I'd like to call this meeting of the House State Affairs Committee to order.
The time is 3.17 on Tuesday, February 10th, 2026.
We're here in room 120 of Alaska State Capitol.
Please mute cell phones today.
Members present include Representative St. Clair, Representative McCabe,
Representative Holland, Vice Chair Story, and myself, Chair Kerrick.
Let the record reflect we have a quorum to conduct business.
And I'd like to thank our support staff, including our record secretary, Cecilia Miller, our moderator from the Juno LIO, Renzo Moises, and our committee aid for today's hearing, my staff Stuart Relay, I thank you all for helping us today.
I also want to note that Representative Vance has just joined us.
Today we have three items on our agenda. They're all first hearings.
First, we have an introductory hearing on House Bill 250 regarding peace officer face masks from Representative Hannon.
Following that,
we had a hearing about House bill 180 on digital driver's licenses from the administration,
and then finally an introduction hearing of House by 130 on flexible time credit from representative Josephson.
We do have to adjourn by five o'clock today.
keep ourselves on pace with our bills this afternoon.
First item on today's agenda is House Bill 250 on Peace Office surface masks from Representative Hannon.
I'd like to welcome Representative Handen to the State Affairs Committee and your staff, Tim Clark.
And if you'd to put yourselves on the rec and begin your introduction of House bill 250.
Thank You madam chair and members of the state affairs committee. Thank you for having us today and hearing House bill 250
I do represent
House district for what you're sitting in here in Juneau
House Bill 250 law enforcement
would make it a crime for peace officers in Alaska to wear facial coverings in the performance of their duties.
Hospital 250 is a pro-law enforcement piece of legislation.
It promotes and secures public trust and the dignity and integrity of peace
officers working in Alaskan.
Masked law enforcement is wrong on many levels.
communication, and the public's perception of accountability.
Mass get in the way of de-escalation efforts.
In fact, they do the opposite.
They increase fear and intimidation
in already tense circumstances.
Being unable to see an officer's expression
can lead to misunderstandings and potentially needlessly
tragic outcomes.
Mass should not be used.
just to conceal unlawful conduct on the part of a law enforcement officer.
When officers can't be identified, the risk that someone might impersonate law
enforcement to commit crimes increases.
There are exemptions in the bill for officers who are working undercover.
Face shields for safety that don't obscure the face, medical masks or
respirators for protecting health.
a mass for protection against smoke, and we have already planned and have a committee
substitute drafted with an exemption for cold weather exposure.
In the end, we want Alaskans to trust police officers,
and do not want to have regulations from the federal government come to affect how our officers
currently conduct themselves in Alaska.
My staff can do a brief sectional. The bill's pretty short
Thank You representative hannon
I think we will go through the section all and then open it for questions
And I just want to note that representative hymnshoot joined us at about 3 18
Thank you madam chair for the record Tim Clark staff to representative Hannon
This section always
quite similar to an introduction of the bill as it only has a couple of sections but
Section 1 includes the prohibition from peace officers,
donning masks while performing their duties in a public
and official capacity.
Section on also includes exemptions,
those in number when an officer is on undercover assignment.
when an officer is wearing a shield to protect their face from harm without obscuring their
face. If the officer's wearing medical mask or respirator for health reasons and has a
statement from a licensed physician stating as much, and when a officer
is wear a mask to detect from exposure to smoke, that's a current version of the bill, as was
include one more exemption for cold weather masking.
Section one also states that wearing a mask in public while acting as a peace officer
is a class B misdemeanor that's punishable by up to 90 days in jail and
or a fine of up $2,000.
Section two amends on codified law to state that the act
Only applies to offenses committed on or after the effective date of the act.
And section three provides an effective day for the bill.
And that's that.
Thank you, Mr. Clark.
I know we have a couple questions.
I just wanted to also note for
the committee that we do have committee substitute, which includes the changes that were discussed.
And so after some discussion, it would be my intention to have that committee
substitute put forward today.
Let's go to some questions, Representative St. Clair and then Holland, and I'll start getting the cue together.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Through the chair, I'm not sure Mr. Clark or Representative Hannon, who wants to answer this.
Actually, have a myriad of questions. I am only going to hit you with a couple right now.
How many times has this occurred in Alaska with the masks?
We do not keep centralized, I don't believe we keep centralize statistics of that.
Okay, so we don t know, sorry, through the chair follow up.
So we do t kn know how big of a problem it is.
Would this affect federal agencies like ICE, GHS, et cetera,
that operate as peace officers or federal officers within the state?
That's unclear at this time.
One last one.
I'm sorry, Mr. Clark.
Go to Mr Clark first.
Tim Clark's staff to Representative Edgman for the record.
Edgedman.
I am sorry.
Hannah for record, Madam Chair, Representative St. Clair.
The bill is drafted, would be construed to include prohibiting federal agents from masking.
I'm done for now.
I am also just going to note for the public awareness that Representative Eischeid is in
the room with us today.
Thank you for joining us.
I have Representative Holland next.
Great.
Thank You through the chair.
I m curious, you know, having seen the news and the pictures, it is surprising to see
the masks in many of the operations that have been in the news.
I guess I'm curious about two things related.
One, the first is why are the mask being worn to the degree
that we see right now with the activities that are going on?
Is there a directive?
Is our instructions?
Is this a safety issue that these officers are finding
and necessary to do that?
Would this law interact or oppose some sort of specific directive that has been given by federal law enforcement administrations or leadership?
So, kind of, why are the masks being worn to the degree and is there a directive this might conflict with?
Or that we need to understand that created the level of use that
we've seen recently?
I do not know why federal officers in one branch of enforcement have taken to doing that.
But what I know is that it is not standard in Alaska for our licensed peace officers to do that,
and we sometimes see creep from federal behaviors to state.
to preempt so that our state has in place our operational conduct as we expect it to be, which is what we do now.
Peace officers licensed in Alaska do not standardly mask and disguise their identity unless they're undercover those kinds of exemptions.
So we want to make sure that we have a state law that reflects the standard of policing we
want in Alaskan.
If I can't, and I'm just curious and that we may not have an answer here, but I just, I don't understand this.
Do you have any information about why officers find other than undercover operations, which I know you've already exempted?
But why are they trying to mask their identity?
And it may be a rhetorical question,
but if you had any thoughts on that, it's just helping me understand how we got to this point and
Addressing.
Madam Chair, Representative Holland,
most of what is reported in the press
is that these ICE agents and other federal agents
involved in a lot of activity in recent months
are masking because they feel they
may be targeted for harassment or other criminal.
Retribution on the part of the public because of
the unpopularity of what they're doing.
Now, that said, these are public officials and all public
officials face some risk in the jobs they do.
And sometimes you have to come to terms with what
you've signed up for.
Being a public official I have to be accountable to what I do. I'm finished. Thank you
Representative McCabe
Thanks. Yeah, in fact, there is a study out there that says there's a thousand percent increase in the assaults on federal officers
And their families in recent years linked to doxing and online identification a 1,000 percent
increase in the assaults on not only officers but their families because they
have been able to be identified because of mostly because the social media online
they can see the faces the people that are identifying them don't even have to
be there at the protest which is why officers are masking and hiding their
identity so
How does HB 250 address the risk of forcing officers?
They didn't sign up for this.
They don't signed up to their families to be attacked.
To expose their faces, would you be open to an amendment
that made it maybe a felony to docks an officer
and attack or threaten their family's?
