Alaska Legislature: Senate Health & Social Services, 4/7/26, 3:30pm

This hearing of the Senate Health and Social Services Committee will now come to order. Today is Tuesday, April 7th. The time is 3:31. We are in Butrovich Room 205. With me today are Senator Myers, Senator Clayman, Senator Tobin, myself, Senator Dunbar. We expect Senator Kiesel along shortly. Let the record reflect we have a quorum to conduct business. Before we begin, I would like to thank Mary Gwen Kawakami, the Health and Social Services Recording Secretary, and Zach Lawhorn from the Juneau LIO for staffing the committee today. Today we have 3 items on our agenda. First, House Joint Resolution 32, Rural Health Transformation Program, sponsored by the House Health and Social Services Committee. Next, SB 187 from Senator Wielechowski, School Nutrition Meal Prohibit Food Dyes. And finally, we will have our first hearing on SB 123, a bill from Senator Myers, China Citizens Review Panel. I believe that's how you pronounce it, right? Yeah, even though there's no H, pronounce it China. Moving on. So we'll start with HJR 32, Rural Health Transformation Program. This is the first hearing. Today we'll hear from the sponsor and take invited testimony. Here to introduce the bill, we have Ms. Lori Wing Hyer, well known to everyone in this building as a former director, but now legislative healthcare liaison. Ms. Giorgio was scheduled to be with us, but I believe she's called away to another committee. Ms. Winghyer, if you could please come forward, put yourself on the record, and begin your testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, my name is Lori Winghyer. I'm the legislative healthcare liaison. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to introduce House Joint Resolution 32. HJR 32 reflects the concerns of legislators about the implementation of the Rural Health Transformation Program. And it asks the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, our congressional delegation, and the governor to work with us to ensure Alaska can fully benefit from this significant federal investment. As background, the RHTP was created under HR 1, which provided $50 billion to states to improve rural healthcare. With the exception of Anchorage, all of Alaska is considered rural. Ultimately, Alaska received the largest per capita grant in the nation, $272 million, a little over, for the 5 years, so nearly $1.4 billion in total. This grant, however, comes with substantial conditions. It requires the legislature to pass several bills, primarily multi-state licensing compacts and legislation expanding certain pharmacy scope of authorities by December 31st, 2027. It also imposes very aggressive deadlines for allocating funding to subrecipients. To begin the process, the Department of Health opened a request for letters of interest. When the first round closed on March 11th, nearly 1,800 submissions had been received. While not all will be eligible, This shows two things. First, Alaskans are eager to use this opportunity to improve healthcare delivery, and second, the department, the Department of Health, the Alaska Community Foundation, their contractor, and the Advisory Council now face a major workload to evaluate proposals, assist applicants, and prepare subgrants before funding can be awarded. Under current federal timelines, states must obligate the funds by this summer, and the funds must be spent in 2027. HGR 32 asks CMS to consider adjusting these timelines so Alaska can responsibly evaluate proposals and invest in programs that truly advance the 6 pillars of our state's RHTP application: Healthy Beginnings, Healthcare Access, Healthy Communities, Fiscal Sustainability and Value-Based Care, Workforce Strengthening, and Technology and Innovation. We also face practical constraints unique to Alaska. The program does not allow for funds to be used for new construction, even though housing availability is a critical factor in rural workforce development. Shipping delays, such as a missed barge, can postpone equipment deliveries and increase project costs, and many communities developing and implementing health programs

requires close coordinated— close coordination with tribal partners and local stakeholders. These realities make the current timelines difficult to meet. Any of these challenges could reduce the amount of funding we ultimately receive. HGR simply asks for coordinated advocacy to ensure that Alaska does not lose funding due to the logistical hurdles beyond our control. Finally, both Senator Murkowski and Senator Sullivan had in their state of when they addressed the legislature spoke of how useful having a resolution from the legislature is to advocate for our interest. With that, I'm— I have introduced the HJR 32, Mr. Chairman, and but I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Miss Winghai. Are there questions regarding the resolution? All right, um, yes, Senator Tobin.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, thank you, uh, Ms. Wingeyer. I, I'm just curious, as I'm looking through, and I know that there were some changes made to this resolution, uh, in the previous committee, uh, can you speak to those changes and just provide some understanding of, uh, the whereas and the therefore resolved dynamics?

Certainly. The prior committee, when it was over in House H.S. before it went to House floor, tried to condense. At one point, the resolution was maybe 7 or 8 pages. So they tried to condense down what the intent of the resolution was by looking at what all was in there, but bringing it down to a couple pages as opposed to 7 or 8. I'm sorry, through the chair.

No, no worries. Thank you, Ms. Wingeyer. You have followed Senator Tobin. I'd like to note for the record we've been joined by Senator Giesel. Um, okay, are there any other questions regarding the resolution? Uh, there we go. Okay, I don't believe we have any other invited testimony. Let me double-check here. We don't. Um, we will have this resolution up again shortly. I would ask folks to please read the resolution and if you have amendments, start thinking of them. I'm not going to set a resolution amendment deadline today, but I will say that we intend to move this resolution fairly quickly. So folks, please consider amendments. I'd appreciate it. Thank you, Ms. White.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members.

Next up, we're going to bring up SB 187, School Nutrition Meal Prohibit Food Dyes. Here to introduce the bill, we have— looks like we don't have Senator Bulakowski right now, but we have, is it Phoebe Pepper? Oh, okay. Phoebe Pepper. Let's see here. Yep, please come forward and begin your, oh, also available for questions online, we have Heather Heineken. The Director of Finance and Support Services, Department of Education and Early Development. And then we have some invited testimony, it looks like, from Brittany Robbins from the Alaska Community Action on Toxics. But to start— Oh, there we go. Now we have Senator Wilkowski as well. Thank you for joining us, Senator Wilkowski. If you and your staff would please put yourself on the record. And begin your presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Bill Wilkowski, State Senator for East Anchorage. Appreciate the committee taking this measure up.

