House Labor & Commerce, 5/14/26, 2pm

Noon. This is the House Labor and Commerce. We are back on record from our recess earlier this morning. It is 2:14 PM. We are in the, um, Barnes Room 124.

With us today we have Representative Carrick, Representative Freer, Representative Sadler, Representative Nelson, Co-Chair Fields, and myself, Co-Chair Hall. Who's a Carrick? Oh, excuse me. Representative Carrick is not here. Representative Calombe is.

Apologies. Our first order of business this afternoon is we are going to bring before the committee again SB 170. And the purpose of bringing SB 170 before the committee is to consider rescinding two amendments. And those two amendments are E. E.13 and E.15.

We will start with Amendment E.15. Thank you. I think I first need to move to bring the CS for SB 170 Work Draft 34-LS0213/E as a working document back before the committee. Seeing no objection. Thank you.

I move to rescind action on E.15. And I'm happy to describe that. There has been an objection. Co-chair Fields. Amendment E.13— E.15.

E.15. Initially deleted on page 17, line 3, deleted 35 and went down to 25. We conceptually amended it to 30. After some further research, I think I am— I am no longer going to support that amendment and just appreciate the opportunity to revote on it. Is there further discussion from the Committee?

Can you elaborate on your research? Yes.

I think it is a complex marketplace with few actors and a disproportionate amount of resources for some actors compared to others, and I want to make sure we maximize competition, and that is, that is the impetus. How is it lowering to 30 reducing competition? In short, economies of scale for some of the larger manufacturers and distributors compared to the lesser economies of scale for the smaller ones, and I think it is in the public interest for some of the smaller manufacturers and distributors to be able to survive. So if they're— if the distributor manufacturers are charging more Isn't that less money to the nonprofits? That is the trade-off, and that is the reason I had previously supported the amendment.

I mean, I guess my personal opinion is it is a very close call what is best, and certainly respect differences of opinion on it. And we could always call—. Yes, we have Senator Bjorkman. Senator Bjorkman's staff to look more at this.

Do we have any manufacturers or distributors or anybody online? The only person I see online is John Gallagher, CEO of Arrow. I don't see anybody else online.

Senator Bjorkman, would you like to opine on Amendment E.15? Thank you very much, Co-Chair Hall. Like I mentioned a little bit earlier today, The price cap for, and the limitation of, the ability for manufacturers to charge a certain percentage of the ideal net as, as what they have set in law is new. There is currently not a cap on manufacturer percentage of the ideal net. This is a new concept that is delivered to this bill.

As we are contemplating adopting electronic pull tabs. Currently in the marketplace, the free market has set an agreement that currently exists between a manufacturer and a distributor at 31%. Um, and that's what the market has decided is the market value. The idea of setting the manufacturer limit at 35% is to provide a ceiling which could say that you will go no higher than this amount and still allow the market to work under that level. Setting a cap at 30% would essentially risk creating deadweight loss in the economy, meaning that smaller manufacturers who do not have the assets and resources to compete in the market would essentially be priced out of the market because they could not compete.

Even if their product was a better product. The sheer size and amount of money behind their company is going to determine their influence in advertising, their influence and ability to hire and provide other things. And so the goal of having a, a higher cap limit at 35 is to allow the market to work. And so the tastes and preferences of the consumers, being the charities and nonprofits as well as the game players themselves, can play out in this place. Setting a lower limit than has already been agreed to by two companies, a buyer and a seller, distorts that market and would harm competition in the marketplace.

Thank you. So I think I need to move to rescind action on E.15.

Representative Colom objects. Okay, I'm going to take an at ease. Is anybody else Okay, we are back on record. We've had— we have a motion to rescind in front of the body for Amendment E.15, and Representative Colon objected. Seeing and hearing no further committee conversation, will the clerk please call the roll?

Representative Freer? Yes.

Representative Colombe? No. Representative Nelson? Yes.

Representative Sadler? Pass.

Representative Carrick is not present. Representative Sadler? Uh, no. Chair Fields? Yes.

