Staff told the State Building Code Council executive committee on March 7 that drafting of significant-change and existing-amendment reports for the 2024 code adoption cycle is behind schedule and recommended delaying tag and committee meetings by roughly one month to allow staff to finish report frameworks before tags review them.

Dustin, the council staff presenter, said the practice of having volunteers draft report frameworks during the prior cycle proved time-consuming and led staff to take on more of the initial drafting work this cycle to speed tag review. He told members the IRC reports were about 50% complete and that staff was compiling state amendments in a spreadsheet and tracking rationales for past amendments. The staffer said the current schedule (posted on the council’s 2024 adoption page) needs “one more month” in several places so committee and council meetings can align with report completion.

Staff warned that the council has limited ability to compress the end of the cycle because Administrative Procedures Act timelines and regular meeting dates constrain the process. Dustin said December 1 is the council’s target for adopting all codes except the commercial energy code, which must be final-adopted by Dec. 15, and that missing those deadlines could push the entire 2024 code package back a year and affect the 2027 cycle. The staffer said group 2 petition windows may be opened earlier in a limited way (as was done in group 1, when a 90-day window was used) and proposed directing petition submissions that staff deems complete directly to tags to allow earlier tag review.

Committee members raised concerns about compressing tag review because volunteers and stakeholders may not be able to meet more frequently or for extended sessions. Members also asked about economic-impact analysis capacity: staff said procurement and contracting constraints mean an outside economic analysis contract is unlikely to be in place in time for group 2 work and that staff can perform limited review of economic data submitted with proposals.