Committee expunges prior change and adopts amendment to cut filing fees for bill SB252

A Senate committee voted to expunge a previously adopted amendment and then approved a new amendment to reduce filing fees tied to a pending bill, described in the meeting as Amendment 1 to SB252.

The change adopted by the City, County & Local Affairs Committee reduces filing fees to $500 in the first year and $250 in each recurring year, down from the amount in the earlier amendment. A committee member who introduced the amendment described the changes as partly clerical and said the fee reductions “puts it below, what is currently charged to tobacco companies.”

The chair opened the floor for a motion, the committee moved and seconded adoption of the amendment, and the chair called a voice vote. The chair announced, “All those in favor? Aye. All opposed? Amendment's been adopted.” No individual roll-call tallies were recorded in the transcript.

The session record shows the committee first moved to expunge the vote that had adopted the earlier amendment from last week before taking up and adopting the replacement amendment. The motion to expunge and the motion to adopt were handled by voice vote; the transcript does not record a numeric roll-call or named yes/no votes.

The amendment was described in the committee as largely making clerical corrections and halving the filing fee schedule, but the transcript does not provide the full statutory text or the prior fee schedule. The committee did not receive public testimony for or against the amendment during the meeting, and no further implementation details (such as effective date) were specified on the record.