BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2009 2/16/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME INDIVIDUAL: WITNESS NAME: PHONE NUMBER: APRIL J SPEED BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION NAME: TITLE:
ADDRESS:
CITY: STATE: ZIP:
EMAIL: ATTENDANCE: SUBMIT DATE: Written 2/12/2026 11:14 AM THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS PUBLIC RECORD UNDER CHAPTER 610, RSMo. I oppose the HB 2009 - Deaton-APPROPRIATIONS BILL and do not want to see any reduction which will negatively affect Missouri's most vulnerable. A reduction in funding for Self Directed Supports (or SDS) will harm our families, caregivers and communities. SDS is a vital lifeline for Missouri families raising special needs children and adults. Find your budget cuts elsewhere. Thank you. MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITNESS APPEARANCE FORM
BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2009 2/16/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION: WITNESS NAME: PHONE NUMBER: DÉNA NOTZ 417-260-2003 BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION NAME: TITLE: COLLECTIVELY CHANGING CORRECTIONS PRESIDENT ADDRESS: PO BOX 102 CITY: STATE: ZIP: ROBY MO 65557 EMAIL: ATTENDANCE: SUBMIT DATE: cccforchange24@gmail.com Written 2/16/2026 2:25 PM THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS PUBLIC RECORD UNDER CHAPTER 610, RSMo. According to RSMO 217.195 and 217.035.(2), using the Inmate Canteen fund for things like employee wages, equipment for employee's offices, and expenses in the directors office, are not allowed and would be considered misappropriation of funds. The statute is very clea about the few acceptable uses for the Inmate Canteen fund: Title XIII CORRECTIONAL AND PENAL INSTITUTIONS
Chapter 217
< > • Effective - 28 Aug 2021, 2 histories bottom 217.195. Canteen to be established — inmate canteen fund established, purpose, moneys, how spent. — 1. With the approval of the director of the department of corrections, the chief administrative officer of any correctional center operated by the division may establish and operate a canteen or commissary for the use and benefit of the offenders.
2. The "Inmate Canteen Fund" is hereby established in the state treasury and shall consist of funds received from the operation of the inmate canteens. The acquisition cost of goods sold and other expenses shall be paid from this account. A minimum amount of money necessary to meet cash flow needs and current operating expenses may be kept in this fund. The proceeds generated from the operation of the inmate canteens shall be expended solely for any of the following, or combination thereof: the offenders in the improvement of recreational, religious, educational services, or reentry services. All interest earned by the fund shall be credited to the fund and shall be used solely for the purposes described in this section. The provisions of section 33.080 to the contrary notwithstanding, any money remaining in the inmate canteen fund at the end of the biennium shall be retained for the purposes specified in this section and shall not revert to the credit of or be transferred to general revenue.
We object to the violations, outlined in this proposed bill.
Collectively Changing Corrections MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITNESS APPEARANCE FORM
BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2009 2/16/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME INDIVIDUAL: WITNESS NAME: PHONE NUMBER: JULIE BUNN BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION NAME: TITLE:
ADDRESS:
CITY: STATE: ZIP:
EMAIL: ATTENDANCE: SUBMIT DATE: Written 2/12/2026 5:50 PM THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS PUBLIC RECORD UNDER CHAPTER 610, RSMo. I oppose the HB 2009 - Deaton-APPROPRIATIONS BILL and do not want to see any reduction which will negatively affect Missouri's most vulnerable. A reduction in funding for Self Directed Supports (or SDS) will harm our families, caregivers and communities. SDS is a vital lifeline for Missouri families raising special needs children and adults. Find your budget cuts elsewhere. Thank you. MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITNESS APPEARANCE FORM
BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2009 2/16/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME INDIVIDUAL: WITNESS NAME: PHONE NUMBER: KELLY MORGAN BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION NAME: TITLE:
ADDRESS:
CITY: STATE: ZIP:
EMAIL: ATTENDANCE: SUBMIT DATE: Written 2/12/2026 2:06 PM THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS PUBLIC RECORD UNDER CHAPTER 610, RSMo. MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITNESS APPEARANCE FORM
BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2009 2/16/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME INDIVIDUAL: WITNESS NAME: PHONE NUMBER: MELISSA EIKEN BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION NAME: TITLE:
ADDRESS:
CITY: STATE: ZIP:
