Senate bill would create address‑confidentiality program for survivors and some public‑safety workers

Sen. Jesse Kiel introduced Senate Bill 31 on March 20, asking the Senate Finance Committee to create an address‑confidentiality program to protect survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking and to provide an option for certain public‑safety workers to keep their home addresses off public records.

Kiel told the committee the program would allow an eligible person to list a state post‑office box as their public address and have first‑class official mail forwarded confidentially to a never‑published residential address. "This is not an Amazon package forwarding service," Kiel said, stressing that only official first‑class mail would be forwarded. He told the committee Alaska is one of six states without any form of an address protection program and said other states' experience informed the bill's design.

The sponsor said the Department of Administration reworked the fiscal estimate after researching other states and lowered the projected operating cost. Kiel said the department "significantly reduced the cost of running this program" and that the reduced fiscal note was "at a level that is entirely justifiable for the public safety benefit it brings to Alaskans." Committee staff later read a fiscal allocation for printer services of $203,000 in fiscal year 2026, rising slightly in following years; other fiscal notes from public‑safety and victim‑services agencies were listed as zero.

Invited witnesses described threats faced by law‑enforcement and corrections staff and urged the committee to move the bill. Randy McClellan, president of the Alaska Correctional Officers Association and a Department of Corrections staff sergeant, recounted an incident where an individual posted his home address after obtaining it from testimony or discovery materials and said that experience "can explain how important Senate Bill 31 is to law enforcement and their families." Laurie Morton, deputy director of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, described address confidentiality as "a shield to prevent perpetrators from finding and continuing to harm their victims" and said stalking often escalates around attempts to leave abusive relationships.

Committee members asked about the durability of the revised fiscal estimate. Kiel said the Department of Administration consulted registries in other states, examined actual participation rates and administrative practices, and used those findings to lower the staff and operating assumptions. He told the committee that such programs "are not a convenience" and that, based on other states' experience, sign‑up rates are limited to people in serious danger.

The bill includes explicit exclusions: people required to register on sex‑offender or similar registries would not be eligible. Kiel also said the bill allows peace officers and corrections officers to participate, a feature some states omit, but that Alaska public‑safety stakeholders requested. The committee did not take a vote; the chair announced they would set the bill aside for further consideration.

The record includes invited testimony from the Department of Administration and public‑safety agencies made available for questioning. Committee staff read the fiscal allocations into the record and no committee action was recorded at the hearing beyond setting the bill aside for later consideration.