Committee approves bill to standardize LEA payroll naming and clarify contractor reporting

The Education Interim Committee voted to recommend favorably a committee bill that aims to tighten reporting standards for local education agency payroll and clarify how third‑party contractor payments are reported to the state’s Transparent Utah public finance website.

Associate general counsel Tyler Keach said the bill implements recommendations from a performance audit of Alpine School District by requiring common naming conventions for compensation and payroll data and assigning the state auditor authority to establish and enforce those conventions for qualifying entities. The bill also clarifies that distributions to third‑party contractors who are not LEA employees are not required to be reported as public employee compensation.

Representative Perucci moved to adopt the measure as a committee bill and the committee voted unanimously to recommend it favorably for the 2026 general session. Committee members cited the Alpine School District audit as the impetus and said standardization is intended to improve public transparency and reduce reporting errors.

The committee did not record detailed roll‑call votes beyond voice approval during the meeting; staff said the bill will continue through the regular drafting and session process for final wording and implementation details.