S.B. 147 Office of Inspector General of Medicaid Services Amendments

What this bill does

This bill moves the Medicaid Inspector General's office into the Department of Government Operations, where it reports to that department's executive director, and sets performance metrics for the office. It also lets the Legislative Auditor General perform certain Medicaid program integrity audits, creates a sunsetting advisory board for coordination, and adds reporting requirements.

Plain-English summary written by AI from the sponsor’s presentation in committee and on the floor. Check the official text below.

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Every vote

• 25 yes, 0 no, 4 absentFirst of two Senate votes · Jan 22, 2026Who voted how
• 24 yes, 0 no, 5 absentFinal Senate vote · Feb 17, 2026Who voted how
• 9 yes, 0 no, 3 absentHouse Government Operations Committee: vote to approve it · Feb 19, 2026Who voted how
• 68 yes, 0 no, 7 absentFinal House vote · Mar 6, 2026Who voted how
• 28 yes, 0 no, 1 absentSenate vote to accept the other chamber's changes · Mar 6, 2026Who voted how

Hearings and debates

• Jan 22, 2026 Senate floor debate▶ Watch
  Transcript (8 turns)

  1. Sen. Luz Escamilla11:58

     come back and report. But we're also creating an advisory board that will be the experts in the advisory board that will provide the feedback to make sure this office is moving in the direction we need. And remember, this office is very critical to, uh, preventing, preventing and doing intervention when it comes to waste, fraud and abuse. And they do a really good job. We've just been missing some of, again, more of the administrative operation pieces. The bill, um, was presented in our committee, which is, uh, it's not called Administrative Rules Committee, but we're gonna change the name again, rules Review Committee. And was, um, presented and approved with unanimous support A couple of days ago. We got a call from staff that there's a technical piece that we need to change. It has to be also reported as part of all the agencies that this department oversees. So we, um, there is a substitute one that I wanna bring forward, but we're also, like I said, um, gonna have some conversations with HHS on other pieces. So my ask Mr. President, is that we consider this bill to move to the third reading calendar, uh, in this case so we can, uh, you know, take care of all those other pieces. But I will be first open for any questions. Uh, this is my presentation, Mr. President.

  2. President of the Senate (presiding)13:20

     Thank you, Senator. Uh, do you want to move the substitute now so that the substitutes before you move it to third? So

  3. Sen. Luz Escamilla13:26

     Make the motion, Mr. President.

  4. President of the Senate (presiding)13:28

     Okay. Thank you. So the question is, uh, uh, delete title and body Senate bill 1 47 and replace it with first substitute Senate bill 1 47. It's online discussion. Say none. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. I'm not seeing any further comments to the bill Senator. So I'm gonna go to you and I suppose we were, you could have moved it all the way across, but with that explanation, you're going to third, correct?

  5. Sen. Luz Escamilla13:59

     Yep. I'll take that. The third. I'll take that motion to move it to third. Perfect. Call the question, Mr. President. Thank

  6. President of the Senate (presiding)14:03

     You. The question is, shall first substitute Senate Bill 1 47? Be read a third time. Roll call Vote. Senator Spery a Lein Aye. Brammer bus a Comore Escamilla Aye. Fillmore Aye. Grover Harper a. Hankins Aye. Ipson Aye. Johnson Aye. Quan McKay? Aye. Mikel Aye. Milner Aye. Musselman Owens Aye. Pitcher Plum Rebe. Aye. Sandal Aye. Stevenson. Aye. Stratton? Yes. Vicars. Weiler Wilson. Aye. Winterton Aye. President Adams Aye. Aye. First substitute Senate Bill 1 47, having received 25 yay votes, zero nay votes, four being absent shall be read a third time. I think the next bill up is, uh, we moved it to third. We already, and we, and if we wanted to, uh, because that a port of order. So, and I think Senator Wilson actually su Yeah. Yeah, go ahead and make turn, turn your mic on. Senator Vickers. Go ahead.

  7. Sen. Evan J. Vickers15:53

     Thank you, Mr. President. Just a point of order. I thought we had made, uh, made a motion to suspend the rules on 1 47 to move it across.