Through the chair, Representative McCabe,
I believe you're talking about criminal behaviors
that are already criminal,
assaults, threats.
are already crimes, and should be prosecuted.
Follow up.
Follow-up.
So there is already a supremacy clause lawsuit in California.
The courts have stayed the California law that does exactly what we're trying to do here with HB 250 while it goes through the courts.
It is a supremacy clause challenge.
How are we going to get past that for, and by supremacy, clause, I mean requiring this of a federal officer.
So the supremacy clauses says that the state cannot require a Federal officer to do that.
So how are going get passed that court case?
Through the chair, Representative McCabe, that Court had a ruling yesterday.
if it only applies to federal officers, but if you're regulating both your state and the federal
officers to the same standard, then you should, you can. Perfect. One more, follow-up? One
more follow up. Thanks. Come back. I have so many to choose from. It's hard to
choose here. So by criminalizing this with masking, aren't we forcing? So what I can
Guy come in here and put a mask on because he doesn't want to be identified
And are we going to pit APD against ice now? And so AP is gonna have to go try to give ice
Officers a ticket doesn' that kind of pit our law enforcement against each other?
Representative kirak or chair character representative McCabe
I think that law enforcement always depends first and in any encounter I've ever had with law
enforcement, the first question is identification.
So identifying oneself is a critical measure of being able to enforce the law.
If we say you need to be identifiable in the circumstances, and they are.
Let's uh, let's maybe circle back for more questions. I put myself in the queue. Can I make one more comment? Sure represent
Thank you. So I appreciate a chair care
So through the chair every law enforcement officer in Alaska wears a badge and a name tag fully identified in
Anchorage by their policy
They are required if you ask them to identify themselves by name and badge number. It's not the same in all of them
So why is it so important to?
to have a not be masked and remember I'm talking social media here where somebody
that's just sitting on a TV can identify the guy and maybe even be at his house
before he gets gets home protesting spray paints
defecating on the law and all these things have happened to
our ice officers for doing something that they're told to do
they might not even agree with it but that their job and they are told
to it by by their commanders so um is this really
Just a solution in search of a problem.
Through the chair, Representative McCabe, I'm going to return to my citizens, my constituents, would like
to continue to have an open relationship with the law enforcement in their communities and
to know who they are and to make sure that they're accountable to the citizens that
they serve and having
disguised, masked, and
law enforcement seems to be counter to what we talk about continually in public
safety about the interactions and de-escalation people in very tense
circumstances you want people to being able to communicate clearly and
deescalate a tense situation and I think that verbal cues aren't always the
I see more for the Q. I put myself in the queue as well, and I genuinely don't know the answers to these questions,
so I'm just trying to get a more well-rounded perspective.
But I think Representative McCabe just mentioned that, say you're an APD officer,
you are wearing a badge with your last name on it, you have to identify yourself if asked.
I am pretty sure there's a picture.
ability to kind of look up who our APD officers are on the website, just
different things that allow the public knowledge of who these officers
are. And I recognize that this legislation is partially in response to
some of the new law enforcement and, you know, tactics that we're seeing in the
those same guidelines where they have to have a name badge and they
have identify themselves. And I don't know the answer to that question. So I'm just curious.
Representative Kerrick, I do not know this was not targeted at ICE agents. This is targeted
at Alaska law enforcement to make sure that we do have an evolving police standard in Alaska
I think most Alaskans are very satisfied with the
transparencies of our local police departments and our Alaska State Troopers.
That's not to say that circumstances don't arise where people are fairly
dissatisfied or conflicts arise, but we want to make sure that Alascans and
continue to be known and respected by Alaskans?
And I just as a maybe a follow up question.
So is the bill limited to those that are peace officers in Alaska?
Or is it anybody acting as
a peace officer within the state of Alaska, so say if law enforcement
officers were sent to Alaska to perform duties here, would they be subject to this legislation?
Representative, Chair Kerrick, that is true the bill as drafted would apply to
federal agents as well as state and local agents. I might add that the same
judge in the California case let stand the
California law requiring all law enforcement including federal law
display identifying insignia of sorts so that in terms of the ruling that came out yesterday
is also deemed legitimate and you know on both the federal and state level okay thank you
represent our vice chair story was next and then i have a couple more uh thank
Carrick, through the chair, Rep. Hannon, thank you for bringing this bill forward.
I think that many people have been thinking about how we want to maintain trust with our
peace officers around the state. And there's been some grave concerns with what's
been happening on a national level and for your foresight in thinking
about what can happen here in Alaska. So I thank
One thing I thought about do we need to name a village
Public safety officers on here
Through the chair a representative story the definition in Alaska statute
0110 060 includes
A, peace officer means an officer of the state troopers.
B, a member of police force of a municipality.
C, village public safety officer.
D, regional public-safety officer,
E, the United States Marshal, Deputy Marshal and F,
an Officer whose duty is to enforce and preserve
the public peace.
So it is already addressed in statute by definition.
Follow-up?
Thank you for that.
I wanted to talk a little bit about.
I read McCabe's concern about someone who is being targeted, police officer, safety officer in Juneau or elsewhere.
If they, for whatever reason, felt that wearing a mask would protect them.
Is that an exception?
We need to make in this bill if someone was underneath a possible threat.
through the chair representative story, threatening,
harassing, vandalism.
These are already crimes.
And the prosecution of criminal behavior
should continue in Alaska.
And if I may have had a chair, add something.
Oh, yes, Mr. Clark.
Chair Carrick, representative of story.
Included in that ruling from yesterday, the judge
wrote that a rule that prohibits law enforcement officers
from wearing masks or requires them to have visible identification
does not facilitate or enable criminals to harm law
enforcement officer.
So these acts by people against law
are already criminal acts and the judges ruling states that nothing in measures like these
facilitate or enable such already-criminal acts.
Thank you.
Representative Vance.
Thank You, Madam Chair.
Representative Hannon, you mentioned several times about wanting to stop the federal
overreach.
Is there any specific movement about federal overage to require, to that would institute
this practice in the state of Alaska?
Is it a bill in Congress, an executive order or anything like that, that we need to be
Through the chair representative Vance not currently, but as we have seen over the last decade a lot of police departments
Have gone to standards where?
For instance SWAT teams acquiring former military armored carriers
So as standards of policing have changed there's sort of an
Mission creeps the wrong dialogue, but standard creep of we should comply with what is being done at this level
And I want to make sure that we don't see that by the time we would have a proposal or a directive
And this could be done through regulation that they'd say you don t have
A lot prohibiting Alaska, so you're going to meet this new standard if we have law that exists
That's where that
difference in federalism. If we already have a law regulating in Alaska saying we don't allow it,
then it is a much higher legal burden for the feds to come in and say, here's a new standard we want to impose on you.
Follow-up, follow-ups. This is
a separate question, and you've articulated that your constituents want
to continue to have that open communication without a masked
They're concerned about what they're seeing on the news.
But I haven't heard how this brings them harm.
But on flip side with law enforcement, DHS has proven
that their officers have been docked.
There has been harm to them and their families.
And so my question to you is, as you weigh out how
this is going to impact not only your constituents,
Where's the justification because it, to me, it feels like you're prioritizing comfort over actual harm that is occurring and could continue to occur at a rate of 1000% increase to our law enforcement officers.
Behaviors and interactions were going to be masked and their identities were not going
to known to the community.
