HFIN-260519-0800

Okay, I'll go ahead and call this meeting of the House Finance Committee to order and let the record reflect that the time is currently 9:13 AM on Monday, May 19th, 2026. And present today, we do have Representative Allard, Representative Stapp, Representative Moore, Representative Bynum, Co-Chair Schrag, Co-Chair Josephson, Representative Galvin, Representative Tomaszewski, Representative Hannon, myself, Co-Chair Foster. And just a reminder, folks can mute their cell phones. And we do have a, uh, let's see, a bill in front of us. It is the Senate Bill 167, PFD eligibility, um, overturn convictions.

And we're going to, um, if we have time, we have a number of other bills, but I think we've only got about 20 minutes max here. So we're going to jump right into it. Senator Kawasaki, if you'd like to come up. I don't know if you have any of your staff here. I don't see them.

If you'd like to just give us a brief recap of the bill and then we're going to take up amendments. I believe we have 2 amendments. And so with that, Senator Kawasaki, welcome back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the House Finance Committee. I think we saw this bill maybe 24 hours ago, so I'm not sure.

If there's any other questions folks might have, basically this bill would reinstate the permanent fund dividend for the folks who may have been wrongfully convicted. And so we call this the Wrongful Conviction Compensation Bill. One of the things that a person is deprived of if they are wrongfully convicted and then incarcerated is a permanent fund dividend. And about, I don't know, about two dozen states have wrongful conviction compensation. This is just one way that we think we can— this is just one method in which we can compensate those who may have been incarcerated and convicted wrongly.

So I bring it before the committee. Great. Thank you very much. And we do also have with us Representative Jimmy, and we'll jump right into the amendment process. Representative Allard, do you have Amendment Number 1?

Yes. Thank you, Co-Chair. I move Amendment Number 1. Okay. Check for discussion.

And we have an objection. Representative Ballard. Thank you. So this just moves it from 1 year to 2 years as far as when they could put in the individual for reimbursement after being wrongly convicted. I did speak to the sponsor of the bill.

I didn't want to bring something that could throw his bill off, and he said that he was okay with it. I don't know if anything's changed since, but it's just a simple 1 year to 2. That's it. Give them time. Thank you, co-chair.

Any further discussion? Representative Galvin. Thank you. I fully support this. I did take note that the After Innocence program suggested 3 years, and I just wanted to find out if you had any comments as to why you chose the 2 instead of 3.

Well, I chose— thank you, co-chair. I chose the 2 years because I worked with the sponsor on it, but I also did it— I think there's some sort of a there could be a financial pushback and we need to make sure that when they do file that everything's with the funds that we have for the dividend. I didn't want it to be holding longer than it needed to be. But the other reason is I have a hard enough time of trying to apply for my PFD in one year. And so adding another year would be—.

But thank you. There is no actual very specific except working with the sponsor. And Senator Kawasaki as well as Mr. Hull. Feel free to hang out at the desk here.

There might be questions. Any questions? Senator Kawasaki, any comments on Amendment 1? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Scott Kawasaki for the record, and I wanted to just thank Representative Allard for her attention to this.

I remove my objection. Okay, hearing no further objections, Amendment 1 has been adopted. And so that takes us to Amendment 2. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

I move amendment number 2. Object. Senator Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. I'll talk a little bit about the amendment.

First, apologies to the bill sponsor. I did not have an opportunity to actually talk with the bill sponsor about this. This actually came in quite late. It's not a new issue, though. It's something that's been in discussion for quite a long time.

And then with changes in the law last year to Permanent Fund eligibility. And also with, with a change in the law this year with the hunting and fishing license, this is what brought this amendment forward. Amendment number 2 is to create an additional allowable absence provision within the PFD eligibility structure for Alaskans employed full-time in the transportation-related industry. For example, airline pilots, airline crews, tugboat captains.

In those industries, work that requires them to be outside of the state of Al— outside of the state. Under this amendment, these individuals may remain eligible for the dividend, for the PERMA fund dividend, with the absences up to 110 days, effectively providing an additional 30 days beyond the general 180-day allowable absence that most Alaskans receive now. This is subject to eligibility requirements under law. In addition to this, anything that is happening and being able to— that this amendment would provide is that those industry workers would receive the additional 45-day allowance that is alongside the 110-day allowance for things such as the medical-related emergencies. Provision was added into law last year, the medical emergency.

We are just saying that is also applicable to these workers. That is what the amendment does. Wanted to bring it forward to the committee for consideration as there has been changing law around the permanent fund dividend eligibility, not just here but in other prior legislation of this session. Okay. And just so folks know, we do have Director of the Permanent Fund Division, Genevieve Wachusik, I believe, online.