  8. President of the Senate (presiding)15:59

     We, we did. And then Senator Esee decided not to move it all the way across. Thank you. She could have we, we set it up for her too, but then she wanted to move it to third. So we, we followed the direction of the sponsor. Thank you. Oh, Senator Hinkins over there. Yes,

• Feb 17, 2026 Senate floor debate▶ Watch
  Transcript (9 turns)

  1. President Pro Tempore (presiding)43:32

     The bill is uncircled.

  2. Sen. Luz Escamilla43:33

     Um, thank you Mr. President Pro temp. I and I do wanna, um, make a motion to, uh, sub substitute, no sorry to the lead, embody and title. First substitute SB 1 47 and re to be replaced with second substitute 1 47. If I can speak to that, Mr. President ProAm,

  3. President Pro Tempore (presiding)43:54

     That motion is before us. Go ahead and, and speak.

  4. Sen. Luz Escamilla43:56

     Thank you. And I, this will be basically the presentation. This is a bill that, um, comes after the, um, audits that have been happening in the last couple of years related to the Office of Inspector General. And we had, uh, the original bill that was a committee bill, uh, presented, but we, um, from direction both from the speaker and the president of the Senate, well we end up doing is this second substitute Mr. President. And the difference that we're doing is moving some audit responsibilities from the Office of Inspector General to the office of the Legislative Auditor General. And it took us a minute to, you know, be able to put com comprise all of these pieces. There's, as you know, the office of Legislative auditor, um, general is in our constitution defined, so we took, uh, a lot of time to make sure we were very clear on how this new responsibilities will not, um, conflict with, um, the constitutionality of this office. The auditors are interested and, and very willing to help with this piece. I think it's gonna provide and we believe we will provide a good balance. The rest of the bill is the same Department of government operations overseas now the inspector general office. There will be an advisory board with a Sunset, um, just to guide them for the first couple of years. It establishes process for employees, um, key metric, uh, pieces that are needed. There's been a lot of conversation about this and the fact that the speaker and the president have been very involved just tells you the commitment that we have to make sure we have, um, a level of transparency and accountability when it comes to the office that oversees, um, the prevention of fraud, wasting of use when it comes to our Medicaid services. And without Mr. President Prote, um, open for any questions.

  5. President Pro Tempore (presiding)45:44

     Thank you. Discussion to the motion to substitute saying none all in favor of deleting entitled Embody first substitute Senate Bill 1 47 and replace it with second sub substitute Senate bill 1 47. Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? I'll rule that passes as the bill is substituted now to the substituted bill.

  6. Sen. Luz Escamilla46:04

     Call the question Mr. Uh, president Pro temp. That was my presentation. That concludes my presentation, I guess.

  7. President Pro Tempore (presiding)46:11

     Okay. Signal? No. Okay. Let me see if there's anybody who wants to speak to the substituted bill now. Saying none now place your motion.

  8. Sen. Luz Escamilla46:33

     Call the question Mr. President Pro Temp.

  9. President Pro Tempore (presiding)46:34

     And the question is, shall second substitute Senate bill one forty seven pass roll call vote. Senator Spry Lewin Brammer Bus Comore as Camilla Aye. Fillmore Grover Harper Aye. Hankins Ipson Johnson. Kwan McKay Mackel Milner Musselman Owens pitcher Plum Re Aye. Sandal Stevenson Stratton. Yes. Bickers. Weiler Aye. Wilson Aye. Bus. Aye. President Adams Oh Winterton. Second substitute Sand Bill 1 47 Have been received 24 y votes. Zero na votes. Five being absent, passes the Senate and be sent to the house for further consideration.

• Feb 19, 2026 House Government Operations Committee▶ Watch
  Transcript (30 turns)

  1. Committee chair33:53

     Go ahead and catch your breath. We'll let you, we'll let you have a minute before you start 'cause you're up first. Any, anytime you're ready. Oh,

