The Committee on Judiciary was called to order at 8:05 a.m., on Wednesday, March 3, 1999. Chairman Bernie Anderson presided in Room 3138 of the Legislative Building, Carson City, Nevada. Exhibit A is the Agenda. Exhibit B is the Guest List. All Exhibits are available and on file at the Research Library of the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:

Mr. Bernie Anderson, Chairman

Mr. Mark Manendo, Vice Chairman

Ms. Sharron Angle

Mr. Greg Brower

Ms. Barbara Buckley

Mr. John Carpenter

Mr. Jerry Claborn

Mr. Tom Collins

Mr. Don Gustavson

Mrs. Ellen Koivisto

Ms. Sheila Leslie

Ms. Kathy McClain

Mr. Dennis Nolan

Ms. Genie Ohrenschall

GUEST LEGISLATORS PRESENT:

Senator Mark James, Senate District 8

Assemblyman David Parks, Assembly District 41

STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:

OTHERS PRESENT:

Steve Shaw, Administrator, Division of Child and Family Services

Following roll call Chairman Anderson said he would present the bills as followed: A. B. 315, A. B. 262, A. B. 231, and S. B. 18. He announced the meeting was being teleconferenced to Room 4401 of the Grant Sawyer State Office Building in Las Vegas.

May Shelton, Director, Washoe County Social Services, introduced Judge Charles M. McGee, Chief Judge, Second Judicial District Court. Judge McGee said the bill shortened the time a child would have to remain in a foster home.

Nevada had been taking up to 5 years to place a child who had been removed from the home into an adoptive home. He felt the time period was too long for the child. Reasonable efforts were needed to try to allow the natural parents time to get clean, sober, and find employment. He said unless they had reasonable efforts with the same intensity at the front-end as they had with permanency planning on the back-end, then the whole system did not make sense. It was unfair to parents at the front-end as well as unfair to those children who were languishing in foster care or waiting for their parents to recover.

There were family drug courts both in northern and southern Nevada. The courts reviewed cases at least every 6 months. The drug courts saw the parents every 2 weeks to find out what was going on in their lives, if they were conforming to the case plan, getting along with their caseworker, and whether the caseworker was doing his/her job. He felt the court judges needed to give the natural parents the full chance because once a child had bonded with a natural parent it was very hard for the child to forget their parent and bond with someone else.

Judge Gerald W. Hardcastle, Family Court Judge, Eighth Judicial District, Clark County testified from Las Vegas. He said he appreciated the comments Judge McGee made regarding front-end services. The front-end services were those efforts made to keep children within their homes and make sure state intervention remained at a minimum. He felt their first goal should be to make sure everything possible was done to ensure children remained with their parents.

He further stated he felt foster care for children was a bad system because it was a transitional system. Children should be entitled to permanency. Permanency to a child was not a legal abstract but a real feeling of belonging and being with people who would guide them. It was not being moved from place to place and losing their friends, siblings, and family. The foster care system was not a place children should be allowed to languish any longer than necessary. To some degree he felt the family courts had to work with parents to make them act like parents and to reestablish the relationship. He said family courts had increased efforts to get foster children adopted. Foster care had several special needs children who were waiting to be adopted.

Assemblyman Collins said he took exception with the remarks Judge Hardcastle had made that predetermined 15 year-olds were not eligible for adoption. He felt they should not limit adoption to any age group.

Judge Hardcastle responded the reality was that older children were harder to place. After 3 to 4 years of trying to get the child adopted if the child said he was happy in the foster home the court would abide by the child’s wishes.

Chairman Anderson said it was his intent to turn the bill over to a subcommittee. A.B. 158 was a similar piece of legislation and the subcommittee would work to combine both bills and develop a finished product.

Assemblywoman Koivisto asked how much of an effort was made to place children with grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

Judge Hardcastle remarked family courts loved relatives and looked for them. Child Protective Services (CPS) tried during the initial investigation to locate and place children with relatives. The courts explored relative placement. At the division level the family courts had a kinship placement program. He said more and more grandparents were raising their grandchildren.