Chair Hall? Yes. 4 Yeas, 2 nays. With a vote of 4 yeas to 2 nays, the motion to rescind has passed. Representative Colon, do you have a motion?

I offer Amendment E.15. I'll object. There's been an objection. Representative Colon, would you like to discuss your amendment? I would like to put forward Amendment Number 1 to E.15 and change the number from 25% to 30%.

Is there an objection? Representative Nelson, do you object? Yes, I object. Okay, Representative Nelson objects. Representative Nelson.

Yeah, um, uh, you said earlier that we have one of the distributors on the line, or manufacturers, manufacturer. Are we able to get their opinion on this or what they are thinking? Mr. Gallagher, the CEO of Arrow, is there anything you would like to share about the amendment before the body, E.15? I don't know if you have been able to review it or aware of previous committee discussion.

I don't have perspective on this. Defer to the Alaska legislature. No opinion. Okay. Co-chair Fields.

Through the chair, I can try to explain for Representative Nelson where this came from. So operators, including I think the Powers in Anchorage and Dave Lambert up in Fairbanks, I believe were supportive of this in previous discussion in the committee. And Representative—. And we did hear from them.

Representative Kollum, did you want to share additional information for Representative Nelson?

I don't think so. I mean, we did hear from Sandy Powers and the other one, David Lambert. Yep, Lambert. And they were supportive of the 30. And I see that David Lambert has joined us from Fairbanks, if the committee would like to hear from him.

If I might. Coach Airfields. Yeah, basically the division among the stakeholders was Dave Lambert and Sandy Powers, operators, supported the amendment. I think there was opposition from some other distributors. That was kind of the breakdown.

Well, and that's why I was saying if we have any distributors online to get their opinion on this.

Mr. Lambert, are you off mute? Was there anything that you wanted to share about this amendment?

Okay, are we talking about reducing the 30% on the cost of the games right now? Because I just dialed in. Mr. Lambert, we're talking about Amendment E.15. There is a motion to conceptually amend the amendment from— instead of inserting 25 to insert it to 30. So the amendment would— if the conceptual amendment is passed, that means that it would go from 35 down to 30.

You know, I think 30 is reasonable, but if we're going in and changing things I need to clarify on the vendors where Jesse referred to $15,000 on the— to buy in for a vendor up front. That would only be $1,100. It wouldn't be $15,000. I think that's important if you're reconsidering motions. This is kind of a surprise right now.

But I support the 30. Thank you, Mr. Lambert. Is there further discussion from the committee? Representative Nelson, do you maintain your objection? Yes.

Okay, the objection has been maintained. Will the clerk please call the roll? Madam Chair. Madam Chair. Excuse me.

Representative Klobuchar. Yes. For the committee's awareness and the public's awareness, we are going to be voting on the conceptual amendment to E.15, which would on page 17, line 3, but in the amendment it's line 3, instead of inserting the number 25, would be inserting the number 30. With that, will the clerk please call the roll?

Representative Sadler? Yes. Representative Freer?

Pass. Representative Nelson? No.

Representative Carrick? Not present.

Representative, uh, Representative Klum? Yes.

Representative Freer?

No. Co-chair Fields? Yes. Co-chair Hall? Yes.

4 Yeas, 2 nays. Okay, with a vote of 4 yeas to 2 nays, the conceptual amendment number 1 to Amendment E.15 has been adopted. We have the main motion before us. Representative Colon, would you like to speak to your amendment? The bill right now says that maximum price for a manufacturer or distributor can charge 35%.

My amendment reduces it down to 30% as an in-between. Originally, like we said, it was at 25%. My concern is anytime those increase, that charge is less money to the charities. So that's why I put forward. Okay, will the clerk please call the roll?

Madam Chair, who is that? Senator Bjorkman, could I just make a couple clarifying comments? Of course, please. Just to reiterate for the committee, placing a cap like this will drive potential competition out of the marketplace. So if you have an agreement between a willing buyer and a willing seller to enter the marketplace right now at 31, and then that manufacturer leaves the marketplace, reducing competition means that prices will increase.

