Good afternoon. I call this meeting of the House Finance
Affirmative Law Subcommittee for the microphone.
I called this being the house finance department law
subcommittee to order. Let the record reflect that it is
12.03 on Monday, January 26, 2026. Present today, our
representative Underwood, representative Ayeshaide,
Representative Costello, Representative Mina,
Representative Allard, Judiciary Chair Gray, and myself,
Chair of the Senate Committee, Andy Josephson.
Also present today are Alexander Schroeder,
our Committee Aid and Moderator, Zach Lahorn,
from the Legislative Information Office.
As always, please remember to mute your cell phones.
Before we begin our presentation today,
note that binders have been provided to all committee members.
was posted on basis under the documents section of the meeting. Any questions right now about
the content so far? Okay. In today's meeting, we will hear the Department of Law present
its FY26 mid-year status review. I'm not sure that we've typically done this, but we decided
to do this in a number of subcommittees, if not all of them. With us today from the department
Deputy Attorney General for the Civil Division, also available online is Amber LeBlanc,
Administrative Services Director for Department of Law.
I see that the Deputy Attorneys General have come forward. Please put yourself on the record
and begin your presentation. Okay, again, Corey Mills, Deputy
Attorney general overseeing the civil division of the Department Department
of law. Good afternoon, Angie Kemp overseeing a Deputy
Attorney-General overseeing criminal division with the department law, welcome.
And Chair Josephson, again, Corey Mills for the record.
As you mentioned, Amber LeBlanc,
our administrative service director is online.
In case we have other questions,
I think she is actually gonna go over our first slide here.
So I'm gonna hand it off to Amber
to kind of just lay out the budget.
And then we'll go from there.
Great.
Miss Leblanc.
Hello, are you able to hear me okay?
Beautifully.
Great, for The Record, my name is Amber LaBlanch.
I'm the administrative service director for the Department of Law and the slide two here if they
can move to that one. It shows the department of law budget total for fiscal year 2026 enrolled
fiscal years 20 26 management plan fiscal your 2027 governor adjusted budget. The difference
between enrolled and management plans is due to the multi-year appropriations which get backed
If we were to exclude the multi-year appropriation, you'll see the only increases in fiscal year
2027 governor adjusted are for personal service increases due to contractual obligations and the
IT class study implementation. Okay. And I will hand it back over to Deputy Attorney General
So, what you're looking at here is I think the committee had asked us to specifically
talk about our requested operating changes in FY26 and of course what was enrolled and
then ultimately where we're at now.
So what what we see here of courses is a summary of the changes that took place and
I'm going to ask you just to take a look at this slide and I'll go to the next slide
and then I will reference the notation at the bottom of this side and come back to it.
So, for FY26, as I assume many of you recall, we had requested several positions and they're
broken down into the buckets that you have here.
The first bucket was for purposes of caseload reduction.
For that request,
we made a request for five positions to manage casemodes and try and bring casELoads down.
And three of those were for prosecutors in different areas of the state.
If you recall, testimony from, we'd requested a position for
Dillingham, our office there.
A position to be located in the Sitka office though, covering Ketchcan and
Sitke cases in part, and then also a physician in Palmer,
one of our fastest growing areas in this state,
we would ask for support staff in a couple of
and Palmer, and also a law assistant down in the southeast.
As you saw from the first slide, we did not get those requests.
They were taken out of the budget,
and you'll see that that change was documented there.
Thanks, Corey.
The other request that we had made was for a Brady prosecutor position.
And as you may recall,
we talked about our Brady obligations and some of
the work that's being done with that.
Again, that was for a single prosecutor position to support that body of work.
That is also a position that is not ultimately part of our budget and was taken out during
budget discussions towards the end of the session last year.
The last request that we had had last years was post-conviction relief, body-of-case work,
not only just appeals but after that the potential that they can file post-conviction relief applications
and raise constitutional issues as well as ineffective assistance of council claims.
For that body of work we had asked for a prosecutor position as
well a law assistant to support the work of that position.
And again, I think at the bottom of this you'll see that none of those were ultimately enacted.
positions that were included in our budget and I'll just focus your attention to the
bottom of the slide here.
We had federal grant for many years under the Attorney General Barr at the U.S. Attorney's
Office.
We were given that grant years ago and it, I think it was in 2019 that we obtained that
grant to support two prosecutor positions and law assistant position.
