Committee considers bill to add expungement and statutory due process to Montana's child-protection registry

Lawmakers opened a hearing on Senate Bill 468, which would move the state's centralized child-protection registry from administrative rule into statute and add an expungement process and required notice to affected parents. Sponsor testimony stressed that the registry currently operates largely in rule and that placing some elements into law would provide needed transparency.

Kyla Hailstone, appearing online, said the registry historically penalized domestic-violence victims and that SB 468 "addresses this loophole" by ensuring only substantiated findings are placed on the registry and by creating an expungement path. Denise Johnson of the Montana Child Protection Alliance urged codified processes for how a person is placed on, and removed from, the list, saying department practice can put names on the registry without a hearing and leave them there indefinitely.

DPHHS' Nikki Grossberg offered a "soft oppose," supporting the expungement concept while recommending that the earliest eligibility for expungement be extended beyond two years because behavior change often takes longer. Committee members asked whether unsubstantiated reports would remain available to CPS for casework; sponsor and department representatives said CPS would retain access to unsubstantiated reports for investigative purposes even if the public registry were limited to substantiated cases.

Sponsor closing remarks emphasized that adding an expungement procedure to statute was the main policy gap and that a follow-up study bill on registry processes could resolve remaining technical questions. No committee vote was recorded in the transcript.