Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the County Statutes Recodification topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Senate advances county-statutes recodification bill to third reading
Summary
Senate first-substitute of Senate Bill 80, a second-year effort to recodify county government statutes and clarify executive vs. legislative duties, was adopted and advanced to third reading after sponsor Senator Gladwell described technical amendments and a pending surveyor-related fix.
Salt Lake City — The Utah Senate on Feb. 19 advanced the first substitute of Senate Bill 80, a two-year effort to recodify county statutes that the sponsor described as intended to clarify executive and legislative duties and remove obsolete language.
Senator Gladwell, the bill sponsor, told colleagues the bill is the second step in a statewide recodification intended to standardize how optional forms of county government are proposed and adopted and to resolve conflicting and obsolete provisions across county codes. He said the measure addresses supervisory roles of county executives, the responsibilities of county auditors for claim payments and budgets, and eliminates duplicative optional forms of government.
At the committee level, Gladwell said, lawmakers adopted primarily technical amendments and that the chamber would substitute a combined text "for substitute" to incorporate committee changes. He also signaled an additional amendment expected at third reading to address language that could have permitted county auditors to be counted as licensed surveyors in certain options; he said he would withdraw that language to ensure licensed surveyors remain distinct.
Senator Walker and other members asked questions about appointments of deputies and the range of supervisory mechanisms the bill creates. Gladwell described three alternatives for how a county legislative body could exercise supervisory power: through budget-based oversight, by approving the allocation of positions to an elected official, or by approving or disapproving individual hires in counties that operate that way. He said most counties currently use some mixture of those approaches and that the Utah Association of Counties supported the bill's approach.
After debate, the Senate called the question and recorded a roll-call vote. The first substitute of Senate Bill 80 received 27 aye votes, no recorded nays on the tally provided in the transcript, and was advanced to the third-reading calendar.
The sponsor said he would answer additional questions at third reading and expected a narrowly scoped amendment on the surveyor language before final passage.
