House Finance, 5/14/26, 9am

Okay, I'll call this meeting of the House Finance Committee to order. Let the record reflect that the time is currently 9:08 AM on Thursday, May 14th, 2026, and present today we have Representative Allard. Representative Co-chair Josephson, Representative Hannan, and myself, Co-chair Foster. And just a reminder, if folks can mute their cell phones. And we do have a hard stop at just before 10:00 a.m. this morning.

We do have floor session today. We also have with us Representative Kutcher-Schrage. And we're going to be taking up— completing our amendment process with regard to House Bill 195. That is the Pharmacist Prescription Authority Bill. And then we will move over to fiscal notes for House Bill 104.

That is the Address Confidentiality Bill. And we'll go ahead and get rolling here. I know we're missing a few folks, but hopefully they'll start to stream in here. And so I'm going to kind of slow roll this a little bit. Maybe Representative Mena, if you'd like to come up and just remind the committee what the bill is, maybe.

I think we're down to 2 amendments, I believe. Is that your understanding? I know we started the amendment process and we have 2 to go. Normally I would say please give a brief recap of the bill, but feel free to draw it out just a little bit in hopes that we pick up a few more members. So Representative Mina, if you like to put yourself on the record.

Good morning. For the record, my name is Genevieve Mina. I represent House District 19, the Anchorage neighborhoods of Airport Heights, Mountain View, and Russian Jack. I'm here with my Chief of Staff Katie Giorgio. Thank you again for another hearing of House Bill 195 on pharmacist prescriptive authority.

As another refresher on this bill, in 2022, the 32nd Legislature passed House Bill 145, which updated pharmacists' abilities to practice, including providing other patient services. However, this language is vague, and because there is no clarity on this language, pharmacists are not able to provide services to the top of their education, training, and experience. This bill was introduced last year as a collaboration between the Board of Pharmacy and the Alaska Pharmacy Association to help clarify what other patient services means and help expand primary care in a limited way. This bill clarifies the intent of their prescriptive authority and providing direct patient care. And what this bill would actually do is make it easier for a family or a person who's trying to get basic antibiotics for strep throat or a UTI to be able to get those medications directly from a pharmacist rather than having to go to urgent care or having to go to multiple providers just to get through the day.

This bill was also included in the Rural Health Transformation Program over the interim as one of the policies to pass that is tied to that federal funding. And our goal is to help increase limited primary care, help expand expand that care in rural areas and also expand access to substance use disorder treatment since pharmacists are able to provide medications for opioid use disorders. Great. Thank you very much. Would also like to recognize that we do have with us Representative Bynum as well as Representative Galvin and Representative Tomaszewski.

And looks like we're still short 3 folks. We are We are in the middle of the amendment process. We just received a recap of the bill. Where we left off was amendment number 6. Maybe once we do pick up our other members, what I'll do is when we were last here, we left off with Representative Tomaszewski introducing amendment number 6.

Representative Josephson had objected. We may restart that process just to kind of start with a clean slate. And so with that, and just in terms of other announcements, we have two amendments for the pharmacist bill. And then after we get through that, then we will go over to the other bill that we have today, which is the House Bill 104, and that is the Address Confidentiality Bill. And we'll take up the fiscal notes on that bill.

And we do have a hard stop at just before 10 AM this morning due to floor. We have with us also Representative Moore, and so we'll see if we can pick up our other two members here. And so I'm going to take a brief at ease.

Okay, House Finance back on record, and we also have with us Representative Stepp as well as Representative Jimmy.

And so we just received a recap on House Bill 195. That is the pharmacist prescription authority bill. And we have 2 amendments left to take up on the bill. The next one is regarding nurse licensure compact by Representative Tomaszewski. At our last meeting, the amendment was moved, but just in the interest of starting with a clean slate, Representative Tomaszewski, would you mind introducing the amendment again and maybe just giving us a little update on what the The amendment is—.