  2. Sen. Luz Escamilla34:26

     Thank you. Thank you Mr. Chair and Committee. And I apologize for that late as I was running from the Senate. Um, and I so happy that my, um, house sponsor is also here. Um, second substitute SB 1 47, office of Inspector General of Medicaid Services Amendments. It's a, um, bill in response to, um, in the audit. And I know you probably have seen the audit. I, I think came out in October of this year. Um, and just a little bit of background, 'cause this is important. What we're trying to do here is it modifies the responsibilities and very specifically brings some oversight of the Office of Inspector General. The bill adds responsibilities for the Department of Government operations to measure the OIGs performance. It establishes additional OIG reporting responsibilities, which will include legislative oversight as well in terms of reporting. It creates an advisory board and it also moves some functions of the Inspector General's office to all lag. And, um, it has been a, a process to get us here was a committee bill coming out of a, um, rules committee. But just again, as history, if you guys are not familiar with this office, this office was created in 2011. And I think some of you, I think the good Representative Thurston was here. Um, some of you probably, um, maybe Romero as well was here and some of you. But, uh, what was happening is we were responding to a lot of legislative audits that was, um, creating some significant concerns related to operational weaknesses. And we control of fraud, waste, and abuse within our Medicaid program. So OIG, um, was established within the Governor's Office of Planning at that point in 2013, it became an independent entity. And I think that's where some issues related to oversight were created. And in all fairness, the lack of direct oversight and accountability. And, you know, we should also share a little bit of that responsibility as a legislature. Um, what happens is that through the years we've been having all a, uh, done some ongoing audits and the problems continue to be there. So in this last 2025, all a audit, what we found is that the OIG leadership has failed to adequately prioritize high impact audits and has not evaluated major portions of Medicaid. The office has also provided insufficient oversight of, um, ACOs and other state, uh, other states have found concerning practices. And we could have, uh, probably been missing some of those here in Utah. Overall, OIG has failed to improve its office governance and impact. And that's why, uh, we end up with this bill. And, um, I'll go into what the bill does, Mr. Chair in a second. But I'll say, uh, a lot of this last work of this last couple of weeks have been directly with the speaker of the House and the president, specifically related to the role of Olag and how that's gonna be in this new structure. So what this bill does, it will permit, uh, will bring, um, permissible authority to olag to perform certain Medicaid program integrity functions. So very specific ones. You can see those on line 68 to 134. It will also be, uh, you'll see an in an increase of the, the Department of Government Operations Oversight. Those are in lines 2 27 to three 10. This is very specific to making sure we have supervision of the executive director over the Inspector General and make sure that we have performance metrics that we can, um, then do oversight and, and review and report. It will also, uh, create a process for IOIG employees for complaint and reporting. It also modified some of the duties related to auditing, uh, for OIG because now they will be then shared with HA, it adds some report, report requirements and specifically to Social services appropriations and HHS during interim, it also establishes the Office of Inspector General Advisory Board. Those are in line six 12 to 6 6 6. And this is for the, it actually has a Sunset because we don't think it needs to be permanently in place. But it does help to have, um, specifically the Director of Health and Human Services, uh, Medicaid director coordinating with OG and OIG together to prioritize the work. Just to be very clear, the, um, the audits that all that will be performing will be, uh, prioritized by the legislative audit committee, which already take is how they function. Anyways, that doesn't change. So it overall, it's, it's a big bill because we do have some changes and, uh, again, it took a minute to get us to the house because we, there was a lot of work in the last two weeks, um, specifically with presiding officers on how they wanna see this office working without Mr. Um, chair. Again, my house sponsor is here as well, but if there are any questions, I'm happy to respond right now.

  3. Committee chair39:50

     Alright, thank you. And we do have a question for you, Representative MacPherson.

  4. Rep. Matt MacPherson39:56

     Thank you. Um, I appreciate all the work that's going into this and, and I apologize a Ms. Spar, are we talking about the first substitute

  5. Sen. Luz Escamilla40:03

     Second sub, which is the one that passed from the Senate?

  6. Rep. Matt MacPherson40:06

     Okay. It's already there. Is it there? Let me just bring that up real quick. You'll see The, Yeah. Okay, got it. Um, so I guess my question is, last year, um, an audit found that DHHS had, um, had failed to properly report certain invoices and we had failed to collect almost $50 million in rebates. And there was some question of whether or not this would have under a properly functioning office, been something that could have been seen or caught or potentially fall under the, um, this particular office. Is any of the changes or the adjustments we're making here looking at trying to ensure that that type of, uh, oversight on Medicaid services that don't directly fall under them, that are, from what I understand, there's already some, there's already some relationship there as far as supervisory when it comes to this. And, and I'm just wanna ensure that that piece has been captured here.

