House Labor & Commerce Committee

I understand that there are concerns about that. There are

cases, attorneys general have spoken about this issue before, and they've consistently advised that requiring legislative confirmation of the A_P_F_C_ trustees would unconstitutionally infringe on the governor's executive appointment power.

But I do want to um put on the record that for um more than eight years for quite some time I believe it's more than eight years, the

more than sixty percent of our source of revenue in the budget has come from the permanent fund. And the legislature holds the power of the purse. And I think that it is time that we clarify

the role that the legislature has in confirming appointments to the the board of trustees not to to execute political power but to exercise our power of the purse that this is an important uh sovereign wealth fund for the state and that we wanna make sure that we're exercising uh the balance of power that the legislatures is to provide to the executive branch.

So um I

welcome any questions and um look to further dialogue and clarification on this legislation because I think that it's a long time coming.

Thank you uh Representative Vance. Um I actually really appreciate the opportunity to discuss this issue and I I did uh have the same legal memo drafted that you could draft for any bill related to

uh public corporations in Alaska, it was drafted for a bill that I have as well. Um and I just wanted to refer to that 'cause I know it's in members' packets. Um on is it

Oh, okay. Well, it will be distributed, but I guess that the question is more general.

Oh, okay.

The legal memo which will be distributed says that there was a period from 1980 to 1982 where we did have confirmation requirements for the APFC board, and that it was removed in 1982. And it actually says in the memo, we don't have any legislative history to explain why legislative confirmation requirements were removed in 1982.

But it sounds like when the APFC was first established, it had legislative confirmation required.

And I just um I just wondered if you knew anything about the original establishment of the corporation and why that requirement was removed.

Not a trick question, I genuinely just don't just don't know.

Madam Chair, we we will look into that. I don't have a direct answer for you right now. But what if upon looking at at the constitutional question, uh you know we have looked at um

We found that in a key nineteen seventy six Alaska Supreme Court case, Bradner v.

Hammond reinforced um the constitutional question. It says, the court ruled that the Legislature cannot expand confirmation requirements beyond what the Constitution explicitly allows,

because appointment power is fundamentally an executive function.

Trying to add confirmation where the Constitution does not permit it would violate the separation of powers.

So in order for us to be, for the statute to be very constitutionally clear,

we may need to amend this bill to include a constitutional amendment that allows for legislative confirmation of the board of trustees because the APFC board does not qualify.

As a um a regulatory or quasi-judicial agency, um it is not the head of a pres principal department, it is not a regulatory or quasi-judicial agency; instead it's an investment management body for the state sovereign wealth fund. So if it's the will of the committee to to take action on this, uh I believe that we would have to do a cons include a constitutional amendment so it's clarified in statute and the constitution.

And, um, you know, when I was first elected, I probably would have said, no, let's, let's keep this the way that it is. However, I've seen a dramatic shift in, um, in how we are utilizing this fund.

I, you know, I, the.

I feel like the legislature does not have as much authority in this area uh that I think is necessary. We have had a lot of uh tug of war when it comes to um the legislature um and the executive branch wanting to close uh the Anchorage office and the and the corporation saying no we're we're not doing that. Um

You know, I like that they have autonomy outside of politics. We want them to invest the fund without getting in the middle of all of our political debate and fight.

Do not want to infringe upon that.

However.

When the legislature holds the power of the purse,

I think that there needs to be kind of a check and balance to make sure that that just like all of the other uh m people that we ap we confirm by appointment this I think uh we should have the same legislative oversight because it strikes a balance. And and so I think it is it's time that we have this fuller dialogue if if Alaskans feel that this is the way that we should go.

to provide a balance and um and making sure that this is the long term for the future. When I looked at the statute I was also very surprised that these board members do not have to be an Alaska resident.

And that was a little bit shocking to me because I want to make sure that whoever is on that board is looking out for the best interest of Alaskans and the generations to come. And when you're an Alaska resident here,

you have an investment, you have a different mindset about what is important.

