The Senate Human Services Committee on multiple occasions heard testimony on Senate Bill 2164, which would clarify the duty of confidentiality and disclosure for the North Dakota Protection and Advocacy Project and explicitly recognize its authority to request financial records when investigating alleged exploitation of people with disabilities.

The bill’s supporters, including Veronica Zitz, executive director of the North Dakota Protection and Advocacy Project (PNA), and PNA legal director Brad Peterson, told the committee that PNA routinely investigates reports of abuse, neglect and financial exploitation and needs access to bank records to determine whether exploitation has occurred. “We believe we have, not only have, but we're mandated to seek out or to investigate reports of abuse, neglect, and exploitation,” Peterson said in testimony. Disabilities advocate Grace Larson said banks’ refusals to provide records in some cases have made it “impossible to complete investigation into the alleged exploitation of individuals with disabilities.”

Why it matters: PNA is the statutorily authorized advocacy and protection program for North Dakotans with developmental disabilities or serious mental illness. PNA staff described cases where alleged exploitation had severe consequences for clients, including loss of housing and benefits, and said access to records is a core tool for establishing findings, arranging risk management and limiting further harm.

Banking industry witnesses disputed PNA’s account that access is blocked in most instances. Rick Kleberg, president and CEO of the North Dakota Bankers Association, told the committee his members follow state and federal confidentiality law and noted the legislature revised related procedures in 2019 to address suspected exploitation. Kleberg said banks can reach out to law enforcement or the Department of Human Services and may freeze transactions when they suspect exploitation. He warned the bill would expand access beyond entities that currently may obtain records and asked lawmakers to weigh privacy risks and “which agency is next.”

Committee members pressed both sides on scope and safeguards. PNA witnesses said PNA generally seeks records only when an investigation is warranted and that PNA often connects clients to alternative fiduciaries, reapplications for benefits and other services. Kleberg and other banking witnesses urged reliance on existing channels — law enforcement, DHS or customer consent — and raised concerns about whether PNA, as currently organized, should have direct access comparable to law enforcement.

No formal vote on SB2164 was recorded during the portions of the hearing in the transcript. Committee members asked staff to research whether other states give Protection and Advocacy programs the same direct access to financial records and to return with more information about how such access is implemented and guarded.

The committee’s discussion highlighted several implementation questions legislators flagged as follow-up: whether PNA is technically an agency or a separate entity for purposes of confidentiality law; whether PNA should be required to follow the same procedural steps as law enforcement when seeking records; and how banks’ statutory immunities and obligations under state law and federal privacy rules (including HIPAA for medical records) interact with any new statutory language.