 Good afternoon and welcome to the front House Judiciary Committee. I'm January Friday, January 28th and we are continuing our discussions at age 546 and actually leading to racial justice statistics, and we are joined by our legislative council Eric Fitzpatrick, that will walk us through a proposed amendment draft 1.1, age 546 times Sam 11-07 and that can be found on our committee website. And with that, welcome. Good afternoon Eric. Hi, good afternoon. This is Eric Fitzpatrick with the office of legislative council. So I, if I'm following you right first thing you want to do is walk through the new draft, is that right? That's my understanding, but I will turn to. Yes. Martin is that. Yes, thank you. Sure. And I'll focus on the changes between this committee amendment, which is drafted as a strike all amendment to, to the bill has introduced and the changes are identified with yellow highlighting so you should be able to see them pretty easily. I'll share the screen quickly and. Oops, sorry. Amber, could I be a host please. Thank you. Okay. And as I mentioned, this is a proposed strike all amendment to to the bill has introduced and the changes are highlighted. So I'll focus on where the changes have been made between those introduced and the amendment that you're looking at right now. So changes to the first section about the executive director of racial equity that remains as it was. And then you have the second sub chapter within that chapter which the executive director is in and this establishes this first section 2011 establishes and creates the division of racial justice statistics and this remains the same as it was when the bill was introduced. And you move on to the duties of the division and these are itemized in great detail as you remember. You'll see that one change here is that the as introduced there was a language that required the division to make recommendations for designing and implementing interfaces and other technology solutions to address needs identified in the justice strategic plan of the division up above is required to do to create what's right there to subdivision five developing the justice strategic plan is part of one of the duties of the division. But this language is struck here because the agency of digital services indicated that they're trying to establish a uniformity in the interfaces and technology solutions. So this nature and it's their responsibility to do that and that having the division be making separate recommendations on that score would kind of undercut and run it cross purposes with the consistency and uniformity that the division has been working for so based on on that proposal, the language is struck the. This is just some technical change to change subdivision nine to subsection be just really for technical reasons and this is the reporting department so remember the division has to report every January starting next January to the judiciary and government operations committee so the substance that remains the same it's just some technical changes there, but subsection is struck and that's you'll see the issue of rulemaking and that's what this involves and the committee discussed this at length and came to the conclusion that the division would be establishing its. Various procedures and guidance via. Its own internal policies and policies rather than going through the formal rulemaking process under the Vermont administrative procedure active because the committee made that decision. There are a couple of places that references to rulemaking are struck, and this is one of them. So won't be any rulemaking any formal rulemaking won't be subject to the, the time constraints that sometimes apply if when you're going through that formal process. So now we move on to the section relating to data governance. Sorry, did somebody enter, ask a question there. Some zoom but not here, thank you. Okay, could have been an auditory hallucination on my part. The. This you'll see so this is moving on to the data governance piece of what the division does. You'll see in the first subsection subsection either lines 12 to 15 two different things going on the second one line 14. As I just mentioned, you say, this is the division establishing what data is to be collected to carry out its duties now remember in the bill you looked at last year for example that data was expressly and at length to lineated and that was based on on the report that our division is going to be. But here the, the approach taken is to have the division you know on the basis of that report and any other input it gets you'll see lines 12 to 14, it's going to be consulting with our DAPN with the racial justice statistics advisory council so in consultation with those two bodies division establishes what data it's going to be collected. Now the words by rule are struck because as I've just mentioned not not going to be going through the formal rulemaking process. And just to skip ahead for a moment so you can see keeping in mind for a second the in consultation with our debt and the advisory council piece of that you'll see that is not necessarily new. It's moved. See in the previous draft it appeared here on page six lines three through six it was set out as a separate separate duty of the division. See that shall consult with our DAPN and the council when establishing which data to be collected. So all it does it's consolidates that basically sort of reads better I think just move it up to the beginning and make clear right here. In consultation with those bodies that the division establishes the data to be collected and not by rule. Now we're moving on to an issue that has been discussed in committee at some length and this is the public records issue. I had a chance to speak at length with Tucker Anderson our public records council about this and how to how to draft this to to reflect the committee's intent here, which as you see