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Department of General Services seeks repeal of obsolete forms-report requirement in HB 276
Summary
DGS officials told the committee that House Bill 276 would repeal an obsolete statutory requirement that state agencies submit an annual forms report to the Department of General Services. DGS said the General Assembly's 2023 reforms eliminated its consolidating forms report to the legislature but a corresponding
John Willems, director of government and legislative affairs for the Department of General Services, and Christian Schipper, director of the Records Management Division, testified in support of House Bill 276, a departmental cleanup bill to repeal an outdated requirement for agencies to submit annual forms reports to DGS.
Schipper explained the General Assembly in 2023 had eliminated DGS's final consolidated forms report to the legislature but the corresponding obligation for agencies to submit their own annual forms data to DGS remained in statute. He said agencies still use forms but that many submissions are now handled through data portals and other digital tools, and that the forms-reporting requirement now consumes agency labor without producing a consolidated report.
Committee members pressed witnesses on what would change operationally if the reporting requirement were repealed. Schipper said agencies would continue to use forms internally and address problematic forms at the agency level; the annual reporting requirement only aggregated counts of new, revised, and discontinued forms and did not assess form quality. Willems said an amendment to change the bill's effective date from October to July would prevent an extra year of submissions to DGS.
The committee accepted the departmental explanation that the repeal would reduce unnecessary administrative work, and members discussed an amendment to move the bill's effective date earlier in the fiscal year.
