State archivist: legislative counsel controls online act format; Archives assigns sequential act number on receipt

Tanya Marshall, director of the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration and the state archivist and chief records officer, told the Government Operations & Military Affairs panel that legislative counsel prepares the online enacted instrument and that the Archives’ role is to secure the paper original and assign the archival sequential act number after the governor signs and returns the bill.

"For the record, I'm Tanya Marshall. I'm the director of the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration..." Marshall said, explaining that "we provide the act number" after the legislative clerk picks up the signed bill from the governor's office and the archives assigns the next number in sequence.

Marshall clarified that the form and format of the online enacted act — including where the act number and year appear in the header — is produced by legislative counsel. "What you see published online is the General Assembly's act... that is all within the legislative council's own format," she said. She added that the publisher for the compiled volume is under contract and that the Archives' responsibility is the paper original and the digital files for the archives at the end of the biennium.

Rob Coffin, who identified himself as the sponsor of the bill under discussion, said he had received a constituent complaint that online searches produce multiple different results when a user searches only by act number (for example, typing "Act 100" into a search engine). "Several different Act 100 will show up," Coffin said, describing the difficulty his constituent experienced finding a single act by number alone.

Legislator Amanda suggested the committee consult Legislative Council to resolve the header/year formatting and public searchability. "I don't think that it's actually your office that we should be asking to do this," she said, adding that Legislative Council would convey desired header formatting to the Archives when the documents are archived.

Marshall said she would look up the historical practice of the numbering sequence (which she said dates to the 1820s) and provide the committee with additional materials from her written testimony. Committee members agreed to contact Legislative Council as the next step.

The transcript records no formal vote on H.831 during this session; testimony concluded and the committee recessed to await guests for the 1:30 p.m. panel.