I look forward to the dialogue, you know that I'm not afraid of controversy of things, um because it's important that we really get down to what really is important for Alaska and and what it's going to mean fifty years from now. And I think this is one of those topics.

Um yeah and I I just would echo that. Um I think

I appreciate you bringing it forward at least to have a conversation about it.

I think probably a lot of Alaskans would be a little confounded if you told them we confirm members for the Board of Barbers and Hairdressers, but we don't have any oversight on the Permanent Fund Corporation.

board. So I just, you know, it in I I recognise the constitutional prohibition, um but I I do appreciate at least the chance to have a discussion about this topic. Um Representative Himshoot, and then Holland?

Thank you um through the chair.

Uh what is the purpose of changing the terms from 4 years to 6 years? What are you hoping to achieve with that?

Thank you for the question Representative Himshoot.

Through the chair, I w recognise that by having a four year appointment, it can become a political position and and last through one admin administration. I wanted to smooth out the appointments over a longer period of time to create more consistency and um

and making sure that that we're not gonna have highs and lows on on the the mindset in the direction that the board um could have. And by having an overlap with uh gubernatorial administrations I think that it would create a better balance on on the way that the board is being managed.

Follow-up?

Thank you for that um

and then I've spent quite a bit of time recently on understanding what it means to be an Alaska resident. And so which

I don't think.

standard of residency because

I don't

I don't see definitions here

I gotta ask.

and you know and then if if they're able to hire a really accomplished

um investment professional they would not come into Alaska as a resident, so would they have to be here for a year before they could be on the board?

Through the chair, Representative Himeshoot, you know, I'm

I'm not I think I'm going to just leave this on the broader sense of the term of resident, um because we do have some great financial minds in the state.

who who are here who clearly are looking out for the best interest of Alaskans but I don't want someone who clearly is residing you know in New York City for instance I I don't know I don't know who the board members are just in case there's any speculation of who I might be talking about I have not looked at the names of the board members this is this is just

You know, people who are clearly

spending time here, like like you've said, they snow in the wintertime.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And and they they know that we are how invested we are with and with the permanent fund and and that it feeds.

feels personal to us and and that was that was why I felt the need to include Alaska Residency.

Some people I've actually gotten some pushback thinking that we would not get the best financial minds and I said you know actually Alaskans are very highly educated individuals and you know they I think this isn't going to limit the quality of board members that we have.

Follow up, follow up.

Through the chair, would you consider changing it to reside in the state?

In that then somebody could come in newly and then I don't know if we can force someone to live in our state, but it feels like we ought to be able to. So

It's just around the board, sure.

Through

Yeah.

the chair, Representative Himeshute, I think that might

actually disqualify people who are residents they can still be a resident someplace else and um so by having the legal term resident of the state, typically they have to

they have to assume their primary residence here in the state in some way, right? As you know, there's been loose definitions of that. But I think this is going to

require someone to to make some effort to be a resident here.

Final comment.

Final comment represented Hampshire I county.

just would I would like to make sure that if we can hire maybe maybe somebody went to school in our state and then went outside and became a really excellent investor and they want to come back I want to find language for this where they're not barred because they haven't been here 12 months yet.

So um I'll have to think about that. But you know what I mean if if we have somebody who's

Through the chair, Representative Himeshute, uh someone can come to Alaska and within thirty days they can get their Alaska driver's licence and officially be considered a resident of the state. They can also then legally vote within their legislative within their their legislative district after being here for thirty days. So there's quite a few areas of statute that allows for a thirty day uh residency.

And I would hope that someone who has been appointed to the board would have at least have bought or rented a place and unpacked their boxes before they start serving on the board.

Having...

Having been here for a little bit of time before they start exercising um authority over our largest largest sovereign wealth fund, but I do I agree that we have some brilliant people who we want to bring back. And I don't want to precru preclude them, but this just shows we want you to have a stake in the game.

