Clerk unveils new engrossment checklist to ensure amendments appear in final St. Louis bills

Sherita Rogers, the city clerk’s office lead, told the St. Louis Board of Aldermen’s Legislation & Rules Committee on July 21 that her team has implemented a multi-step quality-control process to make sure amendments approved in committee or on the floor are properly incorporated into final bill documents. "My staff and I developed a multi quality-control process ... to ensure that all the amendments are included," Rogers said.

The process Rogers described assigns a primary staff member to incorporate amendments, routes the draft to a deputy clerk to check numbering and completeness, and requires review by the financial analyst and legal counsel. Rogers said the clerk’s office will provide a combined clean copy, a red-line version and any exhibits or attachments in a dedicated folder for each bill; those folders will be uploaded to the committee drive 24 hours before the meeting so members can review changes in advance.

Committee members universally praised the additional checks as an important safeguard against past errors where adopted changes were not reflected in final bills. Vice Chair Devote said being able to "see that red line very clearly ahead of time will aid us significantly" when preparing for meetings, and multiple members asked that the office prefer Word red-line files rather than PDFs so edits are visible.

Rogers also said the financial analyst would update fiscal notes when necessary and that the clerk would maintain an attestation checklist showing who reviewed and signed each version. The committee asked the clerk to circulate the attestation and process forms after the meeting so members could review them ahead of the next session.

The new workflow is scheduled to be used for the July 23 committee packet; the clerk’s office and committee leaders said they would continue to refine the steps and confirm file-format standards before that meeting.