And we were gonna have secret police.
I would be deeply concerned and would far behind the curve.
I think in most neighborhoods, in those communities, people know who the police officers are.
The car is parked in the driveway.
They are members of the community, and in Alaska, we know who our neighbors are,
and we want to continue to build that community dialogue and trust between all of
the members in our community. Whether your neighbor is law enforcement and licensed or not law
enforcement. And I think that any efforts to change that puts us down a road where our trust
One follow-up and then we're going to keep going through the queue.
Thank you.
Thank You Representative Hannon for answering the questions.
This is building on the previous question because it's a concern of mine.
We have seen over the years that because of the tension in the lack of respect for law enforcement,
we are asking them to do a lot more than they have had to before.
continues to be very high.
Have you had discussions with DPS, with Juneau Police
Department, any of the law enforcement agencies
on how this might impact recruitment and retention?
Through the chair.
No.
Thank you.
Thank You.
I hope I didn't get out of order here.
I think we have representatives, St. Clair.
Representative McCabe. Thanks through the chair a representative hand and so um I
Am curious there's a there is a
Medical exception in there for somebody that gets a doctor's note
um, I
Am wondering if you would be open to an amendment that would prevent any public official from
Requiring masking in any Public Building or any private building of anybody in other words
we
you know, if we're going to tell the chief of police
that his policeman cannot be masked
unless they have a doctor's note that says
that they're sick or something like that.
How can we as a body not say that that applies to us,
for instance, back in COVID days
when we forced masking on all of us?
In fact, I became known as the Big Lake Blowhard
because I was so upset about it.
You know I'm all over, somebody's all
over X with that name.
directed at me. So I'm curious if you would be open to an amendment that prevented any public
official, elected, unelected chief, a police, chair of ledge council from requiring masking
in a public building. Representative Kerrick? No.
Thank you, Chair Karak. Through the chair, one thing that really strikes me
about this bill when we talk about harm and I view our peace officers as people
who help bring again when you're talking about the police officer who coaches
when they are a part of the community and have been here for many years or just new and we're working to build these relationships I
Think about
think about harm that can happen when we lose that connection and I think
about the harm. That's happening what we're hearing about on the federal level
now when people are coming into communities in a significant psychological
harm, that I have been hearing and reading about. And I
think that's what you're trying to pre-event in this bill for for that
happening here. I know we have many people in Juneau and around the Alaska
together to support people who have our immigrant community. People have lived here for a long
time and they do not want to see that come to Alaska. And there's fear when they think
it is coming to Alaskan. There's rumor about federal agents coming.
You know, that weighs on me and I think many of you know that I grew up in Minnesota and
all the turmoil that's been happening there right now and, I find that
I'm making a really long comment rather than asking you a question, but I hear
the seriousness of what you're bringing before us to consider and so I just
wanted to share that.
Representative Hymshoot. Thank you, Chair Carrick, through the chair.
Representative Hannon, is any part of your bill mitigated by a name tag, so a
name-tag instead of a mask, or a body camera instead
of the mask? How open are you to that kind of change in your
bill? Representative Karak to represent, three
representative Karik to representative Himm chute. I'm gonna go back to, I think
The prime interactions that our law enforcement have when they first encounter someone
is a de-escalation and understanding. And I think any time that a face is covered,
you are limiting the ability to communicate. I know that you as a teacher, many times would
have used your eyes and facial expression to make sure that Billy understood that
what you meant, even though you'd given the verbal instructions.
And I think with law enforcement, that is ever more significant.
We want to make sure that the encounters we are having with
law reinforcement, the full communication and expression of intent,
concern, and directives, is understood as clearly as possible with as few as barriers.
to verify things after they've happened, but they certainly do not enhance communication.
Paula, I'm just going to do a quick comment and when you talked about teaching during the
COVID year, i taught in a mask and it was much harder to
do because so much expression was lost. And so,
I understand where this is coming from in terms of the communication with your full face,
because teaching in a mask it was sometimes difficult to communicate with the child you're
not in trouble, but I am serious with you right now, or I'm joking with or whatever.
It was much harder to communicate, so thank you.
I put myself in the queue as well, and I guess I don't really have an interest in adding
we've talked a little bit about wanting to prevent this from becoming a standard practice
in law enforcement in Alaska for the purpose of concealing identity and are there other law
enforcement tactics or is there anything else that's sort of on the horizon in addition to this
concealment that folks should be thinking about in doing background work on this legislation?
I did not go through all of our police standards and look at what may be evolving.
Just curious.
And I guess I would offer a comment to I appreciate Vice Chair Story's comments, even as somebody
representing a place where it gets to be 55 below on a regular basis, the committee substitute
To me, this legislation feels fairly narrowly tailored
to these pretty standard encounters,
but also with lots of exceptions for realities
that are in this state, and to representative
Hymshoot's comments and representative Hannon's
comments, the fullness of communication
that happens non-verbally through facial expression
and body language is, I think, something that's really being.
targeted with this legislation.
So I appreciate you bringing it forward for discussion.
I think if it's okay with the committee,
we can continue to take a little bit more discussion,
but I'd like to go ahead and have the CS adopted.
So we're talking about the most up-to-date document.
So thank you, Representative Hannon.
We might call you back forward here
in a couple minutes for a few additional questions.
And I would turn to Vice Chair Story for a motion on the Committee Substitute.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I move that the House State Affairs Committee adopt Committee substitute for
House Bill 250, well known as 34-LS1284
backslash I as our working document.
Walk us through a committee substitute.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank You, madam chair for the record.
Stuart Relay, staff representative Carrick.
As representative Hannon mentioned and as Tim mentioned,
the CS adds an exemption for cold weather masks.
The specifics of that.
include, or I'm sorry, specifically the crime of wearing a face mask in public does not
apply to a peace officer who is wearing the mask while outdoors when the temperature is
below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, otherwise known as freezing.
That Madam Chair, is these summary of changes?
Thank you.
And I am going to remove my objection to the committee substitute.
Is there a further objection?
Seeing none, the Committee substitute is adopted as our working document.
And so that brings us to back to House Bill 250 version I.
And we can now entertain a few additional questions just for
committee members' information.
We have about 15 minutes left to spend on this bill.
So, I think I saw Representative McCabe and then Vance.
Thanks, Chair Caraguette.
More more of a comment than a question. So as somebody who has been publicly
docked in a newspaper and had to worry about, you know, my wife lives out there
in the woods and worry
about somebody
who actually had a road map to my house, I'm seriously concerned about this bill,
actually. And I was a law enforcement officer for a period of time.
And one of the basic tenants of
the group that I
was associated with is nobody knew if I
And that was specifically, I mean, we were told we had to care our gun in what's called
a nondescript bag so that people, none of the bags were like, they were our own choosing,
so the people that we're there to protect or people who were there for the bad guys
didn't know that were law enforcement and didn t know we are carrying a gun.
There are some situations where it is very important for an on a minute and a
minute yeah sorry yeah talking too much today thank you very much chair
character and your choice of bills but point being is there I think we are
taking away this bill takes away a tool nothing more I
think representative hannon is exactly right that we our community
build a reputation with their community. We often know who they are. That's part of community
policing. And I think it's very important that Juneau Police Department, APD,
you know, the state troopers. But I also think there are times, there may be times
as we're seeing in my home state as well, of Minnesota, where
Things get a little heated and things get little violent and maybe the officers don't want their families exposed
They don t I mean that they don' t want the hotel room that. They're staying in exposed
We've seen people kicking cars that their driving in rental cars destroying things
The cops aren't doing that the cops are just there doing a job that
They are ordered to do so I think
By doing this, we are taking away a tool.