Those positions were specifically given to us by the federal government to support rural prosecution
And so that really was the focus of of those three positions
While we had those positions in the funding through the Federal government
You may also remember that there was
It was made clear to ask that we would no longer get those federal funds and that
We would lose the rest of our grant money
Or that it would expire in October 1 of this last year
So the the Senate as I recall added those positions into our budget and ultimately they became part of our operating budget
And again, it was three positions a law assistant and two attorney positions so that we could carry on that work
This
Attorney General Kemp
I noticed that last year there was real passion and I thought a very good case about for example
the Brady prosecutor and we're not seeing that for FY27.
Is there a reason why we are not saying a second effort to get those dollars?
really truly comes down to trying to live within our means and recognizing that we as a division are one division I'm sure of many and many departments that are seeking requests.
So we're in a position at this point given the state of our economy and the budget to not be asking for those positions largely driven by an attempt to stay within
As you may remember from last year's testimony, we we had also not triage but we've approached
it as a committee style approach and that's the approach that we're continuing to use today is
we have several attorneys who take a bit of the responsibility so that
we can continue to manage making sure that were fulfilling our obligations.
allegations involving some imperfect conduct by a police officer that needs
to be disclosed and the time consumed by that. Even if the police
officer was fully exonerated, am I touching on this sort of accurately?
Thank you, Chair Jusbsen. Yes, that's certainly an aspect of it, and that is
really the body of work that tends to
be the most onerous and labor intensive is going through that, given the dynamic
the constitutional and statutory privacy rights of state employees, for example, and municipal
employees and the tension that exists there. So that is an aspect of it, but Brady extends
to other materials that don't necessarily deal with personnel files,
but most of the time, so you hit the nail on the head, that's really the reason for the request
was to try and navigate the complexities surrounding personnel
body of case work.
And I suspect that if this feels like an annoyance from the defense bar, they sort of have to
do it based on due diligence and the case itself, which requires crossing those teas
and doubting those eyes.
Is that a fair guess?
Chair Josephson, that's absolutely correct.
And, I would say, and I wouldn't maybe characterize it as an annoyance by the defence, but I do
the more work that they can give us and more difficult they
can make our jobs, which is, I certainly respect their work,
is a fair tactic and may have the effect potentially
of dictating how we might resolve a case,
and then about a labor that we have to go with that case.
Okay, any questions from the subcommittee on those first couple slides?
I don't see any.
So we'll go to, looks like slide five maybe.
Thank you. For this one, the committee had asked the criminal division to address the intent
language that was incorporated from last year, and this relates for folks on the Committee
who may not be as familiar, relates to how Department of Corrections is managing costs
And I think that most folks understand and appreciate what that issue is, but dual holds
essentially is where there is a state charge or state case and a companion federal case.
And so then we have the term dual hold and that's how we get to this issue.
In 2016, we had an agreement with the federal government that they would pay for federal
detainees, and so any time there was a federal case and a companion state case,
they ended up paying the cost of incarcerating that individual. In 2023, the Department of
for the Department of Corrections was given notice
that they would no longer, the US Attorney was,
office, I'm sorry, excuse me,
federal government would not longer be paying those costs
and essentially flipped the calculus.
So as I understand the issue now, we're as a state now
responsible for paying for, largely paying
for all of the costs associated with dual holds.
The committee and through this intent language charged the criminal division along with Department
of Corrections to come up with or try and work towards a solution to this issue.
We being the Department of Law and also the department of corrections jointly authored
a letter to the Attorney's Office addressing the issue and asking to
come with, or meet to discuss, a potential resolution to
As far as I'm aware, we never received any response from the federal government
after we sent that letter and that I believe was sent in 2024.
So unfortunately, as our response to the committee indicated,
we're at an impasse on how to resolve the dispute surrounding who pays for those individuals.
So no phone call. No. And at some point, you call someone?
Thank you, Chair Jesps, and we being the Criminal Division didn't take lead on that.
I can't say that there wasn't a phone call.
I know that former Division Director Stacey Crayley, as Department of Corrections representative,
was largely led those efforts.
And I don't know if there was additional conversations that she had with the Attorney's Office
or with anybody else from the borough of prisons, for example.
Is this a million dollars? What does this cost, our treasury?
Chair Josephson, beyond what was detailed in the responsive letter,
I wouldn't have those figures. The Department of Corrections would have that information.
But as I understand it, from last year at least, it was in
the neighborhood of approximately $10 million.
Yes. Representative Gray for Ms. Kemp.