Yeah.

For the record, Phoebe Pepper, legislative intern to Senator Wilkowski.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for hearing this matter. This is a bill that would ban synthetic food dyes in meals or beverages provided by students as part of breakfast or lunch program. The, these are dyes that are, they're either warning labels or prohibited in other states around the country and in other countries around the world. They have no nutritional value at all. If you go to many countries around the world, you can get these same products with very similar coloring for, that are made with natural dyes and they're not harmful. There have been scientific studies that do prove that these are harmful, and we have been in communication with numerous school districts around the state. We think this can be done without any impact, any cost to those school districts, and I think it's just a small step towards increasing the nutritional— nutrition that we provide to our kids. So appreciate the committee taking this up, and Phoebe can go through with a little more detail or answer any questions you have. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. So, Ms. Pepper, if you could please— do you have a sectional analysis you could walk us through? Absolutely. All righty.

Thank you, Chair Dunbar. So Section 1 of CSSB 187 Education would prohibit schools from serving the following synthetic food dyes in meals or beverages provided to students as part of a breakfast or lunch program, these being red dye 3, red dye 40, yellow dye 5, yellow dye 6, blue dye 1, blue dye 2, and green dye 3, and would provide for an effective date of January 1st, 2028. And forgive me, Chair Dunbar, for the record, Phoebe Pepper, instead of intern.

Thank you. All right. I think now we will go to our invited testimony unless folks have questions before we do so. So we'll go now to Ms. Brittany Robbins from the civil engagement coordinator from the Alaska Community Actions on Toxics. That is not the right person. So I think we— If we could switch so that Ms. Robbins is highlighted. Right now we're highlighting the— okay, Ms. Robbins, if you take yourself off mute and begin your testimony, it should hopefully highlight you.

All right, um, for the record, my name is Brittany Robbins. I am the Civic Engagement Coordinator for Alaska Community Action on Toxics and previous school board member, vice— school board vice president for Wrangle Public School District. Thank you, Chair Dunbar, Vice Chair Giesel, and committee members for allowing testimony today on Senate Bill 187, an act prohibiting certain food additives in public school meals and providing for an effective date. Senate Bill 187 targets synthetic food dyes including Red Dye #3, Red Dye #4, Yellow Dye #5, Yellow Dye #6, and Blue Dyes #1 and 2. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, recognizes two categories of food dye. Synthetic food dyes, which are man-made color additives derived from petrochemicals, and natural food dyes, which are food color additives that are derived from natural sources such as fruit, vegetables, flowers, and so on. The chemicals targeted in this bill fall under the synthetic food dye category. These additives are non-nutritional and used primarily to impart vibrant, eye-catching color to foods, drinks, medicines, self-care products, candy, and other products. These particular color additives are primarily used in products that are designed to appeal to children. And 3 of the above food dyes, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6, which account for 90% of food dyes used in the United States, have been found to contain benzidine or other known carcinogens. At least 4 of the dyes, Blue 1, Red 4, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6, have been found to cause hypersensitivity and histamine reactions such as hives, swelling beneath the skin, eczema, and pruritus, which is an intense itching of the skin, asthma, rhinitis, nasal congestion, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, and in extreme cases, anaphylaxis. Numerous microbiological and rodent studies of yellow dye number 5 were positive for genotoxicity, which is the property of a chemical substance or agent that damages the genetic information within a cell, causing mutations. These synthetic food dyes have also been linked to behavioral issues such as attention deficit disorder, attention hyperactive deficit disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. Additionally, these dyes are associated with increased inflammation of the digestive system, increasing the risk of colorectal cancer, gut biome disorders, damage to DNA, memory deficits, and the ability to learn and retain information, and difficulty following multiple-step instructions. You can see where these effects could disrupt children's ability to learn in the school environment while simultaneously causing some level of permanent damage to their growing brains and nervous systems. These chemicals were last reviewed by the FDA decades ago to determine the safety of use in their products in the United States. Children and youth are particularly vulnerable to the harmful exposures to food and drink additive chemicals because their brains and nervous systems are rapidly developing, making them more easily damaged by toxic chemicals. Exposures to these toxic food dyes for no reason other than aesthetics is detrimental to children's growth and development, and these exposures are preventable. I urge you to pass out— pass SB 187 out of committee, and thank you again for hearing testimony today. And thank you, Senator Wieleckowski, for bringing this bill forward.

Thank you.

Ms. Robbins, we have a question from Senator Clayman.

Thank you, Ms. Robbins. Just in terms of these particular dyes that are listed, if I'm in the grocery store shopping for something, you know, some kind of a packaged meal or some food that has some degree of processing, it's not just rice that's in the rice bin, what is the likelihood I'm going to find any of these 6 substances in food I buy— I could buy in the grocery store every day?

Um, it's actually quite a high likelihood. Uh, these colors are used, um, for our ultra-processed food. So, um, drinks like sodas or juices, canned foods, um, candy, like I stated, bubble gum. They're used to just make things look appealing. You know, the, the saying that we eat with our eyes first.

Thank you.

Thank you. Other questions?

Mr.

Chair?