Judge McGee noted there was a byproduct from the legislation that might not have been obvious to the committee relating to kinship placement and grandparents. He said it used to be an all or nothing situation. Parental rights were either terminated or not, as long as the guardianship continued, the Supreme Court kept telling them they could set aside the guardianship 7, 8, 9, 10 years later when that child had essentially been raised by the grandparent.

New federal legislation allowed the courts to create permanent guardianship for the grandparents without terminating parental rights of the mother or father. Sometimes it resulted in a unique situation where the mother or father would get their act together and move back in the home and the whole family pulled together around the child. The new system was not as brutal as the preceding system.

At that time Chairman Anderson announced he needed to testify before the Senate on another matter and turned the Chairman’s gavel over to Assemblywoman Buckley as Vice Chairman Manendo had state business and would arrive late.

Assemblyman Carpenter expressed hope Judges Hardcastle and McGee would be available for the subcommittee to lend their expertise.

Assemblywoman Ohrenschall was concerned with language on page 3, lines 26 to 28, of the bill regarding concurrent planning.

In response to a concern raised by Ms. Ohrenschall, Judge Hardcastle said the concept of concurrent planning was relatively new. Family courts used to pursue one permanency goal, the unification of the family. He gave an example of a mother who had abandoned a child. They were obligated to make a reasonable effort to reunite. Family courts recognized the obligation, but questioned why they could not proceed with the efforts to start the termination process if their experience and history has taught them that the mother would not return. The idea of the concurrent plan reduced the time children were in foster care. He said it was a relatively new concept and it worked out best for the children because it shortened the time they were in foster care.

Judge McGee agreed and said there should be some specialists available to look at kinship placements. "Looking at the aunts, grandmothers, sisters and saying to them if your sibling, son, daughter failed to follow the case plan then you must know that we have to have a backup plan for the benefit of your child."

Assemblywoman Leslie questioned "reasonable effort" and stated since the system was bifurcated; who would develop standards.

Judge McGee reiterated he felt standards could be developed by people like those members of the Committee on Judiciary. Uniform standards should be in place across the state and applied to every single social worker no matter where their allegiance.

Judge Michael P. Gibbons, Eighth District Court, Clark County said the bill came out of the efforts of the court improvement project which was a committee sponsored by the Administrative Office of the Court. The committee was made up of a diverse group: lawyers, prosecutors, social workers. It was established because of the new federal guideline requirement. The bill allowed an opportunity to deal with some of the problems and to fine-tune current laws.

A.B. 315 would reduce the amount of time the children had to go through the court system and reduced the amount of time they would stay in foster care. The legislation would speed up the whole process by placing everyone on notice. If parents were serious and wanted to have their children back, they needed to make changes to ensure the children could be allowed back in the home by putting the safety of the children first. He felt the bottom line was the best interests of the children and the amount of time involved.

The bill also gave more options to the court allowing the child to be placed in the appropriate home.

Mr. Carpenter asked what Judge Gibbons thought of the federal guidelines and if they allowed for "wiggle room," so they could do what they felt best for Nevada.

Judge Gibbons said federal guidelines were federal guidelines, which came from Congress and were what representatives in Washington, D.C., thought would be the best, and which the state needed to follow to a certain degree. He said there was some "wiggle room" but there were general parameters that needed to be followed. "If the goal was to get a child established in a permanent home whether with a parent, relative, or adopted, it would be achieved by the passing of this legislation."

Steve Shaw, Administrator, Division of Child and Family Services, stated for over 17 years he chased federal dollars and learned Nevada was not interested in doing that unless it was good for the state. It was good public policy plus there were areas where Child and Family Services added Nevada’s imprint to make the public policy choice.

He felt the combination of Speaker Dini’s bill A.B. 158, Senator Porter’s bill S.B. 232, and A.B. 315 should take care of the issue that weighed heavily on a lot of people’s minds. There was $17.5 million federal dollars tied to the issue. At the federal level they were concerned with the death of children. He said the children should be the first consideration.

Concurrent planning under the current law required child welfare and child protective agencies make a reasonable effort at unifying the child and parent for 18 months and at that point they were able to start permanency planning if reunification did not seem possible. Parents would show signs of reparation 60 days prior to their court date and before their 18 months was up, however, once the court date passed and a judge gave them another chance they relapsed and another 18 months passed.