Thank you through the chair to Deputy General Kemp
If we dismissed our state charges, and there was just federal charges then the federal government would pay
Through the chair. Thank you representative Gray
That is one strategy. I would not recommend that that be the strategy that this legislature
As a policy decides to well, I mean to the extent that there's authority there, but
Practically, yes, if the state cases went away, that would be the result that the federal
case would drive the, so to speak, and they would pay the cost of incarcerating that
individual.
But just to remind folks what we're talking about here, when there are dual holds, examples
that come to mind are where there, for example, is what, we might charge the sexual abuse
of a minor in the first degree case, the Federal Government might charged the distribution
from the same investigation, but two cases
that were companion cases.
Okay, should we move to slide six?
Yes, Corey Mills again for the record,
Deputy Attorney General over the Civil Division.
So we're now getting to the civil division budget changes
for, the fiscal year we are currently in.
And last year,
Mostly, what you see on this slide, all the green that were included for the most part
was labor relations being moved to the Department of Law within the Civil Division.
That was a move that Governor Dunley v.
pursued through an administrative order first,
and then the budgetary actions after,
and so the Labor Relations Unit now lives
within the Department of Law.
One of these exclusions, you see right there
in the middle on the attorney five position,
that was excluded, that meant to,
we received four positions through the transfer.
And what we were lacking was kind of,
the supervisor of that unit. We didn't have a supervisory position that came over and so that
was meant to fill that role, the supervisory position. Since that time, we did have
two vacancies when we first got the positions that grew to three vacancies, we have now filled
all of the labor relations positions, all four of them, and we've filled a supervisory role.
We have done that just through our normal budgeting process and figuring out where we can move pieces
in order to have a functional unit. And I'm very proud of
the work that's occurred. It's been a lot to get that unit stood up.
and very happy to have Matthew Gendresina who I'll actually talk about in the next hearing
with the Judiciary Committee, but he has taken on that supervisory role. He's a non-attorney,
but has labor relations background and we're really excited because he's kind of brought in
that expertise and to really get that unit stood up. So I'm happy
to say that I think we are in a good spot with this budgetary move and are fully staffed at this point.
The other excluded really has to do with the state of defense and we had asked for an additional last year.
I think it was $1 million or $2 million that was ultimately excluded in the budget.
I understand that I have a future hearing chair on potentially more on this so I won't get too much into it.
as we kind of discussed last year with a new federal administration coming in a lot of those
cases have been stayed. I mentioned before we went from about an average of 40 cases
prior to the Biden administration to about 80 cases leading up to this last federal
administration change. A lot in the cases we had have either been staid. Some have settled.
We fortunately were able to settle a navigability case that was supposed to be a three week
trial in March, that was a huge cost savings.
So I think for this year, we're soldering on
with what we have and working within our means to do so.
But that is an area I'm a little concerned about
as the federal administration actually starts
taking actions and we need to consider
whether we want to be involved.
I anticipate this area growing again
and and, and
we just need
to, be watching it and that's what
we are doing right now.
But right
now we in a decent spot
been so many stays of the litigation
as the federal administration decided
what they wanted to do or settlements
mostly favorable to the state at this point.
So Deputy Attorney General Mills,
so the number you said went from 40
in the first Trump administration to 80,
but it's held at 80 because many are state
or is it a lower number?
So Chair Josephson, I would say it
is a little bit lower-number.
We've probably gotten rid of, you know,
10 cases I'd say around have have just either settled or somehow come to a conclusion.
We have a lot that are still in that stay phase and we'll see what happens. It's probably a six
months. We'll we see if they continue or not. There are some that they're still considering whether.
This administration is considering whether they want to continue those cases.
The other bulk of work I see coming is, for example,
we have the roadless rule that this new administration came out with.
So we're stayed in our case on the Roadless Rule,
but the new Administration has come out
with a new roadlessness rule actually repealing it across the nation.
We're going to have a question as to whether we want
to get involved in that case, because somebody is going
the federal administration over that rule and the question is whether Alaska wants to seat at
the table on the case so that's just an example of where we're going to see these stays turn into
kind of new cases with new federal action and this state will have to decide where it wants
to be in those cases. Question from Representative Ballard. Thank you. Thanks for being here. I'm sure
we'll have the highlight of your year. Of course. Well everybody here so going back to page six I
Yes, I can. Yeah, okay. The positions that you filled. I'm glad you guys did that
Without getting into HR are these individuals from out of state or in state? Did you recruit? How did you recruit?
