Committee weighs shifting public-notice requirements online; staff asked to draft appropriation and may/shall amendment

Committee members discussed a measure addressing public-notice publication, including a proposal that notices which currently must appear in print also be considered published if posted on a state-run website.

John Arnold, deputy insurance commissioner, and Sandy McMurdie, deputy secretary of state, described experiences where newspapers missed required publication dates and the downstream operational and legal consequences. "We actually had 1 county auditor, frantically called me up one morning, because the newspaper ... missed publishing that," Arnold said, describing a case where staff needed to consult legal counsel to proceed.

McMurdie described the current Secretary of State public-notice system as built in 2013 and not designed to support a large public-notice workload. She said minor changes to the system can cost between $5,000 and $40,000 and estimated that a more robust procurement or upgrade could be on the order of $100,000. Committee members discussed options: leave publication as a local discretion ("may"), require online publication ("shall"), or include a phased implementation with an appropriation.

The committee directed staff to draft an amendment that would change the proposed mandatory publication language to a temporary "may" while the Secretary of State procures or upgrades a system, and to prepare an appropriation request and implementation timeline (members mentioned a potential 2027 effective date to allow procurement and build-out). No final committee vote on the underlying policy was recorded during the session; members agreed to continue work on amendment language and potential funding.