Table 3.27

Summary of Sunset Legislation

Data publication year: 2023 (showing) 2022

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FIPS	State or other jurisdiction	Scope	Preliminary evaluation conducted by	Other legislative review	Other oversight mechanisms in law	Phase-out period	Life of each agency (in years)	Other provisions
01	Alabama	C	Dept. of Examiners of Public Accounts	Standing Committees	Perf. audit	No later than Oct. 1 of the year following the regular session or a time as may be specified in the Sunset bill.	Usually 4	Schedules of licensing boards and other enumerated agencies are repealed according to specified time tables.
02	Alaska	C	Budget & Audit Committee	✕	✕	1 year	✕	✕
04	Arizona	C	Legislative staff	Joint Committee	N/A	6 months	10	✕
05	Arkansas	D	✕	✕	N/A	✕	✕	✕
06	California	S	Jt. Legis. Sunset Review Committee (a)	✕	Perf. Eval.	✕	Established by the Legislature	✕
08	Colorado	R	Dept. of Regulatory Agencies	Legis. Committees of Reference	Bills need adoption by the legislature.	1 year	Up to 15	State law provides certain criteria that are used to determine whether a public need exists for an entity or function to continue and that its regulation is the least restrictive regulation consistent with the public interest.
09	Connecticut	D	Committee of cognizance of program/entity being reviewed.	✕	per CGS 2c-21: unless otherwise provided, a provision of law creating board/commission/other body on or after Jan. 4, 1995 with primary purpose of issuing report, is deemed repealed 120 days after the date of required submission of such report	✕	✕	✕
10	Delaware	D	Entities under review submit reports to the Joint Legislative Oversight and Sunset Committee based on criteria for review and set forth in statute.	✕	Perf. audit	June 30 following the final report	✕	✕
12	Florida	S	✕	✕	✕	✕	✕	✕
13	Georgia*	R	Dept. of Audits	Standing Committees	Perf. audit	✕	✕	A performance audit of each regulatory agency must be conducted upon the request of the Senate or House standing committee to which an agency has been assigned for oversight and review. (d)

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Source:

The Council of State Governments' State Legislative Survey, 2023.

Key:

*	—	Responses carried forward due to state nonresponse.
**	—	Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.
C	—	Comprehensive — requires all statutory agencies to be subject to a sunset review once per review cycle.
R	—	Regulatory — review focus is on regulatory and licensing agencies and bureaus.
S	—	Selective — selective implementation and reviews are concentrated on entities such as occupational licensing and administrative agencies such as highway, health and education departments.
D	—	Discretionary — sunset review board has the ability to select which entities will face review.
CL	—	Clausal — includes sunset clauses in selected programs or legislation.
✕	—	No provision.
N.A.	—	Not applicable (no program).

Footnotes:

(a)	Jt. Legis. Sunset Review Committee – Review by the Jt. Legislative Sunset Review Committee of professional and vocational licensing boards, pursuant to Government Code 9147.7. Sunset clauses are included in other selected programs and legislation.
(c)	The 2011 Nevada Legislature created the Sunset Subcommittee of the Legislative Commission with the enactment of Senate Bill 251 (Chapter 480, Statutes of Nevada) . The Subcommittee is to conduct reviews of all boards and commissions not provided for in the Nevada Constitution or created by Executive Order of the Governor, and is charged with determining whether those entities should be terminated, modified, consolidated, or continued. The Subcommittee must review each entity no less often than once every ten years. After making it’s initial recommendations no later than June 30, 2012, the Subcommittee must submit all subsequent recommendations to the Legislative Commission on or before June 30 of each even numbered year. The Legislative Commission may accept or reject the recommendations in whole or part and may then request that legislation be drafted for consideration by the full Legislature.
(d)	The automatic sunsetting of an agency every six years was eliminated in 1992. The legislature must pass a bill in order to sunset a specific agency.
(e)	While they have not enacted sunset legislation in the same sense as the other states with detailed information in this table, the legislatures in Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Wisconsin have included sunset clauses in selected programs or legislation.
(g)	Governor is to read GOMB report and make recommendations to the General Assembly every even-numbered year.
(h)	Sunset legislation terminated July 1992. Legislative oversight of designated state agencies, consisting of audit, review and evaluation, continues.
(i)	Sunset Act terminated December 31, 1984. House and Senate Rules are available at billstatus.ls.state.ms.us. New Rules were adopted in January 2012.
(j)	Sunset legislation is discretionary, meaning that senators are free to offer sunset legislation or attach termination dates to legislative proposals. There is no formal sunset commission. Nebraska Revised Statutes section 50-1303 directs the Legislature’s Government, Military and Veteran’s Committee to conduct an evaluation of any board, commission, or similar state entity. The review must include, among other things, a recommendation as to whether the board, commission, or entity should be terminated, continued or modified.
(m)	There are statutory exceptions.
(n)	assembly. Therefore, Sunset Review will operate on a recurring four-year cycle.
(o)	Oversight mechanisms, including auditing, reporting or performance measures, are discretionary but may be included in specific bills as determined by legislature.
(q)	Law repealed by 1998 Act 419, Part II, Sect. 35E.
(r)	South Dakota suspended sunset legislation in 1979. A later law directing the Executive Board of the Legislative Research Council to establish one or more interim committees each year to review state agencies was repealed in 2012.
(s)	Sunsets are at the legislature’s discretion. Their structure will vary on an individual basis.
(u)	The program evaluation process evolved out of the sunset process, but Wyoming currently does not have a scheduled sunset of programs.
(x)	A regulation expires seven years after its last substantive review unless appropriate action is taken by agency.
(y)	The certification process does not involve a specific review unless requested by a committee member.
(z)	The agency is required to review its regulations for compliance with current law at least once every 7 years and file a certification letter stating whether the regulation will be amended or remain in effect without amendment. If the certification letter is not filed or the regulation is not repromulgated, the regulation will expire 7 years after the last substantive committee review.
(bb)	Sunsets are at Leg. discretion. Their structure will vary on an individual basis
(cc)	The Leg. will sometimes build a sunset into law, and then may revisit the sunset before it takes effect. 2 V.S.A. 20(d) provides specific Leg. intent to sunset reports after five years, but a report only sunsets if the Leg. enacts law to do so. 3 V.S.A. 268 established a time-limited Sunset Advisory Commission to recommend whether State boards and commissions should sunset.