Psychiatric Security Review Board presents four bills on juvenile panel, immunity and records; disability-rights and press groups raise concerns

The House Committee on Judiciary heard four bills from the Oregon Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB) on Feb. 10 that would change how the board is structured, shield board members from certain civil discovery, and limit public disclosure of individually identifiable health information for people under PSRB jurisdiction.

Allison Bort, the PSRB’s executive director, told the committee the package is intended to consolidate scarce agency resources and to protect confidential clinical information used in contested hearings. "We're an independent quasi-judicial administrative body," Bort said. She described the agency’s caseload as largely adult (about 640 individuals across four programs) with a very small juvenile caseload (about five individuals), and said the proposals aim to concentrate expertise while preserving due process via hearings and judicial review.

HB 2804: juvenile panel consolidation

House Bill 2804 would repeal the separate juvenile panel of the Psychiatric Security Review Board and consolidate the juvenile and adult panels into a single five-member panel with an additional senior member to assist with system-level issues and quorum. Bort said the juvenile panel currently handles roughly five individuals and that maintaining a separate panel imposes overhead costs for a low-volume docket. She said the PSRB would reinvest savings from operating a single panel into specialized training and consultation so members retain juvenile expertise.

Disability Rights Oregon (DRO) opposed HB 2804 at the hearing, arguing the move would remove subject-matter experts with child-specific licensure and experience. A DRO spokesperson said eliminating the juvenile panel “would place children in the adult PSRB system and remove all subject matter experts for children in the mental health and criminal justice system” and warned that adult-style supervision can impose restrictions on youth beyond what is developmentally appropriate.

DRO cited the decline in juvenile PSRB cases and said the committee should consider that a narrow caseload does not justify removing juvenile-specific expertise, noting long-term treatment and custody costs could outweigh perceived agency overhead savings.

Bort told the committee the PSRB is open to statutory language that preserves juvenile expertise, such as codifying training requirements or authorizing a member with juvenile specialization; she said the governor’s appointment and Senate confirmation process provides an opportunity to select members with appropriate experience.

HB 2807: immunity for board members

House Bill 2807 would provide judicial-style immunity for PSRB board members when they act in their capacity presiding over contested hearings, while preserving liability for wanton and willful misconduct. Bort described the bill as intended to codify the quasi-judicial immunity recognized in Harmon v. State of Oregon and to address uncertainty exposed by that litigation, which included depositions of board members and a subsequent settlement.

Disability Rights Oregon told the committee it opposed HB 2807 in its present form, saying the language was too broad and could foreclose legitimate claims such as alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act or constitutional claims; DRO asked for clearer limits on immunity.

Bort said the bill would not extend immunity to the PSRB’s full-time staff and that decisions by board members would remain subject to judicial review and other complaint processes, including licensing boards, the Governor’s Office, or the Secretary of State.

HB 2812: public-records exemption for health information

House Bill 2812 would exempt individually identifiable health information of people under PSRB jurisdiction from disclosure under Oregon public-records law except in limited circumstances. Bort said the proposal aims to provide the same protection for PSRB medical records that the Department of Corrections currently has, and it was prompted by a high-profile case in which the PSRB was inundated with media requests for exhibit files after a discharge decision.

Opposition came from the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association, represented by Greg Peden, which urged a different approach: placing the PSRB material within the public-interest test under ORS 192 so that a court could weigh confidentiality against public interest on a case-by-case basis. Peden suggested amending the bill to mirror the Department of Corrections statutory language that provides an exemption unless a court finds the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs confidentiality. The committee also heard a question about whether law-enforcement access to records for criminal investigations would remain available; Bort said existing statutory provisions allowing disclosure to law enforcement would remain.

HB 2915: information-sharing with Department of Corrections

House Bill 2915 would permit written accounts and health records of people under PSRB jurisdiction who are conditionally released to the Department of Corrections to be disclosed to the PSRB consistent with ORS 161.336 and the conditional-release order. Bort told the committee DOC confidentiality protections sometimes prevent the PSRB from receiving medical information about individuals it still supervises after conditional release, because DOC’s record protections currently require a client-signed release. The bill is designed to allow necessary clinical information to flow to the PSRB so the board can monitor conditional releases and act if a client’s mental condition requires revocation or other steps.

Stakeholders and committee questions

Throughout the hearings, committee members pressed PSRB and stakeholder witnesses on recruitment for board seats, whether the governor’s appointment and Senate confirmation process provides adequate vetting, and whether statutory language could preserve juvenile expertise while achieving administrative savings. Bort described difficulties recruiting credentialed board members who can commit time to the work and said the PSRB is open to codifying training and specifying juvenile expertise in statute.

Disability Rights Oregon urged the committee not to eliminate juvenile-specific positions and said adult-focused determinations can extend restrictive supervision for youth longer than necessary. The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association recommended the committee adopt a public-interest balancing approach similar to existing DOC exemptions instead of the blanket exemption proposed in HB 2812.

No formal committee votes were recorded on these four bills during the Feb. 10 hearing; the items were presented as public hearings and work sessions and the committee closed the public hearings at the session’s end.