Utah Senate passes wide-ranging package of House bills, refers ethics measure to management committee

The Utah State Senate met in floor session and considered a long list of House bills and resolutions, approving a range of measures that lawmakers said would affect child welfare policy, court and administrative practice, and state employee rules.

Among the measures the chamber approved was House Bill 349, a bill to allow courts to order a noncustodial parent who has health insurance to keep dependent children covered when those children are receiving public assistance. A floor sponsor summarized the bill in committee-style terms as designed to ensure that “when you have dependent children that are on the welfare program and the father is not supporting it, this makes it possible for an order to develop so that that individual father of these children where he has insurance would have to keep these kids on his health insurance program when it was ordered by the court,” (spoken on the floor by the bill’s floor sponsor).

Lawmakers also debated and passed measures that would change how some medical costs are allocated. House Bill 352 would allow the state’s recovery services to obtain court orders making noncustodial parents responsible for medical expenses; Senate debate treated it as similar in thrust to HB 349.

A contested item was House Bill 169, which would require a convicted person who undergoes chemical testing to pay a fee (the floor discussion referred to a $60 fee) collected by the court and deposited in the state General Fund. A floor proponent said the proposal had “the potential of bringing…