Mr. Shaw noted at some point the agencies and courts arrived at permanency planning. Under the proposed legislation it would be mandatory to notify the foster and adoptive parents of right to notice and right to be heard. He felt it was an important issue. He said Deanne Blazzard, President of Foster Care Association of Nevada, was present and he would like for her to speak to that issue. He said the courts place a vulnerable child with a foster parent and say love, protect, and nurture but do not get attached because they would be reunited with a parent or placed with a relative. He questioned how they could do that. There were a lot of dedicated people in the foster program who took care of kids that no one else wanted. The bill would shorten the time frame for starting permanency planning from 18 months to 12 months.

Ms. Ohrenschall asked the following questions:

• What were Federal dollars and how did they come into the picture.

• What citations of federal laws could you provide.

• In connection with the federal dollars explain the "maximus corporation" reports that had been done for the state.

• How did you prevent any subliminal bias on the part of case workers between a rich parent and a fed up middle class parent.

Mr. Shaw said the federal dollars were from Title IV-E Foster Care and IV-B Child Support of the Social Security Act. The $17.5 million a year received from Title IV-E, was the major funding source of the foster care system. The eligibility for those funds was determined once the child, placement group home, or foster parents met the required guidelines and proof that reasonable effort and findings in court had been made.

Ms. Ohrenschall questioned how much did per child placement cost. Mr. Shaw said the amount varied depending upon where the child was placed. If a child was placed in a group home the state would pay $100 to $200 per day. The federal participation would be 50 percent. He said it was a percentage, not an absolute number.

Mr. Shaw said the term "maximus corporation" was a contract issued to several providers. The provider went into states to help maximize the eligible funding received from federal dollars. They looked at Medicaid, Title IV-E, Title IV-A, and Nevada’s cost allocation plan to make sure the state received its legal share of the dollars.

Ms. Leslie asked the same question previously asked of Judge McGee about "reasonable efforts" and since the system was bifurcated, who would develop standards across the child welfare system to better define reasonable efforts for caseworkers. Was it possible to develop standards and define "reasonable efforts" and how long would it take.

Steven Shaw pointed out it was not only possible, but an excellent idea. Regulations needed to be incorporated in A.B. 315 if passed. He proposed it be done in a regulatory process to define the guidelines. The regulatory process was a 6-month process and could take place after the close of the current session.

At that time Deanne Blazzard, President of Foster Care Association of Nevada, testified in support of A.B. 315 and urged its passage. She felt the bill was necessary to improve the lives of Nevada children. Concurrent planning was necessary for children. Past experience showed when a biological parent was threatened with losing their children, they often responded by straightening up their act and their children were returned to them. If the parents did not get their lives in order to properly care for their children, those children needed to be moved into permanency planning.

The Foster Care Association of Nevada supported the language to inform foster parents of the court hearings. Foster parents lived with the children and some worked with the biological parents, often providing helpful information. She agonized that foster care may not be the ideal, but it was necessary and there were a lot of people in Nevada willing to do it.

Attachment to the children came easily and it was hard to say goodbye. What often helped to get through the grieving process once the child left their homes knowing the child was well and happy and doing fine. The hard situations were when children were unified with a parent and should not have been, or they were dragged through the system unnecessarily. She said "those children need a childhood."

Mr. Carpenter asked Mrs. Blazzard to comment on a letter she had sent him regarding the "foster parent’s bill of rights" which passed in the 1995 Legislative Session and had not been implemented.

Mrs. Blazzard said she was a member of a committee assigned to put the bill into policy, but the committee stopped meeting and nothing had happened. Certain portions of the law had not been put into policy because, as a foster parent, she had been denied rights established in the bill.

Mr. Carpenter commented he would do some investigation to see what had happened. Chairwoman Buckley said she and Ms. Koivisto would work with him on the subcommittee to explore that issue.

At that time Susan and Dan Porter, foster caregivers, from Yerington testified.

She spoke to the committee on behalf of all foster children who remained in the foster care system. A. B. 315 came about because of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 and the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1996. All states were required to rewrite their laws, which was what Nevada had attempted to do with the proposed legislation. She felt the bill was too ambiguous to be effective. Refer to her written testimony for her remaining remarks (Exhibit C). She also provided written testimony from Peggy Pauly, foster parent of Yerington, who was unable to attend the hearing (Exhibit D).