  7. Sen. Luz Escamilla41:06

     Um, Mr. Chair, if I can respond, thank you. Uh, and the, the good representative, um, has been very involved in this conversation as well. And I know he, um, he's worked with some of these conversations was part of them. He's correct. And I think I, I give, um, credit, uh, where the presiding officers had, um, the thing that they think is gonna make the big difference to address this is all lag involved at this point. Um, you know, we, we rely heavily on our legislative auditor's office, and I know they're here in case there's some just more technical questions and maybe they can answer how they will direct an audit for that type of work. Thank you. Um, but the goal is that they will be directed based on conversations. And, and that's how it happens, right? Many of you guys write letters, um, to the legislative audit committee, and we are hearing from some of these concerns and we just feel it goes to a void in a way, a black hole of concerns and no action is taken. I think all that will respond. And, and they have a really, what I like about Alleg, and they do a great job, is their timing timely manner. I mean, it's immediately in when they get a directive from legislative management and work starts happening on auditing. And I think that was part of those concerns. And, and it has a result on, on money. I mean, like, you were able to put a, we were able to actually, through olag, put an amount of money what we're missing because those were, those audits were not happening and they were not responding. So I, I think Olag will be what will make the difference here to actually have those, um, pieces be, you know, have a response for that.

  8. Rep. Matt MacPherson42:42

     Thank you. And Mr. Sheriff, I can follow up. Yes, go ahead. Um, so I guess my question would be too is that, uh, Olag and, and our auditors are very good at this, and I, I appreciate their involvement now in this process, but I, I, I feel like that's still kind of a reactionary. It's like, it's a, it's kind of after the fact. And, and I'm wondering, um, if, if OIG is gonna be established in a way that can proactively kind of see these before we're kind of behind the eight ball and then saying, Hey, we, we missed another $50 million. Let's see what we can do to, to find that or, or fix that. Okay.

  9. Sen. Luz Escamilla43:18

     I, I'll let my colleague here, um, respond better. I also have an idea of how that will work better now through the structure

  10. Rep. Norman K Thurston43:25

      You're On. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, uh, there are a couple of different responses. So the, one of the most important parts of this bill is the advisory group. They can actually have input as to where should the, where are. So they have such a diverse range of skills that they should be able to have input in saying, these are the places that we think OIG should be prioritizing. And noting that there are a lot of people that should catch mistakes. You know, obviously the frontline workers should catch a mistake, their supervisors catch a mistake. Uh, leadership at Department of Health and Human Services should catch mistakes. State auditor, O-A-O-I-G, there's a lot of people that are, that are working on catching all of these errors. But the reality is, is that Advisory Council is the critical piece that brings all of those people together and, and says, well, wait a minute, is somebody looking at this? And making sure that there is at least somebody looking at that. So it's, it's, I think that is the, my perspective. That is the key piece that makes this work is having that advisor

  11. Sen. Luz Escamilla44:23

      Group. It's coordination, coordination, I think it's the coordination and through their, um, program integrity component, some of these red flags are coming. It's just then how did that translate to an actual audit? I think that's the missing portion of some of this. I think all like now involve and the advisory board reviewing the, how they're prioritizing assessments and evaluations is where I think we're gonna see the difference. Um, but it's a valid question. I, I I trust all, again, again, legislative, the legislative audit committee will also be engaging, um, monthly because we do meet monthly that committee to review those priorities and all a will be, you know, reporting back through that process to that committee. So you will have more than a few legislators, like more than two legislators also checking what's happening on a monthly basis, which I think is, it's critical. 'cause right now, that's what we were missing. We were just hearing once a year, and maybe, I mean, we would get so many reports as legislators. I mean, you know, realistically speaking, they were sending reports. But are we, were we actually proactively engaging in a conversation? I don't think that was happening. I think this will allow through the advisory board and legislative management and lac um, working together that you'll see that coordination happening.

  12. Rep. Matt MacPherson45:41

      And, and with that advisory board, are they, um, Mr. Sheriff, if that's okay, uh, with that advisory board, um, I know they can make recommendations for, for audits and, and such and, and maybe focus areas. Do they, do they have, they have the ability to kind of shape how, uh, the administration of, of OIG is, is happening too, so that it can be proactive about those as well?