is to is to take a different language that is struck and the approach that was taken in the bill as it was introduced was to specifically say right out front that data that's collected pursuant to the to the to the subject or to the date to the division's decision are not public records subject to public records law which we call the PR a the public records act, and that data shall be governed to release shall be governed excuse me by debt data sharing agreements or mo us. So you see that policy. What was really embodied in that language was one that the that there was going to be essentially an exemption that all data collected pursuant to the divisions duties and responsibilities are not going to be public records that means they will not be able to be obtained by the public through public records request and they would remain confidential after discussion. So it's a different approach, and on the on the, actually the opposite approach, and it's basically saying well, it's not going to be making confidential all the records that are collected it's just going to sort of preserve the status quo and in the first sentence, first couple of sentences will say that make that clear so the first new sentence starting online 19 there provides that any data record records transmitted to or obtained by the division that are exempt from public records and that means they are exempt from the public records act under existing law shall remain exempt and shall be kept confidential to the extent required by law so that just means the existing law with respect to whatever records that the division collects remains the existing existing law unchanged. So if it's subject to a public records exemption under the existing law by the agency that collects it whether it's, you know, a Department of Public Safety Sheriff's Department, you know, states Attorney's Office whatever it may be. Eric. Yes, we have a question a question from Representative Colburn. Oh, thank you on an earlier section so Eric why don't you, why don't you finish here and when the time is right I can ask but I don't want to interrupt you mid thought here or the committee. Okay, either way is fine. You want me to just finish up this little piece then and then come back to it. Yeah, that's okay. That'll help. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, no problem. So yeah, that's the that's the first point that existing law applies to the documents that the division collects and the records and data that the division collects so they aren't going to be made confidential if they aren't confidential in the first place. If they're, if they're public under under the law as it applies to the agency that has them, then they'll remain public. If they're confidential, based on how they're treated by the agency that has the data than it then they stay confidential either way unchanged by what the division does to it. And then there's some clarification here the second sentence you'll see also makes clear that whatever state or local agency or department that transmits the data to the division will be the sole custodian for purposes of responding to request for the data or records. And the division shall direct any request for these data or records to the transmitting agency or department for response. This was a suggestion from Tucker. He's put that in other legislation and other bills as well to make clear that you know that the division isn't going to be the one who has to respond to every public records request that comes in. So if the record being request was really something that came from somewhere else, then, then it's the originating agency, whoever that may be. It should be the one who responds to the PRA request which, as the committee knows can be a very labor intensive process that takes a lot of, a lot of hours on the part of staff and rather than saddling the division with that. It wasn't their record in the first place it came from somewhere else, then the division will just direct the request back to whoever sent it to them and say, you know submit it to them it's their record. So that's the idea that's the new proposal here. The, the that would leave, you know that this language applies to any data and records that the division collects from other agencies which of course is one of its one of its missions to gather this data. Another, the other set of data that that they would have is, you know, data that the division has collected by, sorry not collected, created as it analyzes the data that comes in as it creates, you know, compilations and and conclusions on the basis of that data. Original work product of the division, as opposed to work product collected from somebody else that read that again nothing is said about that in terms of it being confidential it isn't necessarily. It's just going to be applied. Sorry subject to the public records acts as it stands. So the same way any other state agency is subject to the public records act. There are some exemptions if that are in law, if the exemptions don't apply, then the record is both. And that would apply to the division just as much as it would apply to any other state agencies. There's no special exemption being created as there was in the bill as introduced. It'll just be, you know, treated as any other public records request would be treated by any other state agency, which means that under state law they have to have a designated records officer who looks at the request decides whether an exemption applies and if one does they can assert it if it doesn't then they release their release the record to the requester. So that's obviously a different approach than than the one that was in the bill is introduced but as I say, consulting with Tucker and with representative the land about how to craft this language. You can see the the intent of it. Hopefully that's consistent with what the committee wants to do now. But that's