'Kay, thank you.

R Representative Holland.

Right, thank you through the Chair.

Um

Two things I just was curious about to the sponsor.

To begin with just following up on the conversation we've just had, you know, I've got mixed um thoughts about this, cause on one hand I think it is absolutely the case that we should recognise that the expertise of Alaskans is really world class and globally significant, we don't have to rely upon seven thirty sevens to either find expertise or to bring it in here. But we have it here and we just need to have greater faith and trust that uh we can find those people. Um but to that end I also, you know, having worked with a lot of boards and companies have a greater

have a great respect for the diversity of board representation, and we specifically look for diversification on those boards and try to avoid trying to have too close of a set of connections on the board members in order to ensure that they can function adequately and independently and having everybody from Alaska, given how close and tight Alaska is, would

Potentially create a a limited degree of freedom um in terms of social and professional networks. It's just so hard in Alaska to separate ourselves out from potential conflicts of interest because we are so close. And that's a good thing, but it also, in the case of managing a fund this large, I'm just left wondering, as I look at the size of the board with six members being an even number, I'm wondering if there's a pathway to look at the public members and perhaps add one and then say a majority of the public members

Public members must be Alaska residents so that there's room to be able to bring in a couple folks that were non-residents but still have a majority that would satisfy that desire to have some Alaska connection. But it's just an idea for for pondering this issue. The question I really wanted to get to is just a simple one. I from some other work recognize the constitutional problem that potentially is created by this requirement.

And for clarification, do you know, and maybe the memo will clarify this, is the constitutional problem just in the confirmation process?

Can we still proceed with the intent here of clarifying the residential requirement of some or all of the public members and some of the vacancy terms on this independent of the legislative confirmation process without violating the Constitution?

position.

Through the chair, Representative Hallam, I believe the main concern is the separation of powers issue. And I I have not seen any um unless it's in the current legal memo, an issue that that having residents be the more members, it's it's mainly who holds the power over these appointments.

So just to follow up then.

Follow up.

Follow up.

Uh I I d I think

I just wanna I guess introduce the idea that I think there's some good language and work we can do here, and even if the constitutional piece of this potentially derails this, I think there's some good that we oughta s find the pieces here that still can continue and not let the constitutional issue um keep us from working on the portions here that can proceed.

Uh that's a great line of inquiry. I was trying to just scan the memo, but I think it'll be better served to just distribute this memo so that it's in front of members for our next hearing. Um

Do we have additional questions on House Bill three fifteen? Or not three fifteen.

Yes.

Yes, three fifteen.

Um seeing none at this time uh

I want to respect that I do see Devin Mitchell online and, um, ask that he provide invited testimony. I wasn't expecting him today,

so I'm pleased to see him joining us.

Mr.

Mitchell,

if you could please put yourself on the record and if you'd like to provide some invited testimony on this bill in about five or so minutes, we're a little bit short on time this afternoon.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak.

This is, for the record,

Devin Mitchell,

the Executive Director and CEO of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation.

And there are just a few things I might touch on based on the discussion that just occurred.

First of all, there is a statutory requirement that the trustees be Alaska residents in 3905-100B,

and it is that lower bar or residency requirement that you discussed.

It has been the case that every trustee that served on the corporation's board.

has been an Alaska resident and in some of those instances their claimed residency might be a little tenuous meaning that they spend significant periods of time outside the state they're not eligible for a permanent fund dividend but they do claim to be an Alaska resident and haven't taken a step to establish residency in another state from their testimony to us and the governor's office.

Then the one thing with increasing the number of years that trustees serve if we have four public members.

With a six-year rotation cycle,

you're going to have two years where there isn't a trustee cycling off the board or being potentially reappointed to the board.

And so it would just create kind of an interesting when does that occur question that isn't defined at this point.

So something that you might just put a little thought into.