I have never seen a masked officer that wasn't on a snowmobile, actually, in Alaska.
So I'm not sure that this is actually a problem, but
I do think it is a rule that they believe that can use it sometimes.
So, I am pretty concerned about the direction this bill is taking.
Thanks.
I actually have sort of a follow-up question to those comments representative McCabe and that maybe it's rhetorical, but
I would maybe ask the bill sponsor and staff do we have any information about whether
masked individual
might have because of that more limited range of nonverbal communication have more
negative encounters with the public
an escalation, I guess, of those encounters
because of the masking, and then I would just like
to, as a thought exercise, juxtapose that
with the risk of doxing.
So it's kind of a rhetorical question,
but if you have thoughts on that.
Representative Kerrick,
I think the worst anecdotal example is that
in Minnesota, we've had two citizens shot in
conflicts that do not appear to have escalated to the risk of
fatality, yet they did in Minnesota with masked officers.
And I, you know, would they have been prevented if the officers were unmasked
and the communication had been clear?
You don't know.
somewhat rhetorical, but just when we think about officer safety, I think
Representative McCabe, your points very well taken regarding the potential for
doxing. I'm just also curious about the flip side where you have officers masking
more frequently that they're not currently masked and so there's some
communication lost there for sure in those interactions that maybe leads to
escalation.
I'll let you rebuttal that.
Thanks.
Yeah, I mean, OK, so how about an amendment
to make sure that no protester can wear a mask either
so that the officers can easily identify those
that are creating the ruckus, right?
I mean, what's fair is fair, if we're
going to have a protest and we going have cops there,
then maybe we should make it the same sort of felony
to wear mask during a protests.
I think I helped derail this conversation just a little bit so I'm gonna go back in
the queue but I do see Representative Hymn shoot has comment too. We'll go
Representative Vance, then St. Clair, and then him shoot and I
think at that point we'll probably have to move on today. Great because I
actually have a question. So the amendment specifically added you know
The exemption for a mask will outdoors when the temperature is at or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
Does that also include wind, wind chill?
Wind chill.
I could turn to the bill sponsor too for more answer.
I don't believe that it specifies.
It does not specify, so.
Because I can tell you.
The temperature looks fine. Here in Juneau, you step out and that wind chill is a whole
different ball game. Representative Handa? Representative Carrick to
represent advance. That is why we chose what someone would consider, if you're
from Fairbanks, 32 degrees isn't very cold. But we choose to go to the freezing
point and if if your on a snow machine it's likely to be below 32
if you needed to be masked up so that that windshield didn't affect you.
Yeah. So we chose that point. There were people who said, you know,
at 20 below or at 10 below, and I think that if we say it's at 32 degrees,
so if it is freezing and a mask is required because of the weather conditions,
that's acceptable to me. That's why it shows that.
I see a burning follow-up
My follow up is
Are you also opposed to officers peace officers wearing beards that could have a similar effect?
Representative through the chair representative Vance nothing of this changes the standards at which a police department
I can represent recognize representative St. Clair with a beard or without a beard
Although he's largely had a beard the entire time that I've known him.
I'm pretty sure I could recognize Representative Holland with her without a beard.
Thank you.
Chair Kirk, if I will refrain from comments.
But I would ask if we're going to continue on this bill that we have someone from the police standards council come and
be able to answer questions as well.
Yeah, I think that would definitely be something to accommodate.
We can ask them to participate in a future hearing.
Two more questions, then we are going to set the bill aside for today.
Representative Sinclair.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
or Mr. Clark. I'm going to start out with a rhetorical question, and then I am going
to ask a question at the end. Most of you know that I was in the military for 20 years.
I had been a military policeman. About 30 years ago, I worked as a drug team.
I were buying marijuana from somebody that was off post.
I lived off-post. Well, it just so happened, they were in
the same trailer park. Yes, we lived in trailers back in
the 90s.
I was going to check mail and my wife was with me. Most of you know my life
She was eight months pregnant with our son
We were going, to get the mail. I didn't have a mask on
didn t have A mask when I Was interacting with him because I, was buying
marijuana and
She still gets mad at me today because i pushed her head down so that he couldn't see her
Imagine if he had seen her
the doxing the Doxing does happen and
Am I going to sacrifice, am I gonna change my profession?
Because of that?
No.
I think there's maybe two, maybe three people in this room
that have law enforcement experience,
that understand, have worked with narcotics,
have work with the ATF,
that understands the necessity to cover your face.
It's, I understand the need to...
communicate facial expressions, but predominantly the people that are interacting with these
masked officers that have caused issues were breaking the law. Now, and I'm going to go back
to what Chair Kerrick said and just ask this question, have we looked at doing anything through
the Alaska Police Standards Council? Instead of this legislation,
have you addressed it or asked them for a policy?
Through the chair represent a st. Clair. No, I wanted to address it directly. Okay. Thank you
And madam chair if I could elaborate just slightly on that question
Chair karek representatives st Clair
Again, the law is
meant to also apply to these federal law enforcement agencies, so our Alaska Police Standards Council
I wouldn't necessarily have that jurisdiction.
Follow up.
Thank you, Madam Chair, to Mr. Clark.
Does the Supremacy law a per supremacy policy?
I can't remember the exact term, I wrote it down.
Supromacy clause, thank you.
That does not apply in this case.
I don't know the answer to that question. I get to look into it. Okay. Thank you.
Last question on this legislation today, Representative Hymshu, or comment.
Thank You, Chair Kerrick. Yeah, I'm going to make it a question, but it's probably rhetorical,
so maybe it is more like a comment,
but through the chair, representative Hannon,
is there public money involved in protesters showing up at a protest?
Do protesters get paid with public funds?
Through the chair
Representative him shoot no, and I'm not sure if you're alluding to the constitutional right of
Americans to protest or not and the obligations for
Public officers and government restraint different than someone who is not an official of the government
My point is that the people
that you're talking about are paid with public dollars.
Protesters are not paid
with Public dollars and that distinction is important.
Thank you.
Thank-you.
Thank for Representative Hannon being here today
and Mr. Clark really appreciate the presentation
and answers to questions.
Do you have any closing comments today?
I just wanna thank you and the committee
for your time and attention willingness to hear the bill.
Thank You.
So thank you. At this point, we're going to set House Bill 250 aside.
Just for community members' information,
we may try to bring this bill back up on Thursday
or at the next available hearing where we can,
but I will follow up
on Representative Vance's request to try
to have the Police Standards Council
someone to come and also help with questions and discussion.
And thank for being here.
So we're setting House Bill 250 aside, and now we will turn to House bill 180.
House about 180 from the governor's administration.
This is our first hearing on the bill.
Today, we are going to have an introduction from
the Department of Administration staff.
And my staff will walk through, walk.
With the committee through some fiscal notes and then the intention today will be to set the bill aside after that
I'd like to welcome
our
Division of Motor Vehicles director Kathy Wallace who is a testifying from Anchorage today
To introduce House Bill 180. I would like also note for the Committee members
We have DMV operations manager Lauren Whiteside online for questions
and so I will have Director Wallace go ahead and introduce House Bill 180 today.