Thank you, Mr. Co-Chair Foster. Yes, I had previously moved Amendment 6 in the last meeting, so I'll give my opening introduction on the amendment if that's the will of the chair. Okay. And if you could maybe move it again. I know you moved it.

Okay, sure. But just to— Sure. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. I move Amendment 6. Okay.

Okay. Representative Tomaszewski. Okay. Amendment 6 is a familiar one for many of us. We've been talking about this for several years.

This amendment will allow Alaska to join the Nurse Licensing Compact.

So right now, 40 states have joined this compact. This is a— actually, the most important part Part of this is this compact is going to give our state and our hospitals and clinics and employers the ability to increase their nurses, increase the workforce, decrease the vacancies, improve care for our, for our individuals in our state. But, you know, one of the most important things right now that we are under under the gun on is with the Rural Health Transformation Program. Okay, the Department of Health in its application for the Rural Health Transformation Program listed 5 compacts that would be passed and enacted by the state. Nurse licensing compact is one of those 5 compacts that we need to enact.

We have— the state has accepted an award of close to $273 million in 2026, with a similar amount expected in 2027 and for 3 years after that. That's nearly $1.3 billion in healthcare money that we are in the state are going to be accepting. So within this first year, in this first tranche of money, the first $273 million, the department has had over 18— close to 1,800 letters of interest have been submitted seeking a portion of this funding to address the urgent healthcare needs across Alaska.

In other words, Mr. Chair and the committee, We have the need. We are going to spend that $273 million this year.

If we fail to enact the compacts, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid will claw back a portion of this money. So we're going to give it out to these applicants who have submitted for funding, and if we don't have this compact or the 5 compacts written into law and passed into law, Medicaid and Medicare, they will claw back a portion of that money. And so we may not see that this year, we may not see it next year, but the money we have given out over the past, over those years, If we don't have these compacts passed, Medicaid, Medicare are going to say we, we want a portion of that money back. So that's going to come straight out of general fund dollars. And we don't want that to happen.

We want to be able to utilize this. But, you know, utilizing that money is important, but supporting our nurses is important. We have— You list— ask any hospital clinic, they need nurses. They are one of the frontline healthcare providers in any situation, and we have a high vacancy rate for them. They have overwhelmingly asked for this compact.

And, and Mr. Chair, It was before I even got into office. This was one of the problems that when I talked to my constituents, they said, please pass the Nurse Licensing Compact. And I said, well, what's that? I didn't know what it was.

That was 5 years ago. I've been in office— this is my 4th year in office. This was happening. This discussion started before I was even elected in office. They are asking for this help.

They want more nurses on the floor of the hospital. They don't want so many vacancies in there. They don't want to have to pull extra shifts. They work very long hours. Generally, a nurse works 12-hour shifts.

And if you work those back to back to back and have to cover for someone the next day, that's very difficult. That's, that's hard on care. It's hard on the nurses. It says, you know what? It says, um, that we don't care about them if we don't do this.

In my opinion, I want to give them help. I want to have the ability for hospitals to hire. And this amendment to this bill is a very direct way that we can do this. And so if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them if I can. And but I hope and I pray that we can help the nurses right now by getting this into this bill and then sending it on for a con— for passage on the floor.

Thank you. To the sponsor, question about whether or not this is friendly. Neutral. Um, Representative Mena. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

For the record, Genevieve Mena, House District 19 representative. This is not a friendly amendment. The Nurse Licensure Compact is a policy that should be vetted in a separate process. It's received a lot of contentious feedback over the years. My understanding is that there has been legislation introduced on the Nurse Licensure Compact last year by the administration that bill in both chambers has not received any hearings.

This bill was introduced last year and has received many thorough hearings in both chambers, and the deadline for the 5 different compacts as well as this pharmacist scope of authority policy is— those policies must be passed per the Rural Health Transformation Program application by December 31st, 2027. So this is not a friendly amendment. Thank you, Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair to the amendment sponsor, I was just curious on what, what legislation this actually came from and what was the stage of that legislation.