Dan Porter said he agreed with his wife’s testimony and felt everyone from Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) had a genuine concern in their hearts for the children and the families they were trying to reunite. He expressed deep concern the occasional caseworker attached a personal agenda forward through their job and office and this should not be allowed to happen. The needs of the child and family often got lost in the personal agenda. He would like to see that possibility eliminated.

Chairwoman Buckley said she knew the subcommittee was committed to reviewing A. B. 158 and A. B. 315 to make sure they had the best bill possible for the children of Nevada. She asked Mr. Shaw to provide information on additional questions to the subcommittee.

May Shelton, Director, Washoe County Social Services, said in the bifurcated system her agency was responsible for investigating child abuse and neglect allegations. They conducted assessments of the home situation. Washoe County Social Services supported A.B. 315 and had participated in its development. Washoe County Board of Commissions also supported the concept of the bill.

Ms. Shelton said the social services had started family conferencing with a mediator and all known family members. In the proposed legislation they would be required to notify anyone with an interest in the case hearings. Those notified would include foster parents, adoptive parents, and teachers. A case plan would be developed for the best interest of the child and family.

Adrian Cox, Assistant Director of Family & Youth Services for Clark County, felt the bill would do great things for Nevada’s children. She introduced Carol Stillian, District Manager of Clark County Child Protective Services. They collectively administered the largest child protection services in the state and were delighted to be a part of the bill and appreciated the efforts of Steven Shaw and May Shelton to make sure they were included in drafting the bill. Providing permanency planning for children from the first day they were removed from their home made good sense. Unfortunately she felt the bifurcated system to which Ms. Shelton had eluded precluded them from being effective in provision of the services.

Washoe and Clark Counties were responsible for immediate investigation of child abuse and neglect and to develop a case plan. The bill would appropriately require intensive services to comply with reasonable efforts starting at the first day a child was removed from their home.

The bifurcation unfortunately divided funding that would support the reasonable efforts and provisions of intensive services. She said Clark County heartily supported the bill but was not equipped to accept the financial responsibilities for the provision of those intensive services. Ms. Shelton said she was looking forward to drafting an agreement with the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services to obtain assistance with funding.

Chairwoman Buckley said the subcommittee would look at those concerns and issues.

Janine Hansen, State President, Nevada Families Eagle Forum, testified they had been advocates for improving the adoption procedures in the State of Nevada. She felt many improvements needed to be instituted. She supported the following portions of the bill: page 4, lines 23, 24, and page 4, lines 9 and 4, and liked the idea of considering permanent guardianship without terminating parental rights.

Her concerns were page 1, section 1, line 2: "The primary consideration in any proceeding to terminate parent rights must be whether the best interests of the child will be served by the termination." She felt page 3, section 6, subsection 1, needed clarification "protective services shall make reasonable efforts to preserve and reunify the family of a child." She then referred to page 3, section 6, subsection 2, which stated "the health and safety of the child must be the paramount concern."

National marketing for hard-to-place children and established waiting lists for Down’s syndrome children were the latest promotional campaigns. A report from Los Angeles showed adoptions had increased 31 percent with black adoptions increasing 91 percent since the 1998 Madison Avenue inspired campaign. Los Angeles had also contacted black churches and provided a program of one church, one child. They wanted one church to find a family and place one child. She felt Nevada should replicate those types of programs.

Chairwoman Buckley said a note had been made of all of her concerns and they would be explored in the subcommittee.

Paula Berkley, representing, Truckee Meadows Human Services Association, testified the association included 45 nonprofit agencies which served Washoe County and rural areas. They were in favor of the bill as noted in Exhibit E.

Mary Herzik, Director, Washoe County Court Appointed Special Advocates Program (CASA), was a member of the court improvement committee that helped draft A.B. 315. They were in support of the legislation and believed it represented a sense of urgency that all people who represented the interests of children had in making sure they were placed in safe permanent homes.

The mission of CASA was to ensure all children had the right to grow up in safe permanent homes and to thrive. By putting timeframes into place and incorporating the notion that parents would be put on notice at the very beginning of their child’s involvement with the court system was an excellent part of the proposed legislation.