The idea of having additional trustees isn't.

something that hasn't been it has been proposed in other audiences and so that might solve that issue by having a larger number of publicly appointed trustees and then finally just that the legislative budget audit committee is who the corporation is

In statute required to report to annually, and we do report, we put together an annual report and an audit that we provide,

and that process could be made more robust and I really appreciate Representative Vance bringing this bill forward because I do.

in my role have maybe an outside appreciation for the impact that the permanent fund has to the state of Alaska and the sometimes fragile nature of our construct it relies on a lot of people doing a lot of good work and that construct has worked for us but there are holes and it certainly warrants

attention and

The five hour rule is established in the Public Records Act. It specifies that if someone requests a public record and it takes more than five hours to produce, the requester must pay a fee.

And then the kind of inverse of that is true. So if it takes less than five hours to produce, then they don't pay a fee. There are several existing exemptions to that rule.

Those exemptions include the Bureau of Vital Statistics and the library archives and the Department of Education.

The department of commerce, community and economic development, the board of regents, the railroad corporation and the judicial branch. Um and and again this bill establishes two exemptions um

It gives municipalities in the Department of Public Safety to, again, charge a fee for actual personnel costs of producing public records.

It specifies that personnel costs may not exceed the actual salary and benefit costs for the personnel time. It also requires requesters to pay the costs in a time certain.

Moving on to the next slide here,

why is this exemption necessary? The five-hour rule can be taken advantage of by content creators for, in the case specifically,

for free police body cam footage, for social media content.

This type of request is most frequent,

is the most frequent type of request for the Fairbanks Police Department,

which I do, which I didn't say when.

And for starting this presentation that this bill is by request of the City of Fairbanks.

And so this just allows for cost recovery for actual personnel costs in municipalities.

Importantly, municipalities or public agencies are not required to charge fees.

There is still, it doesn't change the exemption or the ability for fees to be waived.

And so just in conclusion really briefly,

again it modernizes the definition of public records and it provides both municipalities and there was a change in the Community and Regional Affairs Committee to add the Department of Public Safety.

So it again provides municipalities and DPS the authority to charge fees for public records that take less than five hours to produce.

And as I briefly noted on the previous slide,

this is by request of the city of Fairbanks in this.

This is a bipartisan legislative priority having been supported by our previous and our current mayor,

who are of different political parties. That, Madam Chair, is the presentation. Happy to take any questions.

Great uh representative Vance.

Thank you Madam Chair. I may be the only one in this committee who has not seen this bill. Has there been discussion about asking hey, you know, establish a flat fee so that it's transparent to the public and um the public can know that they're not gonna try to kind of pad the the cost just to delay because there's

There's the public wants to know that they have access to these, they have a right to them, and I completely understand that there is a cost, especially there are so many documents that you know

but we want to make sure that this is still very much accessible without providing an incredible administrative burden.

Mm-hmm.

So was there discussion about just saying, hey, we want you to establish a flat fee that's transparent to the public about what this would take?

on making sure that people stop access.

Yeah, so um Representative Vance, we did we did kinda talk around that subject in community and regional affairs quite a bit. Uh one thing that's noteworthy about this bill is if you're above a five hours right now, it there's already discretion for municipalities to charge for the cost of production. And so what this bill does is it says

There's already a list of exempted entities for under five hours and it adds municipalities the may, not shall,

but they may charge up to the cost of production.

They already decide what the cost of production looks like based on the same parameters that are provided in this legislation for above five hours and so we're just extending that.

So I think one of the challenges with doing a flat fee which we did kind of talk about in CRA is you would you'd have a flat fee potentially.

this one circumstance where the exemption would be applied and then it wouldn't be a flat fee above that, it would be that case by case cost of production. And that would be a little strange to do that individually. But I do think that that's a really noteworthy concern. A quite a few people had a similar line of inquiry in the previous committee.

Follow-up?

Yeah, follow-up.

Was there any discussion about um does you know the the press

in and

With freedom of the press, it's kind of a a double edged sword, you don't want the press to have

more access than the individual Alaskan.