Good afternoon, Chair Karrick and committee leaders. For the record, my name is Kathy Wallace.
I am the Director of the DMV. Thank you for hearing HB 180 Today.
This legislation modernizes Alaska's motor vehicle identification framework by authorizing the Department of Administration to issue electronic driver's licenses, permits and identification cards while maintaining physical credentials.
This bill establishes regulatory authority for the issuance and use of digital credentials, clarifies requirements for possession and presentation.
and provides privacy protections for individuals presenting identification on a mobile device.
Additionally, it expands the commissioner's authority to enter into data sharing agreements
that support identity verification and driver record systems, improving efficiency and service
delivery for Oaskans. That concludes my introduction. I will now go through the sectional.
Please go ahead and go through the sectional. Sorry miss Wallace. I didn't mean to interrupt you
No, no worries
It's amended in
1865 310 a
To clarify that issuance of physical identification cards and allows applicants to request a federally compliant card for an additional fee
Section 2 amends AS 1865 310-S through V to add new subsections that authorize the department
to issue electronic identification cards to individuals who already possess a physical
card requires adoptions of regulations for their use, establishes privacy protections
and provides limited liability protection for law enforcement.
Section 3 amends AS 1865-320B to require individuals to return a cancelled physical identification card
to the department and maintains an associated penalty for non-compliance.
by adding a new subsection that grants the Commission our authority to enter into agreements with law enforcement agencies, governmental entities, and national data systems to support identity and driver record verification.
and then 2805-051 to clarify requirements for surrendering physical motor vehicle documents
and licenses when suspended, revoked, or canceled, and affirms the authority of designated officials
to allow drivers to satisfy possession requirements with either a valid physical or electronic
driver's license.
Section 7 adds a new section to 2815-126 that authorizes the issuance of electronic driver
licenses and permits to individuals who hold a physical credential, requires regulations
and mandate notification on the electronic credential if the physical license is restricted or withdrawn.
Section 8, amend 2815-131A to update language to require drivers to carry
and present either a physical or electronic license upon request by law enforcement.
adds a new section to 2815-131-C and D that establish the presenting of electronic license
does not grant consent to search a mobile device and provides liability protections
for officers handling such devices. Section 10 amends 28-15151-A
to require the department to maintain records related to applications for
an issuance of electronic licenses and permits.
Sections 11 through 23 and their effective statutes add conforming
amendments to make changes throughout motor vehicle enforcement.
court, and administrative processes to clarify that physical driver's licenses, permits,
and identification cards must be surrendered, seized, or forwarded to the department when
privileges are suspended, revoked, mimicked, otherwise invalid. These updates ensure consistency
with authorization of electronic credentials while preserving existing enforcement procedures.
is amended by adding a new subsection to AS23100J,
which authorizes the department to issue electronic commercial drivers licenses.
Section 25 is amended to 2833140I, which requires
the surrender of a physical commercial driver's license upon disqualification and ensures it is
forwarded to the department. Section 26 is amended 28-35-034 which requires
individuals whose licenses or permits are revoked to surrender the physical credential upon notice.
Section 27 amends 33-16-150-A-I to require the surrender of physical licenses or identification cards as a condition of certain parole orders and direct notification to the department.
And Section 28 establishes an immediate effect of date.
Like you mentioned, I do have our Division Operations Manager, Warren Whiteside on the
line.
She has been a pivotal role in the design and implementation of the electronic slash
mobile IDs and is available to answer any questions you may have.
Okay.
Thank you, Miss Wallace and for the very thorough sectional.
We before we get to committee questions and discussion I would like to invite our committee to the table to walk through
The fiscal notes on this legislation
And just a brief note on fiscal note. Thank you. Yes, thank you madam chair for the records to her relays to f for representative Carrick
the two fiscal notes provided by the Department of Administration and the
Department Public Safety are both zero fiscal votes. I did want to note, however,
for the committee members' information that this is not the first time there's
been a digital driver's license bill. In 2022, we had Senate Bill 194 and was a
I just wanted to note for committee members' information that the fiscal note included for Senate Bill 194 is much more thorough than the ones provided for House Bill 180, and also much heftier, specifically that fiscal
note identifies in the first year $3.7 million of implementation costs the following year, $2.6 million.
The third year 2.1 million, fourth year 1 million and every year they're after $500,000.
And I just thought that that was important for the committee member's information.
Thank you, Mr. Relay.
As we open up the questions for this legislation, I'd just wanted to out the gate maybe ask our Miss White side perhaps.
Sort of discrepancy and fiscal impact here. It seems like with digital driver's licenses
We would be potentially saving money if anything so the fiscal notes feel very accurate now
But do you have a comment on the cost of implementation for the legislation and why they're such a huge discrepancy?
Through the chair, thank you for that question. This is born white side D&B operations manager
Yes, I can touch on that. When this bill was first introduced, the DMV was in the planning phases for the mobile identification development and this is I believe we've heard an iteration of the bill each year since and we developed and implemented the
And we are, yeah, we absorbed all the costs
without receiving any additional funds for development.
So that's the difference in the original build
and the fiscal note that you have
in front of you for this year.
Okay, I'll let other members ask questions.
I think I had representative Hymn shoot
then I see representative Vance
Thank you chair care through the chair. I just I think I have a lot of questions, but I'll just start I
Think with two was the 2022 SB 194 identical language or or similar
Through the share
Without putting the bill side-by-side there's been like I said there've been several iterations there was standalone electronic driver license
And now it is again, for the most part, a standalone bill.
So there's been a lot of different variations of the mobile credential bill over the last several legislative sessions.
Thank you through the chair.
I'm also curious, not sure I read it in the bill now, I don't know which section it's in.
But if your license is revoked, then the digital license gets like a revoked stamp across it.
If a person just chose not to access the internet,
they could have a revoked license that never got that stamp
across it on their phone.
But you'd have to go a long time without accessing
the Internet on your phone, like practically that isn't
really possible, right?
Because that's stamp would appear just
by being in cell service.
Am I misunderstanding that?
I just want some guarantee that if you're
Your digital license, and it's been revoked,
that there's no glitch in getting that stamp on it electronically.
Through the chair, that's a great question.
It actually wouldn't be a stamp.
It's actually removed from the phone.
The digital driver's license.
If the privilege is removed,
the digital drivers license would be removed
from phone and correct when any time the
phone is going to connect to the Internet.
that would update, but also it was, it's always in real time.
So, what should any law enforcement officer run that digital credential,
even if the digital credentials is not connected to Internet,
they are going to be able to see in the law-enforcement operating system
that the privilege is revoked.
Great. Thank you.
Representative Vance.
Thank You, Chair Carrick.
I have quite a few questions,
but the first one just seems very
So help me understand this correctly. It sounds like DMV has already rolled out and spent
Potentially millions on
Developing the IT for this digital
Driver's license is that you said that that the DMV absorbed this cost
But you have not gotten the statutory authority to do so and this feels backwards to me
So please justify how the department
spend this money without statutory guidance on it being permissible to have electronic
driver's licenses?
Through the chair, I represent an advance, thank you for the question.
Because there was no statutory prohibition on a mobile credential, D&B did move forward
with the development of it, and it is not required for anyone, it's optional for everyone.
But here you are needing statutory authority for electronic driver's licenses.
So I just want to put an exclamation point on that statement before I ask you the next
question and it's around section four.
You were adding a new section into law that the Commissioner of Administration may enter
or data exchange services and then you include a long list of other national systems.
