ABC Utah 2024 Legislative Recap By Ashley Spatafore Mirabelli, LOBBYIST, ABC UTAH We entered the 2024 legislative session without a proactive legislative agenda, but a role of making sure that nothing negative happened to our mission of providing good service for our clients and the general public. We ended the session with nearly a perfect score of not having anything negative happen while amending a number of other bills in a way that provided a net benefit for the construction sub-contractors. HB 534, Boards and Commissions Modifications, was the bill that dampened a perfect score but also was amended to make a bad situation roughly acceptable. The Utah Legislature began the session in unison with Gov. Cox to shrink state government by eliminating many boards and commissions while also shrinking the size of the remaining ones. To this end, at least three bills were introduced and passed, which did just that. These bills affected all state departments, divisions and offices. HB 534 originally combined the plumbers and electrician licensing boards, effectively eliminating one and reducing the size of the Construction Services Council by two, either the electrician or plumber not chairing the combined board and a public member. Through several meetings, we convinced the bill sponsor, Rep. Cal Musselman, to allow both a plumber and an electrician to serve on Construction Services. While not the ultimate positive result we would have wanted, it was the best result possible. Talent Ready Utah is continuing to move along making statutory changes in higher education in its goal of increasing the job and talent base of Utahns. Three bills were introduced and passed to assist in its mission. HB 346, Talent 28
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