But obviously the press is gonna wanna make sure that they can readily access information without being stonewalled. And Alaskans feel like if they are requesting a document, clearly they wanna make sure that that this isn't just another excuse to to delay.

Mm-hmm.

Uh so was that discussed in in what was the

The committee's

Yes.

adjourned.

And I appreciate the feedback that because I'm asking y'all to just like summarise all the work that you did and give me the espresso version. So any any of that that you can kind of help me get up to speed on where a all the rest of you are is helpful.

I'll uh I'll turn it over to Mister Relay, but I am also happy to phone the lifeline of the members of the previous committee too.

Uh

So we'll go to Mister Relay and then Representative Sinclair.

Uh uh uh thank you Madam Chair, for the records to our Relay staff representative Karic. Um uh I i um i i and and Representative Sinclair might have more to say on this uh than myself, but

Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Stewart Relay, staff for Representative Carrick.

I—

One thing that was – one kind of issue that was identified in community and regional affairs is defining media.

Because I mean if we're being honest, newsrooms have changed. There's now a lot more blog-based media. There's – in addition to the kind of traditional media outlets like newspapers and TV stations. So that – that's kind of where that conversation got.

got to. Um a um um I would turn over to Representative St.

Claire um and also I would note that Austin McDaniel might had m m m m m m m might be able to comment on that as well.

Let's go to Representative Sinclair, and then um I'd like to ask a follow up to that question to Mr. McDaniel.

Thank you Madam Chair. Through the chair, um just a couple of things that were uh kind of high level. It takes four hours to redact one hour of video. Yeah, it takes that long. Um there are variant you've got the five hour rule which they're basically doing it for free until anything above that. The uh state troopers right now charge a thirty six dollar and forty nine dollar fee just to put an application in.

So we had talked about different standardization. Um I l I I like in it that they have the ability to wave it, the municipality or that local government because it may be for a legitimate reason it's not for uh profit or anything else. Um this is just some of the notes that I destroyed this piece of paper with. Um

And that was pretty much the gist of it. It's the length of time that it takes, how expensive it is. Um but then I brought up questions like, okay, do you have different level techs, are you gonna have to do different level pay, what are you gonna put as a ceiling or possibly the floor uh of the fees you're going to charge? Th there is still a bunch that w we still need to answer, but overall it this is heading in the right direction.

I'm gonna go to Representative Himshoot, but I I also maybe just quickly I'd like to ask uh Mr. McDaniel from your perspective in uh the work that you do how how is it that that maybe the Anchorage Department of Public Safety is prioritising

Requests. Is there any I've had this question burning for a little bit, and I think asking different entities is valuable.

So if you get, say, five requests for the same thing, same basic content, the first request obviously fulfills the other four requests. But how do you know which requests to prioritize if you're getting simultaneously.

beyond your staff capacity to do all of it at once,

say a request from a traditional media outlet versus a family member of a victim versus, you know, a member of the public who wants the content for, you know, who knows what purpose. Like, how do you make some of those determinations?

Thank you for the question.

For the record,

Austin McDaniel,

Communications Director for the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

I supervise the eight staff members who fulfill the Alaska Public Records Act request that the Department of Public Safety receives each year.

So we have an informal matrix,

if you want to call it, prioritization matrix that we're going to use when

You know, trying to get the number of requests we need to get done within our 10 to 20 day timeline that's established in regulation completed.

We're going to always prioritize an Alaska resident victim of a crime above everyone else.

We have to make the call between, you know, a YouTuber that's in Ohio and an Alaska resident,

we're going to prioritize the Alaska resident first.

We're not seeing our request times exceeding the 10 to 20 day timeline.

So we're getting everything done in the amount of time we need to.

So for the most part, we're just using,

you know, first in,

first out.

So if we get, you know, 10 requests in on a day, we're usually able to get them completed within 10 business days.

