128th General Assembly

Reps. Snitchler and Yates, Gardner, Boose, Huffman, McClain, Domenick

BILL SUMMARY

· Eliminates the requirement for a county engineer to be a registered surveyor.

· Requires the office of the county engineer to have a registered surveyor on its staff if the county engineer is not a registered surveyor.

CONTENT AND OPERATION

Background

Under current law, each county has an elected office of county engineer (sec. 315.01--not in the bill). The county engineer generally performs for the county all duties authorized or declared by law to be done by a registered professional engineer or registered surveyor (sec. 315.08). The primary duty of the county engineer is to plan, design, construct, and maintain the county road system, including county bridges. The engineer also has responsibility for township bridges and some bridges on through routes in municipal corporations. The county engineer serves as the engineer for townships and, in some counties, may provide assistance to the planning commission, building regulation department, or zoning commission or may be appointed as the county sanitary engineer by the county commissioners.

Qualifications of a county engineer

Current law requires a county engineer to be a registered professional engineer and a registered surveyor, licensed to practice in Ohio (sec. 315.02 and Chapter 4733.). Under the bill, the county engineer need not be a registered surveyor, but, if the county engineer is not a registered surveyor, the office of the county engineer must have a registered surveyor on staff to fulfill the surveying duties of the office or must contract for surveying services (secs. 305.15, 315.02, and 315.08).[1] The removed registered surveyor requirement applies only to county engineers whose initial election or appointment to office is after the bill's effective date (Section 3).

HISTORY

ACTION		DATE

Introduced		06-23-09

H0232-i-128.docx/ss

[1] Conforming changes are made in the following sections to reflect the fact that the "office of the county engineer," and not necessarily the county engineer, may be fulfilling surveying duties: sections 315.14, 315.15, 315.16, 315.17, 315.18, 315.22, 315.25, 315.28, 315.29, 315.31, 315.32, 315.33, 315.34, and 315.39.