Committee backs Kansas Legal Services expungement clinics after interim juvenile-justice overview

The Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice on the first day of its session heard a staff summary of the Jay Russell Jennings joint interim committee and agreed to convey support for Kansas Legal Services’ statewide expungement and driver’s license clinics to the House Committee on General Government Budget.

Jillian Kinkade of Legislative Research summarized the interim committee’s November meetings and told members the report would be published on the KLRD website. She said the Kansas Juvenile Justice Oversight Committee described the Evidence Based Program Account (EBPA) and said it is funded by savings from closing youth residential centers under 2016 Senate Bill 367.

“The Evidence Based Program Account is used for grants for specified purposes,” Kinkade said. She also warned that projections “do predict a negative balance in the coming years” for the EBPA and noted recent statutory and accounting changes contributed to the stress on the account.

Kinkade reported that stakeholders responding to the Second Look Act briefing said they were not the same person they had been at the time of their offense and supported opportunities to seek resentencing. She also summarized that the interim committee heard from the Kansas Community Corrections Association, which described community corrections as a cost-avoidance approach and said its most recent statewide success data are only available through fiscal year 2021 because of a change in the data system.

After reviewing presentations, the committee made a formal recommendation that it “supports Kansas Legal Services in its efforts to conduct expungement clinics and driver's license clinics, and that it does convey that support to the House Committee on General Government Budget.” The recommendation will be forwarded to the budget committee for consideration.

The report also described stakeholder testimony on House Bill 2329, which the staff noted this committee passed out last year; the Community Corrections Association asked that people with the most information about juvenile cases help decide sentences, particularly in cases involving firearms. Written-only testimony from Compass Behavioral Health was also received and summarized in the staff report.

The committee closed the item by inviting follow-up questions and assigned staff to provide additional fiscal and technical details where members requested them.

The committee adjourned this portion of the hearing with the recommendation to forward support for the clinics to the House Committee on General Government Budget.