EMAIL: ATTENDANCE: SUBMIT DATE: Written 2/12/2026 11:59 AM THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS PUBLIC RECORD UNDER CHAPTER 610, RSMo. I am opposed to this bill because it proposes drastic funding cuts for essential self-directed support services for our most vulnerable citizens. These services can be life-changing for individuals with disabilities and the funding should be protected. MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITNESS APPEARANCE FORM
BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2009 2/16/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME INDIVIDUAL: WITNESS NAME: PHONE NUMBER: RICHARD FLEETWOOD BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION NAME: TITLE:
ADDRESS:
CITY: STATE: ZIP:
EMAIL: ATTENDANCE: SUBMIT DATE: Written 2/12/2026 1:35 PM THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS PUBLIC RECORD UNDER CHAPTER 610, RSMo. I oppose the HB 2009 - Deaton-APPROPRIATIONS BILL and do not want to see any reduction which will negatively affect Missouri's most vulnerable. A reduction in funding for Self Directed Supports (or SDS) will harm our families, caregivers and communities. SDS is a vital lifeline for Missouri families raising special needs children and adults. Find your budget cuts elsewhere. Thank you. MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITNESS APPEARANCE FORM
BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2009 2/16/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME INDIVIDUAL: WITNESS NAME: PHONE NUMBER: SARAH BERRY BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION NAME: TITLE:
ADDRESS:
CITY: STATE: ZIP:
EMAIL: ATTENDANCE: SUBMIT DATE: Written 2/12/2026 2:22 PM THE INFORMATION ON THIS FORM IS PUBLIC RECORD UNDER CHAPTER 610, RSMo. Chair and Members of the Committee:
HB 2009 is an appropriations measure for the Department of Corrections for FY 2027.
Appropriations bills carry heightened constitutional sensitivity because they operationalize state power through spending—often with limited textual guardrails. This testimony is focused on structural vulnerabilities that create foreseeable litigation exposure and fiscal risk.
I. Appropriations Specificity and “Flexibility” Provisions
Multiple sections authorize inter-category and inter-section “flexibility” (e.g., 10% between personal service and expense/equipment; 10% between sections; and cross-section flexibility to Section 9.285). While the General Assembly may structure appropriations with administrative latitude, a pattern of broad flexibility language can functionally dilute the constitutional requirement that appropriations be made for specific purposes and remain legislatively controlled.¹
Additionally, Section 9.020 authorizes receiving and expending new funds between sessions with notice to the General Assembly. Notice is not the same as appropriation. If the practical effect is executive spending authority that is not meaningfully bounded by appropriations line-item purpose, it invites a nondelegation and separation-of-powers objection under Missouri’s constitutional structure.²
Record concern: If challenged, the State will be asked to explain how broad “flexibility” does not become a workaround of legislative control over public expenditures.
II. The AI-Powered Inmate Communications Monitoring Appropriation (Section 9.270)
Section 9.270 appropriates $8,000,000 (GR) for “continuous monitoring and investigations of offender communications using AI-powered platform to transcribe, analyze, and monitor inmate phone communications,” including searchable transcripts by keywords, names, dates, and phone numbers, with “near real-time processing.”
This line item poses the most substantial civil-rights and due-process exposure in the bill.
A. Fourth Amendment and Statutory Surveillance Compliance Correctional monitoring is not per se unlawful. But an AI-driven system that transcribes and analyzes communications at scale increases the risk that monitoring practices drift into constitutionally and statutorily problematic territory, especially if:
notice/consent procedures are inconsistent, monitoring extends to protected communications, retention and secondary use are unbounded, or staff use keyword results in ways that bypass established authorization controls.
Even where incarcerated persons have diminished privacy expectations, correctional monitoring must still be “reasonable” and tethered to legitimate penological interests.³
Separately, interception and recording practices must comply with federal and state wiretap frameworks (and their consent exceptions), which are fact-sensitive and compliance-driven.4
B. Sixth Amendment / Attorney–Client Privilege
The most predictable litigation vector is attorney–client monitoring—whether by direct capture, “accidental” ingestion, vendor-side processing, or downstream search exposure. Courts treat attorney–client communications as a distinct category; intrusion can trigger suppression, civil liability, and injunctive relief depending on implementation.5
Record concern: The appropriation language funds capability but does not condition funds on safeguards that prevent privileged capture, define exclusions, require audit logs, or mandate vendor- side segregation.