She's in the room. I think she's online. Senator Kawasaki, comments? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I have deep respect for the member from Ketchikan.

We weren't able to talk about this, but his recollection is correct. This is an amendment that's been floating around, especially a lot this year, relating since there has been discussion about resident hunting and fishing licenses and how those apply. This will probably come up at a future time, I'm guessing, in the— for many, many years to come. But this is really inappropriate for this bill. This bill is fairly narrowly casted in that we are talking about providing something for an individual who was ineligible.

This opens up a new part of statute dealing with the allowable absences part of the permanent fund dividend.

It's up to the committee how they decide to vote, but I think it's really just a separate bill and probably should be made such. And I also think that it's gonna be, it might be difficult for permanent fund division to decide whether a person's a transportation person or a, just a regular person. And then finally, You know, I think the big thing is that it will allow for more people to be PFD eligible, which will mean that everybody else's PFD is lowered. And I hope that folks do recognize that this would allow more absences, more people would be therefore eligible, and then your permanent fund dividends will go down. Okay, I've got Representative Allard, then Gelman.

Representative Allard. Thank you. And this is to the maker of the amendment. You had— Representative, you had mentioned that through the cochere that the bill had passed, the hunting and fishing license. You're talking about the one that was restricted.

Representative Bynum. Thank you. Through the chair to Representative Allard. Yes, the— I believe it was SB 93 or I'm sorry, HB 93 is a bill that we just actually passed that out of the House. It's an under consideration for the governor.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mallard. And I do like this amendment, but that hasn't even gone to the governor's desk yet. Or maybe it has, but he, he has an opportunity to do what he's going to do with it. So I'm probably not going to vote for this right now because I really like this bill and I think we could address it later.

Sorry. Thank you. No worries. Representative Galvin. I think staff was first.

I have nothing to say. Thanks, good job. Representative Geller. Thank you. I think this is a bill currently— I sat through a couple of hours in State Affairs around— I believe it's the same language.

I'll just share that what came up in public testimony is several other industries called in and said, what about us? So I think there was still kind of working the concept through. And I'm not sure that it's been fully fleshed yet. I don't— I'm not even sure if it's left state affairs. So anyhow, I will not be supporting this amendment.

And I do— I would rather keep the narrow scope in light of how few people we know this will impact. So it likely won't have a big impact on the overall PFD. And I think for now, until I hear more about that other bill, I prefer to leave this more narrow for me. Thank you. Tomaszewski.

Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. I'm curious on this amendment. I do recall looking at this before, and I think it does address a current need and loophole that currently resides in the application process. Process, eligibility process. So, you know, I think when it comes to those particular industries and those who do work out of state, why would we want to deny them their PFD?

They have a home here, they have a residence here, they— and maybe their career takes them outside of the state for more days than most of us. I guess a little more explanation maybe from the, from the amendment sponsor on, you know, some, some examples maybe that, that would be pertinent to this particular amendment would be helpful. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the Chair, Representative Tomaszewski, the Talking with legislative legal and also with the department, what would ultimately happen is they would have to design a regulation on how this would apply.

The intent of the amendment, and if it were to become a future bill, would be to recognize those industry workers that are required to travel for their job. An example of that would be a FedEx airline pilot. We have heard that for many years in this in this building. Flight crews, truck drivers. My dad was a truck driver growing up, Nationwide truck driver.

We lived in Oregon. That was our home base. But he was gone from home for more than half of the year. And so if we would have lived in Alaska, he would have not been eligible if he was driving outside of the state of Alaska for his dividend. We have people that are in the tugboat maritime industry that are impacted by this.

I have people in my community that are tug boaters, and they will be running tugs up and down from here to Washington, and they spend a lot of time in Canadian waters, and sometimes they don't meet their eligibility for being in the state even though they have a home here, their kids go to school here, their whole family receives the dividend, except for they are not eligible because their maritime-type duties. And so that's what this is intended to capture. The initial conversation on this was, as we heard in this body before, was to cover airline pilots, and we've seen that amendment before. To me, it felt like that if we were going to address the problem, we were going to address it in a holistic view for all those working industries that have families here, work here, live here, and have homes here. That those people would be eligible.

Now, if it was just about the permanent fund dividend, that would be one thing. But with other laws that we've changed or potentially will be changing, expanding the scope is something that I was considering to do. I hope that's helpful. Further discussion? Representative Hannon.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to be in opposition to this amendment, and I'm going to start with some eloquent words of The sponsor of the amendment last night on another bill said taking a wholesale policy and bill and shoving it into a different bill without the proper vetting is a really inappropriate action to take. I don't think we know the magnitude and the scope of the number of people this covers. Transportation industry, it could be 1,000, it could be 10,000. The amendment as written, and although Representative Bynum kept saying 110 days allowable absence, the words of the amendment are 210 days.