I look at it, there's a new section in here. It's about 15 pages of language that's new in law or would be new in law. And I'm just wanting to understand, you know, where this actual language came from. Was it from a different bill? And what the status of that bill is through the process.

Representative Tomaszewski. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Representative Bynum. So this particular amendment is derived from HB 131, which is the governor's bill. And it currently sits in Labor and Commerce where It is dead because it will not be passed out of that committee.

I've talked to the chair and they have issues with it. There's a few people in this building that have issues with this bill and have issues with the compact, and that is extremely frustrating. It is frustrating for the nurses who want help and We are essentially being held up and not being allowed to pass this because of just a few individuals in this building and a few individuals in the state. The overwhelming number of nurses support this, this licensure.

Thank you. Okay. Representative Galvin. Thank you. I wanted to first of all voice my gratitude for you putting it forward so that we can talk about it.

I think it's important. And in hearing from the sponsor of the underlying bill, I will not be supporting this amendment. I will be supporting looking forward to other conversations. I know there's another bill in related to nurse licensure that, you know, this is clearly an issue that needs to be resolved by December 2027. So I will be actively looking forward to those conversations.

I do want to make sure that nurses get support and most importantly, that Alaskans get access to to more care, which brings me back to the underlying bill. And I look forward to moving this one along as well. Thank you. Okay. Representative Ellard.

Thank you. I think it's ironic because during COVID we said we didn't have enough nurses, and now here's an opportunity for us to have more nurses. So I'm absolutely going to support this amendment. We've been trying forever to get this through. The other thing I want to say, I take note that we keep calling things friendly amendments versus what?

A bad amendment. The bottom line is this: it's a great amendment. It's a good amendment. And I think when someone says that it's not a friendly amendment, that makes no sense to me. If you don't like it, just say I don't like it and I don't want it in my bill.

But to call it a bad amendment or not a friendly amendment, it's kind of funny. So thank you. Do we have any further questions or comments? Representative Stout. Yeah, thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

Through the chair, I guess, to the sponsor. Obviously, you know, this is a big priority of the hospital in Fairbanks. My only reservation— I have two reservations here. Number one, I don't want to do anything that effectively kills the underlying bill. And I think we all know the elephant in the room here, that we've talked about this nurse licensure compact, and there is an element in the building that will basically not allow it to see the light of day.

So I feel like if it would go in this committee, that basically jeopardizes the passage of the bill. But the real question I have to sponsor, since we've been on the topic of, let's say, dangerous prescriptions, to put it politely, is there anything in the Nurse Licensure Compact Amendment that would allow nurses to do prescriptions and things like that that we have already covered in the previous amendment to this bill. Through the chair. Is that for Representative Tomaszewski, sponsor? Yes.

Okay. Representative Tomaszewski. Thank you, Representative Stapp. Can you articulate and repeat your question? Representative Stapp.

Yeah. Thank you. Through the chair to Representative Tomaszewski. Scott, we spent a lot of time on talking about basically abortion on the pharmacist bill, and we put an amendment in the pharmacist compact bill to try to kind of solve that challenge that we had. And I'm curious if the nurse licensure compact amendment that you're offering requires the same type of attention, to put it politely, through the chair.

Okay. So thanks, Representative Stapp, for the question. I don't believe nurses have— registered nurses don't have the ability to prescribe medications. And so I would say that it does not pertain to the prescription process. However, it is healthcare.

The over— overwhelming thought of this underlying bill is to increase healthcare to those around us and increasing the number of nurses in the state of Alaska is germane, completely germane to that underlying bill. Representative Stell. No, that's it. Thanks. Okay.

Any further discussion on Amendment Number 6? Representative Hannon. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Just to make sure, Mr.— the representative from South Fairbanks and Wainwright and I stay aligned on all these controversies, as we saw yesterday on the floor. My concern primarily about this amendment is killing the underlying bill.