That will mean less money for charities and nonprofits. Allowing for a higher option can can bring more manufacturers to our market. More manufacturers are what we want to drive competition, not artificial price caps. I urge members to vote no on the amendment. Thank you, Senator Bjorkman.

Can I respond to that? Representative Kulum. So it's my understanding too that this is really, um, just from some of the feedback and testimony, this affects rural Alaska more Um, because when you have a big operation, you have— you can negotiate prices down easier. Um, when it's a smaller operation, they're kind of at the will of whoever will do business out in rural Alaska. And, um, maybe you don't like a big company, but potentially a big company would be able to service those rural areas cheaper.

Because of their resources than like in Anchorage or Kenai. Just want to put that out. Senator Bjorkman. Thank you, Co-Chair Hall. Um, as we think about how the marketplace works, um, the distributors are signing the contract with the manufacturer at the percentage.

So once this— once a distributor has a contract in place with the manufacturer, they give all of their their permities and all of their people, they all get the same deal. So different charities and nonprofits, they're not necessarily negotiating their own deal if they're working through a distributor. The distributor is kind of the face of the manufacturer in that way. And then they are providing that price point to all of their customers. So it's not the case that charities and nonprofits would have to negotiate their own thing.

Okay. Thank you, Senator Bjorkman.

Seeing no further committee discussion, will the clerk please call the roll?

And we're voting on E.15 as 30%. Yes, we are voting on Amendment E.15 as conceptually amended.

Representative Sadler. Yes.

Representative Freer? No.

Representative McCollum? Yes.

Representative Nelson? No.

Co-chair Fields? No. Co-chair Hall? No. 2 Yeas, 4 nays.

With a vote of 2 yeas to 4 nays, Amendment E.15 has not been adopted.

Co-chair Fields, do I have a motion? I move to rescind action on E.13. I'll object for purposes of discussion.

I'd like to turn to the bill sponsor. Thank you very much, Co-chair Fields. Um, this amendment was amended so that a manufacturer would be able to own one distributor for the purposes of selling electronic pull tabs. Currently, as the bill was prior to this amendment, manufacturers were able to own distributors for the purposes of selling paper pull tabs.

The problem raised by including this amendment in the bill this late in the process is the bill contains other provisions that are designed to promote competition and to disallow monopolistic practices of inducements and other economic relationships that would essentially weigh the market with monopolistic or oligopolistic activity. So what that is to say is when a manufacturer is able to own a distributor under the bill as it sits now, it would significantly advantage that distributor. Because the manufacturer is able to provide marketing services, all kinds of support through employees and everything else that distributors who are not owned by a manufacturer do not have, and they would be disallowed under the bill.

The marketplace in Minnesota is driven through competition and allowed for many manufacturers to participate because they do not allow vertical integration that was proposed by this amendment. Small manufacturers like Pilot Games, they can participate in marketplace in Minnesota because they can compete on an equal footing and they are not subject to vertical integration of a billion-dollar corporation like the manufacturer who owns it, owns the Whaler. So what we did in the bill was to not require Arrow International to divest from the Whaler. They can still own the Whaler and sell the paper games. They can do all of the things that they currently do.

What they would not be able to do is they could not engage in electronic pull tabs and have that ability to outcompete the rest of their competitors because of their size. And then the concern is that through that competitive advantage, they could control an outsized portion of the market and drive up prices by eliminating their competition. So what we're trying to do in the bill originally is to maximize competition for the for-profit businesses so that they drive their prices down so that charities and nonprofits make more money. By allowing kind of monopolistic practices and enticements for one manufacturer, or any manufacturer who would buy a distributor, it significantly breaks that relationship of competition and introduces a marketplace whereby whoever has the most gold wins on the for-profit side. And that will hurt charities and nonprofits.