At that time Chairwoman Buckley closed the hearing on A.B. 315.

Assemblyman David Parks, Assembly District 41, said A.B. 262 was requested to amend an existing statute requiring an officer who took a juvenile into custody to immediately notify the juveniles parent or guardian. It would amend Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 62.170 and clarify the responsibilities of the juvenile facilities once a child was taken into custody and delivered to that facility. The problem with the existing bill was it required officers to immediately notify the parent or guardian when sometimes the officer was in the field and did not have the ability to notify the parent or guardian. He introduced Lt. Stan Olson, Government Liaison, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.

Lt. Olson said they were in support of the bill and had worked with Assemblyman Parks in its development. There were numerous situations where the officer was not capable of making the immediate notification. Officers were conscientious about releasing the names of juveniles and were leery of using names over the radio because anyone could monitor the radio transmission with a cheap scanner. Many juveniles lied about their parents phone number or the number had been changed and the child was not aware of the new number. Regarding notification of the probation officers, they either did not know their name or did not want to tell the officer because they did not want the probation officer notified.

Capt. Jim Nadeau, Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, also representing Nevada Sheriffs and Chiefs Association, indicated support for the bill. The children lied so the parents would not find out they were in trouble. They had problems making the contact immediately, especially in the rural areas.

Assemblyman Nolan asked how they currently complied with the law that said they were required to notify immediately.

Lt. Olson said they made notification from the juvenile facility. officers did not have access to cellular phones. Until recently they thought the juvenile authorities were supposed to make the contact. Only supervisors, lieutenants, and sergeants were issued cellular phones when available.

Assemblyman Gustavson questioned if the language were changed from "immediate" to "without undue delay," some may be concerned that the officers would be given more latitude and extend the time period. He asked if there had been any lawsuits from notification being delayed.

Capt. Nadeau was not aware of any lawsuits but felt the language "immediately" created an atmosphere of urgency, and the new language "when practicable and without undue delay" still made it a compulsion for them to go ahead and make notifications.

Mr. Carpenter questioned when they did not have a cellular phone, would the dispatcher notify the parent. Capt. Nadeau replied if they could do it through the dispatch they did, but sometimes they ran into the problem of releasing the name of the juvenile over the airways. There were times when dispatchers were busy with the rural and urban areas and were unable to make the calls. He felt the best time to make the call was once they had reached the juvenile facility. He further stated there were areas where cellular phones did not work and gave examples of Mt. Rose Highway and northern Washoe County.

Janine Hansen, Nevada Families Eagle Forum replied "immediate" gave a sense of urgency to the process and felt the parents should be involved as soon as possible.

Lucille Lusk, Legislative Liaison, Nevada Concerned Citizens felt the term "practicable" was loose language and could mean a variety of things. She questioned the difference between "when practicable and without undue delay." She expressed concerns with page 3, lines 12 and 13 and suggested deletion of "when practicable" so it would read "the officer shall without undue delay."

Assemblyman Brower reiterated he understood why the need and interest of immediate notification was on everyone’s mind. Under the current statute if for some reason the officers were not able to make an immediate notification they were violating state law. He felt the proposed legislation was drafted to avoid creating a situation or exception where the immediate notification was not practicable and at the same time prevent the officer from violating state statutes, and he would support the bill.

Ms. Ohrenschall said her concerns were the same as those Mr. Brower had stated and thought a letter explaining legislative intent should accompany the bill. With the letter she could vote for the bill, without it she would have problems.

For the record, the Committee on Judiciary asked the following be transcribed verbatim:

Mr. Brower:

Lt. Olson:

Capt. Nadeau:

Mr. Brower:

Lt. Olson said:

That was exactly what they would do.

The hearing was closed on A.B. 262.

Mr. Carpenter returned and said he would vote no. Chairman Anderson wanted to be recorded in support of A. B. 262.

Chairman Buckley opened the hearing on A.B. 231.

Myla Florence, Administrator, Nevada State Welfare Division of the Department of Human Resources, introduced Leland Sullivan, Chief of Child Support Enforcement Program, and Donald W. Winne, Jr., Deputy Attorney General Human Resources Division. She said the agency had requested A.B. 231 to address three issues that were not satisfactorily address in A. B. 401 of the 69^th Legislative Session. She continued to read from the rest of her written testimony (Exhibit F).