up to you. So that's the end of that little piece I can now pause for a moment so represent coven can ask the question she had. Yeah my question. Oh, sorry Maxine. Eric is going to say go ahead. Okay, my question is in the same section, but the previous page, the right subsection a of this data governance section. I really appreciate the addition of the art up consultation here. I'm trying to remember. I guess I'm trying to understand a little bit more where, and I'm sure the answer lies in some of our previous testimony, where the decision to remove the rulemaking process came from and my, I mean, it seems to me. It's an in bowl process certainly, but it, you know rulemaking process is necessitates a fair amount of public input. And so it seems to me that it would allow more comprehensive stick, at least in theory, stakeholder and community input into this question of what the data is being collected. And I'm just thinking back to a meeting I had with folks from the policing project earlier in the week on a different topic, but they have this is a national group that looks at policing issues that has a data and transparency and some model legislation, and they were saying that in their work, they feel like that question of which data gets collected is really really critical to being able to use the data well and not have it be just credited. So, yeah, I just, you know, I think there's some committee discussion here maybe but I also just want to understand if folks can help me remember where the decision to remove it from rulemaking came from and and what feedback kind of drove that is driving this change that would be super helpful. If I may. As, as you see, we have to express. Governance groups that are involved in that data selection component. If you look at it. One is our DAP. And the other one is the racial justice statistics advisory council itself. If you look at the makeup of those two councils. They are just they're very diverse. Not only in their composition related specialists, but also in the affected communities groupings that are also associated within the membership of both of those entities. And that was done very intentionally. And, as you might recall, we even expanded our DAP. Last session, the first half of the biennium to include even more community members and the racial, the office of racial equity as well in our DAP itself. So, so we've really tried to ensure that our community voice is large. I guess that's the best way to put it. Martin, would you like to add to that. Yeah, yes, I would. So what we're trying to balance, I think, is following this division to be nimble to be able to be more responsive as far as what data it needs to try to get if it runs into issues, etc. And certainly rulemaking is less nimble. It's it's certainly better, perhaps then than the legislative process as far as the health efficient it is and how quick it might be, but it's it's it's not. It doesn't give the flexibilities certainly as much to as as a policymaking. So that's on the one hand but on the other just watch. And as the coach is saying, as far as we have these two bodies that are very diverse and representing the entities or the organizations the individuals who really is affected by, but or as part of the criminal justice system. So, and I would just also add that the the our DAP and presumably also the advisory panel. I know that our DAP welcomes public input. So there's opportunity for individuals members of those panels to weigh in if if they so desire so there is that transparency as well. So that's kind of the balancing that's going on here that. This is, this is a question that I did ask all pretty much all the witnesses. And I think we pretty uniformly we're hearing a preference to go this route than than the rulemaking. So that's that's why we arrived here. Yeah, I guess I would just say that. Well, save for committee discussion I just, you know, yeah, I'll hold off for now. But thank you. I appreciate that explanation. That has a question. Yeah, I don't know who I should address this to under the public records request request whatever we want to refer to it as I guess I need a little explanation as far as if in fact I'm assuming that all of these entities are going to be sending whatever they have orders requested through the advisory. For your recall where they're probably the division data division. And, and that the division is what they're going to come up with a total of many different things. So for you, or for us to say that someone request under the public records act or through a foyer request, certain information that they've just put all together. How are they going to identify which agency to direct them to because I wouldn't want to be overwhelmed with requests or something that we didn't send that to them I mean, how was that going to work, I guess I'm concerned about, we don't want to overburden the division with with. So how do we not overburden certain departments and officers throughout the state that may not have nothing to do with it how many flag that I'm not a computer guy so I'm asking. I'm not either maybe coach has an idea or we might have to ask find another witness to answer such question I don't know. I can appreciate that but for those records that aren't. And they call me up so we want this here oh we need to contact the officer alone because he's one sent that having a flag that let's not waste other agencies time either because it is a burdensome thing show. Presumably, however they set the system and I'm not going to go too deep into this that they will they will be able to determine where they've gotten certain certain kinds of data I mean there's law enforcement data there's states attorney's data there's court data, etc. So, you know, maybe it comes in and just ask for all the information about one person's name. Presumably this division just turns around and sends it to all the