So I urge the committee to rescind action on this amendment that would allow a manufacturer to own a distributor for the purposes of engaging in electronic pull tabs. Thank you, Senator Bjorkman. We have several people who— a couple of people who've joined online, but I'd like to have the motion to rescind taken up by the committee before we go into further committee discussion. We already passed the motion to rescind. Okay.

Did we? We did not. I move to rescind action on E.13. I think there was an— didn't you object? Doesn't an objection need to be removed?

Was there an objection?

At ease.

We are back on record, and the motion before the body is the motion to rescind Amendment E.13. And I believe I was the one who had objected to that motion, so I, I remove my objection. Is there further objection? I object. There has been an objection by Representative Sadler.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Representative Nelson. Yes.

Representative Freer. Yes.

Representative Sadler. No. Representative Colon. No.

Co-chair Fields. Yes. Co-chair Hall. Yes. 4 Yeas, 2 nays.

With a Vote of 4 yeas to 2 nays. The motion to rescind has passed the body. Co-chair Fields, do you have a motion? Well, I guess Representative Kerrek offered this amendment, but since she's not here, I'll just go ahead and offer it. If you want to object to it, we can re-vote on it.

I will. I object. So I will move Amendment E.13. Object. Thank you.

I think upon further consideration, I will not be supporting this amendment, but I wanted to put it back before the committee for people to vote on. Representative Freer. Thank you. Clarification on what—. What did you say, 19 or 13?

I said— sorry, 13. E.13. E.13.

We can approve it as is. Howdy.

Okay, we are back on record. Um, can the committee please remind me who objected to the motion to have E.13 in front of us? It's been one of those days. Thank you for your patience. Um, is there committee discussion on Amendment E.13?

I would—. Representative Nelson. Yeah, um, with this in front of us, I would just like to get, uh, the take of the, uh, bill sponsor and some of the players inside of, uh, or some of the actors inside the industry, just of what their thoughts on this amendment could result in. Absolutely. Representative Sadler, online we have David Lambert, who's a charitable gaming operator, Matt Fisher, who's an owner of Alaska Holes Did I screw something up again?

Did I? Nelson. Oh, Nelson. Representative Nelson, normally it's the gentleman to your right who's asking and engaging more questions. I apologize.

Representative Nelson, for the committee's awareness, we have David Lambert, the charitable gaming operator, Matt Fisher, owner of Alaska Wholesale, and John Gallagher, CEO of Arrow Online. But let's start with Senator Bjorkman. Thank you, Madam Co-Chair. I kind of said what I needed to say about the amendment and that I oppose the amendment, um, simply because it, um, really breaks the concept that we're trying to maximize competition amongst the for-profit businesses to drive down prices so that charities and nonprofits can make more money from charitable gaming. Um, the two players here that have strong opinions about this issue would be Matt Fisher with Alaska Wholesale, and John Gallagher with Arrow International.

Thank you, Senator Bjorkman. Let's start with Mr. Fisher with Alaska Wholesale. Mr. Fisher, would you please offer your thoughts on Amendment A.13?

Hi, thank you. I, I can tell you if this doesn't change, unfortunately, we will be out of business, our family business. Will be done. I talked with John Weaver of Pilot earlier today. He said there's no way that we could possibly compete with a $2.5 billion corporation.

They look at what happened in North Dakota where sites were given hundreds of thousands to place their games, and it's just not a game that we can compete. We have been in the situation before where we've seen anti-competitive practices. And this, this is not good. We've already heard Pollard had told me before that if Arrow's allowed to be a manufacturer-distributor, they're going to also have to do that. So what we're going to end up with in Alaska is two manufacturer-distributors and everybody else is out.

Arrow will sell Arrow product Pollard will sell Pollard products. They will have no competition amongst products, no competition amongst pricing. I won't have any source of paper. I won't have electronics. This will kill small independent businesses in Alaska, and it will be bad for nonprofits.

I am very emotional about this because this— if you keep this amendment, there is no doubt about it. My business is done.

Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Do committee members have any questions for Mr. Fisher?

Seeing none, Mr. Gallagher, would you please put yourself on the record and share your thoughts about this amendment?

Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. This is John Gallagher from Arrow. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to advocate on behalf of our organization and our team in Alaska, The Whaler. Arrow is a family-founded company. We're a third-generation family-founded organization.

So my grandfather, a World War II veteran, founded Arrow in 1967, and we as a family and as a team have invested in charitable gaming for many years. We are the proud parent company of The Whaler, which is a distributor of charitable gaming supplies in Alaska today and has been in the state, uh, for 30-plus years. And Arrow continues to invest in the team and in the state and in charities. Our mission is to help charitable organizations accomplish great things, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have, but we sincerely appreciate the opportunity to do business in the state of Alaska. And this amendment allows us to continue to be able to do business in the state of Alaska.

So our interest is continuing to operate just as we have been, and we believe that the amendment is necessary in order to enable us to continue to operate accordingly. And I'm happy to take any questions. Sincerely appreciate your opportunity today. Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. Do committee members have any questions for Mr. Gallagher?

Okay, seeing none, thank you for your time.

Additional committee discussion? Representative Colon? Yeah, so I think it's— I don't know, if you want to get rid of this, I would say the reason is, is to keep small businesses in competition. This is not maximizing competition. They don't want to compete with the big guy.

It's not maximizing competition. So that's fine, but I just, I don't think that's really the right— I don't agree with that statement that we want to keep on— they're going to come on and take over the market. And when you restrict competition, okay, if you want to do that to keep small businesses, I can understand that, but that's not opening up competition. Competing with everybody. So that's all I had to say.

Thank you, Representative Klobue. All right, Senator Bjorkman, do you have any final comments before we move to a vote? Thank you, Co-Chair Hall. I urge members to vote no on this amendment. The bill as it stands allows the Whaler to keep operating the business as they have currently for many years in the paper market, selling paper pull tabs, bingo paper, and other gaming things.

Nothing is being taken away from them in that regard. If they want to distribute electronic pull tabs, they would need to separate themselves from the whaler in order to do that. Maximizing competition means that we treat everybody the same, and if this amendment passes, distributors that are owned by manufacturers would have a very, very significant advantage. And as you heard from Mr. Fisher, his business would be very significantly impacted and would likely be outcompeted by people who have significant comparative advantage. When that happens, because we have allowed vertical integration, the least number of players in the market means that the higher the price for that good is.

So I urge members vote no on the amendment. Thank you, Senator Bjorkman. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Representative Freer? No.

Representative Nelson? Yes. Representative Sadler? Yes. Representative Klum?

The vote— okay, wait a minute, we're voting on the regular amendment, on the amendment, on the amendment to pass, correct? Yes.

Chair Fields? No.

Co-chair Hall? No. 3 Ayes, 3 nays. With a vote of 3 ayes to 3 nays, the amendment is not adopted. Is there any final committee discussion on SB 170?

I have a few comments. It's abundantly clear that there's a lot of competing interests in this bill. My understanding that in this bill there is something that everybody hates. And with my background in journalism, when you're producing a story and everybody who's been engaged with that story, who's been interviewed and a part of the story-making process, hates the story then you know you did a good job.

I understand that it's very territorial and it sounds like it's been very emotional for a lot of the stakeholders engaged, but hopefully with the due diligence and the work that Senator Bjorkman and his staff has put through over the last many years on this bill, that this is the best product that could have come out of it. So I appreciate the committee's indulgence and patience as we've been working through this process for several weeks now between the House bill and the Senate bill. Co-chair Fields. I just wanted to thank the stakeholders who weighed in multiple times. I think some of these things are very close calls, some of these decisions.

I agree. Representative Sadler. Hey, Madam Chair, don't presume that we've all been patient.

I know the feeling, Representative Sadler. We both do. Thank you, Madam Chair. You're welcome. All right, with that is co-chair Fields.

Do we have A motion before the body. Yes. I move that the House Labor and Commerce Committee report SB 170, Work Order 34-LS0213/e, as amended, from committee with individual recommendations and accompanying fiscal notes.

