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Senate committee advances package reconstituting several agencies and changing employee classifications
Summary
Committee adopted a strike-and-insert and voted to report three related House bills that move multiple state agencies into other departments and change hiring classifications for new employees effective July 1, 2025; several technical cleanups and an explicit carve-out for natural resources police were made.
A Senate committee on Wednesday adopted amendments and voted to report three related reorganization bills to the full Senate that move multiple state agencies into other departments and change employee classification rules for new hires effective July 1, 2025.
Committee counsel said the package—House Bill 2008, House Bill 2009 and House Bill 2013—reconstitutes the Department of Economic Development as a division within the Department of Commerce, transfers the Department of Arts, Culture and History into the Department of Tourism as a division, and changes hiring rules for several agencies including the Bureau of Senior Services and portions of Administration, Environmental Protection, Revenue and Veterans Assistance. "Employees hired on or after 07/01/2025 . . . shall be in the classified exempt service," counsel said, adding that employees currently in the classified service will retain that status so long as they remain in their current position.
The bills include technical cleanup changes to statute language and to code references where agency names have changed. Counsel said earlier provisions that would have transferred natural resources police officers from the Division of Natural Resources to Homeland Security were removed after concerns about federal funding rules and applicability. The committee recorded that the removed sections had been 15A-14-1 and an amendment to 21-14 (as described in the bill abstract).
Committee members asked whether the Department of Natural Resources itself would move under Commerce, and counsel answered that the department remains where it is and that the primary concern was the status and federal-funding implications for natural resources police officers. The Office of Broadband and the Broadband Enhancement Council were confirmed as mentioned in the bill text.
The committee adopted the strike-and-insert amendments by voice vote and then voted to report each bill to the full Senate with a recommendation that it pass as amended. The committee noted title amendments and additional technical edits would be offered on the floor.
The measures and their technical cleanups now move to the full Senate for consideration. The bills, as amended in committee, keep existing classified employees in place while changing the classification for hires on or after July 1, 2025; they also allow agency executives to designate employees as classified when necessary to protect federal funding or grants, the committee was told.