information officers of the five or six different entities that may have provided something. This seems to be somewhat potentially burdensome on if we can identify where it came from I think at least very least the division has responsibilities and okay. Let's flag I guess what you came from so they don't overburden these other agencies who they're going to look thanks to do to me through as far as responding to public records your question. That's my concern there it's yeah no that makes a lot of sense that makes a lot of sense I don't have a good answer free that's kind of in the technical realm and hopefully. Just figured out by the information officers different unless coach unless you have more information on that than I have. If you're talking you're muted because we can't hear you. No, I was going to ask Eric to continue. And then we can come come back because I think I'd like to hear from some of our art that members, you know, about their thoughts and maybe this might not be a bad time to maybe ask quickly. If either Evan or Rebecca would be interested in chiming in about the the rulemaking piece question. Evan or Rebecca, would you care to share your thought on on that to help us as we move forward. I'd be happy to share my thoughts there are two of the topics that I was going to address in my testimony, and I know that I was not supposed to testify until later so I don't want to jump the starting line but I'm happy to, I'm happy to speak now if that's the committee's preference. I would say representative Colburn, do you think that that would be helpful hearing from I feel all set so I'm happy to like Eric just complete the walkthrough but if you know it's up to you coach what you think makes more sense. And then Eric why don't we continue, and then we'll come back, because it seems like they're going to speak to it anyways. Okay, sure that sounds good. Thank you. Yeah, you bet. Moving along to the next division here this also actually relates to the rulemaking issue in the sense that you see the lines two to eight there. This has to do with the the interplay between the division and the and the state agencies and departments from which it's going to be collecting this data. As the language was originally drafted. The, the way it was set up was that the division will shall be granted access to the data of any state or agency department that it designates by rule that's line seven. So the way in which the division would collect this data sort of procedurally is step number one is they would designate an estate agency by rule and then once it did that. That agency would have to provide access to the division to the data that it was necessary for the division's purposes under this chapter now. So, given that the thought at least for this draft obviously it's going to be an issue that continues to be discussed but for purposes of this trap. And the rulemaking piece was changed to, to not be part of the divisions process. So this had to be rewritten, and you'll see but it's preserving the process of how it is that divisions going to going to get this data from the agency so the way it would read now would be the division child identify which state agencies or documents possess the nest the data necessary for division to performance requirements and objectives so first thing. Step one division identifies the state agencies or departments that have the necessary data related to to divisions requirements and objectives. Step two is the highlighted sentence an agency department identified pursuant to this subdivision so if you've been identified shall upon request, provide the division within any data that the division and you see here I had two options I wasn't sure which way to put it so I just put both in and figured the committee could discuss it. The idea here is, you know, do you want, you want it to be sort of open ended in the sense that the division has, you know the discretion that the division can exercise will be that, you know, if they request it, then the agency or the division has to provide it had the option one number 11 because you can say well they have to provide the division with any data that the division requests period that could be one option, or if you want to be a little give a little more guidance to it, you could say, the you know, in the targeted language, provide the division with that would provide the division with any data that the division determines is relevant to its purpose under section section five, 511 b, which, you know, I'll just really quickly move up there just so you can recall there's a clear statement there starting on line 16 of what the mission and purpose of the division is collecting and analyzing data relating to racial disparities, intent to center racial equity throughout these efforts etc I won't read the whole thing but just point is that that the purpose is articulated here clearly. So it's really just a question of down here. How much you know, discretion you want there to be for the division's determination about requesting data, in other words, just if they keep it open ended or tied into its purpose and say that those are the data that the agency has to provide. So then lastly that last sentence is unchanged that's just the division's ability to access data for non state entities that can do that through mo user data sharing agreements. So that piece, this next subdivision three was been rewritten. In response to the suggestion of the state archivist Tony Marsha who I've been emailing speaking with about this piece. And she, I rewrote the language a little bit technically but this is, and she's approved of this language she I ran it by her after I had it done and she gave it the green light. So with how and with whom the division's going to work with on collection and retention of data data governance, those sorts of things. And, and Tony made the excellent point that rather than kind