panel members. It is also important that the State panel produce a report by the 10th day of each regular session so the legislature would have some idea of what is going on with out-of-home placements early in the session. He thought it was important that the appointed citizens had good training and that it not be done by the people who are being reviewed. Number 349 He disagreed that an appropriate function of the review panel was to impact case management for children in out-of-home placement. He didn't think they needed another level of case management, although he thought improvements were needed. He thought the personnel in DFYS were already supposed to be doing these things. He said in many cases parents of the children can't even obtain records about what is being done to their children. Specifically, he said, it is important to know information on the number of children reunited with their families based on direct inspection of the records by people who don't work in the system. They need to know the number and recommendations and justifications for program improvement, including recommendations relating to State agencies and the panel review system. He said this is such a simple, important job that has been identified for so long, that there must be a real problem with what's going on when you have a law that says the Governor shall appoint volunteers to review these cases and it hasn't been done. In conclusion, he recommended that they not pass SB 73, but simply extend the sunset date and ask the Governor to follow through. CHAIRMAN LEMAN thanked Mr. Calder for his testimony and said they had no questions for him at the time. Number 410 MS. DIANE WORLEY, Director, Division of Family and Youth Services, supported SB 73. She explained that it is a compromise of where they were with the original citizen's review panels and the fact they have not been able to bring those to fruition due to funding and different changes. She thought this was a combination of the best of the citizen's review panel and the fact that within the DFYS they are required by federal law to do six month reviews already. MS. WORLEY said she strongly supports citizen involvement in the process. The reason they support this bill is because they are always being asked why they aren't implementing the citizens review panels Statewide as they are supposed to by law. The answer is that it is out of their control. They do hear cases around the State, but they can't do the citizen's part of that. They have citizen participation in the 4E reviews. The problem is finding, training, and maintaining volunteers to do this kind of work. It's hard work needing a good understanding of the process and rules that must be followed in order to collect the federal dollars. MS. WORLEY emphasized the big issue is for the citizens to have consistency and the support they need to do this job. One of the things Mr. Calder mentioned was the power and the voting and she wanted to reiterate that all they do at a six-month review is go through the case to make sure they have done the planning and have looked at all the issues. Therapists, families, and agencies are invited to give information. The review information is taken to the courts; any decision making is done by the court. Number 465 MS. ANGELA SALERNO, Executive Director, National Association of Social Workers, supported SB 73. She clarified that they are advocating for vulnerable groups, specifically here, for kids in foster care. They are not here advocating for DFYS. MS. SALERNO said she they were instrumental in getting the original bill passed in 1990. She believes that citizens will bring a fresh, aggressive perspective to reviewing these cases which is a very important factor in achieving permanency for children. Because we are looking at tightened budgets, this is a way to expand their service to other parts of the State when it has been going on in Anchorage only for a number of years. She clarified that the Board being formed, with members of the administration on it, is not the voting body. That Board will actually engender panels with citizens on them that will then do the deliberations and voting on cases. She said there is one concern to a number of people on page 6, line 19 stating the panel shall consist of three public members and two members from the department. She suggested changing it to one more public member and reducing the department members. CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked if there were any questions and there were none. He stated they would work on this bill and bring it back at a future date. SENATOR KELLY said he supported the legislation, but he was not excited about the makeup of the commission with the Director of the Office of Public Advocacy and the Public Defender on it. He wanted more citizen participation. CHAIRMAN LEMAN said he shared those concerns. SB 65 FOOD/SEAFOOD/ORGANIC FOOD  CHAIRMAN LEMAN announced SB 65 to be up for consideration. JANICE ADAIR, Director, Division of Environmental Health, explained that within her Division are meat and dairy inspections that most people don't equate with DEC. She said the statutes that deal with food are very confusing because they are all over the place and some conflict with one another. This bill consolidates all of the DEC statutes relating to food processing and service into Title 17 which is entitled Food and Drugs. Under current law some of these statutes can also be found in Title 3. This legislation also proposes to delete some of the obsolete statutes relating to bread and flour standards that have been on the books since 1949 as well as some requirements in DEC for rabies that they have never done. MS. ADAIR said that currently they are required in different parts of the statute to follow three different federal laws: the pasteurized milk ordinance, the National Shellfish Sanitation Program, and the Federal Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Program (HACCP). These are updated on a regular basis and they have to go through a regulatory process to update the document they have adopted by reference. This bill will allow them to automatically update their references without having to go through the regulatory process which helps the people who are dealing with the federal laws who have to follow them in order to sell their products. They always know when they are updated because they deal so closely with the federal laws. They propose to delete the requirement that the Department have a field-kill inspection program for reindeer at State expense. The State would still have the authority to do it if anyone wanted to have one, but not at State expense. The one reindeer slaughter facility in Mekoryuk has always worked with the department to help defray costs for the inspections by providing the staff with housing and meals. SB 65 allows the State to accept the HACCP plans from processors now rather than waiting for their effective date, December 18, 1997 because the European union is already requiring HACCP plans. Technically, we can't accept them now because our plan of operations is still on the books and we don't want processors to have to do both. MS. REARDON said that SB 65 also repeals the requirement that the department pay for food samples it obtains to check for wholesomeness. She said the State doesn't do that now, but there is still a requirement on the books. We also currently have to reimburse inspectors without receipts if they purchase the samples, and that is being deleted. CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked how much food sample is generally required for a test. MS. REARDON said it depends on the sample. Shellfish can be a little bit more as per the requirements from the National Shellfish Sanitation Program. CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked if it was picking, for instance, a few random crab - relatively small compared to the batch. MS. REARDON answered that was correct. MS. REARDON said she had never heard concerns expressed about this program. The only thing she had heard concerns on was the State paid field kill inspection program. TAPE 97-6, SIDE B JIM CANTOR, Assistant Attorney General, said he would respond to questions. When he drafted the bill he was told to do a revisor's organization along with the specifics that Ms. Reardon mentioned. He said it was not the goal to change the way the program operated or the way things were interpreted. CHAIRMAN LEMAN asked him to flag any obsolete or awkward language so they could make the changes. He intends to work on this bill and have it meet their goal of making government more user friendly to business. CHAIRMAN LEMAN adjourned the meeting at 2:23 p.m.