ARIZONA STATE SENATE

RESEARCH STAFF

ANNA NGUYEN

LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH ANALYST

GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE

Telephone: (602) 926-3171

TO:                  MEMBERS OF THE SENATE

GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE

DATE:            February 17, 2025

SUBJECT:      Strike everything amendment to S.B. 1073, relating to government

Purpose

Requires a city, town and county to satisfy any statutory requirement for advertising, publishing or printing by placing the public notice on the public body's official website.

Background

A county board of supervisors (county BOS) must contract for all advertising, publications and printing required to be done or made by all departments of county government. A county contract for publishing must be awarded to the lowest and best bidder, at the discretion of the county BOS, and during the existence of the contract, all advertising, publication and printing ordered by any department of county government must be provided to the contracted newspaper, which may be referred to as the official newspaper of the county. Statute requires circumstances when the governing body of a municipality or county BOS must contract with a newspaper for the publication of certain public notices. These circumstances include but are not limited to: 1) notices of election; 2) invitations for bids; 3) notices of letting contracts; 4) laws and ordinances; 5) notices of zoning; and 6) other notices of a public character issued by authority of the governing body of any city or town (A.R.S. Title 9 and 11).

There is no anticipated fiscal impact to the state General Fund associated with this legislation.

Provisions

1. Requires a city, town and county to satisfy any statutory requirement for advertising, publishing or printing by placing the advertising, publishing or printing on the official website of the public body.

2. Requires a city, town and county that posts public notices on the official website of the public body to include a link for public notices on the home page of the website that links to all statutorily required advertising, publishing or printing, listed by category.

3.  Exempts the statutory requirement for the publication of a proposed charter from the prescribed official website posting requirement.

4. Makes technical changes.

5. Becomes effective on the general effective date.