of reinvent the wheel. The best way to do that would be just to loop in existing law as to, you know, the requirements that already exist with respect to state agencies and I mentioned this earlier how state agencies have to have record officers and they have to have records retention policies. You know we have one in our office I remember when it was instituted and had to be run those things have to be improved by the state archivist. You know how long do you have to keep records when is it okay to delete them that sort of thing. Every state agency now has to develop these. And that is the statute that you see referred to in line 19. So makes clear that that applies to everybody anyway, no matter what you say here so makes sense to, to cross reference that so it's explicitly said division shall pursuant to that statute that I just mentioned establish maintain and implement an active and continuing management program for its records. So that's it has to do that anyway pursuant to that statute but this makes the duty clear. And so, then the second piece of that, that in doing this, it has support and support and services provided by the state from our state archives and records administrator pursuant to previous a 117 and the digital digital services pursuant to previous a 33 01 now those statutes also already provide that these two state agencies are two entities I should say are required to provide the various state actors with this sort of support with support on information technology data maintenance that sort of thing is already laid out explicitly in statute so again was logical to to put that expressly in here for who the division works with and under what statute said vision for I already mentioned that's the one that got struck here and moved up to the top regarding the division's consultation with our depth and the and the advisory council. No changes to the rest of the data governance issues. Public facing website dashboard unchanged that's all the same composition of the advisory council that there are a couple of additions to that based on. I believe that was testimony from judge Greerson to see it's gone up from 18 to 20, because judge Greerson recommended two additional members of the council you see identified subdivisions L and M there. Executive director of the Center for Crime Victim Services, as well as a substance use disorder or mental health treatment provider, appointed by Secretary of Human Services so those are two more individuals who would be on the advisory council. No change to the to hear against some technical changes there substance use disorders that abuse disorder. There has been a little bit of reorganization here just for making the language flow correctly but no changes in meanings. The, I think there's some other technical changes here. At the end to conform with what I just described yet so members since there's, there were two new members by added to the council. You have to do some renumbering here to make sure that the, it was referring to the right members who got appointed for the two year term three or term and the four year term. I think that's it. Yeah, it looks like that's the end of the walkthrough and all the changes that are proposed for this trap. Are there any questions for attorney. So I pull the document down so committee can discuss. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Sure. Thank you. You bet. You bet. Great job as always. Oh, thank you. I'm in the right spot here. Okay. So I guess I guess what I'd like to do if we could. Madam chair, we can move into our witnesses and it seems that I'd like to start with. Being that part of his. Testimony is directly related to a representative Colburn's question. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon for the record. My name is Evan mean and I work for the department of state's attorneys and sheriffs. I was also the department's designee to the racial disparities advisory panel and the department did sign off on the report that was submitted to the legislature that are DAP prepared. The bill. I think for the most part, this is a really good bill and it and it adopts many, but not necessarily all of the recommendations from the R daps report. So, for example, the report identified three potential locations for the bureau to be housed and the department thinks that the one that was selected in this bill is acceptable. The most important thing from the department's perspective, regardless of where this was housed was ensuring that the bureau was provided with adequate staffing and resources. Not only to fulfill its own mission, but to provide technical assistance to the entities that are going to be expected to report data to it. After having these conversations in our DAP we had the benefit of technical experts like Karen Gannett and Robin joy from the crime research group, as well as which he are to and and their input was was very valuable from the department's perspective. In terms of the department's technological capabilities to report data. I have to admit that unfortunately they're presently very weak. The legislature did appropriate the department some money to obtain a new case management system and work. We are in the early stages of acquiring that I've already flagged both for for my supervisor and for our own it folks that we should expect to have to report this type of demographic data out and that we should be mindful of those potential responsibilities as we move forward in in the case management system acquisition process. So, generally, the department is in support of this bill. I do have a couple of specific comments that relate to representative coal burns questions and then also some some of the comments about public records requests. Regarding the issue of rulemaking. My comments are going to be influenced somewhat by the fact that I've worked for two state administrative agencies that had rulemaking