(JUNEAU) - Early in the session Senate President Gene Therriault (R-North Pole) and Commissioner of Administration Mike Miller pledged to work together to develop legislation that create a more independent and efficient system of state hearing officers.

Today after extensive efforts between the Administrative Regulation and Review Committee Chaired by Sen. Therriault and the Administration, legislation establishing a Central Hearing Office and a new set of rules for all state hearing officers is being introduced in the Senate.

"This bill is the product of many hundreds of hours of work, over the course of many years beginning with a concept introduced by Senator Ogan while he was a Representative serving in the House," said Therriault. "I am particularly pleased with the positive attitude our Committee members and members of the administration demonstrated in this effort."

Therriault said that this legislation will insure that state hearing officers will work more independently from state agencies.

"When people appeal administrative actions they need to know that the hearing officer assigned to their case is not a puppet of the agency being challenged and that they will not be caught up in a drawn out process of administrative hearings", said Therriault. "Fairness, timeliness, and efficiency are the focus of this legislation.

Therriault had the "fair hearing bill" introduced through the Rules Committee, rather than as a piece of personal legislation, because it took so many people to actually turn the concept into a piece of legislation.

"This work represents the efforts of many policy makers in an effort to improve our government," said Therriault. "Therefore I felt it should not reflect just my name as sponsor."

The bill has been referred to State Affairs, Judiciary, and Finance.

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02-19-03: Senate President Gene Therriault comments on how the new administration is willing to work with the legislature to evaluate where state government hearing officers are located.

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Gene Therriault 73 K

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Gene Therriault 507 K

02-19-03: Senate President Gene Therriault explains that if an alaskan citizen is now appealing an admistrative decision they are appealing to the very agency that wrote and implimented the regulation in question. Citizens do not currently feel they are getting a fair shake from the process.

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Gene Therriault 40 K

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Gene Therriault 276 K

02-19-03: Senator Scott Ogan explains that the executive branch has the power to write regulations and adjudicate those same regulations and that people need a better system of due process than the current system.

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Scott Ogan 43 K

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Scott Ogan 294 K