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TO: RULE FILERS AT STATE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION
FROM: JULIE HARTZELL, LSC RULES UNIT ADMINISTRATOR
SUBJECT: SENATE BILL 3 CHANGES TO RULE FILING PROCEDURES
DATE: JULY 28, 2014
Amended Substitute Senate Bill 3 was signed by Governor Kasich on June 17, 2014, and has an effective
date of September 17, 2014. This act changes the current rule filing procedures followed by state
institutions of higher education. These changes are outlined below:
Definition
Enacted section 3345.033 of the Revised Code defines a "state institution of higher education" as a state
university identified in section 3345.011 of the Revised Code, the Northeast Ohio Medical University, or
a community college, state community college, or technical college.
Publication of rules on state institution of higher education websites
When a state institution of higher education adopts a rule, the state institution of higher education must
post the rule on its website. A state institution of higher education must maintain the posting of its rules
on its website, and must periodically verify the posting. A state institution of higher education is not
entitled to rely on a rule that is not currently posted on its website. (R.C. 3345.033)
This means that all adopted rules must be published on the state institution's website and must be
kept up-to-date. If the state institution of higher education adopts a new rule, that rule must be
published to the website. If the state institution of higher education amends an existing rule, the
content of that rule must be updated on the website to reflect the changes. If a state institution of
higher education rescinds a rule, that rule must be removed from the website or otherwise
indicated as a rescinded rule. Publication of existing rules on the state institution's website must
be done as soon as possible but no later than six months after the effective date of the act.
(Section 5 of Am. Sub. S.B. 3)
Publication of rules in the Register of Ohio and online Ohio Administrative Code
When a state institution of higher education adopts a rule, the director of the Legislative Service
Commission (LSC) must publish the rule in the Register of Ohio (www.registerofohio.state.oh.us).
Adopted rules must also appear in the online version of the Ohio Administrative Code (OAC) published
by Lawriter (codes.ohio.gov). (R.C. 3345.033)
Rules filed electronically by a state institution of higher education will be published in the
Register of Ohio following the current publication and purgation schedule
(www.registerofohio.state.oh.us/jsps/public/pubPurg.jsp). This means a rule will appear in the
Register the business day following the date of filing. Rule-filing documents will be transmitted
by LSC to the commercial publishers which will ensure publication by Lawriter.
Electronic filing of rules with JCARR
When a state institution of higher education files a rule, it now must also electronically file the rule with
the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR). However, the rule is not subject to review by
JCARR. (R.C. 3345.033)
No changes to current filing practices. A state institution of higher education will file a rule in the
Electronic Rule-Filing (ERF) System using the current filing procedures. One filing action in the
ERF System will transmit the rule to both LSC and JCARR.
Inclusion of rules in RuleWatch Ohio
Rules filed by state institutions of higher education will now be included in the RuleWatch Ohio
notification system. (R.C. 3345.033)
RuleWatch Ohio (rulewatch.ohio.gov) allows individuals to track a specific rule they are
interested in, or rules that cover a particular area of interest. By creating an account on the
RuleWatch Ohio website, subscribers can receive email alerts when there is filing activity on any
of the rules they have selected. Prior to Am. Sub. S.B. 3, RuleWatch Ohio subscribers could not
subscribe to rules adopted by state institutions of higher education. With the enactment of Am.
Sub. S.B. 3, RuleWatch Ohio subscribers will be able to subscribe to the rules of state institutions
of higher education and can receive email alerts anytime the state institution of higher education
files a rule in the ERF System.
Refiling of existing rules
Section 5 of the act requires state institutions of higher education to re-file all currently existing rules
with the Director of LSC and with JCARR. This re-filing is not subject to review by JCARR or by the Director
of LSC, however the Director of LSC must publish the re-filed rules in the Register of Ohio, and transmit
the rules to Lawriter for publication in the online OAC. This re-filing of existing rules must be done as
soon as possible but no later than six months after the effective date of the act.
Existing rules previously filed with the Director of LSC are insufficient to comply with this requirement.
Rather, the re-filing of all currently existing rules with the Director of LSC and JCARR is required to
achieve compliance. A state institution of higher education is not entitled to rely on a rule until it has been
re-filed with the Director of LSC and JCARR.
