HCS/HB 777 - This act requires the State Auditor to report to the Department of Revenue any transportation development district that is subject to a fine for failing to timely file its annual financial statement. The act requires that upon notification from the State Auditor, the Department of Revenue shall notify a transportation development district by certified mail that the financial statement has not been received and the district may be subject to a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars a day. The transportation development district subject to the fine must contest the fine or file the annual financial statement within thirty days, otherwise the fine will be enforced and collected by the Department of Revenue. The Department of Revenue is authorized to collect the fine by offsetting any sales tax distributions through any means permitted under law for the collection of taxes, and must annually distribute the revenues from the fines, less a two percent collection fee, to the schools of the county in the same manner that proceeds for all penalties, forfeitures, and fines collected for any breach of the penal laws of the state are distributed. This act provides that any transportation development district with gross revenues of less than one thousand dollars annually shall not be subject to the fine. This act also requires any transportation development district to notify the State Auditor in writing of the date it organized and provide contact information for the current board of directors within four months of the date of formation was approved by any court in this state. Any district which has been previously organized and for which formation was approved prior to August 28, 2015, shall provide the above information to the State Auditor by December 31, 2015.
This act also modifies the maximum costs to be paid by the district for a statutorily permitted or petition audit of the district performed by the State Auditor to be only the actual costs and cannot exceed the greater of 3% of the district's gross revenues or 3% of its expenditures.
This act is similar to HB 136 (2015).
MICHELA BIRK