So my specific question is what government agency or program may need this information
and agreement for this is information and what data-exchange service that's not governmental
does the department need to be able to share Alaskan's very important data?
Section 4 of this bill is in this
bill because of the driver license data verification
service, which is actually the connection to Social Security,
which several years ago, law took a look at the statute
and had DMV pull out of that system.
And we are the only state in the nation
that does not have that connection.
So we've been trying to get this statutory amendment passed
It prevents Alaskans from applying for a duplicate social security online and
does require all Al
to not, that prohibited Alaskans from being able to get their Social Security cards online.
So it's interesting that these two issues are being completed.
So to be clear, the data exchange, what data exchanged service is going to
in this agreement through the chat representative and I'm so sorry I am not sure I understand
the question but again section four is related to DLDB which the Department of Law advised
the Division I think maybe close to five years ago that we needed to pull out and we've been
Thank you for allowing me to express my frustration.
I'm just seeing a pattern today with the administration on spending money and
making decisions and then coming to the legislature, asking to then
grant them the money that they've already spent or give statutory authority for what they have already done.
And I really irritated by that and I have a lot of concerns.
about Alaskan's data and the protection of this, and also, I guess my final question for the department is,
why could the administration not bring forward a bill separately to dealing with the Social Security Administration?
Because I'm finding out for
the past several years Alascans were not able to get their Social security card online because of decision from one DMV employee.
Why was that not made a priority as a stand alone bill as you said five years ago?
You're the chair representative Vance, I believe last year we had a C two thirteen, which was a standalone bill.
kind of running short on time and we have a couple more folks in the queue.
I just want to echo, you know, on first plus I'm actually supportive of this legislation,
but I want echo representative Vance's comments regarding administrative decision making that
seems to go forward and then come back and ask for authority or funds and that's not
limited to the Department of Administration.
Thank you for the discussion on that topic.
Chair Karak, I've set in the Department of Administration's budget for this is now the eighth
year. I have gone through the DMV questions around the real ID and all of the committee
Alaska Native elders to be able to compliant with real ID because they didn't have birth
certificates and all of the different things and nowhere in those conversations did we
have this come to light.
So I feel like there's been a lack of communication on how we could have helped Alaskans years
I appreciate time and committee to be able to address this.
And I hope that moving forward the department is going to make a better effort to communicate with us on what needs to
be done, but I have a lot of concerns about this bill.
Thank you for the comments.
We're going to run through who I have in the queue right now and then we're gonna have to set the bill aside today.
So I've representative St. Clair, then Holland, and McCabe,
and that's where we'll have wrap this one up today
Thank you through the chair. Miss Whiteside, this is Representative St Clair.
Is it required to have a secondary piece or a piece of physical ID to confirm the electronic ID?
I look in the first fiscal note and first paragraph last sentence it says it does not
eliminate the requirement for individuals to retain a physical driver's license or identification card.
So if I've got the digital license on my phone do I have to
Through the chair, Representative St. Clair, the mobile identification is a companion credential.
So you can have your driver's license or ID card in your wallet and the
mobile credential on your phone, but it is required to keep the physical credential with you at all times.
The reason for that is the, mobile credentials is
a purely consent-driven application, so only the information that you opt to send to the
So, if law enforcement, an example needs to have all of the information and you're not sending it or the person is not providing all the
information, they are well within their rights to go ahead and request that physical credential.
Thank you. Through the chair, follow up Miss Miss Whiteside.
So do you think that this is redundant or duplicative with having a physical license?
Through the chair, Representative Sinclair, I personally don't. This is pretty much the national standard. There are a couple states that
have gone stand alone, but because cell phones die and it's
It's a protective act also to make sure that you always have appropriate identification on you
But you may not always had to dig through your wallet or your purse to find that physical credential for parties that will accept the mobile credential
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Representative Holland.
Great, thanks.
Just a couple, I think, straightforward questions.
All of them may want to follow up in the first one, but maybe it's an easy one.
My understanding right now is that the Alaska Statute's Forhibited Department of Administration
from sharing data beyond what is required in The Real ID Act.
That's 2805.068.
language extending the sharing of data, interact with, or
be in conflict with the real ID act, and as somebody who's gone
through the pain of getting a real I.D., I want to make sure
that that real i.d. really works. So I don't want
to see that undermined. Is this consistent with real
i?d? Or is there some inconsistency in our protections
on data sharing?
through the Chair Representative Holland,
it is consistent with the Real ID Act.
There's no concern of in consistency with
the real ID act.
Okay, thanks, follow-up?
Follow-ups.
I originally had a question about what happened
if my
ID for some reason was revoked, and I understood your response earlier to be that it would
just kind of poof vanish from the phone, but it's pointed out to me that
it appears in section seven under C, that's page three, it says if the
physical driver's license is seized and otherwise revoked or suspended
that the department shall display and notice
regarding the seizure or suspension
across the front of the person's electronics driver's license.
And I thought I heard you before saying
the electronic driver license just disappeared and went away.
This section seems to suggest that there would actually
be some sort of mark or indication on the
electronic drivers license, could you clarify
what's going on there?
through the chair of senate of holland yes i can uh for right now the way it's been developed um
we the win the licenses suspended revoked cancel um the option that we have is it is removed the
drivers if they have a mobile drivers license versus a mobil id the mobile driver's license would
be deleted from the phone they would receive a message that says due to revocation this
mobile credential is no longer on this mobile device and they can opt to get an ID. It is
absolutely should the still pass for their development will happen to display that
revocation status on those credentials. But at this point that development has not been done
and to ensure that a driver's license is not used when it shouldn't for the time being
Okay, last short follow-up.
Very short-follow-out.
Thanks, it sounds like that may be an item
for cleanup later, but the last piece is,
will this digital ID be acceptable for use,
for identification, for voting,
and for purchasing alcohol?
Through the Chair, Representative Holland, that is our goal. Yes, right now. I would say probably not
We just in December got TFA acceptance in Anchorage and Juneau Airport
But we are working moving forward to get as many verifying parties as we can
But at this point I cannot confirm voter
registration
election will accept mobile potential, although that is certainly the hope in the future.
Thank you.
And Representative McKay, last question.
Thanks.
I don't know that I really have a question, I just.
Other than, let's see, the first one is move the legislature.
The second one, is daylight savings time.
This is the third question that.
is when are we going to get digital driver's license? MDLs, right? So I actually think this is
a good thing. I'm happy to see that the department is managing to use their computer.
Programming system from another from digital IDs or whatever to do this so that it doesn't have a huge fiscal note
We hate we've put credit cards on here. We're allowed to use our insurance electronic insurance card when you get stopped by a cop
You can pull up your insurance, and there's your card right there, so you don't to keep that current in your glove box
I think it's the way wave of the future
I suppose the question I would be is how many other states have already done this?
Through the pair representative McCabe, I love this question. Thank you so much for asking it
Alaska is actually on the forefront of this technology movement for for D&D maybe the first time ever
We were I believe the sixth state to be
added into the Amba digital trust and I would say about
I Would have to do some research and get back to you officially, but
I would say close to half are working on a mobile credential if not out to their residents, but
no, Alaska is on the forefront of this movement.
Amazing. Thank you.
Thank You, Miss Whiteside and Miss Wallace for presenting the legislation and answering questions
today. I'll just say I also like the digital drivers license that is
the subject of House Bill 180 and the committee will likely take up this issue at future hearings.