Yes, Senator Myers.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

This might be a better question for the bill sponsor than for our invited testimony here, but I'm looking at the change that was made in the last committee. We took out the words school lunch or school nutrition or meal program and instead put in breakfast or lunch provided by the school to enrolled students during the school day. I'm thinking about— I believe that there's some districts around the state that continue their school lunch program throughout the summer. I know in Fairbanks, when COVID hit, we took a lot of the food that had been set aside for the school breakfast and lunch program, and the district was handing it out to a lot of the low-income families around the around the area since it had already been bought and paid for. I'm curious if situations like that might be a little bit different given the change in language here. So you could end up with, you know, if somebody is doing a program outside of the normal school day hours, if we could end up, you know, banning it in one case and not in another. And if that's could potentially cause a problem.

For the record, Phoebe Pepper through the chair. Uh, Senator Myers, um, thank you for the question, and that is the exact reason we made this change when we worked with Senate Education, was to ensure that these— that some of these meal programs that aren't part of actual the school instruction days do not apply. However, let's say that, you know, the school takes so many like winter days off, snow days, and they end up extending into the summer. If they're full-service school days, they would apply. And then even some summer school programs, if those were full-service school days as well, it may apply. But the important thing that we did change is to clarify that this is during the school day to make sure that these programs where communities are feeding their— or schools are feeding their communities are not, you know, having to comply to this regulation. We're more focused on ensuring that this is— or the food we're providing to students is fostering their ability to learn.

Okay, so I have a couple of questions. Um, well, first of all, have you had a chance to— I know that the DEED said that there's no cost to the state, and that's pretty clear because we, we push costs down onto the school districts and then they, they do the things. Have you spoken with the school districts about this? I mean, how, how confident are they that they can enforce this? That is They're purchasing huge amounts of food. So how confident is the Fairbanks School District, for example, or the Anchorage School District, that some of these products won't slip through?

Yeah, through the chair, for the record, Phoebe Pepper. We talked to 10 school districts, both small and large. I'll just list them here for the purpose of discussion: Sitka, Juneau, Petersburg, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Matsu, Kenai, Lower Kuskokwim, Delta Greeley, and Nome. All 10 of those noted that they don't think this would be a significant fiscal impact on their schools. And we actually had 3 that went through their supply, and I believe the most products that one found was only 5 products. And so the way their ordering systems work, for most of them, is they order through USDA in February for the following school year. So that's why we changed the effective date. But to the point, to what you're asking about, They all said that they weren't concerned about cost and they actually went into these ordering systems and one even noted that when they went into the ordering systems to find substitutes for this small handful, it was either very similar or lower costs and that individual administrator particularly speculated and I agree with her that that's because 9 other states have enacted it, but those 9 other states are very populated including Texas and California, which is about 31% of the of the US population have implemented these school food dye bans, making it a lot easier for them to actually order substitutes that are same or lower cost.

Very good. That's great. Appreciate you guys did that research. A couple of other questions. I believe that there are schools in Anchorage that used to and maybe still have private companies that serve food. I think Subway and maybe even Pizza Hut in some of the high schools in Anchorage. Would they also be impacted by this ban?

So for the record, Phoebe Pepper to the chair. It really depends. If it's like provided by the school for the entire school, they're like to substitute their actual meal. If those food dyes— so most pizza joints don't have red dye in their pizza sauces, for example, but let's say they did, it would apply in particular. However, if a teacher threw a pizza party that is for an individual class and isn't actually as part of the school nutrition or the actual breakfast lunch program provided by the school district, that would not apply. So like kids handing out— or excuse me, teachers handing out like Jolly Ranchers to kids for answers for questions wouldn't apply here. But if it's covering the entire meal for the day provided by the school district, it would.

Very good. And then what, what is the consequence for school districts if they violate this?

Uh, for the record, Phoebe Pepper, uh, to the chair, um, there is no actual consequence outlined in the bill, and that is intentional. We don't want to be hard-handed onto the school districts. But a parent, for example, could ask a court for an injunction asking that— for that— asking that school or school district to stop that behavior. But this is— this, this bill is more a— the actual effect would more be encouraging food administrators to take a better look at nutrition facts and consider the health effects of what they may be.

Very good. Senator Tobin.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I think Ms. Pepper did a great job responding to that question. I do want to note that in state statute, we do have provisions that if schools are not in compliance with laws that we have indicated they must be, we have the ability to withhold state aid. So there are different stipulations that if they are unable to meet the provisions of this, they can reach out and provide input into the department. Otherwise, the department does have tools at their disposal.

Very good. Are there further questions? I don't see any. Let's see, no one else online to testify. Sorry, I'm looking here. Ms. Pepper or Senator Wilkowski, do you have any— that's for the next bill. Ms. Pepper or Senator Wilkowski, do you have any closing statements before we set the bill aside?

Just if I could, Mr. Chairman, Bill Wilkowski for the record. Through the chair, to Senator Clayman's question about the percentage of products that use artificial food dyes, through the research that we've done, 19% of packaged foods and beverages in the United States contain synthetic food dyes. So it's a fairly large— if you were to walk into a grocery store, percentage that use food dyes.

Very good. Senator Clayman.

Just a follow-up on that, Senator Likowski, through the chair. Is that if we pass this, are the schools going to have a difficult time actually getting a whole range of food in that they need to serve the kids that will either find themselves— we just don't have much variety of food because we lose too many things, or that the cost becomes significantly different?

Bill Wilakowski, for the record, through the chair. We don't believe so because, as was mentioned by Ms. Pepper, there— a large percentage of the United States population-wise has already passed this. Conservative and more progressive states, California to Texas, have passed similar legislation banning these food dyes in schools. So industry has responded and started to make products that just don't have these. In speaking with one of the school districts, I know one of the concerns that they had when they looked through their products was they wouldn't be able to serve a breakfast cereal that had a marsh— dyed marshmallows in it, which I presume was Lucky Charms. I question why a school would be serving Lucky Charms in the first place, but I was glad to hear that they will no longer be able to serve that. But Ms. Pepper can maybe add a little more more flavor to the conversation.