Through the chair representative Allard, I'm trying to remember so generally these these positions
First of all are classified positions under the state system. So there is a very rigorous
Process we have to go through in terms of how it's posted how the recruitment happens. There are certain
preferences that you apply
I believe most of these were in state hires. Okay at the end of the day. Thank you
When you talked about whether to join other states,
we see that all the time that this administration,
that is the state's administration
files on as Amiki in lots of actions.
But are you talking about more than that
actually being a named party?
Is that what's under debate in some circumstances?
Chair Josephson, yes.
I would say like signing on
as an amicus in terms of resources is pretty minor.
You know, we usually get those from other states.
We review them all.
So we review then regardless of whether we join on or not,
we feel it's important to vet these sorts of things.
When the question we're gonna be presented with
is whether want an actual seat at the table.
And often we have found that Alaska's interests
are even different than maybe some aligned states
that we normally get along with because of Anilka.
Anksa, Alaska's specific geography, and so in the past,
and this isn't just this administration ever since I've worked for the Department of Law,
Alaska often wants to put its voice out there in terms of intervening in a case,
having its specific views put forward, roadless rule is a great example,
other states are maybe happy that the roadlessness is being repealed or maybe they're not.
we feel like we have specific laws that don't allow the roadless role to even apply in Alaska,
and that is a separate legal argument than any other state will make. And so, again,
that's just an example of, do we want to be able to have a seat at the table and make that argument
specifically to the court? Or are we going to rely more on taking a back seat? And those are just
resource questions as well as the importance of the issues to Alaska.
Slide seven.
Okay, slide seven again, this looks,
you wouldn't understand this unless you looked
at the background of this action,
but this was a repeal of the prior
multi-year statehood defense funding
that the legislature had put forward in their budgets.
Okay and it kind of explains it at
the bottom, we had one.
for the Tongass National Forest that went until the end of last fiscal year that was repealed but it
was really done anyway. And then we have fiscal-year funding that would have lasted through fiscal
year 26. What happened in the veto process is the governor vetoed this repeal really a re-appropriation
making the funds available through FY26.
So it was kind of a flip.
You usually see re-appropriations in language
saying this money has been reappropriated to this purpose.
In this case, the funding was repealed
and then the money was gonna be used for other purposes.
So that's what you're seeing technically on this screen.
Okay, a question is about that from anyone?
And again, I can answer more questions as people think about it when we have a more specific hearing on this topic if that's desired
Yeah, and I think we may want to take that up further. Okay. I kind of figure
The quality life initiative is a cost-free item
Chair Josephson, thank you. Yes, so
Quality of Life initiative, which we'll talk about again later today, I expect, but it's
using resources we already have.
So we have, let's say, recalibrated some of the resources that we were using for prosecution
of other cases, and now we're recalibating some those resources to help us with that initiative.
And the you'll hear more about this so I don't want to get too far into it if there are other questions
But this also is there the cross designation of municipality
Attorneys to help us with some of our work and hopefully offset some other those dynamics
Question from represent Costello. Thank you, and I appreciate you bringing that up deputy attorney generals Mills and Kemp
So I am interested in in knowing a little bit more what the governor
introduced in his state of the state speech about the coordination with the municipality of Anchorage and specifically
What you know what that effort is and then how the the budget will align
With those efforts and the number of individuals in the Department of Law who will be working in that on that efforts
All right through the chair. Thank you representative Costello
As I said, it's it s not a
We didn't add a new position. It presumably isn't going to cost the state any more resources.
I would describe it again as just all of government approach and an attempt to work
with our partners at the Anchorage municipality to try and align and figure out
what's the best use of our resources and how we can dedicate those resources to helping with that
I know that many of you being from the Anchorage area
can appreciate walking down the streets in Anchorage
and seeing issues and also trying to address
the issues that you're seeing in the community
and for example, recidivist thefts.
So again, targeting those quality of life cases.
Representative Gray for either person.
Thank you through the chair to the Deputy Attorney General's particularly to Deputy
Attorney Joel Kemp. Last year we had a pretty thorough discussion about what were appropriate
numbers of cases for prosecutors and earlier back on slide three when we were talking about
the exclusion of the positions that you'd asked for. I believe you said today that
and do your best? Can you comment a little bit about what the current caseload numbers are
and whether folks are overburdened? Sure. Chair, through the chair, thank you, Representative Gray.
