Support Staff

The Legislation Review and Processing staff performs technical review of bills, amendments, and certain resolutions. The staff consists of several technical reviewers and a technical support person.

Technical Reviewers

Technical reviewers oversee and maintain the text and orderliness of Ohio's statutes (Revised Code) and Constitution, both during and after the law-making process, so that the Ohio legislature and all others know what law is current. Technical reviewers largely work independently, but also are part of a team of technical reviewers, a team supervisor, and an attorney advisor.

During the legislative process, technical reviewers examine and edit bills, bill components, amendments, and resolutions drafted by LSC research and fiscal staff by doing all of the following:

• Applying correct word usage, spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and established style preferences, to the text of proposed law
• Applying the required format and language to ensure each document will operate as intended in the legislative process
• Analyzing each document using multiple computerized databases to determine whether current law is being amended, cross-reference changes are cared for, and new law is numbered correctly and to record results of this analysis
• Consulting LSC drafters about edits and requester intent
• Considering multiple details, priorities, and deadlines to ensure the quality and timeliness of each document.

After a bill or resolution becomes law, technical reviewers examine and prepare the newly enacted or amended law for use in future bills, bill components, amendments, and resolutions by doing all of the following:

• Calculating effective dates for each act and section of law for in-house use
• Examining acts for the LSC Director to identify and make any needed codification number changes prior to the Director's signature on each act
• Analyzing and processing gubernatorial vetoes of acts or parts of acts
• Analyzing sections where amendments from multiple acts need to be merged or otherwise dealt with so as to determine the resulting text of each section
• Recording pertinent information on each section of law and otherwise finalizing them for updating in LSC's two repositories of Ohio Law

Additionally, for the major state biennial budget bills and other extraordinarily large bills, technical reviewers assemble the initial versions of these bills and engross the amendments to subsequent versions at each stage of the legislative process. Technical reviewers also advise and assist LSC drafters regarding specialized technical requirements for unusual situations in bills, bill components, amendments, and resolutions.

Technical Support

The technical support person provides data entry and administrative support to the technical and legislation review team. On acts, the technical support person monitors dates of enactment and gubernatorial actions, and retrieves from and delivers to the Secretary of State acts that the Governor files with the Secretary of State. The technical support person also initiates, and verifies the work of, the LSC attorney who drafts the short titles of all bills and resolutions introduced in each General Assembly, and monitors the legislation websites where these titles appear.

Under the direction of the Support Staff Administrator, the Document Processing staff processes, duplicates, and distributes documents and assists with assignment intake, answering telephone calls, and other administrative tasks.

Staff Roles

The Document Processing staff is divided into the following groups:

• Bill Preparation – Proofreads and processes bills and certain resolutions
• Resolution Processing – Proofreads and processes honorary resolutions and commendation letters
• General Processing/Administrative Assistants – Proofreads and processes research and fiscal documents and publications
• Assignment Clerks/Directors' Assistants – Assists with assignment intake, tracks assignments for legislators, and assists the directors in fulfilling their administrative tasks
• Copy Room – Duplicates and distributes documents, orders supplies, and maintains office equipment
• Receptionists – Answers telephone calls and greets visitors

Qualifications

Qualifications for employment include the following:

• A strong interest in public service
• An ability to provide nonbiased, accurate information to all members of the General Assembly on a timely basis
• A willingness to work more than 40 hours per week when necessary and the ability to adjust personal schedules to changing legislative priorities
• An ability to work collaboratively
• An ability to work under pressure and perform multiple tasks
• Exceptional spelling and grammatical skills
• An ability to produce high quality work with a high level of attention to detail and, for some positions, accurate typing skills

Careers

LSC Document Processing staff members have the opportunity to assume more responsibility as positions become available. They may seek supervisory roles among the document processing and document distribution staff or may transfer to or take on additional duties as assistants within the administrative or legal and technical review divisions of the agency.