The manufacturer of Lucky Charms may feel differently.

And sure, for the record, Phoebe Pepper, I'm young. I will miss my Lucky Charms very dearly. No, so that is absolutely correct. It is very frequently seen in the— especially in the broader market. But like he said, it's really important to note that there has been a large amount of states that have implemented this on a school-specific ban. So a lot of states share USDA as their primary distributor and producer for their foods.

A lot of compliance is seen through that already. However, most of the stuff that the school districts noted to me whenever they were going through their supplies, it's almost silly trivial things that you'd never expect it in. It's salad dressings, maraschino cherries, and all those things are a lot easier to find. So it's really just subbing your bright green island dressing to something that looks a little more down to earth.

I'll ask one more leading question to you, Senator Wilkowski. Just, I want to hear a classic Wild Bill rant here if I can. If this is true, I mean, so there's these studies here, right, that link it to a variety of health disorders. Unfortunately, we've seen a lot of misinformation and disinformation about a variety of things, anti-vax movement, that kind of thing. And so I become hesitant about this kind of stuff. If these are so harmful, why haven't these big companies been sued into oblivion? I mean, if they are genuinely harming kids, why haven't they paid out multi-billion dollar settlements over this?

That is a great question.

And the—

if there is a history of this with the FDA that Ms. Pepper is, uh, very well prepared to speak on, and I'll just give you— I will just say this before that though, uh, I, I come to this I have a personal experience with this and my personal experience is that when my daughter was very young, she had a single yellow Starburst and a few minutes later she started to break out in hives and have trouble breathing. And it was kind of shocking to me because I had never thought that food dyes could cause these problems. A couple of weeks later, took her to Cold Stone's for an ice cream. She bought an ice cream and had a similar reaction and I went online and looked at the ingredients, and sure enough, they use food dyes in Cold Stone ice cream, just like they use food dyes in toothpaste and in mouthwash and in all sorts of other products. And so this has been sort of a personal thing for me because I've seen the impacts up close and personal. I know it's rare, it doesn't happen a lot, but the estimates are that 1 in 9 children have autism, and we know that this exacerbates autism according to the studies. But Ms. Pepper can speak on the FDA role in this and how the FDA has been debating this issue for many, many, many years, and industry, quite frankly, hides behind the FDA the fact that they have not done anything on this, and that's because the chemical industry has lobbied very, very, very hard to stop them from doing that. But Ms. Pepper can expound on that.

Yeah, for the record, Phoebe Pepper to the chair, um, in 1990, Red Dye 3 was actually banned from— for use in cosmetics, makeup, um, in 19— um, from— by the FDA. The authorization was removed for their makeup products, and the FDA at the time, the officials said that they were going to proceed by removing it from food and drink, um, and that process This did not start for 35 years. It only just started last year. And the FDA in particular, which is very related to your question, has something called the Delaney Clause that was enacted in 1958. It's basically a zero tolerance policy for anything that is proven to be carcinogenic to humans or animals in any studies. Basically authorization should be immediately removed. However, that has not happened and it's greatly because of synthetic food dye industry lobbying against it because it is so much cheaper to use these, use these synthetic dyes in foods and produce them, as opposed to, especially at the time in 1990, use something like beet extract or turmeric or any of those natural dyes that actually are nutritious. It's simply not as cost-effective to their margins.

Okay.

All right. Well, thank you. Any final thoughts or questions? Seeing none, we will bring this back. Senator Kiesel?

Well, I'll just add, Mr. Sherman, While it may be not common that people react to these, there's no harm in removing these artificial dyes. It helps everyone.

Thank you, Senator Giesel. So we will set this bill aside. We will bring it up at another date for public testimony. Thank you very much, uh, Miss, uh, Pepper and Senator Wilkowski. Take a brief at ease set for the next Bill. Back on the record. Next up we have SB 123, China Citizens Review Panel, before the Committee for its initial hearing. I think it's China, not CINA. It is, Child in Need of Aid. Here to introduce the bill, we have Senator Myers and Mr. Aaron Raybuck, staff to Senator Myers. Available for questions online, we have Jane Stinson, Director of the Office of Public Advocacy, Terrence Haas, Public Defender, Public Defender Agency, Kim Gway, Director of the Office of Children's Services, and Rachenda George-Beddingsworth, chair of the Alaska Citizens Review Panel. Senator Myers, thank you for coming forward already. Please put yourself on the record and begin your presentation.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

