The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday declined to advance House Bill 48, a proposal to let the Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS) share confidential client information with other state agencies and community providers for referrals, service coordination and “bona fide research.” The committee voted 4-5 after a half-hour of testimony and questions about privacy safeguards, rulemaking and data retention.

Proponents said the bill would remove barriers that currently prevent agencies from connecting records across systems, allowing earlier preventive contact and better measurement of long-term outcomes. Director Corinne Schmidt, director of the Wyoming Department of Family Services, told the committee, “We take privacy very seriously,” and described a rulemaking-based model in which the DFS director would authorize data-sharing for specific initiatives and projects and then promulgate rules subject to public comment and legislative review.

The bill’s authors and witnesses argued the changes were intended to support three uses: more effective referrals to community providers (for example, home visitation and public-health nursing), better coordination of services across agencies (including the Department of Health and community behavioral-health providers) and aggregated research and outcome measurement using de-identified data. “This is very much a prevention approach,” Schmidt said, adding that national studies link missed early interventions to later serious harm.

Opponents on the committee raised concerns about the breadth of authority granted to the DFS director and the potential for sharing with private providers. Representative Kelly asked what safeguards would prevent voluntary contacts from becoming mandates on private agencies; Schmidt answered that many community providers operate under contracts that already impose conditions and that the services involved are voluntary for families. Representative Bratton expressed “great concerns” about how broadly the bill was written and said he had “a lot of privacy concerns.” Representative Webb asked how long retained records would be kept; Schmidt said statutory retention for protective-services/social-services records is lengthy (she said “I think it’s 50 years”) and said research datasets would be de-identified after linkage so identifying information would be removed prior to analysis.

Representative Schastick moved that the bill be recommended “do pass,” seconded by Representative Feiler. On roll call, Representative Brady voted no; Representative Bridal voted no; Representative Czesc voted aye; Representative Feiler voted aye; Representative Kelly voted no; Representative Veil left a vote of no; Representative Singh voted aye; Representative Webb voted no; and the chair registered aye. The clerk announced “4 ayes, 5 nos,” and the motion failed. The chair then moved on to House Bill 49.

The bill text would have given the DFS director authority to permit data sharing for referrals, provision of services and participation in “bona fide research,” and it included conforming changes to multiple confidentiality statutes cited in the draft (child protective services, juvenile justice, probation, children in need of supervision, adult protective services and welfare/benefits programs). The proposal also included a provision requiring the department to report back to the legislature on October 1 following enactment, describing any data-sharing conducted under the new authority.

Supporters said the measure would let the state answer policy questions it cannot now answer — for example, how many youth served by DFS later enter the Department of Corrections — and would reduce duplicate service payments and improve fraud detection by allowing cross-agency comparisons. Schmidt said internal data systems still cannot be linked to show whether a household receiving TANF or SNAP benefits is also involved with child-protection or juvenile-justice casework.

Those opposing or urging caution said the proposal concentrated too much discretion in an executive-branch director, that the statutory language was broad, and that the bill did not specify opt-out protections or detailed limits on what would be shared. Representative Kelly asked whether individuals would have the choice to opt out; the committee record shows the director indicated services would remain voluntary and that research data would be de-identified for analysis.

With the committee’s rejection, the bill will not proceed from the Judiciary Committee. Supporters said the idea could be revisited with narrower statutory language or additional guardrails clarifying scope and individual protections.