Senate Revenue & Tax Committee passes House Bill 1508 to recodify Arkansas Code Title 19

Sen. Clark Tucker, sponsor of House Bill 1508 and senator for District 14, told the Senate Revenue & Tax Committee that the bill is a Code Revision Commission product to reorganize and recodify Title 19 of the Arkansas Code and contains no substantive changes.

Tucker said the bill does three primary things: it reorganizes Title 19 by subtitles so related subject matter sits together; it reorganizes subchapters dealing with state treasury funds that had run out of numeric designations; and it restructures the Arkansas procurement law subchapter, which has grown to 81 sections. He also said the bill transfers material that belongs in other code titles into those titles and makes grammatical and punctuation corrections throughout Title 19.

"...it's not a substantive bill. It's not a technical corrections bill, but it is a code revision commission bill," Tucker said. He told the committee the measure was drafted by a working group that included the Arkansas Code Revision Commission, the governor's office, the attorney general's office, the treasurer's office, the auditor's office, legislative audit, BFNA, transformation and shared services, the claims commission, the ethics commission and the Arkansas Bar Association.

Kevin (surname redacted), identified in the transcript as a Code Revision Commission lead, was present and offered to answer questions.

Sen. Petty asked whether the bill affected municipal or state bond issuance; Tucker replied that there are no substantive changes to the law and that cities, counties and the state will continue to issue bonds under existing law.

After brief questions, Sen. Crowell moved that HB 1508 be reported "do pass;" Sen. Petty seconded. The committee approved the bill by voice vote with no opposition recorded.

No members of the public spoke for or against HB 1508 during the committee meeting.