Committee begins review of statutory reporting requirements, urges targeted research and agency outreach

The House Government Operations Committee resumed its review of the reports-repeal bill and the process for evaluating statutory reporting requirements, agreeing to divide the workload, seek agency input and request training on searching legislative records.

The discussion matters because many reporting requirements remain on the books even when no written report has been filed for years, committee members and legislative counsel said. Committee members said they want a practical method to determine whether a reporting requirement is still useful, overlapping, or ripe for repeal or consolidation.

Tucker Anderson, legislative counsel, walked members through one example: the treasurer’s local investment advisory committee report, which he said is required "on or before January 15, annually" under the underlying statute but that "the word written was not included here." Anderson noted the committee’s reports database shows the most recent submission was in February 2018 and that some agencies either submit consolidated annual reports or do not file anything if they interpret a requirement as not specifying a written submission. "It is sometimes difficult," Anderson said, "so some agencies take a look at the reporting requirement and say that the word written does not appear in the reporting requirement, and they do not submit any written material to the general assembly even if that was the intent of the general assembly."

Anderson described the committee’s options after review: repeal the statutory reporting requirement, retain it, or consolidate multiple statutory reports into a single new report that meets the Legislature’s information needs. "By repealing the report, that doesn't mean that the information goes away," he said. "You're relieving the burden of formalizing that information into something that automatically gets sent to the general assembly every session."

Members discussed practical next steps: assign small groups to review subsets of the spreadsheet of statutory reports, note when a report was last submitted, whether it has been used in the current session, whether it overlaps with other reports, and recommend repeal, consolidation or continued review in five years. Committee members agreed they may need to contact agencies to learn why some reports have not been filed and whether programs tied to the reporting requirement remain funded or active. Anderson added that sometimes a program is defunct or unfunded and "there's nothing to report because there's no funding or the program is defunct."

The committee also requested training on searching legislative records. Anderson offered to provide a session on targeted search techniques, including site-restricted Google searches and Boolean queries, to find reports and statutory history more effectively. He highlighted that the site search box on the legislative reports page searches only document titles and submitter names, not the full text of reports.

Members flagged procedural language in current statute language that refers to a report "expiring" or being "ripe for review," and discussed whether the reports-repeal bill should clarify the review/expiration language. Anderson said the common construct is an expression of intent for periodic review, but that an actual repeal requires the Legislature to act. He pointed to an analogous review provision used for Public Records Act exemptions adopted during the 2019 session as an example of the intent-versus-effect distinction.

The committee agreed to reconvene after the floor for further work, with members dividing reports for review and returning recommendations on whether each reporting requirement should be repealed, consolidated or retained.

Looking ahead, the committee expects to compile recommendations, reach out to agencies for clarification where submissions are missing or consolidated, and consider drafting cleanup language in the reports-repeal bill to clarify review schedules and consolidate overlapping reporting duties.