For the record, Robert Myers, Senator for District Q, North Pole and the eastern part of Fairbanks. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Appreciate you taking the time today to hear Senate Bill 123. Um, so this is, uh, by request of a couple of constituents of mine, uh, one of which will be, uh, part of our invited testimony today to talk about, um, how we could potentially address some issues inside of the Office of Children's Services in some child in need of aid cases. Um, this bill, as I mentioned, it comes to the committee at the request of a constituent and, uh, also reflects one of the legislative priorities from the Fairbanks-North Starboro Assembly, uh, that they have had on their list for a couple of years now. I think everyone in this room and on the phone wants the same thing. We want good outcomes for our children, safe homes, strong families, and a system that helps children move towards stability and as quickly and as appropriately as possible. SB 123 is not intended to disrupt the work already being done by the courts, the Office of Children's Services, or existing review structures. It's an invitation to consider whether an added layer of citizen review could be helpful. Alaska once had citizen review panels connected to permanency planning, but they were never really tried, and over time that tool went away. Today the state maintains a citizen review panel under federal law, but local case review does not occur in the way intended by this bill or what was originally passed in 1990. This bill grows out of that history and from the concern that permanency planning should be more than a process on paper. SB 123 would reestablish a state panel and local judicial district panels to review case plans for children placed outside of the home. These panels would be advisory in nature. They would not replace the courts or OCS, but would provide another avenue for public accountability with the shared goal of helping children reach safe and permanent outcomes. I believe this is a worthwhile conversation for the committee to have, not because this bill claims to have every answer, but because it asks whether Alaska should revisit a tool that really honestly never got a chance to be tried in the approximately decade that is on our statute books. Just as one example, Mr. Chair, of an issue that could potentially be helped. I was approached a couple of years ago by a constituent— or I should say a pair of constituents who had 2 children in their home taken by OCS. By the time they came to me, the children had been gone from the home for over 6 months already. The allegations that were out there against them not only constituted neglect, but most likely would have met the legal standard for, for child abuse, for physical child abuse. At this point, they had not heard from OCS about what the plans were. They had not heard about any potential termination of parental rights. They had not yet heard about any potential charges to be filed against them. They had not heard about a path to what they needed to do to get their kids back either at this point. This was a couple of years ago. Last time I checked in with them, they still hadn't heard much back from OCS. It's been a little while.

This is a place where these citizen review panels could potentially step in as a group specifically organized around OCS-related issues. Somebody that these people— that people in this type of situation could reach out to, to try to find some permanency, to try to find a path forward, and, you know, they're not lost in limbo, so to speak. You know, we understand OCS is going to require time for investigations and things like like that. But when you're talking about 6 to 12 months and, and you're not sure if, if you're going to get charged and go to jail or if you're going to get your kids back or how to go about either of those processes, um, and you're, you're left— because there's no charges, you're left in legal limbo. You can't even hire a lawyer because it doesn't, it doesn't do any good just yet. This is a spot that somebody could advocate on behalf of their family and on behalf of their children. So with that, Mr. Chair, I'm going to turn the sexual analysis over to, uh, Mr. Raybuck, if you're ready.

Yes, thank you, Senator Myers. Mr. Raybuck, it's quite a long sectional analysis. If you are able to, rather than sort of read through it, if you could sort of describe, you know, sort of what the sections or group of sections do, that would be ideal.

Happy to. Thank you, Chair Dunbar and members of the committee. Appreciate you hearing this bill today. For the record, Aaron Raybuck, staff to Senator Myers. Section 1 sets a sunset date for June 30th, 2032. Section 2 through 4 are primarily about conforming changes to legislation, getting everything aligned, as it were. Section 5 is the core of the bill, and it's— it has 4 sections. First section creates the state panel and gives it a job of overseeing the system as a whole. And that includes regulations, training for local panels, reviewing local panel activity, details about how they're supposed to submit an annual report to the legislature. Second is all about creating the local panels, how they would be organized, rules for appointments, qualifications, confidentiality, etc. A third It gets into how these panels would work on a day-to-day basis, meetings, expenses, how those should be held, including quorum and rules, etc. It goes through what their main job is going to be, exactly what these panels are tasked to do and how they should be doing it. These reports would go to the state panel. Fourth, it would include— fourth includes the supporting pieces needed to make the process work, including cooperation from the the department, access to records, confidentiality. It provides civil liability protection for panel members and defines terms used throughout the bill. Section 6 repeals the existing Citizens Review Panel for Permanency Planning and related statutory provisions since the bill replaces that framework. Sections 7 and 8 set staggered initial terms for state and local panels so all of these groups don't turn over at the same time. And Section 9 provides the effective date for the repealer, and Section 10 provides the bill's general effective date.

Very good. Um, next up, we are going to go to invited testimony. We have Mr. Scott Calder from the Fairbanks LIO. If we can call that up. There he is. Mr. Calder, Mr. Calder, if you could please put yourself on the record and begin your testimony.

Chair Ben Bart, Co-Chair Giesel, distinguished members of the committee, my name is Scott Calder. Good afternoon. Thank you for your, uh, for hearing my testimony today. Um, I had a lot of documents prepared here and a wealth of personal experience, and you can see that I'm ensconced with some things I'll try to refer briefly to several of these in my discussion, but, um, my son was, uh, pepper sprayed and handcuffed and locked in the Fairbanks Youth Facility in 1993. And at that time, Chapter 117 SLA 1990 was current law. And I discovered this after some months when I visited the ombudsman's office And the fellow there felt bad because he couldn't really do anything to help in that situation, and he showed me Alaska Statutes 47-10-400, et sequentia, which at the time was the current law for the Citizen Review Panel for Permanency Planning, established effective July 1st, 1990. Um, it was a few years after the intended effective date that I experienced a need to discover this fact. And I believe that had it been in existence at that time, that it probably would have saved my son's life. Because I think that some of the effort and thought that went into the original act of the legislature, the 16th legislature, would have had some effect, and that in the subsequent years, during the time when my son was in detention and being mistreated by state agents, that I would at least have had some recourse to provide some level of input to the case plans, which I was effectively barred from by every person I could contact concerning the matter. And so I don't want to go into a lot of detail about you know, personal situation grievances and so forth. I have here, I think, probably all of the documents that are in the possession of the committee now to consider in connection with Senate Bill 123. I'd like to go through a few of those and just point out certain aspects of them which I would draw to your attention and ask you to give consideration to. However, some of the documents which I submitted on Friday were apparently not included. And I'm not going to worry about that too much, except I just want to let you know what they were, and that I have done some research on this and been fairly assiduous about pursuing this particular legislative idea. So just briefly, the Senate Family Law Review Task Force reports from the early 1990s. You can see these in the blue binders on the table here. It's about 800 pages of stuff. And it makes for very interesting reading about what the state of the art was in the Alaska Senate, you know, decades ago, really. And Senator Myers referred to that. Also, I have here the original session law for that act and a copy of it. I'd be happy to refer to that if it was the pleasure of the committee. We could maybe discuss things in more detail. Also, I have a copy of the sponsor statement, and I would like to thank Senator Myers for doing this. That is absolutely righteous. And I don't want to pick a bone too much, but in his second paragraph, it says, however, individual case review at the local level no longer occurs. I just would like to draw attention to the committee, and I'm not sure if you have access to the original reports of the original panel. However, they never really did individual case reviews at any type of a systematic level. There were some reports where they were lobbying the legislature for funding and authority, and they had some rather dramatic anecdotes to illustrate certain points which were priorities for the department at the time. However, not really feedback or input from any of the stakeholders other than state agents who were involved. The other thing I'd like to draw your attention to is an extremely positive aspect of this legislative approach, and the original idea is in the last paragraph, second to the last line. The bill promotes public confidence in Alaska's child welfare system. So we're kind of at a crisis point with that, I would say. And Senator Myers has given the committee some things to think about in that regard. And my experience is maybe a little bit different than precisely what is contemplated in this legislation. Originally, the Chapter 117 SLA 1990 would have applied to juvenile cases as well as child protection cases, because at that time the Division of Family and Youth Services had not been bifurcated into essentially two different agencies. And so, you know, if there were any point where there were amendments to be introduced, I may suggest a broader applicability, uh, and under statutes in, I believe, 47-12, which would address juvenile cases. However, I'm

I'm well persuaded that half a loaf is better than none. And this is— Senate Bill 123 is absolutely a step in the right direction. Now, I'd like to— oh, yeah, the Senate Family Law Review Task Force was one. Also, several local government resolutions. Now, Senator Myers mentioned that this had been on the radar screens of our local government here for I think he said a couple of years or a few years. I would just like to point out, Mr. Chairman, that the first single-topic resolution of the Fairbanks-Nursery Borough Assembly was instigated, I would have to say, largely by myself in 1996. So I just would like to draw the attention of the committee that these documents are available, and, you know, we can certainly transmit those somehow. The other thing I submitted was links to audio files of hearings specifically on OCS in its latter-day form, shall we say, which were held by former Representative Tammy Wilson. And just, again, these are available to members of the committee or the public, and I send them out to people all the time. I'd just like to point out that on a cold Saturday afternoon in Fairbanks, we had 9.5 hours of public testimony. Also included were grand jury recommendations and a very interesting white paper, internationally sourced, on citizen panels, which I would endorse for anyone to consider the broad topic of how it is that you're able to have some form of external review without it becoming sort of an irrelevant series of layers on the onion, as it were. So these are some of the things which I did not see included in your documents and which I believe would be relevant. And I believe that Senator Meyer's office would be able to supply those, or I certainly could supply those if it were desired. Now, moving along to some of the exhibits that were provided to the committee, and again, I'll try to be very brief here and just point out one or two interesting things about each one, so maybe to help the committee economize its work a bit. We have, "What do we know about strategies for involving citizens in public child welfare?" And I'd like to point out that this was written by some people in Kentucky, and the University of Kentucky has been extremely active in promoting the citizen review panel concept. They have a school of social work there, lots of stuff on their website. I think they probably still have a map where you can select any state and find out what it's doing about citizen review panels. And while it is true that Congress did amend the CAPTA provisions in 1996 to require every state to have a citizen review panel, they're all a little bit different, I believe. And so that's one thing about this paper. It is somewhat institutional— institution-centric, if I can use that expression. Frame of reference. However, there's a lot of valuable information here, and in particular, I would draw the committee's attention to a comparison between perceptions of administrative workers and judicial workers, basically judges versus frontline workers. And not versus in an adversarial sense, but just as a comparison. And it seems that judges more strongly favor an external review concept than to the administrative personnel. I think that's a bit telling. The other thing is that we see in this paper toward the end, there's a section entitled Screening and Selecting the Right Citizens to Participate. There's a very high priority, it seems, on professionals in the field to make sure that And I would say maybe just as kind of a, you know, somewhat ordinary person, that there seems to be an impetus to exclude the ordinary citizen perspective from reviews of case plans for children in out-of-home care. And so I would ask you to just be a little bit cautious with this document. However, it does have some very important information in it, and it is important as one perspective on the situation. The next document is maybe one of the best ones, and this is the one that is entitled Children and Youth Services Review: Children's Experiences with Child Protection Services: A Synthesis of Qualitative Evidence. And I believe that this would also have applicability to juvenile proceedings and other mental health activities and you know, depending on how broadly someone wanted to, you know, cast the net for cases to review, which I would recommend be as broad as possible. I'd just like to draw your attention to page 8 of that document where the real meat of it begins in Section 3, where paragraph by paragraph, the research done by the authors of this paper is focused on specific experiences of children in out-of-home care. And I think each one of those descriptions is also very useful to understand why it is that the institutional perspective may not be the most valuable perspective for us to have as a public policy. And that's, that's only, you know, maybe about 3, 3.5 pages out of this whole document. And some of the categories are vulnerability in childhood, feelings of stigma, seeking recognition, first point of contact, disclosure, you know, I mean, the meaningful points at which youth are seen to experience important aspects of the system. So that's that. The other thing is, and the most important thing, ladies and gentlemen, in the bill itself Senate Bill 123 is on page— pages, uh, 7 and 8. And on page, uh, 7, on line 22, we have written notice. On line 26, among those to be notified of an opportunity to participate in a review would be the child's parents. And again, uh, opportunity to be interviewed by the local panel in person or by telephone, to provide written material to the panel on lines 7 and 8 of page 8. And again, on line 11, number 2, uh, parties to be notified: the parents, custodians, or other relatives of the child. This is extremely important for perspective on all of these cases, in my opinion. Um, next thing we have is the Legislative Research Services research brief, which is only a 3-pager, and it's excellent background on some of the history involved with this process. And on the last page and the last paragraph, I just would draw attention about the middle of the paragraph. The lines aren't numbered, I'm sorry. The duties of— and I apologize for reading, but the duties of the state citizen review panel are somewhat different than the earlier panels in that the state panel is charged with reviewing and evaluating, reviewing and evaluating the practices and procedures of the Office of Children's Services, making recommendations based on its findings. And this is— you'll find the current statutes for the currently existing so-called citizen review panel in 47.14-105, I believe, and here it cites 47.14-215. So there's a few statutes in there, not quite as comprehensive of a section in law as the original Chapter 117 SLA. However, there's nothing in here about case plan review, and frankly, it's a little bit superficial And I would hope that the State of Alaska agencies within the executive branch of the State of Alaska and anyone concerned with children's services would already be reviewing and evaluating the practices and procedures of the Office of Children's Services. And I don't know that it is really appropriate to use the name of citizens by calling this activity a citizen review panel. It just seems tremendously inappropriate to me, and in view of my experiences, I feel like this is very exclusionary and, uh, really redundant to the work that— well, not redundant, that just completely misses the point about the work we need to do.

Mr. Calder, I'm going to pause you there for a second. I want to see if there's any questions. Uh, yes, sir, there's any questions.

Almost done. So I really appreciate your indulgence, Mr. Chair.

Very good. My question, my first question is, you mentioned that a number of states have it in different ways, and the documents note that we already have a federally required panel to meet the CAPTA requirements. So I assume that every state or almost every state has that panel that meets the federal requirements, but are you aware of any states that have panels set up in the way that they are set up in this bill? Are there other, other examples of states that are doing it this way that perhaps have been successful?

Mr. Chairman, I cannot tell you exactly what each state's systems are. However, Oregon in particular, I would note, has a system which is based in its judicial branch as opposed to its executive branch. And there are other states, I believe, maybe Idaho, Florida, Maryland. I'm getting a little help from the wings here. There is actually some expertise in the room here with me, although they were not invited on. And, but welcome, I must say. Every state has its own possible, has its own ability to determine as a matter of policy how it would proceed with such a panel. And the federal requirements are so minimal as to be not very meaningful. In the original guidelines for the implementation of the CAPTA Act, there was ample latitude for each state to not only develop its own program if it did not have one, but to retain the program that it did have or should have had at the time, as long as it met certain minimal requirements of the federal government. So there was really never any reason for us to go through all of the motions of getting rid of the good thing that we had in order to have the mediocre thing that we do. I hope that answers your question, Mr. Chairman. I apologize if I may have been unfocused on that.

No worries, Mr. Calder. I have a question actually for Ms. Guay now. I'll give her a moment to perhaps come off mute. Um, you know, we have a number of fiscal notes for this bill. I'm trying to find yours. I believe yours was indeterminate. The other ones I think were determinant. And oh no, there are a couple indeterminants and some in the several hundred thousand dollar range. Um, but Miss Gueye, I guess my question for you is, you know, there's a sort of citizens oversight ethos or goal that's being expressed through this bill, how would you articulate that goal is currently achieved by either your agency or the courts or a combination thereof? You know, what they're trying— what Mr. Calder and others are trying to accomplish with this bill, how does Alaska currently accomplish that goal or attempt to? Director Guay, are you there? I think we might be having audio issues with Director Guay.

Can you hear me now?

Oh, now we can hear you, Mr.— Director Guay. Did you hear my question, or would you like me to repeat it?

No, I did hear your question. For the record, this is Kim Guay, OCF Director. Thank you for the question, Chair Dunbar. A few different things. We do have a citizen review panel currently. However, they do not do case-specific items as the invited testimony was talking about. I couldn't catch his name. You know, there is— there has been some changes since this original statute from, I believe it was in the '90s, and how it currently works. There have been many changes over the years as far as the court bringing in a court improvement program. We have moved some things as far as, like, case plans and things of that nature. So there's been some changes, which I would assume are positive changes. But how we include the public, I mean, I would say our hearings are public, they're open to the public, except for the first one. But as far as that public feedback, there's not a specific way besides being a part of our current Citizens Review Panel, which they're always looking for volunteers to join that statewide CRP panel. I hope that answers your question.