Chairwoman Buckley sought clarification regarding a woman seeking child support who had previously received public assistance. Would current support go to the mother and the children and what happened to arrearages owed to welfare and the mother.

Mr. Sullivan replied, for former public assistance recipients current support went to the family for the support of the children. Effective through Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in October 1997 any arrearages that were accrued when removed from public assistance must be paid to the family prior to any payments to the state. Beginning in October 2000 any arrearages owed to the family prior to going on public assistance would also be paid to the family before being assigned to the state.

Chairwoman Buckley questioned whether section 1 meant the court waived any arrearages owed to welfare in order to assure that the family received arrearages first.

Ms. Florence said no, if the court chose to waive payment of any arrearages, notification must be provided to the Welfare Division.

Assemblyman Gustavson queried page 2, section 3, where "alleged parent, guardian" had been added. He wondered how much of a Pandora’s box it might open or what problems would be created as far as confidentiality of reports. If a person claimed he was the alleged parent in order to obtain information about the other spouse or child, they might not really be related was protection offered for the child and the other parent.

Ms. Florence replied the language was added to conform to federal law in terms of who may request child support services. The issue would go before the court for the obvious protection of various parties. Normally an individual would not allege to be a parent unless he was trying to do the right thing, such as providing support for the child and establishing parentage.

Assemblyman Carpenter questioned if the district attorney would actually bring suit for enforcement or modification of child support obligations.

Myla Florence replied the district attorneys through a cooperative agreement with the Welfare Division provided child support enforcement in all but two counties. In response to Mr. Carpenter’s question, she said in terms of providing child support services on behalf of the custodial parent, or to either obtain or enforce an order for child support, they would be the representatives.

Mr. Carpenter had spoken with an attorney in Elko who felt by the district attorneys providing those services, business would be taken away from local attorneys. He asked if it was "means tested" to make sure those who had funds to hire an attorney would do so.

Ms. Florence said it was not means tested, however, there were criteria established in terms of the type of actions that could be brought to the Title IV-D Child Support Program. The program was established as part of the Social Security Act, Title IV-A Welfare, IV-D Child Support, IV-E Foster Care. People who had means would generally go to a private attorney because they often heard complaints the child support programs were overburdened in terms of not having adequate staff for the number of cases they handled. She was "reluctant to make any comment on a comment made by an attorney."

Chairwoman Buckley felt that was true in Clark County. If a person had funds to hire an attorney they would because of the backlog in the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. She felt the Federal Government was thinking child support was a duty and an obligation to be paid and people should not have to spend a lot of money to hire an attorney to get the support their child needed. The system was created so they would not have to spend their limited funds on attorneys, when they needed that support for their children.

Mr. Carpenter agreed, when a person had the means they should and probably would go to a private attorney. He queried whether each district attorney received funds for support of those actions.

Myla Florence said the district attorneys received federal participation in the amount of 66 percent of their administrative cost. The balance was generated by incentives earned from collection efforts and many counties also provided their own funding to support those programs.

Mr. Carpenter thought there were pro bono programs available so they would not have to burden the already burdened district attorney.

Ms. Florence stated the bill really did not change how business was being conducted at the present time, it just made additional clarifications with regard to legislation previously passed. Most of the work was done not by attorneys but by staff; caseworkers who investigated leads for the location of the noncustodial parent.

The child support program was involved in locating noncustodial parents, obtaining an order, and finally enforcing the order through collection activities. Those programs were needed sometimes even for people with means because interstate cases were very difficult to enforce.

The federal law put in a number of enforcement mechanisms to help locate noncustodial parents; several of which were not received warmly. New-hire registries, current locator services, and where social security numbers were used to locate noncustodial parents who intentionally avoided their duty to support their children.

She felt Chairwoman Buckley, in her previous statement, clearly pointed out the federal intent. The number of individuals who avoided their parental responsibility to support their child was outrageous.

Mr. Anderson said he had a telephone call that morning from a lady in Carson City who was concerned about nonpayment. Her husband had been incarcerated and released. He was arrested on another charge and Mr. Anderson asked if they routinely checked the holding cells of the county jails to see if any of those nonpayers were currently institutionalized for some other behavior.

