On February 6, 2024, Associate Policy Director Dominic Butchko testified before the Senate Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee in support of SB 572- Environment- Collection and Reporting of Drinking Water and Wastewater Documents, Data, and Information- Requirements with amendments. This bill requires water utilities to provide the Department of the Environment with documents, data, and information from its annual water quality consumer confidence report.
The core functions of county government center around delivery of basic services. As stewards of both critical infrastructure and billions of dollars in public money, counties hold equal the values of operational excellence and government transparency. With the amendments proposed by MACo and accepted by the sponsor, this bill will become a vehicle for promoting good governance.
SB 572 is intended to ensure that local constituents have access to certain information related to billing, public financing, and a number of other items. While counties are grateful that the sponsor and advocates have introduced a more refined bill meant to assuage concerns, there still remains a number of elements that require revision in order to be implementable.
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