But,

you know, our staff's also looking for, you know, an Alaskan that might be saying,

hey, I need this from my insurance company right now because my house was robbed and I need to get by.

I need to confirm to them that I was in fact filed a police report.

We're going to put that to the front of the list because that helps, you know, the people that we serve directly.

For the most part though that's going to come into question and it's usually just an order of receipt and that would be how we're doing our prioritization.

Okay, great.

Thank you for that.

I think that's very helpful.

Representative Himshoot and then Vance.

Okay, uh thank you through the chair. I just wanted to mention and I don't have my notes with me. So it's a little bit fuzzy 'cause it's been at least a week. Um so we my office worked a little bit with um Nils Andreasen with AML because there is a federal tiered way of looking at this and what and the f the federal code

Okay, thank you. Through the chair, I just wanted to mention, and I don't have my notes with me, so it's a little bit fuzzy because it's been at least a week.

So we—

um defines the purpose, not the user. And so we may be looking at, you know, for commercial purposes that falls to the bottom. Research purposes purposes might be even further below that and

I think um

media purposes are towards the top and then court purposes. So it there's a way of looking at it from federal code that I think we could make some changes there too to help with

and I want to make sure if a community has license to make their determinations how to prioritise and what falls within what's gonna have the five hour rule applied or what isn't that they aren't gonna run into a legal

battle over a decision that they've made. I wanna make sure that whatever we do

both meets the solves the problem that's before us, but also doesn't create more problems where uh and they're already making some of these determinations. So um anyway, that was just a little background on and and we I'm happy to share with you the federal

um

I think it was somewhere in the C_F_R_

Authorization list

Yeah,

or something.

yeah, the definitions that they used. And there was a an A_M_L_ resolution.

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, you have it there?

[Speaker:KATIE] Yeah.

Oh, you have it there?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so maybe we go back to s to represent Saint Claire and

Um

I'd like to maybe

I think that was in our old packet.

Oh, was it? Okay.

Okay.

Yeah. Fee guidelines for the Freedom of Information Act that establishes a distinct commercial use requester fee category for these requests which establishes fees for public record requests by those who seek records for quote unquote a use or purpose that furthers the commercial trade or profit interests of the requester. So And then there are these O_M_B_ fee guidelines. So we've got those.

So thank you for that.

And I w I'd be very open to including some kind of a prioritisation list. We just to add give the committee some context here. We had an officer involved shooting in Fairbanks this year and we have a victim's family who's probably gonna contact the members of this committee if if they have not already. Um Fairbanks is, uh it's great to hear from Anchorage Department of Public Safety and that they're able to keep up with the requests, but

But Fairbanks City of Police Department is not keeping up with the requests in a timely fashion right now.

And that's one of the reasons they requested this legislation is to just have a little bit more latitude to potentially ward off some of the challenges they're currently seeing.

And in the meanwhile,

they're doing a first come first serve type of prioritization.

You have victims families who are looking for

you know necessary footage and they're not necessarily getting it in a timely fashion so it's nothing to say anything bad about the Fairbanks Police Department it's just a reality where it would potentially help to have some statutory clarification around priorities for these entities.

I had Rep Vance in the queue.

Yes, my question is

Um how

what is current law around um Department of Law, you know, or Department of Public Safety needing records from municipalities, are they exempt or do they pay a fee for needing records in order to institute justice?

Uh, do you have an answer for that?

Uh, uh, um I don't. I would turn that over to Austin uh McDaniel, and I would also note that with the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

I got that wrong, didn't I?

Potentially, yes ma'am.

Is with the Alaska Department of Public Safety located in Anchorage.

I'm sorry for that miscommunication, Mr.

McDaniel, if you could potentially answer Representative Vance's question.

Thank you for the question. Again,

for the record,

Austin McDaniel with the Department of Public Safety.

So I think it's best to look at there's, you know, several different ways that agencies are going to share records and information in a lawful manner,

right?