  13. Sen. Luz Escamilla46:02

      I, I believe that authorities there within the advisory board remembering and, and just keeping clear that the Department of Government operations and their executive director at the end res is responding for, you know, metrics and performance pieces. So that right now we were not having that anywhere. And I, I, I think that is a critical piece from an operational side. I know many of you guys have experience as COOs or operation pieces, when you have no one to held accountable, it makes it really hard. So I think that side of metrics and operations is through the Department of Government ops and that executive director will now be responsible to making sure those metrics are being met.

  14. Committee chair46:39

      Thank you so much. Thank you, representative. You have questions from, uh, Representative Fiefia.

  15. Rep. Doug Fiefia46:47

      Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I just wanna ensure I I, I understand this correctly. Now, with this change, the Inspector General will now be housed in the executive branch. It's, Is that

  16. Sen. Luz Escamilla47:00

      Yeah, I mean, it's, it will be now. Okay. So it's always been part of the executive branch. Just to be clear, at one point they were part of the governor's office, um, of, uh, like budget. And part of it is they've changed the names. The governor, when they changed governor's, we changed names, some of the stuff. But it was part of the governor's office. Then it moved to, um, a, a department. Okay. Here, so it was part of 2011 when this whole thing started originally established within the government's office of planning in 2013, it was changed as an independent entity. And we don't have that many, I think they may be the only one now that we have. And now, um, but then, uh, when that happened, it was also located under administrative services, but not directly reporting to the executive director. So now we're shifting into the Inspector General's office will be part of the Department of Government Operations, and they will be reporting directly to the executive director, meaning that executive director is one of his divisions, basically.

  17. Rep. Doug Fiefia48:00

      Okay. So I guess my follow-up question then is, are there safeguards in place to ensure that this office is able to audit or review executive actions without any penalties or pressure from the executive branch?

  18. Sen. Luz Escamilla48:17

      Um, you know, part of it is all lag coming in and running. Most of those audits will be through all lag. So I think they, they will, um, we are leaving some of the audit responsibilities that are related to the federal, kinda like federal pieces to Inspector General. And, and part of it is because all, like also has a very defined role based on our constitution. So we have to make sure that all that was not, you know, getting outside of his, of the lane of all actg based on our constitution. That's why it took a minute to get the bill drafted to this point where Olag will be able to review all of that executive branch pieces. Because you're right, I mean, there are, it's like policing the police, right? Like who's in, who's inside. And that's why the, the autonomy of this office, I still think it's there because you're gonna have so many eyes on it. And, and the coordination through the advisory board,

  19. Rep. Norman K Thurston49:09

      If I may, Mr. Chair? Yeah, go ahead. So, um, within the Department of Health and Human Services, there is an internal audit team. So they are already, and they are embedded within the department. The office of the Inspector General is removed from that department. They're housed in a separate department. So they have one step removal there. Currently, they have independent authority, so they're not subject to anybody, which is actually part of the problem we're trying to solve is that there's no guidance, there's no oversight. So they would have that in independent authority. And so we want to keep that the state auditor is one step further removed, still in the executive branch, but is now independently elected. And then the OLA is yet one step further. 'cause they're not even in executive branch. So if you just think about the kind of the, the rings of distance from the program, this is kind, what we're trying to organize here is to make sure that all of those rings are around the central target. And with Olag being kind of the outer ring, the most independent, um, and being able, the most able to, you know, have, have the ability to do this is kind of the, the most independent of all of those. So.

  20. Committee chair50:11

      Great. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, chair Burton has a question for you.

  21. Unknown legislator (captioned as "Chair Burton")50:17speaker not certain

      Yeah, no, if, if I could, uh, Mr. Chair just, just a statement. Having run the health department for a short time with, with this, uh, office under me at the time, uh, when we had Medicaid in, in the health department. I, I just really appreciate this bill. I think it's a wise move to put under government operations and, uh, so I'll be voting for the bill when we get around to doing that. Thank you.

  22. Committee chair50:40

      Thank you. Alright. I don't see any other questions from members of the committee, so we'll open it up, see if there's any, uh, comments from the public. Anybody here wanna speak to, uh, to this bill? Okay. Anybody online? No. Okay. Alright, then we will bring it back to the committee and, uh, for questions and, uh, motions. And I see Representative MacPherson.

  23. Rep. Matt MacPherson51:07

      Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll make a motion that we pass out favorably sb uh, 1 47 second substitute, uh, from this committee.