So, I mean, the issue remains. We continue to deal with casELoads,
and in some parts of the state, obviously higher than other parts
The average, and I'll talk more about this in the presentation later today and give you some
examples, but the average assuming all of our PCNs were filled, the
average caseload that our folks would have, our prosecutors would
have is 145 cases per attorney. Now that's an average and it assumes all
of the positions are filled. When I present to you later and talk a
little bit more that it's not realistic, I think, to assume that all
I wish, and I can't recall a time when that's actually happened.
You might hear some cheering from me if it were, but so really the reality is that you
have to disperse those cases between personnel who's here.
And so when you do that, you'll hear that it's right around, I think, 165 cases per
attorney.
Follow-up. Yes follow-ups. So to follow up on Representative Costello's question about the quality of life and the redirection
It costs no money to redirect these prosecutors to do shoplifting and lower-level crime
I assume that we would be taking resources away
From somewhere to redirect them
Through the chair, thank you representative Gray
And that's why I mentioned to Representative Josephson when he asked is that the partnership with us and the municipality because it will AC an offset of resources or an attempt to offset those resources that other added advantage that I think you'll hear more about is
And the person that you all know who is leading the initiative is not a shy character and
is I can assure you an aggressive prosecutor and that's Mr. Skidmore.
So he has the bandwidth and the skill set to one tackle a complex area or area of work
and also help with training efforts to get those municipality attorneys to a place where
they're able to help.
state attorneys with for example recidivist theft offenses theft in the second degree based upon
prior convictions. So I do see it as a balancing so to speak of resources with the help that we
anticipate will get from municipality. Thank you through the chair.
So the 165 about average if all positions were filled it's too high.
Through the chair representative gray if if I said it was 165 per all PCN's that was a mistake by my part
It's 145. Okay, assuming all are filled. Oh, okay
167 166 is right around what we are distributed right now as of January
I'm and I guess to back to the slide on slide three and and you know what was excluded last year from what you asked for
I
Guess just correct me. I mean are we asking for new positions this year?
Through the chair, repping of Gray, no, we are not asking for new positions.
And it goes back to, again, what Deputy Attorney General Corrin Mills has said as well,
is that we're trying to live within our means recognizing the state that were all in.
And we all vying for the same pot of money.
Representative Copan, Cuzfellow.
Thank you, Chair Josephson.
Happy Attorney-General Kim.
Thank You.
What is the vacancy rate?
within the criminal division right now.
And I'm not talking just about the prosecutors,
but your support staff too.
We know that they're integral to your prosecutorial efforts.
What is that vacancy rate?
Okay, through the chair, Representative Cop.
So when we speak about prosecutors we're at 5%.
And, I am gonna put a caveat on this.
I'll give you the numbers and then I will explain
what I mean by that.
5% for prosecutors.
that's outstanding. It's the best we've done in several years. You'll see progression.
It is positive on the one hand. For our paralegal group, we're at 6% I believe,
and then for our administrative support positions,
we are at 10%. So there's some depending upon which group of employees you're talking about,
there is a bit of difference. Please don't ask me to do the combined math right now,
The reason I said to caveat it is because I certainly don't want to ever mislead anyone and I think there were some conversations last year about
whether we were actively recruiting for all of our positions
and how we're coming up with that calculus of 5% for prosecutors.
For example, I can assure you we are actively recruited for every single one of the PCNs for the prosecutors
long before or potentially when folks are graduating from law school.
And so we're waiting for that person to get here,
but we consider that a win in Sephara's.
We're not actually now having to recruit for yet another PCN.
So that's how we get to 5% for the PX positions,
the attorney positions.
Follow-up, ribs and cup.
Thank you for answer to the Attorney General Mills step
for The Civil Division and you give us a comment on the vacancy rate.
Through the chair representative cop. I would say ours is not that actually that far off
I'd say our law of assistance ours
is
Actually a little bit lower on the vacancy rate. We're probably around seven to eight percent
And that's where our attorneys and our paralegals are as well.
We're actually doing pretty well in terms of recruitment.
And I'd say that the major difference
with the criminal division is the,
we are still getting a lot younger than we were,
but we're not getting just recent grads.
We are getting two to three year attorneys at times.
We also have a fellowship program that has been very successful
where we have two fellows at any given time.
And so they get trained up and then get to,
get slotted into one of our sections
that seems to fit their skill set.