C. First Amendment and Retaliation Risk
Inmate communications implicate associational and speech interests in a regulated environment. AI keyword searching creates a foreseeable risk of viewpoint- or content-based enforcement drift if governance is not explicit and constrained.
Any pattern of retaliatory discipline based on speech content becomes a credible § 1983 claim.6
D. Procedural Due Process / Evidence Integrity
If AI-generated transcripts are used in disciplinary proceedings, classification decisions, or referral to prosecutors, due process questions arise regarding: accuracy error rates, ability to contest or audit the record, chain-of-custody and authenticity, disclosure to the accused, bias in keyword triggers or model behavior.
These are not theoretical issues; they are routine litigation points when automated surveillance outputs become evidence.
Record concern: The bill funds the system without conditioning spending on minimum procedural safeguards for use of AI-generated transcripts in adjudicative contexts.
III. Venue/Claims and Fee-Shifting Exposure
To the extent surveillance practices result in constitutional violations, litigation will commonly proceed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, with fee-shifting exposure under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 if plaintiffs prevail.7 If the State becomes subject to injunctive orders (or settlement obligations), the fiscal impact extends beyond the $8 million line item to compliance, monitoring, training, and vendor contract revisions.
IV. Targeted Amendments to Reduce Foreseeable Risk
If the Committee intends to fund Section 9.270, risk can be materially reduced by conditioning the appropriation on baseline safeguards, including: Explicit exclusion and technical blocking of attorney–client communications (including vendor-side and downstream search exposure), with audit logs and periodic compliance reporting. Data governance: retention limits, access controls, and prohibition on secondary use unrelated to correctional security absent documented authorization. Due process guardrails: if transcripts are used in disciplinary proceedings, require disclosure, contestability, and preservation of original audio. Procurement transparency requirements: minimum performance auditing, bias/error reporting, and security controls.
These conditions do not prevent DOC from addressing contraband and security threats; they reduce predictable litigation and avoidable fiscal exposure.
The General Assembly is placed on notice that the AI-powered communications monitoring appropriation (Section 9.270), as drafted, creates foreseeable civil-rights litigation risk related to attorney–client privilege, surveillance compliance, and due process in disciplinary uses of AI- generated transcripts. Conditioning funds on minimum safeguards would materially reduce likely injunctive litigation and associated fee-shifting and compliance costs.
This budget doesn’t just fund corrections—it funds capability. The highest-risk line item is the $8 million AI surveillance appropriation. Without hard safeguards for attorney–client communications, data governance, and due process use of transcripts, the State is underwriting predictable federal litigation and fee exposure.
The principal fiscal exposure in HB 2009 is not the base appropriations; it is civil-rights litigation risk driven by the AI-powered inmate communications monitoring platform (Section 9.270). If implementation captures privileged communications, produces unreliable transcript evidence in disciplinary actions, or expands surveillance without enforceable limits, the State faces potential § 1983 litigation with fee-shifting under § 1988, plus downstream compliance costs (training, audits, system redesign, vendor contract amendments, and potential injunctive oversight). These costs can exceed the initial $8 million appropriation.
Footnotes Mo. Const. art. IV, § 28 (appropriations requirements and limitations on withdrawal/spending of public funds). Mo. Const. art. II, § 1 (separation of powers); see also nondelegation principles limiting transfer of core legislative control over public expenditures. Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987) (reasonableness standard for prison regulations affecting constitutional rights). 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510–2522 (federal wiretap framework; compliance depends on notice/consent and scope of interception); see also applicable Missouri interception provisions, RSMo ch. 542 (fact-dependent compliance considerations). See Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545 (1977) (government intrusion into attorney–client relationship may violate Sixth Amendment depending on prejudice and circumstances); see also Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974) (baseline due process in prison disciplinary proceedings). See Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987); retaliation claims commonly litigated under § 1983 when adverse action is taken for protected speech. 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1988 (civil-rights enforcement and fee shifting). MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITNESS APPEARANCE FORM
BILL NUMBER: DATE: HB 2009 2/16/2026 COMMITTEE: Budget TESTIFYING: IN SUPPORT OF IN OPPOSITION TO FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES
WITNESS NAME INDIVIDUAL: WITNESS NAME: