H.B. 38 Local Government Amendments: transcript

Morning, Mr. Chairman Committee members. So Title 17, which is the county government in state code, has not been reified for 50 years, and that's A rush. Yeah, Exactly. So over the last two years, the political subdivisions intern committee took this on as a project. Uh, one bill would've been over a thousand pages, which would've been enjoyable, but it was, we'd broken it down into smaller pieces. So last year in the special session, we passed five separate bills of reification and left a substantive policy issues for a sixth. Bill. This is the sixth bill. Been working carefully with the counties and with me. I have Katie Minor from uac, appreciate their good work on this. So we're gonna hit, uh, some of the, the highlights. One thing it does, it says that a petition to move a a county seat must be signed by the majorities of the voters in the county. Current law says it's, it is got to be the ones voted in the last election. So it's possible you have a real low tone turnout in a prior election, and you get a minimal number of signatures and you, you're successful with petition. So this just basic, it is gotta have a majority of active voters. It will protect the public and make sure that there's more consensus. Also, those petitions currently could technically be submitted just the week prior or perhaps a day prior to the election day, which isn't practical. So this says if you're gonna submit a petition signed by the voters, it's got to be submitted at least six months before the next, uh, election date. If not, then it goes to the following election date. It, uh, provides that a county post make a public post that the county audits available on, on their website. Currently, it's required to be posted in a newspaper. This will allow them to post it on their, uh, website. It, uh, changes the way that the county recorder indexes records. This change was requested by the county recorders and it better matches their computer systems. Uh, they're using, it also adjusts to recorder fees modestly by $5 for some of the fees in those counties that are running a deficit. Almost all county recorder officers in Utah running a deficit. This increases the fees by five bucks on some of those fees, and It allows county recorders to provide records to a requesting entity on a subscription basis. This would be like Zillow that wants certain data. They can do the un descrip basis from the, the, the county. And then sometimes you'll have a, a new project that will go in and developed and the entities may be really not formed yet, and they'll need surveying work done. So the Survey County survey will do the work, and then they ask the requesting entity for payment and they say, oh, no, we, you know, we don't wanna pay you. Um, and so this just says that if work is requested by the surveyor, they can actually collect for the services that they've done. And I'm gonna let Katie touch on a few things.

Thank you. Chair Katie Minor at the Utah Association of Counties. We really appreciate the work that the political subdivisions interim committee did over the past two years to make this bill happen. Um, all of these items are requests by county members, and the goal is just to make it so that county government operates the best that it can and that the law is easy to follow for county and the public. Um, couple of the changes include things like, currently county treasurers often, and especially in rural areas, collect fees on behalf of their special service districts. That's technically not allowable by code. So we just codify the exactly what the process is in this bill. Um, it clarifies the difference between a county finance officer and the county auditor in most of the counties. The county finance officer is the county auditor that is different in Salt Lake County. So this just helps to clarify that role, um, so that those statutory duties are clear and it includes a number of other changes that I'm happy to go over line item by line item if anyone has any questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, I, I'm assuming I'm gonna make a motion to favorably recommend this bill. So just so my motion's clear, we're we're on. It's just third substitute and we don't need anything beyond that. So my motion would be to favorably recommend House Bill third substitute House Bill 38. And, and I don't wanna speak to it. I guess I'll speak to it in some,

Just this has been a multi-year project. The county's been terrific to work with. Part of this allows 'em to do business the way they currently are. They can now do it legally, which is always nice. Thank you.

Yeah, and I just, sometimes I think it's important to call out our drafting attorneys. They've done a good job. I, I was the co-chair when this project started, and, and thankfully I moved and, and Representative Dunnigan had to do this. It, it was a lot of work. And, and you act did a lot of work on this. This, I think Jim mentioned it was a, hadn't been done in 50 years, but we had a couple drafting attorneys. Ruth Ann came in and it did a lot of work. And I, I think it's just important to recognize this, this was a multi-year project with a lot of work and a lot of great people. So, Ruth Ann, if you're listening, thank you. But without utter support.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, there we go. Thank you Madam Chair. I was speaking to the second substitute. So this bill's a reserve of result of a two year process from the political subdivision's Interim Committee and re codifying Title 17. You may remember that the county code had not been reified for 50 years, and during the special session last year, we had five bills that kind of took the non policy issues and updated the code. And then we said we'd have a, a sixth bill that addresses the policy issues. And that is the bill that is before you. So there, there are a number of changes in here and replacement of language, but most of them are considered consensus items there and there's still a lot of purely technical reification. They were not included in the bills. So I want to introduce, uh, Katie Minor with the Utah Association of Counties, and she's going to address some of the changes. Madam Chair,

