AN ACT prohibiting any person convicted of an offense against a child from purchasing a residence or entering a rental or lease agreement for rental property in the vicinity of a school.

SPONSORS: Rep. Itse, Rock 80

AN ACT prohibiting any person convicted of an offense against a child from purchasing a residence or entering a rental or lease agreement for rental property in the vicinity of a school.

AN ACT prohibiting any person convicted of an offense against a child from purchasing a residence or entering a rental or lease agreement for rental property in the vicinity of a school.

The Judicial Branch, Judicial Council, Department of Justice, Department of Corrections, and the Association of Counties state this bill may increase state and county expenditures by an indeterminable amount in FY 2005 and each year thereafter. There will be no fiscal impact on state, county, and local revenues, or local expenditures.

The Judicial Branch states there is a potential fiscal impact by making negligent failure to comply a violation and knowing failure a misdemeanor for the first offense, and a class B felony thereafter. The Branch has no information upon which to estimate how many additional cases may be filed due to the proposed new prohibitions applicable to registered sex offenders and offenders against children. The additional cases could involve violation prosecutions in the district court, misdemeanor prosecutions in the district court with a right to appeal to superior court for a trial de novo, and felony prosecutions in the superior court. All of these could lead to appeals to the Supreme Court as well. This bill could have a potential fiscal impact that would exceed $10,000, and any impact to the Branch would result in increased delays in the processing of other cases.

The Judicial Council assumes that any cases arising from the enactment of this law for which the Indigent Defense Fund may be liable, will in the first instance be handled by the Public Defender or Contract Attorneys who accept these cases on a fixed fee basis of $250 for each misdemeanor charge and $687.50 for each felony charged. If an Assigned Counsel attorney must be used, the hourly rate of $60 with a fee cap of $1,000 for misdemeanor cases and $3,000 for felony cases will apply. If a motion to exceed the fee cap is approved and/or "services other than counsel" are approved, these will also be chargeable to the Indigent Defense Fund. The Council states they are unable to determine the exact fiscal impact at this time.

The Department of Justice states they seldom become involved in the prosecution of violations committed by registered sex offenders and it is assumed that they would continue not to be involved. Therefore, the fiscal impact on the Department would be negligible.

The Department of Corrections states it is not possible to estimate how many people would be incarcerated at a state prison as a result of this bill. The average cost of incarceration in FY 2002 was $24,866 per inmate per year.

The Association of Counties states the bill creates a new misdemeanor which would likely lead to more inmates at the county corrections facilities. However, the total exposure to the counties would be determined by the number of individuals convicted and sentenced under the new law, which cannot be determined at this time. The average annual cost for counties to incarcerate inmates is $21,634.