That's been a very effective way for us
to take a recent grad or a clerk.
who's come out of a clerkship and kind of give them practical skills with a specific mentor,
who mentors that section of attorneys. And then they experience all of our sections
and really get to determine, am I a transactional attorney? Am I an agency advice attorney or a
litigator? But we feel pretty good about where our vacancy factor is. There are certain positions
that are really difficult. For example, if we need commercial transactions.
And we actually have quite a bit of that work, especially with our public corporations.
It's really hard because that's not a position where I can hire someone straight out of law
school.
I need someone with some transactional.
They're going to be up against the other corporations and having to do complex commercial
transactions for the state.
And so those sorts of positions can be very hard, they can open for over six months before
oil and gas, we're on our fourth recruitment to fill one of our oil
and gassed positions. And then our child protection section is much
more similar, I'd say to the criminal division, and we often will have
vacancies in our Child Protection section of more than six months
at a time. So it's overall, it looks very good,
and then you look into little pockets and it can be a little bit harder.
Thank you both of you. So the Office of Management and Budget presenting to the finance committees is showing laws of vacancy rate to be at 10 percent.
So overall, would you agree with that?
So through the chair, Representative Cop, you always have to remember that you're looking at vacancy rates at a very specific point in time.
Kind of any given month where we're at I would agree that right now. That is correct
I Would say over the past two years. We've you know been between five and ten sure
So you mentioned you're getting younger and in working younger, but you I'm the average age of your prosecutor
So does does that mean that you on the senior end?
you kind of have a
Accumulation of attorneys who've been there a long time and in the middle
You don't have a lot and then you have lot of higher turnover turn on the lower end
Is that what that means?
So through the chair representative cop and I'll let Angie speak for the kind of criminal division trends
I think that is absolutely true in terms of we are lacking in mid-tier
We have some really experienced people who have been career
Department of Law, Civil Division, and they're great,
and I know exactly what they are doing,
but we are missing the 10 to 15 year type people.
In terms of turnover, I think we had major problems
with turnover like five years ago,
and we were, you know, COVID.
Everyone experienced it. We had people kind of getting out and
We've really gotten that under control. I'd say we're retaining our retention rates have gone up and I don't have them in front of me
But just thinking about who we have leaving
It's usually the people you think about the retirements or someone gets a private job offer
But it's not feeling a little bit more like a revolving door which it was
So, we've had some success at starting to keep those younger attorneys.
It's really just getting them to the point where they can help fill out that mid-tier.
So we're going to have kind of a five-year, I'd say test period where we are going
to see how that works.
Because right now we will have people retiring, our retirement numbers, and we have
people who could retire today.
To fill their job would take me three new attorneys to do what they do in that amount of time just because of experience
Representative Costello
Thank you, and I think you actually answered my question, which was about the
Internship program, but you called it the fellowship program and
I remember okay
I Remember last year you talking about an internship program. And I was hoping you could
Update us on that program and if you if he believed that there's a way to expand it or how how it's working for you now
You want to sir sure?
Thank you through the chair representative Costello
You're it. It's almost like you're seeing the presentation. We're we're gonna give to house judiciary, but
It's we made significant strides in our internship program and of course that aligned with
a couple years ago
The legislature authorized additional funds so that we could pay those interns and ordered incentivize them to come to Alaska and and try it out
And and hopefully we can make a higher from them
We've we've been able to fill internship positions to well positions very quickly and
We have also seen
Many more applicants applying for the position so bigger interest of course gives us a bigger volume of folks and more competitive recruitment
And the thing that maybe makes me most happy to see is that we're able to do what we set out to
Do which uses as a pipeline for future employment. So we've been able
For example, we were hiring at least one prosecutor in Bethel who was an intern last year and that's outstanding that
We got someone to be in that community and learn that they loved it
So it's been, I think, a really big boon for us as a division to try and use it as
a pipeline to encourage people to work in prosecution.
Representative Weishek.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
A question for you both,
I guess, asking you to go out on a limb and share your opinion, because you've been doing
this work.
Recruitment and retention, you know, those are the the two big R words that every department is dealing with
So from where you sit in law, what you let's start with recruitment the first step getting people to fill those positions
So with recruitment, What are they the biggest barriers to recruiting folks getting them to come and take a position maybe come from out of state?
What are your biggest barriers in retaining them?
You know, what what do you see where you're sitting because I think we all have an interest in fully?
fully staffing all those PCN so what are you biggest barrier that you deal with that? You wish
Could be lowered so people can fully fill those positions
So, through Corey Mills, again, for the record through the chair, Representative Aishide,
it's a great question.
It's one we're grappling with all the time.