Katie Minor, Utah Association of Counties. Um, there's a number of things in this bill, so if you have questions about any of them, we can go through those. But generally they are just meant to make it so that county officers can follow the law better. Um, we are really, really grateful to the political subdivision's interim committee, including Representative Dunnigan and Senator Ipson who did really great work to listen to county concerns and to help us formulate this process. So some examples of things that are in are how we count active voters when you're talking about a petition, um, questions about what types of deadlines should apply. So, so that we don't have a situation where a petition organizer gets to the end of the process and has missed the ballot printing deadline. Um, so just some clarifications there. There are clarifications about how a county recorder is expected to record the code had not been updated really since we started using computers to record instead of books. And so some clarifications there, clarifications about which county, which seal a surveyor has to use, whether it's their individual license seal or their county seal. Um, clarifications about how counties work through splitting costs for trials that move locations. So a number of things all meant to make it so that we can follow the law better as counties. So thank you Representative Dunnigan for giving us a chance to work on it. Thank you, Madam Chair. We'd be glad to go into more detail on any item that's of interest to the committee. And that's our presentation.

Oh, thank you Madam Vice Chair. So I have been requested to ask a question on Be Jordan Toucher. Um, ask if I'd asked this question. 'cause he's presenting a bill in a different committee and it was not able to be here, so I might even say it wrong. Um, there was recently, I think, uh, an effort to put in place a county recorder standards board that made some decisions. So his question was, does this bill represent an undoing of that thing? Uh, he felt like this was changing the process that, uh, was set up before, and that we would be doing some things by statute that he felt like were rightfully ought to have been taken care of by that board. That was set up recently, if that you could speak to that, please.

That's a great question. This Bill does not even open the section that created the County Recorder Standards Board. So it does not modify any of the requirements of the County Recorder Standards Board. It does include some other provisions related to county recorders. Um, those are mostly considered to be consensus items. There is a fee increase related to the bill because the county recorder fee, unlike most fees in the state, is still set in statute. The last time it had an update was 2019 before we experienced a lot of big changes like increased staff costs and a really big boom in the residential sales business. That led to a lot more documents being recorded. Um, I believe that we have reached a consensus on even that item as well, But you don't see any of those newly instructed things as things that previously would've gone through the standards board. Now moving to this statutory process instead of The standards board, no, this changes nothing about the duties that were previously assigned or will be assigned in the future. Um, I've also reviewed the code related to the County Recorded Standards Board, and none of the decisions that were made regarding this bill, um Okay. Are statutorily in conflict.

Uh, another thing, if I might just one other topic. So the bill looks at changing the name of an office from a, an auditor to a finance officer. Oh, That's a great Question. And so that is right now in many places, I mean, Davis County made a change even recently in this respect to trying to describe the office more accurately. Mm-hmm. But does anything about what is in this bill change how the person who does that thing is elected or not elected or chosen by the legislative body of the county or not?

That's a great question. It does not. What it attempts to clarify is that counties who do things differently, the primary example is that Salt Lake County's auditor has a different set of job responsibilities than the county auditor in Weber County or the county controller in Davis County. And so this just attempts to clarify that whoever is doing your finance officer responsibilities has the same set of responsibilities. This does not change anything about who the county designates to do those responsibilities. So the rules about whether or not you elect that person or you assign that person via the legislative body are still the same, and that is dependent on your form of government, which is a separate issue.

Thank you. Uh, Madam Chair, um, I'm just looking at the change in the recording fee. I, I think I've got this right. Is it an increase from 40 to 45 on 1168? Do I have that correct?

So on the recording fees, and just to give you a little context, all the small counties are losing money. Okay. So, And some of the second. Yeah. So, but let's start with the small counties. So the, the fees that they're charging last updated, as Katie said in 2019, are not covering the costs and kind of have the philosophy that a service should cover the cost, otherwise it's cost shifted to others. And, and the larger counties, it depends on the year. If they have a good year, sometimes it covers the cost, sometimes it doesn't. But the latest information I've been given is all but one county in Utah had a deficit last year. And the recording fees, it's technically two if you look at Weber, but as I understand it, the recorder salary isn't, doesn't come out of the fees because they don't have enough to cover it. So they had $109,000 surplus, but they didn't pay the recorder salary out of that. That's in the office with the surveyor, which paid it. And so really every county had a deficit, but Salt Lake County. And so what the, and Salt Lake County had a, a surplus. So what the bill does, it says we're increasing the fees by $5 except for Salt Lake County and also except for Utah County. And the reason that we're not doing on Utah County is they have, uh, millions of dollars in a surplus account. I don't know how much detail you want, but some years ago, the state auditor went down and, and told Utah County, if you have excess recorder fees, you can't flow them into the general fund, which happens in other counties when they have a surplus. If Salt Lake County has a surplus gonna flow into the general fund, Utah county's the only county, but they were told you have to keep a separate restricted account for that money. So they've got a, a huge surplus in there. So this bill would not let let them, even though they had a deficit last year, we want them to use up the surplus every quarter fees before they get to increase fees.