authority the agency of natural resources, and most recently the natural resources board, where I was the associate general council. My comments are also going to be influenced somewhat by my current role as the chair of the rules committee of the criminal justice council. So I'm not speaking on behalf of any of those three entities, but I highlight that to illustrate that I do have some issues with the process. And based on that experience, I think you can make a reasonable argument that adopting rules is arguably more transparent and provides for more public participation than navigating some of these issues through other mechanisms. I think you could also make an argument that more transparency and more public participation are especially good things in this context, because part of the bureau's purpose is to provide more data transparency related to the criminal justice system. There's there's two provisions of Vermont's administrative procedures act that might be worth considering when the committee makes its decision about how it wants to proceed. The first provision is section 831 and what it says is that agencies have to adopt rules where due process or a statute directs them to adopt rules. And then the second is section 801, which states an agency means any state board commission department agency or other entity authorized by law to make rules or determine contested cases. I don't think there's any expectation that the bureau is going to be determining contested cases. So the question of whether or not it's going to fall within the administrative procedures act may very well depend upon whether or not the legislature grants the bureau rulemaking authority. At the minimum, if the committee is not thrilled about the idea of requiring the bureau to adopt rules, it may have the option of stating that the bureau may adopt rules. And that language may adopt rules is is some language that's used in the enabling legislation for other public bodies. With that authority the bureau can make a decision do we want to address this specific topic through the rulemaking process, or do we want to adopt it through promulgating procedures, which is also something that's addressed by the administrative procedures act. Regarding public records. I am the department's public records officer, which means I'm responsible. Oh, my apologies. I know it's really hard to see and that's I apologize. But before you move on. So, would it be just a matter of in looking at the draft page for section 5013 a line 14 of putting by rule back in there and changing the shell to me is that accomplished what you just suggested. I think it probably would I, there's I was trying to count as as attorney Fitzpatrick was doing the walkthrough I think there's probably three or four places where it used to say shall adopt by rule. And there again I think I think I'm pretty confident may adopt rules is using other enabling legislation so there's there's going to be references for legislative council to pull to pull from. But yes, I think if the shall was changed to may and those three or four locations in order to give the Bureau the flexibility to go through the rulemaking process if it if it thought that that was warranted, then it would have the ability to do that. Conversely, if it was permissible under the APA to address something through a procedure, it could do that as well. So yes, I think that that would be perhaps one way to do it. But perhaps, or perhaps just to make clear that it is to come up with the data that it's supposed to carry or that's supposed to collect. It could say something along the lines that the division shall establish rule or otherwise or something like that, because we may want to have the shell established but then leave the discretion of whether it's procedure I mean policy or rule to the agency and I think that Eric and work out exactly how to do that. I think we do want to dictate that the agency, the division has to come up with the data that needs to be collected but give them the discretion of how to do it. Yeah, I'm confident Eric is going to know exactly how to phrase it. All right, thank you. Thank you. Eric it looks like you. I think that kind of consistent with what both Evan represent along with saying, the only need to change you only need to do that in the one place on page four and subsection B put that language back in division may adopt rules to carry out its duties. And then in the other places you don't need to indicate rule, anything about it you just say division shall do doesn't such and then, then pursuant to the language that we just mentioned that heaven was pointing out, they would have the decision to decide all right are we going to do that by rule or are we not, but that would sort of in overarching authority that they would have to make that decision based on the particular piece of information they're talking about. So I think I think that's right. You know that's an equitable, you know, approach, and thank you, Evan for bringing that that piece to our attention. It takes a village to build a good bill. So would you continue please. Absolutely. So I was going to address the public records piece. And I think I was saying that I'm the, I'm the department's public records officer which means I, I was, I don't know if it's a punishment or a privilege but it's my responsibility to respond to pretty much all of the public records that the department receives. And so I can represent on on behalf of the department that the, the language that runs from page four line 19 to to page five line five is good language. And, you know, I would hope that if there are any entities that are going to be responsible for reporting data. This might, this might minimize any concerns they might have about whether or not they're providing any, any information they would, they would consider to be sensitive. I'm, I'm hoping that when the department