  24. Committee chair51:15

      Alright. And if I could

  25. Rep. Matt MacPherson51:16

      speak to that briefly, you would please. So, uh, I, I don't think it's any shock, uh, from some of you. I, I also had a bill on, uh, OIG that was looking to actually just disband the office and move all the functions into other areas. Um, I, I was deeply disappointed with where, where, where, where we were out. Um, but I am very appreciative of all the work that I see that's gone into this and the thought. Um, I appreciate the ola, uh, piece very much and I do think that this has a very good likelihood of being much more successful. And so I support the bill and appreciate it.

  26. Committee chair51:53

      Great. Thank you. Uh, would the sponsor like to wave

  27. Sen. Luz Escamilla52:01

      So much, Mr. Chair, thank you for your time. Thank you.

  28. Committee chair52:04

      And I don't see any of the questions from our, uh, from our committee. So we're gonna, uh, so the motion before us is to, uh, favorably recommend SB 1 47 second substitute to the full house. We'll just take a voice vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Okay. That is unanimous.

  29. Sen. Luz Escamilla52:29

      Thank you. Thank you Chair and committee.

  30. Committee chair52:31

      Thank you, Senator.

• Mar 6, 2026 House floor debate▶ Watch
  Transcript (13 turns)

  1. Speaker (presiding)1:25:07

     Second substitute Senate Bill 1 47, office of Inspector General of Medicaid Services Amendments by Senator Escamilla. This bill was heard in government operations with a vote of 9 0 3. The House sponsors Representative Thurston, Representative Thurston. Thank

  2. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:25:23

     You Madam Speaker ProAm, I would like to reserve the right to make two motions.

  3. Speaker (presiding)1:25:28

     So noted. Thank you.

  4. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:25:29

     So colleagues, there's gonna be a motion to substitute and a motion to amend in just a second, but I wanna explain what the bill does because the, if I describe the substitute, it wouldn't make any sense. So what this bill does, the Office of the Inspector General has been around since 2011, and it's actually technically called the Office of the Inspector General of Medicaid Services. This was established to have better controls over fraud, waste, and abuse within the Medicaid program. It's had a rocky history. Uh, we've had some difficult challenges because it was established as a completely independent entity with no real oversight by anyone. So they were completely free to choose what they wanted, to look at, what they wanted to do. And they have had spotty success, I think would be the best way of describing it. Um, the Office of Legislative Auditor General has looked at this multiple times over the years, most recently in 2025, and has concluded that the leadership has failed to adequately prioritize high impact audits has not evaluated major, major portions of Medicaid, has provided insufficient oversight of ACOs or accountable care organizations and has failed to improve its governance and impact, um, policies. So what this, what we get, this came to our attention because this was referred for a legislative audit. These legislative audit committee reviewed that report. I think some of you have seen this also in interim committees as well. Um, and so Senator Iska and I were asked to take a look at this and see what we could figure out how to make this better. We pulled together all of the stakeholders that we could find and have come up with a carefully negotiated third substitute. So in the third substitute, there are two main important parts of this. One is that it will no longer be independent, that the director of OIG will be directly responsible to the executive director of the government operations. And given that that guy probably doesn't know a whole lot about Medicaid, we are providing him with an advisory board, people from different aspects of the program who can come together and advise him so that he can be an effective supervisor over this entire program. Um, and so that's, that's kind of the main gist of this, is that we are making it dependent as a part of DGO and giving DGO the direct mission and oversight to make sure that this actually happens this time. So it's been, like I said, it's been carefully negotiated with lots of stakeholders, uh, and that's what the third sub represents is that careful negotiation. So I would move that we adopt the third sub at this time. All

  5. Speaker (presiding)1:28:00

     Right, the motion is to adopt the third substitute of Senate Bill 1 47. Discussion to the motion, seeing no lights. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes Representative Thurston,

  6. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:28:17

     I also would like to move amendment number one in my name.

  7. Speaker (presiding)1:28:21

     The motion is to move amendment one in Representative Thurston's name to third substitute Senate bill 1 47. Would you like to speak to that? Yes.

  8. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:28:30

     This corrects a technical or a typo in the third sub.

  9. Speaker (presiding)1:28:34

     Okay. Discussion to the motion. Seeing no lights. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes Representative Thurston, uh,

  10. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:28:45

      I will complete my presentation.