And, you know, we can discuss policies that are controversial about each of the reforms in the scope of care and the licensure compact issues that the rural healthcare transformation, but to mix them together, some people might view it as a strategy to get one that's more controversial than the other across the finish line, but I think they need to each stand on their own. And so I will not support this amendment today. Rolling that in. I think, you know, we've got 5 or 6 things called out in the rule transformation language that we need to deal with because none of them are as straightforward as one might assert. You know, one of the problems I've always said about licensure compacts is we talk about it as it'll bring us more, but what it does is it makes every job more mobile.

So there is a nursing shortage in everywhere in the US. And it, it makes nurses easier to come to a job, but it also makes it easier to go somewhere else. So when licensure isn't an issue, things like working conditions, winter temperatures, and wages become ever more critical. And so I think in the end, Alaska will have to increase our wages, especially in our winter, to keep our hospitals staffed. Because it's easier to be a snowbird and to go somewhere else where the cost of living is lower.

So, but I want to debate those under nurse licensure compact issues and trying to build parameters to protect our health care needs in Alaska. So with those comments, I will be a no on this amendment at this time. Any further discussion? Seeing none, wrap up. Representative Tomaszewski.

Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Yes, indeed. You know, when I look at this bill, I can take the advice of my colleagues around me who are really not in the field. They're not on the front lines. They're not in the hospitals.

They are not at the bedsides of our elders, of our children, of our infants. Of those who are seeking medical care. We are not there. We aren't on the front lines. But you know, when I talk to those members, those healthcare providers who are on the front lines of doing the very important work of taking care of us— I've been in that hospital bed.

I don't know if any of you— I hope none of you have been in a hospital bed, but I've been in the hospital bed and I've had some really great nurses take care of me. I've had some really great doctors take care of me. But they are asking for this. They've been begging for this for years. And honestly, it comes down to a simple choice.

It's an— do we want to do what's right for our healthcare providers? Do we want to listen to them? Because the overwhelming percentage of them say we need this. Over 40 states have approved this compact and are, are participating in this compact.

I'm listening to the healthcare providers. I'm listening to the Department of Health saying if we don't have this compact, they are going— the Medicaid and Medicare, the federal government grants are going to come back and they're going to say, you owe this money because you didn't have this compact in place. I don't want that to happen in a couple years. I don't want for us to have that discussion, uh, when it comes to our operating budget on how much money we have to pay back to the federal government. I want to listen to the healthcare providers.

I'm not going to listen to those naysayers who aren't on the front lines and who only have ideological difference to the way things work in labor. I'm listening to the nurses and I am going to be in full support of this bill and I hope this amendment. I hope you all can also.

And so with that, Mr. Chair, I would appreciate a yes vote. We don't have green buttons in here, but we can say yes. And so I appreciate a yes vote on this amendment. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Representative Josephson. Is the objection maintained? It is. Okay.

The objection is maintained. Madam Clerk, before us is amendment number 6 to House Bill 195. If you can please call the roll. Representative Hannan?

Representative Tomaszewski? Yes. Representative Moore? Pass. Representative Allard?

Yes. Representative Stapp? Pass. Representative Galvin? No.

Representative Jimmy? No. Representative Bynum? Pass.

Representative Moore?

No.

Representative Stapp?

Yes.

Representative Bynum? No. Representative Josephson? No. Representative Schragg?

No. Representative Foster? No. 3 Yea, 8 nay. So on a vote of 3 yea to 8 nay, Amendment Number 6 has not been adopted.

That next takes us to Amendment Number 7, and I believe— is that Representative Tomaszewski? Yes, thank you, Co-Chair. I move Amendment 7. OK, object. Representative Tomaszewski.

So, Mr. Chair, this amendment is very long in length. But it is very short in what it actually does. So currently today in the state of Alaska, um, physician's assistants are called physician's assistants. Well, there has been a great movement on changing the name from physician's assistant to a physician's associate.

And, and this was brought to me by one of our physician's assistants who actually is our colleague and serves, serves with us here in the House. And, and we have the Alaska Academy of Physicians Associates who would like that name change. And so I hope you would I support this amendment. Thank you. Any discussion?

