This legislation changes the child abuse protocol committees in multi-county judicial circuits. 

This legislation authorizes the sheriff, tax commissioner, superior court clerk and probate judge ("constitutional officers") to develop their own credit card or purchasing card (p-card) policy and user agreement, rather than being issued one by the county.  The constitutional officers will be required to develop their own specific guidelines for the use of credit cards or p-cards by their department beginning on July 1, 2016.  The policy must designate the officials or employees in the constitutional officer's department who are authorized to use a credit card or p-card, specify a user agreement and transaction limits for the use of the card, include a description of authorized and unauthorized purchases, designate a credit card/p-card administrator, establish a process for auditing and reviewing the purchases made with the cards and outline procedures for addressing a violation of the credit card/p-card policies.  A copy of the specific policies promulgated by each constitutional officer must be filed with the board of commissioners. 

The ordinances, policies, procedures and user agreements with the constitutional officers adopted in 2015 to comply with the original law need to be examined and amended as necessary to remove the constitutional officers.    

A provision requiring counties to name all of its employees granted p-cards and credit cards in their local ordinance was removed from the bill before final passage.     

This legislation requires local governments to comply with the Georgia Personal Data Security Act. Because counties maintain electronic and physical copies of personal information, they must provide individuals with notice of any breach of security of the system that houses the personal information as soon as possible after the breach is discovered, but in no case later than 45 days. If the county uses a third party to store the personal information, the third party must notify the county within 72 hours of any data breach, so that the county can meet its notification requirements. If law enforcement determines that notification would impair an ongoing criminal investigation, notification can be delayed. If the county, after investigation and consultation with relevant federal, state or local law enforcement, determines that the breach was not likely to result in identify theft or financial harm to an individual, notification will not be necessary. The county will be required to provide a written certification within 30 days to the attorney general and to maintain a copy of the written certification for at least five years.

This legislation prohibits businesses (as well as their affiliated entities, executive employees, and employees whose compensation is determined by the award of government contracts) from making campaign contributions to state and local elected officials or candidates for offices that are responsible for awarding the contract to the business. 

Specifically, businesses with more than $50,000 per year in contracts with counties, cities, school boards and local authorities may not make contributions to any candidate or campaign committee of an official (or individual seeking office) responsible for awarding contracts. The prohibition lasts for the term of office of an incumbent officeholder or for two years following the expiration/termination of the contract, whichever is longer. Any business that violates this provision three or more times within three years will have all of their contracts with the county and the state voided.

Similarly, businesses (as well as affiliated entities and affiliated individuals) with a total of pending bids and offers over $50,000 to counties (or the total of existing contracts with the state and pending bids and offers to counties is over $50,000) are prohibited from making contributions to any candidate (or their campaign committee) whose office is responsible for awarding the contract for which the bid or offer was submitted.

The county may void a contract with any business that violates either of these provisions related to donations to local officials or candidates within 90 days of the violation.  Any business that violates the prohibition against making contributions to state officials or candidates three or more times within a three year period may not respond to any county invitation to bid or request for proposal.

Any candidate or campaign committee that received a contribution in violation of this law must pay the state the amount of the contribution illegally made.