acquires its new case management system, we will really be providing data, we will have the ability to report out data that's going to be important to the bureau, rather than having to burden the bureau by giving them a bunch of dumping underlying records on them, and having them extract the data for themselves. And I think that that, if that process ends up being true, that might minimize some of the concerns that that representative the lawn was expressing about, you know, creating some sort of arduous burden on, on behalf of these reporting entities. You know what might end up happening is a member of the public or someone else might see some data, and then realize, Oh, I want to delve into the underlying documents and then approach the reporting entity with a public records request. But state agencies are pretty well experienced in responding to public records requests and I don't see that as a, as a bad thing. The only other comment that I think I wanted to make was that, you know, we were glad to see the change on page eight lines 13 to 14, including the center for crime victim services in the advisory council I think that having victims perspectives on this is a is a really good thing and, you know, hopefully we don't discover that there's any racial disparities with regards to how victims are engaged in the criminal justice system. I'd like to think that there aren't any but that's probably foolish optimism. And hopefully the center, you know, will help flag any issues or ask appropriate research questions to help flush out those things so that's a really important addition from the department's perspective. Thank you. Thank you, Evan. Rebecca Turner. How are you today? Good. Thank you. Thank you for committee for inviting me back to speak on this latest draft for the record for Becca Turner from the Office of the Defender General, and also number of the art. I'm just going to focus my comments today on the new changes that Eric just presented in the walkthrough really there are just two points. I want to go to, I guess as a precursor since Representative Colburn asked the question as to whether or not we are positioned or you didn't ask the ODG position, but certainly what representatives LaLonde and Christie shared were consistent with the prior testimony, which was that it not having a rulemaking process to determine how and which data to collect would certainly make this new entity more nimble, and also that there are numerous representatives from the public already built into this. So I am not opposed to what Evan just suggested in terms of that language change. I would only add that my personal experience working on this panel in terms of drafting and coming up with data that should be collected. The three reports that have since been submitted. It's pretty it was pretty arduous complicated with just that our deaf panel and so certainly getting off the ground for the first year. Maybe consider returning to the mandatory rulemaking process a subsequent and let let there be sort of maximum flexibility in the first row, but that's, that's my only suggest my thoughts on that. So, so really I wanted to focus on page two, four and five. And this is in regards to the new language that Eric added in the data governance section 5013. I'll start with actually it's a to a to there is a line in there that says an agency or department identified pursuant to this subdivision, and presumably the defender general's office will be included in that list, right. Upon request, provide the division with any data that the division requests. Now, I think, I think unique to the other government agencies and departments that will be asked to provide data. The defender general's office has data that's otherwise privileged or confidential that cannot be disclosed to the division. It's covered by the exemptions in the public records act title one to 17 section see and but the way I read this new language on for and sort of this characterization that it preserves the status quo that if it's exempt under the division will honor that but still collect that information. So I just want to make clear that doesn't actually maintain the status quo, how I read those two sections on form five together as they apply to the defender general's office. We would have to disclose any data that the division requests, even if it's otherwise deemed confidential privilege under the various statutes, rules, common law that obligates us from revealing this information. And again, the reason why the defender general's office is unique in this situation is we're more like a law firm representing individuals. And so we have we are prohibited under our professional code to reveal information about a client that was acquired during the representation. And I think sometimes people collapse that to assuming just information that's confidential or secret, but that duty to not reveal extends to information that may otherwise be public. Again, it is under our professional obligations or duties to not share information acquired during that representation. It's also for it's a pre expansive confidentiality provision in that it extends not just to current clients but to former clients, as well as prospective clients. So again, I think that I'm concerned that if this language remains eyes is the division may think it has the authority to order the defender general's office to reveal information that that we can otherwise reveal that is actually not subject to reveal under the current PRA. So I'm not sure if if the easy fix is to just reference their explicitly Title one section 317 C and making sure that the defender general's office maybe is not captured with the others. I'm happy to just sort of talk further with with largely counseled Eric if you want to do that or or not but that was a significant concern with this latest draft for us. And then the second point is page seven. And it