It does. Thank you. Are there other questions for Director Guay? Not seeing any. Mr. Calder, I'm going to go back to you, and if you could sort of move to your— the conclusion of your testimony, if that is possible.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. I think I can probably wrap up my end for the moment. However, I, you know, I'm an open firehose of information on this perspective. So I would hope that the committee and anyone would take advantage of that whenever necessary. The last thing here, and I would have a brief comment on the fiscal note. However, I would not be as expert on that as probably administrative personnel. But the last exhibit here that has been provided to the committee is the Alaska State Legislature— Legislature— Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, uh, report dated September 1st, 1993. So of course this is contemporaneous with the time period when the, uh, original Citizen Review Panel for the state of Alaska had been created. And it's a pretty lengthy document. And, you know, over the years I've collected this before and, you know, was aware of this. This is a good history, though, of the legislative history that we have at that time, September 1, 1993. So I just wanted to draw the committee's attention to that. That document, the provenance of that document. And lastly, Mr. Chairman, honestly, since it was a current law and I was personally in person requesting Governor Knowles to implement this law where it stated that the governor shall appoint members to the Local Out-Of-Home Care Review Panel, and He refused to do that several times and through his subordinates refused to do it. And eventually, by legislative manipulation, the original panel system was made to go away. And even after we had complained to Congress, it was at that time within less than a year that they enacted the CAPTA Amendment. So, rather interested in that timing. But, you know, we've seen year in and year out that whenever I've even gotten close to presenting or promoting information on this subject, the routine objection is that it's going to cost a ton of money. And, Mr. Chairman, I have a vision for how this would not have to cost a lot of money. And I believe that with a broader discussion that I could describe a much more economical way than millions or $7 million. And the, the meat of that— and I'll finish with, with this point, I think, because it would be probably the most appropriate— all we're really talking about, Mr. Chairman, is including parents in stuff about their kids when the state is trying to do something to their kids. Now, in this instance, we're talking about children in state custody, not in— not other situations, but where that has already occurred for some reason and having the opportunity to provide input into that. And it's a voluntary system. I think there would be no need to dedicate administrative staff to participating in a voluntary review. We really would have no idea what the response rate would be perhaps to a simple questionnaire. And I think that really the most essential role of a citizen review panel for permanency planning, as originally contemplated in Chapter 117 SLA, would be simply to compile meaningful data for policymakers and other interested members of the public, people interested in child welfare, to just see what people— frontline workers, agency personnel, and especially parents— think about the case plans for children in out-of-home care in the state of Alaska. That is the

that we seem to never really have. Now, the existing citizen review panel has made kind of a baby step in that direction with worker satisfaction surveys. However, I mean, that's not really the same thing as including parents. But it's all worth considering, every perspective, where the rubber meets the road. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you, Mr. Calder. And I'll note for you and for anyone else, of course, you can always submit things in writing. I know you have submitted some documents, but if there's further testimony you want to give of your own, that can be submitted in writing and included in the public record. So thank you very much for your testimony, Mr. Calder. I don't see any further questions. Oh, I do. Senator Tobin, for either Mr. Calder or for the maker of the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's actually, I think, a question for the maker of the bill. I just want to make sure that I'm reading this correctly, and I'm looking particularly on page 1, section— the beginning of section 2, and then of course the section 4, which includes the same language. The way that I'm reading this is that the citizen review panel for permanency would only evaluate cases in involving a child that has been removed from the home for approximately 60 days, and that's going into a determination about a permanency placement. It's not for children who might be removed for an emergency basis, or there's a short period of time where they're removed but then they're reunified. This is really about focused on a child that's been removed from the home and won't be returning to the home. Or am I reading that incorrectly?

Uh, through the chair, Senator Tobin, if we need to modify that slightly to clarify that better, I'm fully open to that. Our intent here is to look at children that have been removed from the home for a significant period of time. So, you know, whether that means, you know, what, what exactly the intent is there at that point, you know, the point is to say, well, let's make sure there is an intent, let's make sure there is a clear plan. So, you know, we don't want to necessarily exclude cases, you know, we're just saying, hey, if your child has been gone for a while, we need to have a plan. You know, we, we know that, that I can say this as the father of two adoptees, that, um, you know, children need permanency, children need stability. And if you're sitting in limbo in foster care, uh, you know, that's not good for the parents, that's not good for the kids in the long run. And we need to be reviewing those, uh, just as much as we're, we're sitting here, you know, talking about the last couple of years about how long it's taking criminal cases to move through the courts and how that impacts not only the defendants but also the victims. We need to be saying the same things for our kids that are in need of aid, that, you know, they need to be moving through the process as expeditiously as possible. And whether that means placement at a home or back in their original home with their parents or a termination of parental rights and movement towards adoption out, we need to be moving towards either of those as expeditiously as possible.

Thank you. Uh, your follow-up, Senator Thurmond?

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you. That's helpful to understand the intent, uh, with that 60-day notification. Uh, my follow-up question to you is, uh, so from my understanding, there is often emergency placement with other relatives and other family members. Would that also fall into this, or would those be, uh, excluded because there is a different dynamic that's occurring within those, uh, particular cases?

Through the chair, Senator Tobin. So we weren't excluding those types of cases. You know, again, the point here is permanency in the end, is— and whether that means permanency with your aunt and uncle, permanency with somebody not related to you, the end goal needs to be permanency.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator Tobin. I don't see any other questions. Thank you, Senator Meyer, for bringing this forward. We're going to set this bill aside. And I'll say also, Mr. Mr. Calder, my wife is a ballet dancer. I think I recognize some of the words on your— not sure, but I think I recognize some of the words on your shirt. So, always good to see someone promoting the arts. Thank you all for coming to this hearing. The next meeting of the Senate Health and Social Services Committee will be Thursday, April 19th. We will have a second hearing for SB 281, Health Care Compacts Rural Health Program. During this hearing, we plan to have a CS before the committee for consideration. We will also hear from both Department of Health and Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing. Thank you all for a productive hearing. Oh, before I adjourn, yes, Senator?

Mr. Chairman, the next meeting is the 9th or the 19th?

Did I say 19th? I meant April 9th.

Okay, thank you.

This Thursday.

Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Senator Giesel. Thursday, April 9th. This Thursday. With that, it is 4:40 and this hearing is adjourned.