Okay. So did I hear you correctly that Salt Lake and Utah counties are an an exception to that fee? That's correct. I think that that, I think that addressed my question. Um, I just wanted to point out one other thing that's gonna be really interesting. And I, uh, I appreciate the good work of our recorders and, and, uh, recognize that particularly for many of our counties, there's not that many recordings. And so there's not that very, not very much revenue and acknowledge that. I'm also recognized for some of our, uh, counties, uh, we've primarily moved to electronic recording and I think we're getting a lot better and a lot more efficient at this. And so, um, appreciate the explanation of the context. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Uh, Madam Chair, uh, forget the question. It's really, uh, based on my unfamiliarity between the terms that are being equated here, but is there a defacto difference between, uh, a finance officer and an auditor in terms of professional qualifications or certifications in practical day-to-day operations? That's

A great question. The answer is that in most counties, the county auditor is the finance officer for the county. The exception to that rule really mostly is in Salt Lake County, in which case they have a finance officer that's under the mayor's team. And then the county auditor is an independently elected official that has other responsibilities. The other county auditors also do, but they are not the finance officer for the county. So it's the set of tasks, essentially. The Salt Lake County auditor does have a different standard of professional qualifications than the other county auditors do. That reflects that their tasks are different than the other county auditors. Um, there are no requirements in statute for the finance officer in particular, but obviously it's someone that the mayor is hiring who she believes is able to complete that tax. And, and just to clarify, then, Salt Lake County is the only county that has that differentiation. For the most part. There are some differences in how counties administer a number of different things. Um, Representative Ward mentioned that in Davis County, they call the county auditor, the county controller in Cash County, there are some additional finance responsibilities that the County Executive's office handles rather than the county auditor. Um, and then there are minor differences, but for the most part that's true.

Thank You, Madam Chair with the presenter. Um, yield to a series of questions.

Sure. Thank you.

Um, so in lines 3 92 93, the county seat can't be changed due to petition by Votes cast versus the registered voters. I just wanted to know what the history background of this, I mean, what that means.

That's a great question. So the goal of, there's a number of these where it refers to active voters instead of votes cast. And the goal is to make it more consistent with other portions of the election code. For the most part, we are working off of active voters and not votes cast. Um, and one of the reasons why that's important, I'll give you an example that's not related to the movement of a county seat 'cause that hasn't happened for a while. But a situation in one of our southern Utah counties where there was a really, really small jurisdiction with not a lot of voters, a lot of new friends moved in from another state and were able to really influence the elections in that area because the votes counted were of votes cast. So in the previous election, there were very few voters, and so a few new friends moving in from another state were really able to impact those elections in an unfair way the residents felt. So this just makes it more consistent so that we're always talking about a majority of the active voters in the area and not necessarily the basis of a previous election, which, you know, any number of things could have happened in the intervening time.

Okay. Thank you. Yep. Um, and then lines, uh, 2 22 54 and 55. What is a career service system? So

The Career Service Council is a board that is, that essentially the responsibility of the Career Service Council is to resolve disputes when there's an issue between someone who works for a government entity and their employer. So an example of how that could have happened is, um, you, you might be a merit employee, which means that you are not subject to being removed because your boss doesn't like you in government. Um, and they disagree with some, something about their termination, about their pay, whatever it is. This is an adjudicated body. The counties have had issues staffing these bodies for years. One of the reasons is that you are not allowed to have anyone on these boards that has previous experience in government. So it's really hard to find people who are experts on municipal or county HR law who have no prior experience in government. So it's just really hard to find volunteers who are willing to, you know, learn that much about HR law related to government in order to serve on these boards. So what this section of changes does is it gives the county the option to, instead of staffing a career services council, to hire an administrative law judge who can make determinations and adjudicate those situations. It also gives the counties a little bit more flexibility so that you can't have someone who previously worked in county government, but cities or counties could exchange folks so that we could have, you know, people who are experts in municipal HR law serving on county councils, and those would be really great candidates to really understand the issues.

Thank you. I still have some more Madam Chair, if that is Okay.

Um, lines 20, uh, 2377 to 79. Would that expand government expenses? Um, dealing with, oh, and in addition to dealing with personnel on 26, 21 and 22, I think that we are looking at different versions. Um, I'm still looking at, at the sub. Are you, you're looking at the second sub. Oh, I second sub. I see. Oh, the second sub. Yeah. I didn't see the second Sub. I know, I'm so sorry. Um, are you talking about 17 75 5 0 1? Is that the section? Um, on the second sub? Mm-hmm.

It just had to do with personnel. So getting, so having a, like a confidential assistant for each member of the county, how does that quantify Oh, I understand what you're saying. No, this doesn't expand. It's just meant to change the word secretary to administrative assistant And they, and, and they've always been allowed to have an additional Yep. Person. Yep. So it doesn't change anything about the number or the requirement, it's just change the name secretary to the name Administrative assistant.

Okay. Thank you Madam Chair. Yep.

Thank you. Madam Chair. Excuse me. My name is Amelia Powers Gardner. I am a Utah County Commissioner and former county auditor. Um, I wanted to kind of address the little bit of a background on, on Utah County and why we do have a surplus in our recorder's fees at the moment. Even though we ran a deficit this last year, um, the Utah, the previous Utah County Commissioners went almost 36 years without ever doing a truth in taxation. From the time that truth in taxation law went into effect in 19, I think it's 86 until 2019, there was never a truth in taxation. The way that the, that the commissioners would deal with inflation is they would refuse to hire new staff in the recorder's office, and then they would take those recorders fees and use them to supplement the general fund. When I became a county commissioner, I discovered this in 2019 when I was the county auditor, which is why we asked the state auditor's office to come down and audit this practice of charging employee, uh, uh, citizens fees for a service and then, and then redirecting that money to supplement the general fund. In 2021, when I became a county commissioner, we doubled the size of the recorder's office in Utah County prior to 2021. So in the year 2020, we had 210,000 documents get recorded. Um, during that year, our recordings took six months. That is well outside the statutory mandate that you, as the legislature has set, there is, um, an amount of time that legally when you purchased a home, you have to have that home recorded and on the books. We were well outside that mandate because we did not have the number of people in our county to do that. We were regularly receiving complaints from, um, real estate investors that they would purchase a home or a piece of property, a commercial piece of property in, in Utah County, and then three, four months later, they would go to do another deal and they couldn't qualify for financing on the other deal because the deal they had done three and four and five months ago in Utah County still had not recorded. So we started putting money in this fund when we got the, the ruling from the state auditor's office. And then when I became a commissioner in 2021, we literally doubled the size of that office. Now today, Utah County is fully within compliance of state law for recording. And as you'll notice that last year we did about 109,000 property records. We are the fastest growing county in the state. We comprise of over 40% of the state's growth, and we've been roughly 40% of the state's growth for five years. According to the Chem mc Gardner Institute. That growth is not going to slow. We are going to continue to have that growth. So we still have some money in that fund even though we've run a deficit. But the reason why is we've saving that money to open a, a satellite location for the Recorder's office. The vast majority of our growth is happening in Le we Lehi, Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain. We own property there, and we are in the process of opening a building. When we get that building opened, the majority of those funds are going to be used to open that building. Any additional increase we would use to hire new employees to staff that building to compensate for our growth. So Utah County isn't a unique scenario where we have the money, we have the money because we were derelict in our duties and we're not meeting the statutory mandates until we hired enough employees to do so. We have done that, we've done that for four years. We do run a deficit. Now we do absolutely have millions of dollars in that account, but we're using it for capital projects instead of bonding for those projects, we are going to spend that money on those projects. So that's a clarification. Obviously we'll comply with whatever you do, but I just wanted you guys to know the background as to why Utah County, even though we ran a deficit, has a surplus.

Hey, welcome. Good afternoon committee members. I'm Shelly Brennan, I'm the Duchesne County Recorder. I also sit, um, and serve as chair of the Recorder's Association's legislative committee. And I still serving as UX past president, so we just wanted to come and, um, speak in support of this bill. We appreciate all of the work that Representative Dunnigan has done on this over the last two years. Um, and, and appreciate that. We just recommend that you guys push this out of your committee with a favorable recommendation. I'm happy to answer any more recorder questions if anybody has one.

Thank you Madam Chair Alyssa Daley with the Utah Association of Realtors. We're also here to speak in support of this bill and want to thank Representative Dunnigan for always being such a awesome individual to work with. Um, we appreciate his willingness to take stakeholder input on tough issues like this. Thank you.

I'm Jen Brown, president of Utah Citizens for the Constitution. We also want to thank the sponsor for all the work that he has done on this. The only thing that we were wondering about is just with the auditor, we were a little bit concerned about if with it removes the independent check of the auditor on debt limit. It eliminates auditor oversight on claims requesting payment for goods or services, and also removes the independent investigation and inspection of claims by the auditor, removes the auditor's authority to draw warrants a critical financial control. We were just a little bit concerned from the just average citizen standpoint if there were responsibilities being removed from the auditor that would create, that would compromise that independent check that the auditor has. So that was the only thing that we were wondering about. Thank you.

Thank you Madam Vice Chair. I would like to move second sub house bill 38. The motion is to, uh, adopt House second sub of House Bill 38. Um, would you like to speak to that motion? No, thank you. And the sponsor. I'll waive. Is there any discussion to that motion? All right. Uh, back to Representative Ward. All waive. Okay.

And back to Representative Ward. I do have a, a question for me that came up with the testimony. Could you speak maybe a minute to whether or not there were any important duties that you feel like got moved from the auditor? And it is another, I guess it's a small thing, but the, the setting of the fee itself was something, was an item that was previously, I, I think statutorily designated to the recorder standards Board. Did did they then do that thing the statute said they should do to come up with this fee, or this was a different way to set the fee than, than that other statutory requirement that they Had? I'll make

a comment on that Katie. Add. So in 2023, Representative Teuscher did that, uh, board that you're talking about and what it says in the statute that they may do this, they made recommendations, uh, that board's made up of I think three recorders and the rest are non recorders, which is fine. So, so they've, they've met, but, but this issue is, is driven from the Association of Counties as part of the reification codification cleanup, as well as addressing the, the recorder issue of not having enough funds to cover their expenses. And I'll let Katie add to that.

Yeah. And just really specifically, the code says that the board shall submit a written report that may include any recommendations for legislation related to the services provided by county recorders, including recommendations for modification of the fees. And they are welcome to do that. We welcome that We, the recorders appreciate the participation on the board. They appreciate the standards that have come from that board. That does not preclude anyone else from also making that recommendation.

Sure. And then do you want me to answer the Auditor? Madam Chair? May we address the auditor question from the prior witness?

Yes, go ahead. Um, so the, again, this does not remove any duties. It does not change anything that is being done. It just is a clarification as to who is doing it in which county. Um, so that's, that's the only difference. So when you're looking at the strike of the county auditor, you are also looking at the addition of the word finance officer. And again, it's just to clarify whose responsibility that is. So that is different in Davis County than it is in Salt Lake County than it is in Weber County. It's getting done either way. And all of those individuals are obviously accountable to the voters. And that's a really important step. So the, again, this is just cleanup most, in most counties, the county auditor is the finance officer. So they are still doing the same set of responsibilities. And in counties where they have a finance officer and a county auditor, um, this language came from the county auditor whose job is different. So he is also comfortable and believes that this protects the Independence of his office by clarifying those roles.

I would, uh, make a motion that we favorably recommend House Bill 38 second substitute. Okay. The motion is to favorably recommend House Bill 38 second substitute. Would you like to speak to that motion?

I appreciate the motion in my close. I will just say this has been a lot of work over, over two years now, and our staff and the counties have been terrific to work with, and we've had a lot of input from various stakeholders. I think we've landed in a good spot. I really appreciate the context from Utah County. I think that's some good history on that. And they do have a surplus at some point. Uh, maybe as they open their satellite office and so forth, that surplus will be depleted. When that happens, then this increased fee will apply to them and they'll need it, but they'll get it. But for right now, when they have that surplus, they won't get the increased fee.

Thank you. I move to Circle.

Clarifying one piece of the bill.

Madam Reading Clerk Second substitute house bill 38 County Government amendments by Representative Dunnigan. This bill was heard in political subdivisions with the vote of 8 1 3

Representative Dunnigan. Thank You Mr. Speaker. I move to adopt third substitute house bill 38, Representative Dunnigan.

Yes. The third substitute moves language governing IDs to the same to from title 17 B to 17 D, which is where PIDs are. Think it's a, a good fit to have IDs and PIs together. We're not changing any policy, we're just moving the language from Title 17 B for IDs and adding it to 17 D with PIDs.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I accidentally pushed the button.