Seeing no objection, SB 170, Work Order 34-LS0213/e, E, backslash E, has been with— has been moved out of committee as amended with individual recommendations and accompanying fiscal notes. We will take an at ease.

Okay, we are back on the record. Labor and Commerce Committee. We have before us House Bill 197 by Representative Tomaszewski. Representative Tomaszewski was unable to meet with us this afternoon, but we are pleased to see his staff. Connor Mariner is here.

So Mr. Mariner, would you please put yourself on the record and begin your presentation and remind the committee what the, what the bill is about? Yes, for the record, Connor Mariner. I'm staff to Representative Tomaszewski. Thank you, co-chairs. Hall and Fields, members of the House Resources Committee for Labor and Commerce Committee, for taking time out of your busy day to hear this bill.

The bill is quite simple in mechanics. There's 3 main things. The first thing this bill does is it establishes an executive director for the Board of Dental Examiners. Recently they've experienced an increase in applications and licenses, and having an executive director would allow that process to be more streamlined. Secondly, it updates licensure requirements for dental hygienists.

The language in the bill removes the 2-year program length but still requires CODA accreditation. However, since the first bill hearing last year, our office was contacted by the Alaska Dental Hygienists Association regarding some issues with the bill, and they did send forward an amendment that adds that 2-year language back into the bill that our office views as a, a good amendment to the bill. Lastly, um, the, the law currently defines who can legally own and operate a dental practice. However, there's no mechanism to enforce that statute. So the last portion of this bill would allow the Board of Dental Examiners to levy a fine of up to $1,000 a day for those unauthorized owners who don't transition owners to ownership within a 24-hour time period.

I'm happy to answer any and all questions.

I have a question. That fine sounds significant. Yes, so it's up to $1,000 a day. The Board of Dental Examiners can decide. I mean, it could be $5 a day, could be $50.

It's up to the discretion of the board.

Okay. Um, I guess, what is the cost for an executive director? Seems fairly low if spread across all dentists, but what is the cost, say, per dental practitioner? Yes, so, um, the cost of— I'm sorry, the, um, exam—. The— if we're through the chair, if we're adding an executive assistant or director and that is spread across licensed dentists, I assume there's a essentially a per-dentist cost to sustain that?

Is that from—. From what I understand— thank you, uh, Co-Chair Fields, for the question. As I understand it, the executive administrator would be a range 23A, and the cost for that would be covered in the application fees. I'm not exactly sure what that equates to in a per-application. I think it's around $40 to $50 per application.

Could I ask something, Rob? Co-chair Fields, uh, yes, you can. I believe, uh, Co-chair Fields has a question for Director Robb. Uh, yes, through the chair, Ms. Robb, thank you for being here. And I was wondering if you could estimate the number of, um, I guess, dentists who would be, um, paying fees to support this position and just try to help us understand per dentist What would the cost be?

Is that knowable? Yes. Good afternoon. For the record, Sylvan Robb, Director of the Division of Corporations, Business, and Professional Licensing. So the Board of Dental Examiners has about 3,670 licenses underneath the board.

Those are not all unique individuals because there are a number of certificates that are required for sedation permits as well as specialty licenses. But there are several thousand people who would be contributing to covering the cost. Additionally, the program is currently staffed by a licensing examiner 3, and so the creation of the executive administrator would replace that position. So the cost is the difference between a Range 17 up to a Range 23, so not sizable. Okay, thank you.

That answers my question. Director Robb, when it comes to basically having licensing examiner number 3 become the executive director, is there additional work that, that the current licensing examiner that is not dental related— would that go to other folks, or can you talk about that workload? Yes, to the chair. So the difference between a licensing examiner 3 staffing the board board and an executive administrator. So we have, um, out of our 21 professional licensing boards, um, 8 of them have, uh, executive administrators.

Um, and it allows— the existence of that higher-level position, um, allows the board to delegate some of the duties, um, to that individual, um, in a way that, uh, is not possible with, um, a lower-level staff member. Um, so it both speeds application processing for applications where there's no questions in that individual's background and relieves the board of some of the, the workload that they experience, which can be considerable. This board has a lot of complexity to it with— they have in excess of 22 different licenses, permits, endorsements, so they, they have a lot going on, and having someone who could take some of that work off of the board's shoulders would be beneficial to the program. Okay, thank you, Director Rump. Additional, additional questions or comments from the committee?

Okay, seeing and hearing none, we did notice public testimony, so I will turn to public testimony. Public testimony is now open. Is there anybody in the room who'd like to testify? Not seeing any. I do see one person online.

And that is Shelly Trammell with the Alaska Dental Hygienists Association calling from Kenai. I apologize if I butchered your name, but would you please put yourself on the record and begin your testimony? Good afternoon, Representative Hall, Representative Fields, and members of the committee. My name is Shelly Trammell. I am president of the Alaska Dental Hygienists Association.

Last year, our association provided comments regarding House House Bill 197 at its first hearing in the House Labor and Commerce Committee on May 16th, 2025. Our emphasis was on the fact that the Commission on Dental Accreditation standards specifically states that curriculum must include at least 2 academic years of full-time instruction or its equivalent. After that hearing, we took our concerns to the Alaska Board of Dental Examiners At their meeting on September 26th of last year, language that was suggested by our association was approved by the board, and they agreed to support amending the language in Section 1 of HB 197. Specifically, the amendment language would replace House Bill 197's broader education language with the requirement that dental hygiene applicants complete a CODA accredited program with at least 2 academic years of full-time instruction or the equivalent. This preserves the educational standards for Hygienists that ensures competency while clarifying that the program length is academic years, not calendar years.

This reinforces what the board was seeking, that graduates of accredited accelerated programs that have fewer breaks can apply for licensure. Our association supports maintaining dental hygiene education standards in statutes. Dental hygienists are generally in the minority. When it comes to voting on important issues, we are outnumbered. For example, the Board of Dental Examiners has 9 members.

2 Are dental hygienists. CODA has 33 representatives. 1 Of them is a hygienist. We are grateful that Alaska's current board values a competent workforce as reflected in their recently approved mission statement from May of this year, which reads: It is the mission of the Alaska State Dental Board of Examiners to protect the health, safety, and welfare of Alaskans by ensuring that dental practitioners possess and maintain a level of skill and knowledge necessary to provide safe, competent, high-quality professional services to patients and to protect the public from dental practitioners who pose a risk to the public's health, safety, and welfare. Ultimately, the inclusion of our standards in statutes demonstrates that stakeholders value our educational standards, and it preserves the legislature's authority to determine whether any changes to CODA educational standards are in the best interest of our state and its citizens.

We would like to see an amendment that reflects what I discussed today regarding dental hygienists. Thank you so much for your time and the opportunity to speak today. Thank you, Ms. Trammell. We have a question for you from Representative Sadler. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Trammell, two questions for you. When we speak of accelerated programs for dental hygiene positions, how fast is an accelerated program? Second question is, approximately what percentage of the workforce of dental hygienists in Alaska go through the accelerated program?

Currently, right now, we only have the one program at the University of Alaska Anchorage, which is not accelerated. Regarding the rest of your question, I'm unable to speak definitively on that point at this moment, but I wanted to ensure the committee receives accurate information which I can follow up with in writing. Thank you, respect that. Thank you, Ms. Trammell. Additional questions from the committee?

Seeing and hearing none, and seeing no one else online for public testimony, and seeing no one else in the room, I will close public testimony. Okay, does anybody on the committee have additional questions for Mr. Mariner?

Mr. Mariner, do you have any closing comments that you'd like to share with the committee? For the record, Connor Mariner, staff to Representative Frank Tomaszewski. I have no closing comments. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for being here.

We appreciate it. Um, with that, we are going to put aside House Bill 197, and we're going to take a brief at ease.

We are back online. With that, the agenda before the committee has been completed. We are going to adjourn today's House Labor and Commerce Committee at 3:02 PM. We are adjourned.