State institutions of higher education must submit all existing rules to LSC in order to create an
accurate base of the rules in the OAC. You will accomplish this by filing each of your rules as a new
rule but using the current effective date as the effective date entered when filing. Rules with the same
current effective date can be filed in a package together. Rules with different current effective dates
must be filed in separate packages. To comply with this re-filing requirement, state institutions of
higher education will need to use this process:
LSC can provide state institutions of higher education with an inventory of currently existing
rules on file. To request this information for your institution, please contact the ERF Help Desk at
614-387-2078 or erfhelpdesk@lsc.ohio.gov.
State institutions of higher education should review the spreadsheet or any internal records of
currently existing rules and contact the ERF Help Desk with any questions.
State institutions of higher education must locate the text of the currently effective rules in order
to complete the re-filing required by Am. Sub. S.B. 3.
State institutions of higher education must then follow current procedures and, if a version
prepared in Word or another word processing application does not already exist, prepare currently
effective rules in such program and save them as PDFs for filing in the ERF System.
Another option now available to state institutions of higher education is to use the Rule
Authoring Software (RAS) that is used by executive agency rule filers. There is no
licensing cost associated with RAS. RAS is an application available to state agencies for
the purpose of drafting administrative rules. This application allows users to create and
save documents in the XML file format for filing in the ERF System. Benefits to using
RAS rather than a word processor include: RAS takes care of the formatting of
paragraphs within a rule, when striking paragraph (A)(4), RAS will automatically
renumber the paragraphs that follow; rules drafted in RAS and filed in the ERF System
are maintained by LSC so the next time you need to file the rule, LSC will prepare the
most recent effective version for your use. Training classes are available for RAS and
making the transition to using RAS for rule drafting would not require retyping of all
rules as you can copy and paste paragraphs into RAS. If your institution is interested in
making the transition to RAS, please contact the ERF Help Desk.
Once the rules are prepared, state institutions of higher education must create a rule-filing
package in the ERF System and file with LSC and JCARR. Again, the filing procedure will not
change. You will file as you always have and the filing will be submitted to both LSC and
JCARR. However, because this is a re-filing of currently existing rules, the current effective date
must be retained. This means if you have ten rules and two have an effective date of 1/1/07, six
have an effective date of 7/1/09, and two have an effective date of 3/10/13, you will need to
create three packages in the ERF System in order to file the rules with the correct effective dates.
For this re-filing, rules will be added to packages as new rules.
When filing the package, you will be prompted to enter an effective date; enter the most
recent effective date of the rule. This will be a date in the past rather than the usual
future effective date. Because the effective date you will be entering occurred in the past,
the ERF System will present you with a warning that the effective date is invalid. You
should click through the warning and complete the filing.
Example - if an existing rule has prior effective dates of 1/1/08 and 4/12/12 and a
current effective date of 7/1/14, when completing the Am. Sub. S.B. 3 re-filing, the
user will enter 1/1/08 and 4/12/12 as prior effective dates and 7/1/14 as the
effective date on the filing. The ERF System will present the user with a message
warning them that the effective date entered may be incorrect. Filers should
ignore this message and will need to click through the warning to complete the
filing.
If you need to make changes to the content of a rule, you must first complete this Am.
Sub. S.B. 3 re-filing process, filing the currently effective text. Once that submission is
complete, you can then make the necessary changes to the text and file the rule as an
amended rule.
If you have currently effective rules that are no longer relevant, it is not necessary to
rescind those rules; just do not include them in your Am. Sub. S.B. 3 re-filing. Section 5
of the act states that "a state institution of higher education is not entitled to rely on a
rule that is required to be re-filed...and that has not been so re-filed." Thus, failure to file
an existing rule as part of the re-filing process will essentially render the rule no longer
effective without the need to rescind the rule. Similarly, if your institution fails to re-
file any rules within the six months following the effective date of Am. Sub. S.B. 3,
your institution will no longer have any effective rules.
Any rule filings made using the ERF System prior to September 17, 2014, do not take the
place of this Am. Sub. S.B. 3 re-filing process. For example, if you file a rule in the ERF
System on September 2, 2014, you will still need to follow the process outlined above
to complete the Am. Sub. S.B. 3 re-filing process during the six months following
September 17, 2014.
Training is available for both RAS and the ERF System. Training dates and course descriptions
are available at filers.registerofohio.state.oh.us/jsp/trainingMaterial.jsp.
If you have any questions about the information included in this memo, or about compliance
with Am. Sub. S.B. 3 generally, please contact the ERF Help Desk at 614-387-2078 or
erfhelpdesk@lsc.ohio.gov.
Posted to the Edu-Filers Mailing List on July 28, 2014
