FISCAL NOTE

Senate Bill 388 as introduced creates the Sexual Assault Survivors Bill of Rights. This bill would increase the administrative obligations of the Office of the Attorney General (Attorney General) by an undetermined amount to develop and disseminate a survivor notification document to all law enforcement agencies and medical service providers in the state. This bill could further increase the obligations of the Attorney General to investigate and provide notice to persons deemed to be in violation of the provisions of this bill.

Additionally, this bill could increase the obligations of the Department of Forensic Sciences (Forensics Sciences) by an undetermined amount to store sexual assault examination kits for the time frames provided in the bill.

Further, this bill could increase the administrative obligations of the Attorney General, Forensic Sciences, the Office of Prosecution Services, the Alabama State Law Enforcement Agency, and the various county and municipal law enforcement agencies by an undetermined amount to establish and maintain a system for tracking sexual assault kits and to compile and publish a report of statistical data regarding those kits as provided for in this bill. This bill could further increase the administrative obligations of Forensic Sciences and the various county and municipal law enforcement agencies by an undetermined amount to notify a survivor of the information regarding testing of a sexual assault examination kit as required in this bill.

Finally, this bill creates the Rights of Survivors of Sexual Assault Task Force which could increase the expenses of the State General Fund by an undetermined amount dependent upon whether the task force retains independent experts as provided for in the bill, the number of experts retained, and the amount of compensation paid to those experts.

This bill is contingent upon an appropriation from the Legislature during the 2018 Regular Session.