So at this time we are going to set House bill 180 aside and thank you again to our presenters from Department of Administration.
House State Affairs is back on the record and I'd like to
welcome Representative Josephson and his staff, Mr. Kim
Alper to present for a first hearing House Bill 130, which
is on flexible time credit. This is our first
hearing on The Bill. We will have a brief introduction
from the sponsor and staff. And we have one invited
testifier on this bill as well. As we
have time at the end of the hearing today, we will take
Just from members' information, the intention today is also to set this legislation aside for a future hearing.
Welcome.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm going to be brief because I am chairing a meeting.
I know it doesn't look like it, but I'll be chair of the meeting down the hall.
I mean, Andy Josephson, House District 13, Midtown Anchorage.
We all hear about how bills are simple, and then they turn out not to
be. This one certainly will start that way.
The bill, importantly, there's a fiscal note that shows zero dollars, and Mr.
Alper can explain that, but it'll become sort of self-evident.
Essentially, I learned of a circumstance,
and you'll hear from invited testimony of
a classified worker who was promoted.
That begs the question, typically when you're promoted,
you take the promotion.
I think that's what our parents advise us to do.
And he did that.
It made him still a classified employee,
but ineligible under the Fair Labor Standards Act
for overtime pay.
Now, and he got that in abundance, as you'll hear,
in his prior position.
He's a geologist with the, I believe,
the Department of Natural Resources,
at any rate, or Department
of Transportation, actually.
He took the promotion, the nature of the work I don't think changed substantially,
but as I said, he was ineligible for overtime pay, and so as a consequence,
he didn't enjoy those dollars. He did receive some compensatory time, but in an oddity of sorts,
he doesn't get any compensator time beyond his bargain for
37 and a half hours until he's worked 45 hours.
And that all sounds well and good,
except that there's what we call a donut hole
between hours 37-and-a-half and hour 42.
And this happens routinely.
And so what he will report,
and we think that his experience is not unique,
is that he didn't get
I've got it here in my notes from a conversation with him,
57 and a half hours of compensation,
either as a compensatory time,
and certainly not as pay for the reasons I have indicated.
So what this bill would do is cost the state nothing.
The only exception I can identify is
Because if the bill became law, theoretically, to get the work done, you might need more
employees.
So far, the physical note doesn't reflect that you would need employees, but we think
that as a matter of fairness, and also you want people to take promotions,
you wanna retain workers that this class of workers should receive full,
It's, it's that's the best I can do to explain it.
And we, I know we have a brief presentation here too.
So maybe let's go through that and our invited testimony before we take questions.
I'm apologies, but I have to go down the hall.
Does anyone, does anyone in the committee have
a question directly for the bill sponsor at this time, Representative Vance?
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I will warn you, I'm feeling a little spicy today.
Help me understand flexible time credit, if it's not going to cost more, how is it beneficial
to the employee?
Because I have a, and this is where the spicy comes in, is we just received a supplemental
budget and an additional 20 million for Department of Corrections.
and we're wanting a better accounting of that, right?
We know we need work done,
but it's costing the state a lot of money.
So tell me how this flexible time credit
is gonna be beneficial, but not cost money
and create a situation that could be abused.
Through the chair of Representative Vance,
because of the nature of DOC,
correction officer's work,
different contract, different employee class,
time and a half or double time in some circumstances.
He's simply ineligible, but he's duty-bound
to do the work to finish.
And he, as I said, after working 45 hours in a week,
in the week.
So he has eight hours, eight and half hours.
Seven and one half hour is beyond the,
the
bargain for work week, I guess that the paid workweek, he could then qualify for comp time,
which would result in sort of a kind of vacation, but it's not vacation because these are in the
Um, and not in the way one earns vacation time.
He's just, he just receives a deduction in his regular schedule because he's worked
more than he by right should have, but he doesn't get that deduction until he is eclipsed
40, or reached, reached 45 hours.
The system, I don't know if it's under the collective bargaining agreement, Mr. Alper will know, only backs him up to hour 42 and then moving forward to our 50, 60, etc.
So there is a gap between hours 37 and a half and hour forty two, and this happens week after week, after a week where he's working for free, utterly for-free.
He doesn't get overtime, he doesn' get comprehensive time.
Sorry, compensatory time!
Thank you. Does anyone else have questions directly for the bill sponsor seeing none. Thank
you for joining us. Appreciate it very much. And now we can go to the presentation.
Thank You, Madam Chair, and the Department of Health Subcommittee appreciates your fair
parents and flexibility with the chairman. For the record, my name is Ken Alper, staff
A presentation before you and the sponsor did a very good job of laying out more or less what the bill is supposed to do.
What we're talking about is the Fairly Were Standards Act, the federal act as to what employees,
what professions are covered eligible for overtime and what are not.
exempt, meaning you're not eligible for overtime, these determinations are done by the Department of
Administration. But broadly, if you are executive, senior administrative, technical employees,
those are the folks that are above a certain minimum salary level that's set in federal
statute. That's the definition of exempt within the state system.
This is actually an error I found out recently, the crossover is closer to around
age 20, but by and large, in the general classified service of public employees,
right around the point when a person gets to range 20 is when they hit that exempt
point and are no longer able to earn overtime for their additional hours
worked. And Representative Vance talked about the correction officers. Those professions are
always over time exempt by the very nature of it and I'm certain that she is not alone in her frustration with the size of the
the overtime supplemental appropriations that come into us every year
So what happens for these non-eligible employees?
It depends on your union contract,
and these are negotiated for every few years.
But by and large, there is this concept of compensatory time,
which you hear spoken of in statute as flexible time credit,
or sometimes abbreviated as just comp time.
And all it is is additional time off.
We all earn leave as public employees,
based on a schedule of how much seniority we have
and all that.
You get to earn additional that to separate bank of time
that you can use with supervisor approval, of course,
in place of or in addition to accrued leave.
But the problem is that the sponsor alluded to,
this is generally not earned on a one-for-one basis.
And that, again, is a function
of the individual union contract.
And these,
They change every few years.
The general government union,
ASEA, has a new contract that just started last year.
And the representative might have had newer information
to me.
The regular work is 37 and a half hours.
You don't earn anything until you get to 45.
So if you work 44 hours, you earn nothing.
Once you got to 40 five,
you'll get.
what you earn per the contract, but it's not all the way back to 37 and a half, I thought it was
to 40. The new contract I believe is to 42. So in other words, you work 44 hours,
you get nothing. Six and half hours extra. You work 45 hours. Seven and
46 hours, you get the four and so on.
And the supervisor's union, it's a little bit different.
They have a regular 40-hour work week.
They also have it donut hole, meaning they don't earn anything
until they get to 45 hours.
And then at 45, hours they'll get two and a half.
And each additional hour, they earn an additional half,
so at 46 they will get three, 47, three and half and
so forth.
And what the bill does, what House Bill 130 actually does
The pay, it sets a minimum standard in future union contracts.
It says that the state must offer at least this benefit in the contracts that are written and renewed in
the coming years.
The advocate, the person,
the constituent of Representative Josephson's
that came to his office was a geologist who,
his pay literally went down $18,000
from the year before he got promoted to the
year after he get promoted.
And that is sort of counterintuitive to
the idea of getting promoted,
and now these issues might be frankly getting worse
because lots of public employees are working over time.
