The Legislative Interim Finance Committee on Thursday approved adding $534,000 to the state Criminal History Repository to cover costs from the new sex offender reporting law.
The so-called Adam Walsh Act was recently affirmed by the courts and made major changes to offender reporting requirements.
Julie Butler, administrator of the repository, said the law dramatically increases the workload for the repository because it makes a group of offenders now numbering about 300 to a group of 3,000 because they’re no longer placed in that Tier based on an assessment of their danger to reoffend but simply on the conviction record and the age of the victim.
The group includes those offenders who have committed violent sex crimes or those who have had contact with juveniles. They’re required to report to law enforcement every 90 days and update all of their paperwork including getting new fingerprints and other data.
“It’s a staggering amount of work for the repository,” she said.
Handling those offenders currently required about 3,300 staff hours a year. Butler said the Adam Walsh law will add an additional 8,600 staff hours for a total of 11,000.
“We can’t do it with the staff we have today, “ she said.
The money will add eight more staff to the repository for a total of 38.
Butler warned lawmakers this may not be the final request for staff since the new law also requires handling juvenile offenders. She said at present they have no idea how many of those offenders there are since the repository until now hasn’t had to deal with juveniles.