Committee rejects bill to let Department of Family Services share client data across agencies

The House Judiciary Committee voted 4-5 not to advance House Bill 48 on a motion to give the bill a “do pass” recommendation, blocking a measure that would have given the director of the Wyoming Department of Family Services authority to permit interagency data sharing through a rulemaking process.

Supporters said the measure aimed to remove technical and statutory barriers that prevent the Department of Family Services from linking client records across systems so agencies can coordinate referrals, confirm provision of services and support bona fide research. "We take privacy very seriously," Department Director Corinne Schmidt told the committee, adding that current confidentiality statutes written decades ago limit the department’s ability to analyze outcomes across systems.

The bill would have authorized the director to permit data sharing for three purposes: referrals to community providers (for example, home-visitation programs), provision and coordination of services (including behavioral health redesign referrals), and participation in bona fide research including the State Longitudinal Education Dataset. The bill proposed doing this by giving the director authority to promulgate rules describing what information may be shared, with whom, and public notice and legislative review of those rules.

Proponents described technical and programmatic barriers. "We cannot connect or know anything about if any of those families are also being served in our social services system, adult protective services, juvenile justice, child protection," Schmidt said. She told the committee the department collects data across multiple IT systems but lacks statutory permission to link records even internally for program evaluation, fraud prevention and service coordination.

Representative Larson, who presented the bill as coming out of the mental health and vulnerable adults task force, said the measure was intended to give agencies a controlled mechanism to share information while protecting privacy requirements such as HIPAA. The bill also incorporated conforming changes to confidentiality provisions across child protection, juvenile justice, adult protective services and welfare program statutes.

Opponents raised privacy concerns and questioned the scope of the director’s authority. Representative Brady said the bill was "too much, too broad." Representative Kelly asked whether the measure would permit confidential state information to be shared with private providers and whether participation would be compulsory; Director Schmidt replied the services in question are generally already contracted and voluntary and that families could opt out of voluntary services. Representative Webb asked about retention; Schmidt said some social services records are statutorily retained for decades but described the research product as de-identified after linkage.

Motion and vote: Representative Schastick moved the committee give HB48 a do-pass recommendation; Representative Feiler seconded. The roll call as recorded in committee proceedings showed 4 ayes and 5 no votes; the clerk announced "4 ayes, 5 nos," and the chair declared the bill did not receive a do-pass recommendation.

The bill included a reporting requirement directing the department to report to the legislature by Oct. 1 on actions taken under any new authority. Because the committee did not recommend the bill, the measure will not move forward from this committee at this time.