Myla Florence said she did not believe they routinely checked. The custodial parent would advise the child support office if known to them. There was an effort to do automated matching within the prison system at least on the public assistance side.

Mr. Anderson questioned if the legislation would provide additional resources to implement a service to locate nonpayers in jails. Ms. Florence did not see that happening as part of the bill. She thought that was well addressed in A. B. 401 during the 69^th Legislative Session.

Acting Chairwomen Buckley closed the hearing on A.B. 231.

Chairman Anderson took back the gavel and assigned the bill to Assemblyman Parks.

Chairman Anderson opened the hearing on S.B. 18. Senator Mark James, Senate District 8, said the bill had been requested by the Senate Judiciary Committee. For the first time in Nevada statutes, the act of stockpiling, producing, developing, transferring, acquiring, retaining, possessing, and certainly using a biological agent as a weapon would be a crime. The prosecutors and police agencies felt it was a gap in the law that urgently needed to be filled. He referenced NRS 445A.575 which made it unlawful to discharge radiological, chemical, or biological warfare agents into the waters of the state. It was an unlawful act and a crime in the law relating to pollution, but there was nothing under the criminal statutes.

Senator James stated the proposed language contained definitions from federal law, including what was a biological weapon. The bill would make it a category A felony carrying a penalty of life imprisonment or a definite term of 25 years in prison with the possibility of parole after 10 years.

In addition, the bill would provide that any person who knowingly made a threat or conveyed false information concerning the presence or use of a biological agent or toxin with the intention of injuring people by causing panic, civil unrest, extorting, profiting thereby or interfering with the operations or causing economic damage to a person or government entity would be guilty of a category B felony. The penalty for such activity was a minimum term of 1 year and a maximum term of 6 years in prison. He referred to written testimony by Donald S. Kwalick, MD. MPH, Chief Health Officer, Clark County Health District (Exhibit G).

Senator James said the threat of a bioterrorist attack was something that had become more and more real in the post cold war world. He referred to a study made by Johns Hopkins University regarding the actual threat of bioterrorism in the United States to illustrate the point (Exhibit H). Reference Exhibit I refer to anthrax threats received in two Georgia cities. He further mentioned a letter Exhibit J from David. S. Thain, DVM, State Veterinarian, Chief, Bureau of Animal Industry, Division of Agriculture, which stated the threat of bioterrorist acts was of paramount concern to their office and the bill was needed to address the problem in Nevada.

Mr. Kwalick stated the addition of the strong penalties for making threats or conveying false information concerning a biological agent or toxin should surely act as a deterrent for people who wanted to do those things and offered his support of S. B. 18 as amended (Exhibit G).

At that time Chairman Anderson called upon Dr. Ron Anderson, Division of Agriculture, Animal Disease Laboratory, who applauded Senator James and members of the Committee on Judiciary for addressing the existing void in the Nevada statutes regarding biological terrorist activities in Nevada. They supported the bill as written. For the remainder of his testimony see Exhibit K.

He stressed the additional training of first responders and the medical community.

Assemblyman Nolan responded with the fact that the Committee on Labor and Commerce oversaw the functions of the Nevada State Fire Marshal’s Office. The office certified people through the Hazardous Technician Programs, which was a program dealing with biological hazards in addition to chemical hazards in emergency response.

Chairman Anderson requested that the secretary send a copy of Dr. Anderson’s remarks to the Chairmen of Committees on Government Affairs, Health and Human Services, and Commerce and Labor to emphasize the importance of the issue. The copies were delivered immediately following the meeting.

Ben Graham, Legislative Liaison, Nevada District Attorney’s Association, Lt. Stan Olson, Nevada Chiefs and Sheriffs Association; and Capt. Jim Nadeau, Nevada Chiefs and Sheriffs Association were in support of the bill.

Chairman Anderson assigned the bill to Ms. Leslie.

Assemblyman Manendo arrived late and upon review wished to have his vote noted for the record in support of A.B. 231 and A. B. 262.

There being no further information the meeting was adjourned at 10:40 a.m.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED:

Novella Watson-Lee,

Committee Secretary

APPROVED BY:

Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, Chairman

DATE: