This legislation gives election superintendents the authority to allow voters to cast their votes in any precinct in the county, so long as certain safeguards are provided.

This legislation prohibits counties from entering into any nondisclosure agreements with other parties. Any offers, incentives, terms or conditions would be required to be disclosed without delay. Any citizen of the state may sue to enforce this law and compel the disclosure of the information in the agreement. ACCG believes it is important preserve project and prospect confidentiality prior to the announcement of a project.   

This legislation is the Department of Driver Services (DDS) annual housekeeping bill. One provision of this legislation eliminates the requirement that DDS notify licensed drivers by certified mail of suspension for failure to appear for a hearing on a traffic offense. The bill was amended in the rules committee prior to going to the floor to include a requirement that the court send a notice certified return receipt mail to those who fail to appear for court and give an opportunity for an additional hearing before notifying DDS. The proposed requirement could be a significant cost for local courts.  The current version of the bill has stripped out the certified return receipt mail requirement for counties.

This legislation was amended to clarify that federal loans for multi family housing purposes are to be treated like Section 42 properties for valuation purposes which includes Rural 515 properties. This provision clarifies the intent of HB 954 from last session. Please review this bill with your chief appraiser.

This legislation gives the Department of Revenue the authority to revoke a county's qualified local government status if the Board of Tax Assessors fails to comply with an order to remove a property that the department determines is illegally on the tax digest. Once the qualified local government status has been revoked, the Board of Commissioners is given the authority to remove and reappoint the Board of Assessors to correct the tax digest and reinstate the county's qualified local government status. The tax tribunal is also given jurisdiction over refund petitions filed under the new requirements and can award attorney fees and interest along with any refunds.

 This legislation amends the laws regarding the regulation of taxi cabs, limousines and rides-share services.  ACCG is negotiating on how to calculate the tax and how to share it with the municipalities.

This legislation requires counties that expend $35,000 or more stimulating economic development through bonds, grants, loans, loan guarantees, enterprise zones, tax increment financing, fee waivers, land price subsidies, matching funds, tax abatements, tax exemptions or tax credits to cross check job creation and other performance data or conduct periodic audits of corporations that receives such development subsidies.  If the corporation fails to maintain wage and benefit achievements during the development subsidy or five years (whichever is longer), then the value of the development subsidy must be reduced on a prorated bases.  If the corporation has already accrued the development subsidy, then the state can recapture the subsidy reduction.

If the county fails to enforce any provision in this legislation, any individual who paid personal income taxes or any organization representing such taxpayers may sue to compel enforcement action.  If the plaintiff wins, he or she is entitled to recover attorney's fees and court costs. 

Counties are required to publish summary statitstics about enforcement, as well as a list of corporations that have received development subsidies on their websites. All records prepared or maintained pursuant to this legislation are open records.

This legislation requires law enforcement officers that respond to emerency calls or perform traffic stops to wear audio and video recording devices while they are on duty. Only the portions of recordings involving an encounter (i.e., a stop, detention or investigation of another person) are public records subject to disclosure.  Recordings must be maintained for 90 days except that recordings involving an arrest, detention, use of force or for which a complaint has been lodged must be maintained for three years.

Counties that fail to implement the recording devices by January 1, 2017, are subject to losing state funding and state administrated federal funding. The legislation provides for grant funding to help small and underfunded law enforcement agencies to comply with this law.

This legislation prohibits law enforcement from using no knock search warrants unless the department has a written policy  that meets certain standards and the officer provides an affidavit or testimoney that the the act of knocking and announcing the officer would be dangerous to human life, inhibit the effective investigation of a crime by allowing destruction of evidence or would be futile.

This legislation prohibits the state and local governments from publicizing any financial, operational, or consumption data related to a person's use of public utilities in any way which identifies the person's use of the utilities without the person's express consent.  This does not prohibit disclosure of such data under an open records request.    

This legislation shortens the time period that counties (which are local issuing authorities) have to approve or deny a land disturbance permit from 45 days to 14 days.  Furthermore, in addition to all other existing requirements, the bill mandates that only professional engineers (or a few other licensed professionals) may review land development plans (Level 2 Reviewers).

If your county is a local issuing authority, please e-mail Todd Edwards (tedwards@accg.org) your concerns on complying with this legislative proposal.