H. B. 2555
(By Mr. Speaker, Mr. Kiss, and Delegates Staton, Michael,
Martin, Douglas, Hunt and Trump)
[Introduced March 14, 1997; referred to the
Committee on Government Organization then Finance.]
A BILL to amend article two, chapter twenty nine-a of the code of
West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, by adding thereto a new section, designated section
ten, relating to requiring the secretary of state to make
available by computer on-line service, the code of state rules
and portions of the state register; requiring the secretary of
state to provide the code of state rules on diskette to
members of the public; providing for timely updating of the
code of state rules
; authorizing the secretary of state to
propose legislative rules regarding fees for diskettes; and
creating a special account for receipt of funds.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia
That article two, chapter twenty nine-a of the code of West
Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new section, designated section ten, to
read as follows:
ARTICLE 2. STATE REGISTER.
§ 29A-2-10. Electronic availability.
(a) To promote the convenient access by the citizens of this
state to the state register and the code of state rules, the
secretary of state shall make the rule monitor and the cross
reference of the rule monitor portions of the state register, and the
code of state rules, available to the public, without cost, on a
computer on-line service. The secretary of state shall also make any
agency rule available to any member of the public on a electronic
format by computer diskette. The computer diskette shall be
available in a format for conversion to any commonly used software
word processing program currently available to the public.
(b) The code of state rules available herein shall be updated by
the secretary of state within one hundred twenty days of the final
filing of the rule by any state agency or board, as provided in
section thirteen of article three of this chapter.
(c) The secretary of state is authorized to propose a
legislative rule, as provided in article three of this chapter, to
provide for any necessary and reasonable fees associated with providing the computer diskette service. Any fee established and
collected shall be deposited in a special account in the state
treasury. Expenditures from said account shall be for the purposes
set forth in this section and are not authorized from collections but
are to be made only in accordance with appropriation by the
Legislature in accordance with the provisions of article three,
chapter twelve of this code and upon the fulfillment of the
provisions set forth in article two, chapter five-a of this code:
Provided, That for the fiscal year ending the thirtieth day of June,
for the year following the authorization of the rule and
establishment of this account, expenditures are authorized from
collections rather than pursuant to an appropriation by the
Legislature. Amounts collected which are found from time to time to
exceed the funds needed for purposes set forth in this article may be
transferred to other accounts or funds and redesignated for other
purposed by appropriation of the Legislature.
Note: The purpose of this bill is to
require the Secretary of
State to make the code of state rules available on the Internet;
provide copies of rules on computer disc; and update the rules data
base within one hundred and twenty days of final filing. The
Secretary of State is authorized to propose legislative rules to
charge fees for providing discs to the public. A special account
is created to administer any fees collected for this fee.
This section is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.