for, uh, presentation. Thank You, Mr. Speaker. Title 17, which is, uh, affects county law has not been reified for 50 years. So the political subdivision's interim committee took a two year project, and in the special session last year, we adopted five bills to update and re codified and replaced and language and, and made technical changes. The policy changes were reserved for this bill and why? These are generally consensus items. We want to high, we want to highlight them in a separate bill. I should say that these changes are supported by the Utah Association of Counties. So one, one of the changes it says is it clarifies a petition to move a county seat from the criteria being the, the number of vote voters that voted in the prior election to the majority of active voters. And I'll explain why. You could have an election, let's say municipal election where 10 people voted and then somebody wants to do a petition to move the county seat. Well, you only have to hit the threshold based on the number of voters that voted. So what this does is it will require a much broader consensus before things are done, like moving the county seat instead of, let's say you have a one-off and you have a real small turnout. That small turnout could say, okay, this is all that's required to move the county seat. Those same changes are duplicated for petitions. To consolidate counties or to annex a portion of a county into an adjoining county. Just requires more of the electorate to be involved. And, uh, and also in that section, it requires if somebody submits a petition for any of those items to move the county seat or consolidate counties, it has to be submitted six months, 180 days before the election. Right now, technically somebody could submit a petition a week before the election and it's supposed to go on the ballot. Well, that's impossible. So what this says is you've gotta submit your petition six months prior. If you don't, then it will go on the next general election. After that, it also repeals requirement that a county financial officer be bonded. We eliminated that requirement in many areas. Last year they required to have crime insurance. This one got overlooked. So we're fixing that. And it allows the county to post public notices that a county audit is complete to the county website. Website. Currently it's required to be posted in a, in a newspaper. It changes, uh, the manner in which the county recorder indexes records. This was requested by the county recorders and it better reflects the computerized systems that they're using. It increases certain statutory fees for county recorders by $5 for some of the, the fees in all counties except Salt Lake County and Utah County, which currently both have a surplus. Currently, the recorders fees are not covering expenses, they're being subsidized by other taxpayers that aren't using recorder fees. So this will be a small measure in having people that are using the service, pay for the service. It allows county recorders to provide records to a request, an entity on a subscription basis. And it authorized surveyors who contract with the county to do survey. We, we work to use either the county seal or their personal seal. It provides that a county survey may charge a newly created political subdivision, a survey fee following the Lieutenant Governor's issuance of Certificate of incorporation. It clarifies how appeals and a merit system employment are handled, including appeals to a a career service council. And it clarifies that when a county legislative body designates a finance officer to perform certain account duties, some services may be provided by that finance officer or the county auditor. Some of the counties like their finance officer or may be their auditor or they may divest the duties. And this just gives them the flexibility and statute, frankly, to what they're already doing. And with that, Mr. Speaker, I'm open to questions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this bill and I just wanna give a special thank you, um, to my good colleague from Taylorsville and, and particularly the drafting attorneys. This has been a lot of work almost over two years of hard tedious work and appreciate the efforts that's gone into cleaning this up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the sponsor yield to a question? Representative Dunnigan, will you yield?

Yes. Yes. Representative Peck.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Just a little bit of a comment. I have no problem with cleanups and making sure that things are matching and code and stuff like that, but as I look at this, I'm seeing, um, some pretty key things like PIs being moved to other places and not really hearing why. So I'm just kind of wondering what is the real reason that we have to do this big, huge long Bill.

Thank you Mr. Speaker for the question. So as I said at the beginning, this is a two and a half year project. Now the bill was originally a thousand pages, and so we have split it up into six bills. The five bills that you passed in the special session last year were mostly the technical changes this year. It's additional technical changes and policy changes. The service sticks. Districts requested that IDs, which is in the chapter with them and can be confusing with them, be moved to the chapter with PIDs. There are no policy changes. It's just putting it where a better home for it's currently. Where PIs are, if you're familiar with IS and PS they're cousins and now they get to be in the same home.

Okay. So with Mr. Speaker, can I ask another question? Please? Would the sponsor yield Representative Dunnigan, will you yield to another

question? Yes. Representative Peck.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, that's some good clarity. You said just now in your comment that there was some policy, some cleanups and some policy changes and then saying there wasn't policy change for the PI just moving to a newer location. But what are the policy, the actual meaty policy changes that aren't part of the cleanups? 'cause I'm having a hard time discerning that as I'm hearing the presentation and reading through. Are you talking, uh, uh, any clarity Mr. Speaker? Are you talking about policy changes from s going to PIs or into bill generally? I ge I guess yes. Um, but specifically related to the PIs 'cause now I've, I just heard there wasn't policy changes and there are policy changes. I'm just trying to get clarity there. Thank you Mr. Speaker.

There are no policy changes to ps There are no policy changes to IDs. We're just taking the language from one area of the code. It's in service districts Title 17 B and moving it to 17 D. So it will be in there with PIs. There's not one iota of policy change in that area.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Will the speaker yield to, I'm sorry. Will the sponsor? Thank you. Will the sponsor yield to a few questions? Representative Dunnigan, will you yield to a series of questions?

Yes. Yes. Representative Shepherd.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Uh, could you please explain why we have inserted the words finance officer and struck auditor and several sections of this code?

Uh, Mr. Speaker, what was the part of the first question? Would I explain what?

Could you please explain why we have inserted finance officer and struck out auditor in several sections of this code.

Some counties like to their auditor to be the finance officer and some don't. So it's giving them flexibility. Some counties have a separate finance officer and some have a separate auditor. Some counties combine them there and they're already doing this. So this just says, okay, you can legally do what you're doing. It can provide a checks and balances to have a separate finance officer. But frankly, some of the smaller counties can't afford that or they don't wanna do it, and their finance officer can be their auditor.

Thank you. My second question is, I noticed in there, and I'm trying to desperately find where it was in the bill. Oh, here it is. It's line 10 64 and 10 65. A county described in section 17 71 0 3, main act ordinance consolidating the offices of county clerk and county audit at any time that was already in the code. Has that been struck out in different sections of the code? It is just replaced. The same words are replaced to a different spot in the bill, which we feel fit in, uh, better at that location. Thank you. Actually, I have a concern on that section right there of consolidating those offices, but I'll bring that up at another time. That won't prohibit me from voting in favor of this one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the sponsor yield to a question? Representative Dunnigan, will you yield to a question?