Allowable absence if you work in the transportation industry, and then if you add the 45 days of additional medical absence, you're down to— you would only have to be in the state for 110 days. And I think without us having analytical data about how many people this may encompass, the impact to the permanent fund dividend for everyone could be substantial. And as the sponsor of the underlying bill that this is attempting to amend speaks to, we know that that scope of this PFD for, uh, for an unjust conviction eligibility is very small number of folks. So with that, I cannot support Amendment Number 2. Discussion before we go to wrap up.

Representative Jimmy. I cannot, I cannot support this either. We have a hard enough time where people from other states, other countries actually do come into Alaska just to receive the permanent fund and send it back to their own. So that's money leaving the state, it's not coming back into the state, where people who live here year-round, like I have since I've been born, I always put back into the state. So I will not be supporting this.

Okay, thank you. And I'll be recessing here in just a few minutes. We've got meetings we need to be at at 9:30. Representative Staff. Yeah, thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

I just think it's probably unwise for the House to talk about how it's inappropriate to put a bill into another bill or start a new bill on the floor. So in case anybody forgets our day yesterday, thanks. Okay, wrap up. Representative. Yes.

Yes. Representative Tomaszewski. So yeah, I'm going to support this amendment. You know, if you go through the list of folks that currently— and we have Coast Guard, we have those who are receiving medical treatment outside the state are exempt, students, we have people who are, you know, who are caring for individually, individuals' terminally ill family member. I mean, there's good reasons that sometimes take us out of the state.

And it doesn't mean that our heart isn't here in Alaska, or that our home isn't here in Alaska, or that our children, our spouses aren't here as Alaskans. And adding serving as a full-time employee in a transportation-related industry as part of that, I don't see the difficulty in figuring this out for as far as the eligibility for the PFD folks to figure that out. So I'm gonna be in support of this amendment. I think it's a good amendment. I think it closes a loophole on some folks who have a difficult time.

You know, I, I think it's, it's, it's a good thing to do. So I'm going to support it. Thank you for bringing this amendment. Wrap up. Representative Bynum.

Yes. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, Representative Tomaszewski, thank you for your support for the amendment. I do appreciate that. I brought this forward to recognize that there's changing law here and that the underlying bill is also changing law and eligibility.

This was an opportunity to bring the amendment forward. And if I— Mr. Co-Chair, if I did say 110, I'm sorry, I misspoke. It is 210. And the amendment that's in front of us that we can all read clearly states that it's 210. So I'll just put on the record that I apologize if I misspoke.

I don't recall that I did. But as far as stuffing a bill, I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to bring to light a very important problem that we've had with this particular issue. There's not been an elegant way to solve it. This was the most, uh, most effective way to try to put language together that was not restrictive to just one industry.

I want to recognize those hard-working people that are doing truck driving, transportation, tugging, along with our airline pilots and flight crews. So that's why I brought the amendment forward. But I'm not going to do anything that harms the underlying bill. I think it's a good bill. And I did not have an opportunity to talk with the bill sponsor.

So with that, I'll be withdrawing Amendment Number 2. Okay, Amendment Number 2 has been withdrawn. Uh, seeing no further questions, I would entertain a motion. Representative Sharkey. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

I move SB 167, Work Order 34-LS0491/G, out of committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note. House Finance Committee authorizes legislative legal to make any technical and conforming changes necessary. Okay, seeing no objection, um, SB 167, which is 34-LS0491/G, moves out of House Finance, um, as amended with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note. And House Finance Committee authorizes legislative legal to make any technical and conforming changes as necessary. Please do stick around to sign the yellow committee report.

Senator Kawasaki, thank you very much. One last thing is our lead committee person for the Finance Committee, Helen Phillips. I just wanted to recognize our House Committee— Finance Committee staff as well as our moderators. I don't know if this is going to be our last meeting. We're going to try to get some more work done, but As a just in case, we want to extend our appreciation to you as well as Tallulah Lestufka.

Wait, here I go. Lestufka. And we also have Secretary Bree Wiley in the back and Secretary Leah Frazier, who I think is not here in the room right now, but is here. And also moderator Emily Mesh, who's been here for most of the session. And then today we have moderator Chloe Miller here.

So just want to thank you all. I think people don't realize when things go smoothly, it seems very normal and easy, but things can go off the rails so easily. So thank you for your experience and all the work and help that you've given to us. So with that, I'm going to recess. Our intention is to come back later and try to get some more work done, but Of course, that depends on what happens on the floor, so we'll be recessed at 9:33 AM.