Seeing none, can we hear from the bill sponsor? Sure. Representative Mena. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. For the record, Genevieve Mena, House District 19 representative.

This is a friendly amendment, softly friendly. I softly like the amendment. I know that this was an amendment that was proposed by proposed in a different bill that we had discussed related to PAs on the floor. My understanding is that this is just a name change. My goal is to make sure that we are focusing on pharmacists, but I am not opposed to changing the name of PAs.

And my understanding is that it's also not a very contentious issue. So, okay. Uh, Representative Josephson. So put differently, it's not unfriendly.

I, I'm—. For the record, General Mina has to check 19 through the co-chair Foster to Representative Josephson. Yes. Yeah. Representative Galvin, then Representative, uh, Step.

Representative Galvin. Uh, thank you. I, I'm— this seems like a An easy yes for me. I think that if this is what helps the physician's assistants better identify themselves, I think it's maybe an elevation of terms moving to associate. And if this is what the academy wishes to be called, this is sort of an easy no-brainer for me and I will be a yes.

Thank you. Representative Stapp. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. I'm going to support this.

I don't know if we say friendly amendment anymore. I'm going to— I'm going to say bestie amendment and I'm going to withdraw my objection. Thank you. Okay. The objection has been removed.

Hearing Representative Ballard. I agree with this friendly amendment so we can move forward. Okay. And wrap up, Representative Tomaszewski. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

Is there an objection— objection remaining? Let's see. I had an objection. I'll remove it once you give a wrap-up, though.

Thank you for the lengthy discussion. And on this— on this bill, please vote yes. Thank you. And this amendment. Thank you.

Okay. And with that, I'm going to remove my objection. Hearing no further objections, Amendment Number 7 has been adopted. And so I don't believe there are any further amendments, just double-checking. And with that, if it is the will of the committee, Representative Sharagi, I would entertain a motion.

Yeah, Coach Foster, I move HB 195, work order 34-LS0909/i, out of committee as amended with individual recommendations and attached fiscal notes, and the House Finance Committee authorizes legislative legal to make any technical and conforming changes as necessary. Okay, hearing no objection, HB 195, which is version 34-LS0909/i, moves out of committee as amended with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note. House Finance Committee authorizes Ledge Legal to make any technical and conforming changes as necessary. And with that, if folks can be sure to sign the yellow committee report Representative Mena, it's been a long journey. Any parting words?

For the record, Jennifer Mena, House District 19 representative, to the House Finance Committee, it's been a pleasure spending this time with you all. Thank you for hearing House Bill 195. Great, thank you very much. Uh, we have about 15 or 20 minutes. We're going to jump right into the last item of business today, and that is House Bill 104.

It is the Address Confidentiality Bill. And if we could have Representative Mears as well as her staff, Ms. Talia Ames, please come to the table and put yourself on the record and give us a brief recap of the bill. And then we'll go right into the— looks like numerous fiscal notes. Representative Mears, welcome. Thank you very much, Chair Foster, members of the House Finance Committee.

We are here for House Bill 104, Address Confidentiality, a request for a state program that helps folks that are trying to do that last bit of personal security to have the anonymity of a state PO box so that folks that are looking for them cannot find them. Okay, and with that, we're going to jump right into the fiscal Notes. And the first one, we have Mr. Brad Ewing, if you can put yourself on the record with the Department of Administration.

Mr. Ewing, I don't believe, is online, so we are going to go over to Director Wallace with the DMV, I believe. Ms. Wallace.

Good morning, this is Kathy Wallace, Director of the DMV. For the record, DMV has presented a zero fee fiscal note as this is— this bill simply allows us to accept, uh, address confidentiality, um, address versus the person's actual address, as long as they qualify for the program.

Okay, and just to confirm, do you have a control code on your fiscal notes? Yes, it is MLQQX. Great, thank you. Do we have any questions for Ms. Wallace? Seeing none, appreciate you being here, Ms. Wallace.

