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 implemention 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 information.
  You must select the Board affected. You must either select the chapter primarily affected or indicate that a new chapter will need to be created. If a current action is going to satifsy this mandate, you can select it now. Or you can come back later and edit the mandate to associate the action.
• Click on "Save."

• On the blue 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. Note: The board field cannot be edited. The board has to be selected during the creation of the mandate.
• Select the Chapter primarily affected by the mandate.
• If an action is underway to implement the mandate, select it from the pull down menu. If not then "Will select an action later" can remain selected.
• 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.