  11. Speaker (presiding)1:28:47

      Alright, discussion to the bill. Seeing no lights voting will now be oh, back

  12. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:28:54

      to Representative Thurston for summation. I apologize. I

  13. Speaker (presiding)1:28:57

      Will wave on that. Alright. Summation has been waived and voting will now be open on third substitute Senate bill 1 47 vote quickly. Representatives seeing all present, having voted third, substitute one 40 Senate bill 1 47 passes with 68 yes votes, zero nay votes, and will be sent to the Senate for further consideration. Madam Reading, clerk

• Mar 6, 2026 House floor debate▶ Watch
  Transcript (9 turns)

  1. Speaker (presiding)1:27:57

     So I would move that we adopt the third sub at this time. All Right, the motion is to adopt the third substitute of Senate Bill 1 47. Discussion to the motion, seeing no lights. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes Representative Thurston,

  2. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:28:17

     I also would like to move amendment number one in my name.

  3. Speaker (presiding)1:28:21

     The motion is to move amendment one in Representative Thurston's name to third substitute Senate bill 1 47. Would you like to speak to that? Yes.

  4. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:28:30

     This corrects a technical or a typo in the third sub.

  5. Speaker (presiding)1:28:34

     Okay. Discussion to the motion. Seeing no lights. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes Representative Thurston, uh,

  6. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:28:45

     I will complete my presentation.

  7. Speaker (presiding)1:28:47

     Alright, discussion to the bill. Seeing no lights voting will now be oh, back to Representative Thurston for summation. I apologize. I

  8. Rep. Norman K Thurston1:28:57

     Will wave on that. Alright.

  9. Speaker (presiding)1:28:58

     Summation has been waived and voting will now be open on third substitute Senate bill 1 47 vote quickly. Representatives seeing all present, having voted third, substitute one 40 Senate bill 1 47 passes with 68 yes votes, zero nay votes, and will be sent to the Senate for further consideration. Madam Reading, clerk

• Mar 6, 2026 Senate floor debate▶ Watch
  Transcript (7 turns)

  1. President (presiding)34:30

     Senator Illa.

  2. Sen. Luz Escamilla34:32

     Thank you Mr. President. Motion to concur.

  3. President (presiding)34:35

     Thank you. Uh, do we have explanations to what the changes were?

  4. Sen. Luz Escamilla34:39

     Of course, Mr. President. Thank you. You know, this has been a, a, a very, um, delicate process to try to get us to the right approach with the Office of Inspector General that we, I think collectively realize needs help. But we also understand how important the role is of this office in our state. And that is, uh, prevention fraud, um, waste and abuse when it comes to our, our Medicaid funds. And we, um, the original bill as it passed to the house had a, you know, a role of lac, which is our legislative auditor's, um, office. And, and at one point it was in conflict with, um, the Office of Inspector General that we felt it was important just to bring back their own audit component on its own and have the LAC piece still run through the legislative auditor's, uh, I'm sorry, the legislature auditors committee, which we already have that ability to work with them and dictate, as you know, Mr. President, as you chair, that preside, that committee dictate what type of audits we need. So it just, it is gonna reinforce the fact that we're gonna have more auditing happening, which is I think important and we all agree and this was just, um, this changes just accommodate those pieces. With that, I'm open for questions. Mr. President.

  5. President (presiding)35:50

     Thank you. Senator Escamilla. Scene no questions. I just need a motion to concur. Motion to Concur. Yes. Thank you. I missed that. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Rule that motion passes. Third substitute Senate Bill 1 47 has been read three times. The question is, shall it pass? Roll call vote.

  6. Senate clerk (roll call)36:14

     Senator Vickers Baldy Lein Aye. Bremmer Bus Cullimore Escamia Fillmore Grover Harper Hankins Ipson Johnson. Quan McKay? Yes. McKay. Mikel Milner Musselman Owens Pitcher Plum Rebi Sandal Stevenson Stratton. Pitcher I Vickers. Weiler Aye. Wilson. Aye. Winterton President Adams Aye. Third

  7. President (presiding)37:10

     substitute Senate Bill 1 47. Having received 28 a votes zero na votes, one being absent passes this body and will be returned to the house for the signature of the speaker.