Yes. Yes. Representative Christofferson.

Thank you. I just had a question about the parts. As it repeals the criminal penalty for individuals who vi willfully violate provisions related to county personnel, uh, management. Can you tell me how those penalties will now be or how that, uh, willful, uh, violation will be handled if it, if it's not done through the, the way it is?

So this is, uh, thank you for the question, Mr. Speaker. The, the counties have not been enforcing this. Nobody's enforcing it. And they said we'd like you to jet us in it because we never enforce it.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to thank the sponsor of this bill from, from many, many members of a lot of the counties. This is an important bill for them and they are very grateful for the work that he has put into this. Uh, bill. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Thank

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the questions. We have carefully tried to parse out strictly technical cleanup, which we did in the bills last year. This bill has some policy, but we've had all the counties as stakeholders and this is strongly supported by the Utah Association of Counties. I encourage your support.

You Mr. Speaker. I move to adopt third substitute house bill 38, Representative Dunnigan.

Yes. The third substitute moves language governing IDs to the same to from title 17 B to 17 D, which is where PIDs are. Think it's a, a good fit to have IDs and PIs together. We're not changing any policy, we're just moving the language from Title 17 B for IDs and adding it to 17 D with PIDs.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I accidentally pushed the button. Okay.

You, Mr. Speaker. Title 17, which is, uh, affects county law has not been reified for 50 years. So the political subdivision's interim committee took a two year project, and in the special session last year, we adopted five bills to update and re codified and replaced and language and, and made technical changes. The policy changes were reserved for this bill and why? These are generally consensus items. We want to high, we want to highlight them in a separate bill. I should say that these changes are supported by the Utah Association of Counties. So one, one of the changes it says is it clarifies a petition to move a county seat from the criteria being the, the number of vote voters that voted in the prior election to the majority of active voters. And I'll explain why. You could have an election, let's say municipal election where 10 people voted and then somebody wants to do a petition to move the county seat. Well, you only have to hit the threshold based on the number of voters that voted. So what this does is it will require a much broader consensus before things are done, like moving the county seat instead of, let's say you have a one-off and you have a real small turnout. That small turnout could say, okay, this is all that's required to move the county seat. Those same changes are duplicated for petitions. To consolidate counties or to annex a portion of a county into an adjoining county. Just requires more of the electorate to be involved. And, uh, and also in that section, it requires if somebody submits a petition for any of those items to move the county seat or consolidate counties, it has to be submitted six months, 180 days before the election. Right now, technically somebody could submit a petition a week before the election and it's supposed to go on the ballot. Well, that's impossible. So what this says is you've gotta submit your petition six months prior. If you don't, then it will go on the next general election. After that, it also repeals requirement that a county financial officer be bonded. We eliminated that requirement in many areas. Last year they required to have crime insurance. This one got overlooked. So we're fixing that. And it allows the county to post public notices that a county audit is complete to the county website. Website. Currently it's required to be posted in a, in a newspaper. It changes, uh, the manner in which the county recorder indexes records. This was requested by the county recorders and it better reflects the computerized systems that they're using. It increases certain statutory fees for county recorders by $5 for some of the, the fees in all counties except Salt Lake County and Utah County, which currently both have a surplus. Currently, the recorders fees are not covering expenses, they're being subsidized by other taxpayers that aren't using recorder fees. So this will be a small measure in having people that are using the service, pay for the service. It allows county recorders to provide records to a request, an entity on a subscription basis. And it authorized surveyors who contract with the county to do survey. We, we work to use either the county seal or their personal seal. It provides that a county survey may charge a newly created political subdivision, a survey fee following the Lieutenant Governor's issuance of Certificate of incorporation. It clarifies how appeals and a merit system employment are handled, including appeals to a a career service council. And it clarifies that when a county legislative body designates a finance officer to perform certain account duties, some services may be provided by that finance officer or the county auditor. Some of the counties like their finance officer or may be their auditor or they may divest the duties. And this just gives them the flexibility and statute, frankly, to what they're already doing. And with that, Mr. Speaker, I'm open to questions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this bill and I just wanna give a special thank you, um, to my good colleague from Taylorsville and, and particularly the drafting attorneys. This has been a lot of work almost over two years of hard tedious work and appreciate the efforts that's gone into cleaning this up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the sponsor yield to a question? Representative Dunnigan, will you yield?

Yes. Yes. Representative Peck.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Just a little bit of a comment. I have no problem with cleanups and making sure that things are matching and code and stuff like that, but as I look at this, I'm seeing, um, some pretty key things like PIs being moved to other places and not really hearing why. So I'm just kind of wondering what is the real reason that we have to do this big, huge long Bill.