Uh, the next person we have on here is with Public Safety. We have Diana Thornton. Miss Thornton, if you can put yourself on the record and walk us through the 3, I think, fiscal notes.

Good morning, Chair Foster. For the record, this is Diana Thornton, Administrative Services Director with the Department of Public Safety. Yes, we do have 3 fiscal notes. First fiscal note is with the component 2325, the Alaska State Troopers Detachments, control code LJWXY. The department is submitting a zero fiscal note for this component.

We don't anticipate any costs for the department with implementation of this bill. The next fiscal note is also a zero fiscal note. This is for component— the Violent Crimes Compensation Board, OMB component number 520. This is also a zero fiscal note.

The last fiscal note for the department is for the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, OMB component 5-2-1, control code RPSAJ. This is also a zero system note. Okay, thank you very much. Do we have any questions of the committee from Ms. Thornton? Seeing— Representative Tomczewski.

Yeah, thank you, Ms. Thornton. Can you verify the control code number on OMB component number 5-2-0, please?

Yes, sir. The control code on component 520— through the chair, Representative Tomczewski— that control code is X0JHS. Thank you. Okay, Representative Ballard. Thank you.

If we added all law enforcement to include federal, will this impact the fiscal note at all? Ms. Thornton.

Through the chair, I couldn't really speak to what would be a cost to other departments, but honestly, I— if there was no fee to this service, I'm not— I would not anticipate other branches of government would have a cost to the note. Thank you to the program. OK, and seeing no further questions, thank you very much, Ms. Thornton. Mr. Shorten.

And with regard to the Central Administrative Services fiscal note, Mr. Brody Anderson, if you can come up and walk us through that fiscal note.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, Brody Anderson, staff to Representative Foster. Before the committee today is the fiscal note from the Department of Administration. Centralized Administrative Services Allocation Print Services, OMB component 2333, control code J-H-H-I-T. Before the committee is, uh, the fiscal note for total operating costs in the FY27 appropriation for $423,500.

That is broken down into the following line items. For personal services, they have $297,100. For travel, $3,000. Services, $112,800. For commodities, $10,600.

All of this for a combined total of the $423,500. All of this will be in unrestricted general funds. There are 2 full-time positions that they require. The breakdown is for 2— the 2 personnel that they will hire is one is for a business service project manager and an administrative officer to do the duties that they believe are expanding their services For travel, there is an annual conference that goes on that they would be traveling to. Under contractual services, they project that they will have 400 participants in the first year, with adding 50 participants each year after that.

So with those costs of mailing and things like that, that is where the contractual services come up. Under commodities, the initial startup, they will need 2 labeling machines and then an ID card maker. And then they will have annual operating costs of roughly $2,000 a year to cover paper, toner, ink cartridges, and other necessary costs, including envelopes, which are $24 per 100. Mr. Chairman, that is a brief summary of the fiscal note presented by the presented by the Department of Administration. Okay.

Do we have any questions on this? Representative Galvin? Thank you. And Mr. Anderson, I'm not sure if this would be for you to answer, but I believe either I'm having a déjà vu or maybe I just read through this before and reflected on testimony that we heard from Ms. Keeley Olson from STAR. She has been there for years, but prior to that, she was part of other states that had this very same program, Missouri and Washington State.

And in one of the states, it was $22,000 a year to run it. And again, I'm looking at $423,000 for Alaska, but somehow Washington was $22,000. There were 68 participants, so maybe that was part of the explanation for the difference in the funds. But I really think we need to think about this one and how we got to where we are. I don't know if it's just that they were imagining something much bigger than it is, or what— how it came to be this different, but I know that The way she described it is that this is not a program that anybody wants to be in or longs to be in.

It is such a burden to have your PO box secretive that you would only— it would only be those who are very threatened and fearful for their lives.

And the way that it was described by Ms. Olson, to me, it seems like something we need to pay attention to. And I think maybe when we had the at this conversation, and Co-Chair, you might remember better than I do, there was some discussion about what do we do when there seems to be perhaps a misunderstanding on what the cost could be. And I just don't want this to get hung up. That's my concern right now is that perhaps either the other body or the executive branch would look at this and think, wow, We can't afford that. I certainly understand being doubtful about an annual trip to a 3-day conference with 2 people including meals and all the transportation.

