Committee adopts amendments and gives do-pass recommendation for House committee substitute to Senate Bill 945

The committee considered a House committee substitute for Senate Bill 945 and a set of distributed amendments. Chairman Mayhew noted a recently distributed house committee substitute ending in ".04c," describing a change to a debt section and related fee language under a referenced provision (listed in the transcript as "4 88.027"). "It was the debt section under 4 88.027," the chairman said while describing a fee provision added in that subsection.

Representative Dolan offered a house committee amendment ending in ".02h" (amendment number 1). Representative Hubris said the amendment changes where the fee was set and removes a prior cap (described in the transcript as between $3,000 and $15,000) so attorney costs for the sheriff would be paid from the sheriff's budget. "There's already money that's budgeted into that ... what we're removing is the language that had it set between 3,000 and 15,000," Hubris said, arguing the change allows the sheriff's office to meet future needs.

Representative Dolan then offered a second amendment ending in ".03h" to clarify treatment court administration. Dolan described that the amendment permits circuits that have treatment court divisions to assign duties to a judge or commissioner where treatment court commissioners or administrators are not present and allows the court to employ a treatment court administrator subject to appropriations or other available funds; where compensation is provided from non-state funds, the source must reimburse the state for actual costs. The committee adopted both amendments by voice vote, rolled them into a new substitute, and voted that the House committee substitute for Senate Bill 945 do pass. The clerk recorded a final vote of 9 ayes and 1 no.