Search Options

Home > User Manual Table of Contents

A legislative mandate occurs when a law is passed by the General Assembly and that law explicitly or implicitly requires that a regulation be amended or that a new regulation be promulgated. Examples of a legislative mandate: (1) a law establishes a new regulatory program and mandates that an agency promulgate a regulation to implement the program, and (2) the Code of Virginia is amended so that an agency/board regulation on the subject must also be amended in order to be consistent with the Code. Once a regulatory action is begun to implement a legislative mandate, the agency must "associate" the regulatory action and the legislative mandate so that a Town Hall user can track the implementation of a mandate from the beginning of the regulatory process to the end.

The legislative mandate feature is designed to allow agencies to better manage their regulatory work, and to provide members of the General Assembly, members of the public, and executive branch reviewers a snapshot of the progress an agency/board is making in implementing a legislative mandate.

Once the General Assembly session is complete, agencies must enter all legislative mandates on the Town Hall by September of that same year.

• Once logged in as a state user, click on the agency functions menu and select "My Mandates."
• Click on the "Add New Mandate" link.
• Enter Mandate Title, Purpose of Legislation, and List the legislative chapters or the budget items mandating a change.
• Select the Board affected.
• Select VAC Chapters to be amended through "Select a VAC chapter to be amended." You have the option to select an existing chapter, to make a selection at a later time, or indicate that a chapter will be created later.
• Enter estimated date for filing a regulatory action and Deadline for the regulation to become effective.
• If a current action is going to satisfy this mandate, you can select it now through "Select Action" link. Or you can come back later and edit the mandate to associate the action later created.
• In some cases, a mandate does not require a regulatory action. For example, an agency may create a mandate thinking that a regulatory action would be taken later. However, the mandate may be implemented through an administrative action rather than a regulatory action. In such cases, the mandate can be marked complete with an explanatory text without having to link it to a regulatory action. If such is the case, enter text for an explanation.
• Click on "Save."

• On the menu bar, click on the agency functions dropdown list and select "My Mandates."
• Navigate to the mandate that you want to edit and click on the "Mandate Title" hyperlink to go to the Mandate Information page.
• Click on the "Edit Mandate" hyperlink.
• Update the data.
• Click on "Save."

An action can be associated with a mandate, either when creating the mandate on the Town Hall or later once the desired action has been created. See the instructions above for editing a mandate.