House members pass SSN bill

With the approval of Senate bill 1399 yesterday, the House of Representatives moved toward forcing universities to eliminate universities' use of Social Security numbers.

University of Arizona officials and some lawmakers, however, said they are going to consider an alternate version of the proposal that lessens the potential burden on universities.

Greg Fahey, the UA state lobbyist, said the university supports a similar bill by Roberta Voss, R-Glendale, which gives students the option to request an alternate number instead of making it a requirement.

"I think the Voss position would be better for us," Fahey said. "It gives the universities more flexibility."

The dueling bills in the House and Senate would both require university officials to modify their policies for all incoming students that enroll after June 30, 2002.

Instead of going to Gov. Jane Hull for final approval, proposal 1399 must come back to its sponsor, Sen. David Petersen, R-Mesa.

Petersen now has the option either to accept or refute the House's changes to his bill, which ensured that post-secondary institutions were not prevented from using Social Security numbers in instances such as financial aid records.

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but we definitely need to look at the language," Petersen said.

If he accepts the changes, the full Senate will vote on the amended bill one final time before sending it to Hull. If Petersen elects not to accept the House version, a special conference committee consisting of members from each chamber will meet to make any necessary changes.

Voss' bill, which passed the House last month but is stalled in the Senate, has been assigned to the Senate Appropriations Committee, but was not heard before the March 26 deadline.

Voss said the intent of her bill is not to impose a state mandate on universities and community colleges like Petersen's proposal does.

Because her bill is stalled in the Senate, Voss introduced an amendment to Petersen's bill that would force universities to be more aggressive in promoting the policy that students have the option to request an identification number that is different from their Social Security number.

The House approved her amendment, but Voss said it was not in the form that she wanted.

"It was supposed to say they needed to take a proactive stance to make sure the students have an option in requesting an alternate number," the Glendale Republican said.

Instead, the language in Petersen's bill still forces universities and community colleges to assign separate numbers. Voss said she intends to reintroduce her idea by requesting to be one of the three House members appointed to the special conference committee, where she will work with Petersen and four other members of the Legislature to produce a viable version of the bill.

Another potential snag for the proposal is the issue of including community colleges - now a part of the bill. Some House members, including Leah Landrum, D-Phoenix, want community colleges exempt from the measure because of costs associated with the program implementation.

"A mandating bill would be a tremendous burden to community colleges," she said.

Community college officials have argued that they need to use Social Security numbers for a number of programs, including in-state transfer situations. Petersen, however, has remained adamant throughout the legislative session about protecting community college students as well as those from the state's three universities.

Protecting students' social security numbers came to the forefront at the UA last spring with the implementation of the new CatCard system. During the conversion to the new system, UA officials released the numbers to Saguaro Credit Union and MCI Telecommunications Corp.