Committee removes audit requirement, narrows records access in bills altering data retention

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday adopted an amendment that removes a mandatory audit requirement and narrowed parts of a records-access bill, a change sponsors said erases a previously large fiscal note.

The chair moved the amendment to Senate Bill 70 that, according to proponents, makes auditing optional and adjusts data-retention and access windows so the bill no longer requires IT development by departments. “This amendment gets rid of the audit requirement. I think they must already be doing the screening of the incoming records,” the chair said during debate.

Senators pressed sponsors about the source of the earlier fiscal estimate, citing a February fiscal note that had projected large costs to the judicial department tied to warrants and court-order requests. Committee fiscal staff and legal counsel said judicial concerns were addressed by exempting the judicial department from provisions that had driven the earlier estimate. Owen Hatch of the Office of Legislative Legal Services said the judicial department was concerned that the introduced bill would have forced internal searches to require warrants; with judicial now exempted, those additional searches will not increase the department’s workload.

Colin Geiser, a Legislative Council fiscal analyst, confirmed the amendments reduced the workload and fiscal exposure the committee had been told about earlier, and the chair said that change moved the fiscal impact to zero. After an objection to one amendment, the committee polled and adopted the amendments on a 4–3 vote and then passed SB70 on the same margin.

The committee’s action leaves the bill amended with auditing optional and narrower retention/access specifications; senators said those changes were intended to preserve investigatory functions while avoiding costly IT requirements. The committee will send the amended bill to the floor with a zeroed fiscal note, and several appropriators said they planned to reconsider the bill on the chamber floor.