I actually want to focus a little bit, because I do think we've had more success recently,
so I'll tell you some of the positives that I think have made a difference.
One is the internship program.
and the fellowship program on the civil side,
because we're creating interest in our department early on.
I was an intern, former,
Angie was a intern.
Our former division director, Stacey Crayley, was intern
so clearly having some connection to the department
early in your career makes you maybe wanna come back.
And so I think we have seen benefits from that.
We've seen benefit from a fellowship program where,
you know, attorneys don't always know what they wanna do
when they get out of law school.
And, so having an opportunity to explore
a lot of different ways of doing the law
and what that looks like,
and Civil Division offers it all, except for prosecution.
And that's been a boon, I'd think, to us.
We have had a lotta of our fellows stick on.
We've seen retention improving because of that.
The other thing we did is we revamped our onboarding process.
And we've had a lot of, I actually have a meeting
with every single attorney within three months
of when they started our department.
One of the main questions I ask is how was your onboard
ing processes, is there anything we can do to improve it?
Although we're constantly looking at improvements,
a lot of times it's like, no, this is the best job
I've ever had in terms of onboarding.
I knew what I was supposed to do, I got set up.
They felt very confident because they came in
and felt like they were cared for in the process.
So little things like that, it may sound little,
but it was a huge effort,
have really made a difference
in in term of barriers to recruitment.
And I think former Deputy Attorney General,
The quality of life initiative head, John Skidmore, gave statistics in the past couple years about
we have fewer law students coming out of law school.
It's just the population has decreased in terms of graduates
that I think demographics overall are heading that direction.
That just means the pool is a lot smaller.
And you have law firms offering really flexible jobs.
a lot more money, bonuses, you know, they have levers they can pull that just don't
exist within government and public service has a different view than it used to, I think.
And so it's drawing people to say, no, this is something you want to do because you get
to deal with issues that you donít get to dealing with anywhere else.
And that's what I love about the job.
law students so that they get an excitement about this is this
is why these jobs are so cool. But that's where we struggle is
we just have levers that private industry has that we don't
have. I don' t know if you have something else to add.
Well through the chair representative Aisha it's a great
question and continues to be something that
we struggled with on the at the criminal division.
I know that Representative Josephson and Representative Cop have history and law enforcement and remember what it was like to work cases.
And times are very different as far as what is looks like when we do a recruitment.
It used to be that we would get.
in the neighborhood of, you know,
anywhere between 10 and 15 applications for every opening.
There was an inherent competition that existed
and we're not seeing that same level of interest.
And part of it is that there's less folks graduating
from law school, there is less passing the bar.
So all of these factors work against us.
The difficulty that I know you've heard me say before is that prosecution and I would,
I don't know that Representative Justice understands and appreciates this issue,
but prosecutors especially early on in their careers should not really be teleworking
in the same way that other private law firms, for example, can offer.
We want them in, in our offices.
We wanna them talking to their colleagues.
and learning how to do the job.
It's so much of that education happens in that direct dialogue
that we need our folks to be able to have.
So unfortunately, we are, I will maintain
that were not well suited for that
if we want our Folks to able be the best that they can be
and learn from each other.
And I think that really is a powerful learning opportunity.
So that's a competing challenge that I don't know how to deal with it was something that we learned in COVID
That could happen and since then it's been more of a struggle and we've been talking about caseloads and the impact to those numbers
they're largely subjective. There's
a lot of there's
Studies that, we go back and talking, about what the right caselo it is I would suggest that the casels that
We're talking About cases mean very different or
the evaluation is very different from what it was even 10 years ago
on a case because a volume of evidence because of
efficiency of the prosecutor, the efficiency law enforcement officer
so all of these things go into really setting a tone for a very difficult job
of being a prosecutor. We tried 292 cases last year
our division was in jury trials for
I mean, it's a grind, so it is a hard job and it very hard to get people to stay in this
career for longer than a couple years before they learned that there are other tools and
resources understandably available to them that might give them the quality of life that
we can't offer.
Representative Gray, thank you through the chair.
There's been some efforts, or I guess in the zeitgeist,
to put some arbitrary limits on how many
continuances folks can ask for.
And I've been pushing back on that
and saying that then you're just going to have people going
to trial who are not prepared.
And what we need to do is increase the number of prosecutors
and defenders so that people have less caselets.