goes to still within the data governance section. It's relating to subsection D delta data retention. And this is actually not new proposed language, but mergers with some of the concerns I raised earlier which was making sure that the language and phrases here is consistent with the Public Records Act. I understand that the term retention has distinct meaning in the Public Records Act. And I also understand that that the way that page seven section D establishes that the division shall recommend standards and practices for the retention of data. Again, that suggests that this division has perhaps authority over the state archivists or or another entity by as I understand it, the, the jurisdiction of data retention is laid out clearly in Title one, I think is it Title one section 317 a. And so I understand that there might be a conflict. So just maybe tweaking changing the word retention to make sure it's not inconsistent. Yeah, just a quick question. Thank you very much. Actually, yeah, yeah, that's one provision that we just heard from. I just heard from Tonya Marshall of the, the archivist just the other day raising the same point and we just hadn't been able to get together on trying to figure that out. I mean, I thought just whether it should be data collection that that the division shall make recommendations regarding the collection of data, or do you have a replacement concept for retention. The question is governed elsewhere, but how one collects the data and determining when or in what situations to put different they all categories down, for instance, I could see the division doing that, and I'll think that's covered elsewhere but I think that's that's a that's a good idea just to drop the word retention and limited to collection. That would be fine. So those are, those are really my, my comments that I had this latest graph. And I don't know if anyone has any questions, but I'll stop here. Well, Rebecca, I really want to thank you. Because every time you visit the draft, you add a positive in that, you know, that's going to make this thing, you know, something that we can all get across the finish line and feel comfortable with. So, thank you so so much. Question to coach if I could. Yeah. Mr. if you could just remind me what what the data is. I know that last year's or I should say the 2020 effort of our depth came up with the list of high impact high discretion areas. What kind of data points were identified for the defender general's office I'm just curious about that. Thank you. I meant to say that in the in my comments on that section I think the almost the entirety of the data that is that we identified could otherwise be found in the court records and court data in the police records So for us to have to provide something that's in addition, not otherwise found in these other data portals. I think that would be little although I am recalling that there was a recommendation in the report that we did not join. So it's not a consensus point. It was concerning specifically. If I'm recalling correctly defense attorneys. Some specific data relating to defense attorney practice, the filing of pleadings and such again. That's an example where you could glean that information how many motions were filed from court records. Right. And, and I think that's, that is where. So I unless Evan can recall something else that specific to a collection point we identified relating to defense attorneys. That's that's what I'm recalling again that would be covered by data kept elsewhere. I appreciate that so yeah I mean if you have any suggestions on language to take care of that that makes complete sense at least to me that some of that information is definitely privileged representative of the law and if I might. Evan mean and again for the Department of State's attorneys. Unfortunately, I don't have that list of discretion points at hand but you know I do think perhaps one of the benefits of, of, of a permitting the Bureau to go through the administrative procedures of the Defenders Act is to allow the public and other interested stakeholders to engage in the conversation about what types of information can permissibly be reported by the defender general's office. For example, I remember, I think some of the, the discreet you know some of the information that was discussed was, you know, the education and experience of, of certain practitioners, including defense counsel and who they end up representing. In other words, do we tend to see some types of defense counsel being assigned to some types of defendants more frequently than others. Most frequently are defense counsel, having in person conversations versus telephone conversations with clients, viewing evidence in person versus, you know, summarizing evidence in person, and I'm not suggesting that all of these things can be permissively reported. I think that those are potentially complex questions, but having a process like rulemaking or a procedure promulgation through the APA might be a mechanism to help flush those out and allow members of the public to participate in this kind of conversation. So, you know, I would anticipate there's some data points that the defender general's office could report out that may not be available from other sources, what those data points are, I think, is worth further discussion and probably can't be established right now. Thank you. Thank you. Well, we'll continue with our immersion and editing as we move forward. So those are all the witnesses we have for today, and then we'll be revisiting this next week. Madam chair. I'll hope to have a visual for the committee to look at, just to show what it looks like from a graphic perspective. Great. Thank you. Thank you to our witnesses and thank you coaching Martin. Let's take a quick break so we can stay on track. So folks have some commitment so it's, let's take a break and come back at 230 for our next week.