I mean, I can understand maybe somebody questioning that piece of it, but in general, I think this much participation, 400 plus 50 plus 50, feels like it's a little off balance. So I bring that to you with more experience perhaps to know how we handle that. Thank you very much on that, Representative Galvin. Normally we try not to rewrite fiscal notes unless we sit down with all the parties, with the administration, with the bill sponsor, with our staff, and there's good justified reasons for changing that. That could very well be the case in this situation, but we'd certainly want to sit down with the administration and and come up with some good justifiable reasons for changing that.

And so I would encourage the representative to maybe work with the administration and then we can sit down with them and see if that can be adjusted. I suspect that that may be an interim project. And Mr. Anderson, it looks like you are chomping at the bit to want to say something. Mr. Anderson. Through the chair, thank you.

Representative Co-chair Foster. This bill was heard last year. This fiscal note had been a problem then throughout the entire interim. We had tried to work with the administration and the department to, to nail down maybe a more succinct issue. It is the largest chunk of dispute or controversy or issue is in the number of participants.

The department, and I do not want to speak on behalf of the department, this is anecdotally through conversations perceived on the co-chair's office side. The number of participants, they think they have to gear towards everybody who might be a participant, which is the maximum number of 400 participants, not more of the exact number. And they were, they stood behind their fiscal note, and they submitted the same fiscal note again in between the interim. And so this is the fiscal note that is presented in front of you because of the evaluation or analysis that the department feels like they had to put forward. Representative Moore, did you have a question?

Then we'll go to Representative Ballard.

Thank you, Coach Foster. I think it was just more of an observation of if Washington has 68 people enrolled in similar program and we're estimating $400 million here and we have significantly less people population-wise and probably significantly less people dealing with this kind of an issue. The fiscal note just seems really bizarre. So it's just a comment though. Representative Ballard.

Thank you. I would hate to compare our fiscal note to another state's fiscal note. But I would bring up the fact that we have to establish an entire new program infrastructure secure database procedures, enrollments of regulations, which carries implementation costs and complexity. So this bill doesn't include that. So to me, the fiscal note makes sense because of everything we have to institute.

I don't know what Washington already had in place, but I know Alaska doesn't have anything in place. So that might be the reason too. Further questions on the fiscal note? Representative Tomaszewski and Hannon. Representative Tomaszewski.

Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

Do we have Division of Administrative Services online and available for questions for this, the ones who produced this fiscal note? Mr. Brad Ewing, we asked if he was online earlier, was not, but I'll do a double check. Mr. Ewing, are you online? And not in the room, so unfortunately we do not have anyone Mr. Chairman, I guess I have a question as to the vacancy rate of this division.

How many vacancy— vacant positions do we have already?

Because it seems like with two— every time there's a new program comes out, we add a couple more positions, but at the same time we have years and years of these divisions having vacant positions. And so I'm curious, as instead of adding 2 new positions, maybe we can add this particular provision or this particular assignment to a vacant position that we have not filled, and maybe we can fill that instead of adding 2 more, utilize the, the positions that we have. And so that's my question. It always seems like we're just adding more and more, even though they have all these vacancies and they're not advertising for them in a lot of cases. So that's a red flag to me on this particular legislation.

I think it's a great— it would be a great program, and I think some people really need it, and I'm supportive of that, but I don't like the way that they're just adding new positions when they probably have existing positions that can take care of this work. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Maybe if the sponsor can reach out and see how many vacant positions there are and let us know.

Representative Hannon. Thank you, Chair Foster. My first question is for the sponsor of the bill, and that is, is there a companion bill in the other body? Representative Mears.

Through the chair to Representative Hannan. This is Representative Mears. Yes, there is. And what is the status of that other bill? Where is it in the process?

Representative Mears. Through the chair to Representative Hannan. It is in Senate Finance.

