Senate committee approves bill renaming Transformation department to Shared Administrative Services

The Senate State Agencies & Governmental Affairs Committee on an unspecified date passed Senate Bill 147, which renames the Department of Transformation and Shared Services to Shared Administrative Services and applies an emergency clause to make the change effective at the start of the next fiscal year.

Leslie Fiskin, secretary of Transformation and Shared Services, told the committee the rename “is really representative of the work that we do every day supporting personnel, procurement, IT, employee benefits, buildings and our geographic information systems.” Fiskin spoke during the bill presentation after Senator Dodson introduced the measure.

Senator Dodson told members the bill contains 104 sections. “The first 102 sections are all literally striking the word ‘transformation’ and adding the word ‘administrative,’” he said, noting section 103 is a “do not codify” clause intended to catch any missed code changes and section 104 is an emergency clause to take effect July 1.

No members signed up to speak for or against the bill. After discussion closed, the committee moved to a voice vote; the chair announced the bill passed.

The committee record shows only a committee-level action to pass the bill; the transcript did not include a recorded roll-call tally. The bill’s text as discussed focuses on technical name changes in statute and an emergency effective date; no policy changes to department duties were presented in committee testimony.

The department represented by Fiskin was created in 2019 as part of earlier government consolidation efforts, a witness said during the presentation.