BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                           Senator Kevin Murray, Chairman

                                           2169 (Montanez)
          
          Hearing Date:  8/7/06           Amended: 6/27/06
          Consultant: Nora Lynn           Policy Vote: Judiciary 4-0
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          ____
          BILL SUMMARY:   
          AB 2169 deletes the January 1, 2008, sunset dates for the  
          confidential address programs comprising the Secretary of  
          State's (SOS's) Safe at Home project.
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          ____
                            Fiscal Impact (in thousands)

           Major Provisions         2006-07      2007-08       2008-09     Fund
           
          Sunset deletion                   $190        $380      General
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          ____

          STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria to be placed on the  
          Suspense file.

          The SOS's Safe at Home program was originally created in 1998  
          (SB 489, Alpert) for victims of actual or threatened domestic  
          violence. Expanded in later years to include victims of stalking  
          (SB 1318, Alpert, 1998) and reproductive health care workers and  
          patients (AB 797, Shelley, 2002), the program provides a  
          designated address for use by participants in public documents,  
          mail and service of process while keeping the participants'  
          actual physical addresses confidential. Once accepted into the  
          program, participants are certified for a period of four years.  
          State and local agencies are required to accept the substitute  
          address designated by SOS, and a participant is able to request  
          that his or her residence address and phone number be kept  
          confidential when applying for a marriage license or when  
          registering to vote. Knowingly providing false or misleading  
          information on the application is a misdemeanor.

          AB 2169 would eliminate the January 1, 2008, sunset dates for  
          the two Safe at Home address confidentiality programs, making  
          Safe at Home permanent.











          There are currently 2,600 participants in the Safe at Home  
          program, and SOS has annual ongoing costs in the $380,000 range  
          to administer this program.

          STAFF NOTES The committee may wish to consider extending Safe at  
          Home's sunset date by five years rather than deleting it. Staff  
          notes SB 1062 (Bowen), currently pending in the Assembly  
          Appropriations Committee, would extend Safe at Home to victims  
          of sexual assault, which if approved by the Legislature and  
          signed by the Governor could significantly increase both the  
          program's population and cost.