Title: An act relating to the elimination of reports to the legislature required of the department of social and health services.

Brief Description: Eliminating certain department of social and health services' reporting requirements.

Sponsors: By Representatives Orcutt, Kagi, Pettigrew and Boldt; by request of Department of Social and Health Services.

Brief Summary of Engrossed Bill

• Eliminates certain Department of Social and Health Services reporting requirements.

Majority Report: Do pass. Signed by 9 members: Representatives Kagi, Chair; Darneille, Vice Chair; Boldt, Ranking Minority Member; Roach, Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Bailey, Dickerson, Miloscia, Pettigrew and Shabro.

The Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) is required to provide 34 reports on a quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis, in addition to other one-time reporting requirements. Those reports include the following:

• Annual report to the Legislature on the amount of debt due the DSHS and the amount of debt that the DSHS has written off as no longer cost-effective to pursue;

• Quarterly report to the appropriate local government entities and annual report to the Legislature concerning the implementation of the Family Reconciliation Act and the Juvenile Court Act in Cases Relating to Dependency of a Child and the Termination of a Parent and Child Relationship;

• Annual report to the Legislature regarding any transfers of funds appropriated for foster care services to purchase preservation services or other preventive services for children at imminent risk of out-of-home placement or who face a substantial likelihood of out-of-home placement;

• Annual report to the Legislature on the effectiveness of the risk assessment process, which the DSHS must use when investigating alleged child abuse and neglect referrals;

• Annual report to the Governor and the Legislature on opiate substitution treatment;

• Annual report to the Governor and the Legislature on the success rates of programs for treatment of chemical dependency in juvenile offenders;

• Annual report, in conjunction with a national independent accreditation entity, to the appropriate committees of the Legislature on progress of the DSHS towards complete accreditation of children's services;

• Semi-annual report to the Legislature, by region, on the Kidscreen assessment tool for children in foster care;

• Quarterly report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature on progress against appropriate baseline measures for foster parent retention and stability of foster placements;

• Report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature on any additional home and community-based waiver request for persons with developmental disabilities, prior to submission of the request;

• Quarterly report to the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature on valid outcome measures of job retention and wage progression for families who leave the WorkFirst program, measured after 12 months, 24 months, and 36 months;

• Annual report to the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature on the status of implementation of recommendations of the performance audit of the public mental health system conducted by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee;

• Annual report to the Governor and the Legislature on the number of women reported to the DSHS as the parent of a drug-affected or alcohol-affected infant and the provision of pharmaceutical birth control and tubal ligation services to those women;

• Annual report to the Legislature on the economic, gender, geographic, or racial disproportionality in the rates of arrest, detention, trial, treatment, and disposition in the state's juvenile justice system, and the causes of that disproportionality; and

• Annual report to the Legislature on its efforts to reduce violence in state hospitals.

• Annually report to the Legislature on the amount of debt due the DSHS and the amount of debt that the DSHS has written off as no longer cost-effective to pursue;

• Quarterly report to the appropriate local government entities concerning the implementation of the Family Reconciliation Act and the Juvenile Court Act in Cases Relating to Dependency of a Child and the Termination of a Parent and Child Relationship;

• Annually report to the Legislature on the effectiveness of the risk assessment process, which the DSHS must use when investigating alleged child abuse and neglect referrals;

• Annually report to the Governor and the Legislature on opiate substitution treatment;

• Annually report to the Governor and the Legislature on the success rates of programs for treatment of chemical dependency in juvenile offenders;

• Annually report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature on progress of the DSHS towards complete accreditation of children's services;

• Semi-annually report to the Legislature, by region, on the Kidscreen assessment tool for children in foster care;

• Quarterly report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature on foster parent retention and stability of foster placements;

• Report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature on home and community-based waiver requests for persons with developmental disabilities;

• Quarterly report to the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature on valid outcome measures of job retention and wage progression for families who leave the WorkFirst program;

• Annually report to the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature on the status of implementation of recommendations of the performance audit of the public mental health system;

• Annually report to the Governor and the Legislature on the number of women reported to the DSHS as the parent of a drug-affected or alcohol-affected infant and the provision of pharmaceutical birth control and tubal ligation services to those women;

• Annually report to the Legislature on the economic, gender, geographic, or racial disproportionality in the rates of arrest, detention, trial, treatment, and disposition in the state's juvenile justice system, and the causes of that disproportionality; and

• Annually report to the Legislature on its efforts to reduce violence in state hospitals.

The DSHS is required to provide an annual report to the Legislature concerning the implementation of the Family Reconciliation Act and the Juvenile Court Act in Cases Relating to Dependency of a Child and the Termination of a Parent and Child Relationship in only those years in which it has declined to accept custody of a child from a law enforcement agency or it has received a report of a child being released without placement.

The DSHS is required to provide an annual report to the Legislature regarding any transfers of funds appropriated for foster care services to purchase preservation services or other preventive services for children at imminent risk of out-of-home placement or who face a substantial likelihood of out-of-home placement, only if transfers occur.

The section of law is no longer repealed that requires the DSHS to annually report to the Legislature on the economic, gender, geographic, or racial disproportionality in the rates of arrest, detention, trial, treatment, and disposition in the state's juvenile justice system, and the causes of that disproportionality. Rather, that section of law is amended to eliminate the DSHS reporting requirement and to provide the following:

The Administrator for the Courts is required to collect such data as may be necessary to monitor any disparity in processing or disposing of cases involving juvenile offenders due to economic, gender, geographic, or racial factors that may result from implementation of 1993 amendments to the Juvenile Justice Act of 1977.

The Administrator for the Courts may, in consultation with juvenile courts, determine a format for the collection of the data and a schedule for the reporting of the data, and must keep a minimum of five years of data at any given time.

Effective Date: The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For: This elimination of reports is based upon a review of current reporting requirements by the DSHS, and includes cleanup of the statutes, the elimination of certain duplicative reports, and the condition that certain reports are required only when necessary. This elimination will start to reduce the paperwork of the DSHS. The DSHS produced 67 reports in the last fiscal year, many of which are offered online.

Testified: Representative Orcutt, prime sponsor; and Sherry McNamara, Department of Social and Health Services.