Thank you Mr. Speaker for the question. So as I said at the beginning, this is a two and a half year project. Now the bill was originally a thousand pages, and so we have split it up into six bills. The five bills that you passed in the special session last year were mostly the technical changes this year. It's additional technical changes and policy changes. The service sticks. Districts requested that IDs, which is in the chapter with them and can be confusing with them, be moved to the chapter with PIDs. There are no policy changes. It's just putting it where a better home for it's currently. Where PIs are, if you're familiar with IS and PS they're cousins and now they get to be in the same home.

Okay. So with Mr. Speaker, can I ask another question? Please? Would the sponsor yield Representative Dunnigan, will you yield to another

question? Yes. Representative Peck.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, that's some good clarity. You said just now in your comment that there was some policy, some cleanups and some policy changes and then saying there wasn't policy change for the PI just moving to a newer location. But what are the policy, the actual meaty policy changes that aren't part of the cleanups? 'cause I'm having a hard time discerning that as I'm hearing the presentation and reading through. Are you talking, uh, uh, any clarity Mr. Speaker? Are you talking about policy changes from s going to PIs or into bill generally? I ge I guess yes. Um, but specifically related to the PIs 'cause now I've, I just heard there wasn't policy changes and there are policy changes. I'm just trying to get clarity there. Thank you Mr. Speaker.

There are no policy changes to ps There are no policy changes to IDs. We're just taking the language from one area of the code. It's in service districts Title 17 B and moving it to 17 D. So it will be in there with PIs. There's not one iota of policy change in that area.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Will the speaker yield to, I'm sorry. Will the sponsor? Thank you. Will the sponsor yield to a few questions? Representative Dunnigan, will you yield to a series of questions?

Yes. Yes. Representative Shepherd.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Uh, could you please explain why we have inserted the words finance officer and struck auditor and several sections of this code?

Uh, Mr. Speaker, what was the part of the first question? Would I explain what?

Could you please explain why we have inserted finance officer and struck out auditor in several sections of this code.

Some counties like to their auditor to be the finance officer and some don't. So it's giving them flexibility. Some counties have a separate finance officer and some have a separate auditor. Some counties combine them there and they're already doing this. So this just says, okay, you can legally do what you're doing. It can provide a checks and balances to have a separate finance officer. But frankly, some of the smaller counties can't afford that or they don't wanna do it, and their finance officer can be their auditor.

Thank you. My second question is, I noticed in there, and I'm trying to desperately find where it was in the bill. Oh, here it is. It's line 10 64 and 10 65. A county described in section 17 71 0 3, main act ordinance consolidating the offices of county clerk and county audit at any time that was already in the code. Has that been struck out in different sections of the code?

It is just replaced. The same words are replaced to a different spot in the bill, which we feel fit in, uh, better at that location.

Thank you. Actually, I have a concern on that section right there of consolidating those offices, but I'll bring that up at another time. That won't prohibit me from voting in favor of this one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the sponsor yield to a question? Representative Dunnigan, will you yield to a question?

Yes. Yes. Representative Christofferson.

Thank you. I just had a question about the parts. As it repeals the criminal penalty for individuals who vi willfully violate provisions related to county personnel, uh, management. Can you tell me how those penalties will now be or how that, uh, willful, uh, violation will be handled if it, if it's not done through the, the way it is?

So this is, uh, thank you for the question, Mr. Speaker. The, the counties have not been enforcing this. Nobody's enforcing it. And they said we'd like you to jet us in it because we never enforce it.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to thank the sponsor of this bill from, from many, many members of a lot of the counties. This is an important bill for them and they are very grateful for the work that he has put into this. Uh, bill. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Thank

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the questions. We have carefully tried to parse out strictly technical cleanup, which we did in the bills last year. This bill has some policy, but we've had all the counties as stakeholders and this is strongly supported by the Utah Association of Counties. I encourage your support.

Thank you. This is, this is a long bill. This is actually effort about a two year effort. Um, I was on political subdivisions when we started doing the reification of Title 17. This is kind of the last bill. It does, it does make some minor policy adjustments, but this is the, the last bill in that process of dealing with Title 17 making changes. I think it's important to point out, um, our drafting attorney, uh, Ruth Ann Frost, it was started by a couple other attorneys, but she did a lot of work on this and really appreciative of that. Um, with that, this, this is, this is the conclusion of of that effort and I'm open for questions.

Thank you. I'd move that this bill be read for a third time.

last two interim stakeholders like the Association of Counties raised substantive issues while generally considered consensus items that did not fall purely within technical scope and reification. So they were not included in this, in that those set of five bills, all of those is changes by Utah Association of Counties and stakeholders during the review are included in House Bill 38. Um, this is just an ongoing effort with stake stakeholders. This does deal with the, the effort to do the reification of Title 17. Um, it's a good bill and I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you. I'd move this bill pass.