You have the Alaska Public Records Act,

which is really looking for public records.

Between law enforcement agencies,

you will see the sharing of criminal justice information on a consistent ongoing basis between law enforcement agencies or records that are needed for discovery in a criminal prosecution coming from a local police department,

the Alaska State Troopers at all over to either the District Attorney's Office.

or maybe the Office of Special Prosecutions. There are processes for that that are kind of separate from the Alaska Public Records Act,

at least on a law enforcement side of things.

I think when it gets outside of a potentially non-law enforcement agency asking a law enforcement agency for records,

I can speak on, you know, from DPS's perspective, which I don't think is universally accepted by every law enforcement agency, just from some knowledge I have. But, for example, the Alaska Department of Health has a violent death review system. They request...

essentially every violent death police report that the Alaska State Troopers investigate.

We provide that to them at no charge.

It's sought through the Alaska Public Records Act because they're not a law enforcement agency,

and that's kind of the process that exists in statute for us to send over criminal justice information,

but we do that at no cost.

Same thing with the Office of Children's Services. Maybe they're reviewing a report of harm. They're going to ask us for some of our records.

And we're going to release those to them, you know, especially in hopes of protecting,

you know, the children involved.

Those will be a couple of examples of how record sharing might exist outside of the Alaska Public Records Act and how the Department of Public Safety, you know, assesses fees.

Madam Chairman, the reason I thank you for that uh clarification, I think that's helpful for the record. The reason that I asked this is in Section Two, it's adding new sections that a municipality may require a requester to pay and um I'm not seeing specific exemptions. I wanna make sure that we don't inadvertently require um or allow municipalities to charge when it's

It's a matter of getting records to to help state departments fulfill their duties. Uh and and maybe, you know, off the record we can just seek legal clarification for that, but just trying to make sure that we're not missing something by adding a new area of statute.

I think that's a good area of inquiry.

Representative Vance, and we do have to wrap up for today,

but I think that's a good question to ask. I think there also are probably a little bit looser provisions for what you have to do to redact to release something to the public versus to another law enforcement agency,

and so it might be that that's already covered,

and I just would also

you know, provide the clarification that really what I see this bill is doing ultimately other than just updating the public records statute which was woefully out of date um is you're just providing a little bit more latitude to municipalities so I would also be open to carving back out the uh from the exemption

DPS, just to make sure that there's not that that wouldn't happen, but we're giving municipalities a may versus a shall.

So we're giving them a little bit more latitude,

but if we wanted to also carve back out DPS specifically, I think I'd be open to that just to make sure that that doesn't happen.

Okay,

that is all we had today.

We ended up going our full two hours, and I just really thank our committee members and our staff for

Being here on a beautiful Saturday, um we only have a couple of these Saturday meetings left potentially through the session, so just really appreciate members indulgence to try to get through as much as we can this session.

With nothing else on our agenda, our next meeting is on Tuesday April fourteenth at three fifteen. Our agenda is to have a presentation from the National Conference of State Legislatures or NCSL on how states are regulating artificial intelligence. And it's just going to be a broad overview presentation and they're also going to touch on data centers as well. So it's a little bit of both of those topic.

topics.

We also will have as time allows a first hearing on Senate Bill 237,

whose companion bill we've already heard relating to a digital social security card.

We may also bring up House Bill 303 in particular from Representative St.

Clair under bills previously heard as time allows.

We will keep members up to date on information as we hear more.

And then also just to let folks know,

next Thursday we have a joint hearing with Senate State Affairs fulfilling our statutory technical statutory requirement as a legislature.

to hear an overview of ballot measures.

And so we'll have the,

as it exists, there's only for rank choice voting a con established organization, but we will hear the authors of each ballot initiative,

presenting the ballot initiative,

and then the con as it exists,

which is only for the one.

So that's our joint hearing will be on Thursday.

Um and with nothing else before us we are adjourned at 5:21 p.m.