I mean, can you speak a little bit
about the harm in creating some sort of arbitrary?
limitations on continuances and creating an arbitrary timeline to force people to
go to trial if they're not ready. Through the chair, Representative Grant,
that's a great question. You heard me talk about post-conviction relief.
That's great starting place for this. If, for example, let's say a defense
attorney indicates that they are not readdy and there's merit to that
assertion that their not-ready to proceed and the court says, doesn't matter, we're
The first thing that I'm hearing as the prosecutor is well I might be litigating this as a PCR
as opposed to conviction relief application in 10 years. And the thing when I am sitting in
that council chair thinking to myself doing the calculus, do I agree to a continuance of this
phase knowing that i can potentially guard against that risk? Probably going to make that
in 10 years, that's going to mean something very different for the quality of the evidence.
It might mean that we have to now call victims for cases that
we prosecuted years later and explain to them, hey, we got to do this again.
And so when I'm in a position to make that calculus,
unless I am confident that it's not a fair assertion that the attorney really is ready
and there's no good evidence to suggest that they're not, then largely I will say.
Judge, we're ready for trial, the state's ready
for a trial but we hear what the defense attorney is saying
in support of their motion.
So you can understand how setting limits on the number
of continuances may drive that and might be impacting
a defendant's right to due process
and the concerns about that.
And that's when we get to PCR's
and that when you get two appeals.
Follow up.
Thank you through the chair.
I'm curious, last year you mentioned a study
about, for public defenders and what an ideal number was,
but it was an older study.
My staff has done some research.
We found some older studies as well.
You talked about the terabytes of data
that are being gathered as evidence
that folks are expected to go through.
I am curious if you guys have considered doing a
study about in today, 2026, what are the ideal numbers
for cases that a prosecutor can handle?
Because I think that that could really inform future budgets in
terms of how many prosecutors do we really need to do this job well in a timely manner.
Through the chair, thank you Representative Gray.
That's a great suggestion and maybe one for the data analysis commission and
the work that they're doing in an area for us to consider.
marry up apples-to-apples, because if you're talking about 50 homicides and 50 misdemeanors
and 25 C felonies, that looks different.
And so coming up with a fair calculus, I think it's going to always be the tension, especially
when you are looking at jurisdictions that are not unified like the state of Alaska is
and the differences.
But I thing it is certainly worth the effort to try and identify those limits.
I think we're only going to see increased volume of digital evidence as we continue to grow and rely on software.
I've seen it already, and you've heard me talk enough about it to belabor you at the point.
My concern, I'm concerned with the number two,
and of course you have seen the ProPublica stories.
Not that they're gospel, but I think there's something there. Of course the numbers reflect that everyone seems to agree. There's some points of
Some sweet spots that that are hard to overcome
But but one thing that comes to mind with a trial caseload like you've indicated is that a person
Who works intensely on a one week or two week trial a two-week trial be a long trial?
feels, frankly, because I can empathize with this, sort of punished because they come back
to the office.
They've had no opportunity to look at other files and review the intake and that sort
of thing.
And it's just worse.
So rather than being rewarded for the stress and hard work of that trial work, and
that may play into what kind of plea bargain is offered.
Just so you can maintain your sanity and move through those files, keep them at bay.
Now, now I do know that some of the the hundred and forty five hundred sixty five
You're not doing anything with you're you you are waiting for someone to set a trial
Change of plea calendar and so it's it. It's a ten-minute exercise often enough
So it doesn't sound it isn't quite as bad, but it still pretty awful
Am I on to something chair Justin you
are and the one the wrinkle that may be worth pointing out that all of those
165 cases, someone needed to have reviewed the digital evidence, reviewed
the materials to support whether we proceed with it.
So there will always be that ongoing analysis, hopefully if we're doing
things right, that on going analysis and making sure that the evidence supports the charges.
So, there is that initial front end and then it does become, you know,
there might be a status hearing or a discovery hearing that
that may take a couple minutes here and there but we're continuing hopefully to
impress upon our prosecutors that you have to be actively engaged and be
and and um
be involved and not just reactive to the prosecution okay
I think we'll stop there in fact I know we will because you've got the next hearing
it's good to see you both and look forward to our next finance subcommittee
Do we know when that is?
It looks like it's February 2nd, 12 PM.
I'd like to thank the two of you.
And so our next meeting is Monday, February
2rd, twelve PM at the meeting.
We'll hear the department present.
Governor Zefweil, 27 Department of Law and Budget
overview.
And with that, we'll adjourn this meeting at 1255
on Monday the 26th.
Thank you