Because we're having recruitment and retention problems the work needs to get done
The offices ask you to stay in and you stay so you do the working and in many cases you're getting neither over time nor
compensatory time for your overtime
So, the guts of this bill, section one of the bill adds a new section to the personnel statutes
that simply says these classified employees that are not eligible for overtime must earn
on a one-for-one basis.
If you work two and a quarter extra hours beyond your contract to time, you get two
and half hours of contact compensatory time and so forth.
There are specific exceptions, there are employees who have, frankly, unusual schedules, firefighters
sleep on board, that sort of thing.
And those are accepted within specific language
inside the bill.
And again, these are requirements in state union contracts,
not mandates for the state to offer a thing,
and therefore it only applies as written
to covered employees.
Madam Chair, you'll be pleased to know
this does not apply to so-called exempt
or non-covered employees in the governor's office,
legislature, department of law,
so you and other member staffs
for all the extra hours that we put in selflessly in the long nights of session.
And again, there is no dollar cost to this.
There is, nothing is getting spent, the bill has a zero fiscal note.
The only thing anyone would be receiving would the additional time off.
Just to put a little count on the number of people we're talking about.
These are the three main unions that have exempt employees,
primarily in the GGU and the SU, the Supervisors Union.
Interestingly, when you look at the numbers,
the General Government Union, about three quarters of them
are over time eligible.
These, are a lot of your rank and file public employees.
Alaska's largest public union,
but about 25% of the are ineligible for overtime,
are exempt.
Now the Department of Administration sent me this data set.
late last year when we first put the bill in and I immediately followed up and
said why is there any overtime there at all? It's like there should be zeros and
they had a very good answer, it was a two-part answer. One, sometimes there are
these letters of agreement that sort of work arounds where we agree to pay people
over time even if they're not eligible and also sometimes if a person gets
promoted in the middle of a fiscal year, they are in of the exempt category at
the overtime in the beginning before they got promoted, so you see some of their overtime earnings showing up in
the records, even though their position is no longer eligible for it.
But broadly speaking, there's about 4,000 individuals who are Alaska employees who would be covered
by the benefit provided in this piece of legislation.
And that's it for the slides, Madam Chair, I'm happy to take any additional questions
or you could talk to Mr. Minnick who's the original constituent that brought the case to us.
Let's go to the invited testifier, Mr Ian Minick in Anchorage. If you'd like to
say your name for their record and then provide us your invited testimony, ideally in five or so
Hello, my name is Ian Foxmanick, thank you Madam Chair, thanks to the thank to you for
your an increase as well and to and Joseph and his staff.
I work for the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.
However, today I'm here on my own behalf.
These are my opinions and I am here.
I am a graduate of UAA. I have a certain type of professional geologist,
project management professional, as I'll turn it by professional and a few other
rap sheet words in there that has qualified me for a professional overtime extension
along with this promotion that I took to give me overtime events. Last year, I worked 935 hours
in the field conducting subsurface investigations, drone flights, other
necessary mandatory field work activities with 300 and 18 hours of mandatory over time
out in those 900 hours at fieldwork. 57 and a half of those 318 hours were entirely
uncompensated now that I'm on the Leslie's program. And the Lesley's Program is a rather
complicated system to explain. I am actually seeing a couple of errors that are recent from the most
updated close to bargaining agreements from that slide that I was seeing, but really it's
just a testament to how complicated the system is and how difficult it is to understand which
ultimately results in errors on the size of administration and payroll which is something
that we are constantly fighting. I talked to all my coworkers which my specific example of 900
I'm confident that time is an outlier.
We are the hardest extreme, I think,
in this case I can't say for certain advice.
For the overwhelming majority of people,
we are on the outliers in the case,
which is why I am raising this issue to be corrected.
The Supervisor Union has,
to my understanding, fixed this
in their last budgeting agreement.
But that isn't to say that we in the general of the government are still dealing with it.
This issue actually has a lot of transparency.
When I discuss this with the public, a lots of them are asking about where does this don't uphold go?
Where is this 2.5 hours going?
If it's not going to the employee, is it going through the state?
I've heard multiple people discuss that they would reject a promotion just because of the pickup that
they are be taking. I have been mandated to leave between the events so that I can be under the 200
hour maximum cap, which I don't think that this builds directly addresses, but it sets in the right
direction. Solutions I'm seeing that would fix as far as the administrative side and as well as
work time to leave a group.
It was this lot of VSU that would build more transparency and trust
as to a fairness and it was out of appeal.
I'm looking at my hours and they come down to about $25,000
of times that I was unpaid for
between both the entirely and compensated time
and the time that that was compensated at,
one that said that
I wasn't compensated with leave time.
If we make the system more appealable,
bring people into this as well that we could be saving money for the state.
Thank you very much.
Thank You Mr. Minick for your testimony and at this time we can open it up to
questions from the committee if we have any representative Holland.
Great. Thanks.
Through the chair to Mr Alper.
Two questions. First one is just a clarifying question because I'm confused by some
notes I've got here.
Is the credit for this extra work, is it a one full hour for each hour worked, or is
Through the chair representative Holland the bill as written would be each hour or a fraction of an hour
So if the person works in additional 15 minutes, let's just say they would earn 15
minutes a quarter hour worth of
Time
I'm just curious what the bill says or what
the thoughts are about how this extra time worked
is managed and approved.
I could see, since there's no cost to the department directly,
that left unmanaged, I can see a lot of folks working
a few extra hours every time they got a chance
to bank some extra ours, because there
Great, some pushback on that, any language or thoughts on how this is constructed so
that it is reasonably managed in terms of the cruel that people would bank on this?
So through the chair to representative Holland, the bill doesn't modify the existing system and
rules there, there are personal rules as to how leave is banked.
These employees fill out time sheets, they get approved by their supervisor,
they go through the system and it turns into a check if someone's
lying, hopefully they would get caught. But the banking and tracking of the hours is...
It's not informal, it's truly a formal system, there's a record of it.
And then when an employee chooses to use that com time it is similar to how they use a leave
slip.
They put in for it, they get to prove rather a supervisor or not.
Obviously if it was a crunch time they are not going to let people go on vacation the
same thing applies to the use of compensatory time.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Representative McCabe.
Thanks.
I know we are pressed for time here.
Be too long. Don't why aren't? Why isn't this being solved inside the collective bargaining agreement?
What why are we trying to insert ourselves into a cba negotiation?
Through the term representative McCabe.
I don't have a hundred percent answer to that question. It is my sense that the unions are trying
to get this and have been unable to yet it from the state. So I guess we're by putting a minimum
standard to what the State must offer. We're trying to help that process along. Not willing
to do that. Get a new negotiator. Okay comments registered. Do we have additional questions or comments?
Seeing none, um, thank you, Mr. Alper for testifying and to Mr Minick for calling in and describing the current challenge.
Um, we are going to set House Bill 130 aside today and it's my intention to potentially bring this up at our hearing on Thursday as time allows for additional questions.
So if committee members can please look into any questions or concerns, they might have in advance of that hearing.
We might bring this up under those previously hurt and that concludes how state affairs today
Our next meeting is on Thursday February 12th at 3 15 here in room 120 we will have the
full committee time, and we will be taking up amendments to House Bill 124,
the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority bill from my office.
As a reminder, the amendment deadline for House bill 124 is tomorrow at 5 p.m.
And with no further business before the committee, we are adjourned at 501 p-m