Okay. And is— thank you. Follow-up: is there a pending hearing? Is it already had its hearing? Has it been amended?

Have they had the same fiscal note. Representative, would you like your staff? Ms. Ames. Through the chair to Representative Hannan, Tally Ames for the record. It has been in Senate Finance since last session, I believe, last year.

So I'm looking to find out— thank you, Chair Foster.

So we're dealing with the fiscal note. So I'm looking to see if in the parallel bill, if the same issues of a fiscal note, have they been asked? Have they been addressed? Have they gotten different information, etc. So could you give me what you know?

Ms. Ames. Through the chair to Representative Hannan, Atelier Ames for the record. It has been very similar to the situation we are in here in House Finance. The same questions have come up. And there has been discussion with the department.

And I can't speak for Senator Keele's office but I'm kind of hitting a wall, I think. Okay. Representative Hannan. So thank you, Chair Foster. On the one hand, I don't want to besmirch the department if they read this legislation as truly standing up an expansive program.

And view it would take a professional— I'm trying to remember what they called it— a business services project manager and an administrative officer. The way it's been described, though, from the sponsor and from other states is the program doesn't end up being that expansive. The nexus for me becomes— but I need to hear it from the department. So if you don't have 400 enrollees, what are the costs? Certainly you have some— the copying machine, the boxes, buying the postage, those things are costs that will be incurred by the program.

Substantially less than approaching, you know, $400,000 plus a year in the initial year and $400,000 in the outgoing years. But they are not giving us what could be managed if it were only 60 or 100 people. So it's complicated because I support this legislation and I want it to go forward, but we don't want it to be instituted and then nonfunctional for the people who are depending on it. So, but I'm not in a position to say that the department has miscalculated. I presume that they have calculated based on 400 people enrolling in the first year.

From all the description from the advocates for it, though, that doesn't seem to be the practice in any other state that has a similar program. So then we're left with not enough information to make a final decision. Okay. In the queue when we come back will be Representative Allard and Galvin. We do have to get to floor and caucus and—.

Co-chair? Representative, is this going to be a question? Representative Ballard, it's just a really quick comment. Comment, Representative Ballard. So the right now is currently the state goes through a program called Vine and it's national.

So the Department of Corrections currently uses that. So I'm questioning why we don't have a DOC fiscal note explaining that the program is already in place in the state of Alaska. It's just a matter of why we're not what— why that hasn't been brought out. So we already have it in place and it goes to the Department of Corrections and there's an entire crew that works this. So I think we need to address it.

And I agree with Representative Hannan. I want to see it go through too, but the fiscal note's an issue. And if we're hitting a wall with the administration, certainly we can rewrite fiscal notes. That's discretion of the committee. The other option Option 2 is we just passed the bill with a fiscal note.

So with that, we'll take this bill up at our— we'll figure it out. And so our next— we're going to set an amendment deadline, and that is for the tobacco bill, SB 24. We're going to set that for Saturday, May 16th at 5 PM. That's SB 24, tobacco e-cigarette bill, is going to be amendment deadline Saturday, May 16th at 5 PM. Bye now.

And so with that, our next meeting is scheduled for this afternoon at 1:30 PM. And at that meeting, we'll hear House Bill 381, the gas line, as well as HGR 23, constitutional amendment, governor's proposed budget resolution. And lastly, just a heads up, we're going to be picking up the pace. We have a number of bills where this is the last committee for the bills, and so it's their last stop. And so we're going to try to knock out as many of those as as we can, many of those being Senate bills.

So with that, House Finance— well, Representative Bynum. Thank you. I apologize for interrupting. I thought I heard you say that there was an amendment deadline for Saturday for the tobacco bill, but my understanding was that deadline was already set for today at 5 p.m. That sounds right to me, Mr. Chair.

Oh, we'll clarify and let folks know. But if that's the case, then We'll stick to the— today's— the original amendment deadline. So with that, we're going to be adjourned at 10:01 AM. Thank you.