House Finance Subcommittee passes Contract Accountability Bill

TSEA February 14, 2018 Comments Off on House Finance Subcommittee passes Contract Accountability Bill
House Finance Subcommittee passes Contract Accountability Bill

Earlier today (2/14/18) the House Finance Ways & Means Subcommittee passed an amended version of HB944, now known as the Contract Accountability and Responsible Employment (CARE) Act. There was no discussion on the bill.

Last week, on 2/6/18, the Senate State and Local Government Committee passed an amended version of the Senate companion bill SB1047, To view discussion on this bill from 2/6/18, follow this link: https://goo.gl/L1hN1H



About the bill:

SB1047/HB944 is sponsored by Sen. Janice Bowling and Rep. Tilman Goins, was studied extensively over the summer, and is part of TSEA’s legislative agenda.

In summary, this bill as amended states that if a contract for services between a state agency and a private party is in excess of two and one-half million dollars and results in a furlough or layoff for 1 or more state employees, the agency must provide an economic impact statement (EIS) to the fiscal review committee. For the purposes of this section of code, “state agency” also includes institutions of higher
education.

This EIS shall be submitted to fiscal review for distribution to the members of the general assembly no less than 45 days prior to the execution of the contract.

The chair of fiscal review may then schedule a hearing to review the EIS.

A state agency notified of an EIS hearing shall provide the fiscal review committee, upon request, any information reasonably related to the proposed contract that the committee deems relevant; provided, that a state agency is not required to produce privileged information or any record that is not open for public inspection pursuant to state law.

This bill applies only to contracts procured on and after the effective date of this act.