H-4463              _______________________________________________

                                          SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL NO. 1331

                        _______________________________________________

State of Washington                              50th Legislature                              1988 Regular Session

By House Committee on Local Government (originally sponsored by Representatives Nealey, Rayburn, D. Sommers and Chandler)

Read first time 1/27/88 and passed to Committee on Rules.

AN ACT Relating to vital statistics registration; and amending RCW 70.58.030 and 70.58.107.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

        Sec. 1.  Section 18, chapter 83, Laws of 1907 as amended by section 6, chapter 5, Laws of 1961 ex. sess. and RCW 70.58.030 are each amended to read as follows:

          The local registrar shall supply blank forms of certificates to such persons as require them.  He or she shall carefully examine each certificate of birth, death, and fetal death when presented for record, and see that it has been made out in accordance with the provisions of law and the instructions of the state registrar.  If any certificate of death is incomplete or unsatisfactory, ((he)) the local registrar shall call attention to the defects in the return, and withhold issuing the burial-transit permit until it is corrected.  If the certificate of death is properly executed and complete, he or she shall issue a burial-transit permit to the funeral director or person acting as such.  If a certificate of a birth is incomplete, he or she shall immediately notify the informant, and require ((him to supply)) that the missing items be supplied if they can be obtained.  He or she shall sign ((his name)) as local registrar to each certificate filed in attest of the date of filing in ((his)) the office.  He or she shall make a record of each birth, death, and fetal death certificate registered ((by him)) in such manner as directed by the state registrar.  ((He)) The local registrar shall ((on or before the tenth day of each month,)) transmit to the state registrar all original certificates ((registered by him during the preceding month)) no less than twenty-five days after the event nor more than forty days after the event.  When the state registrar requests the transfer of a certificate from a local registrar, the local registrar shall transfer the record immediately to the state registrar.  If no births or no deaths occurred in any month, he or she shall, on the tenth day of the following month, report that fact to the state registrar, on a card provided for this purpose((:  PROVIDED, That in cities of the first class the city health officer may require the filing of two original certificates and may retain one of the duplicate original certificates as the city record)).  Local registrars in counties in which a first class city or a city of twenty thousand or more population is located may retain an exact copy of the original and make certified copies of the exact copy.

        Sec. 2.  Section 3, chapter 223, Laws of 1987 and RCW 70.58.107 are each amended to read as follows:

          The department of social and health services shall charge a fee of eleven dollars for certified copies of records and for copies or information provided for research, statistical, or administrative purposes, and eight dollars for a search of the files or records when no copy is made.  The department shall prescribe by regulation fees to be paid for preparing sealed files and for opening sealed files.

          No fee may be demanded or required for furnishing certified copies of a birth, death, fetal death, marriage, divorce, annulment, or legal separation record for use in connection with a claim for compensation or pension pending before the veterans administration.

          The state department of social and health services shall keep a true and correct account of all fees received and turn the fees over to the state treasurer on a weekly basis.

          Local registrars shall charge the same fees as the state as hereinabove provided and as prescribed by department regulation, except that local registrars shall charge eleven dollars for the first copy of a death certificate and six dollars for each additional copy of the same death certificate when the additional copies are ordered at the same time as the first copy.   All such fees collected, except for three dollars of each fee for the issuance of a certified copy, shall be paid to the jurisdictional health department.

          All local registrars in cities and counties shall keep a true and correct account of all fees received under this section for the issuance of certified copies and shall turn three dollars of the fee over to the state treasurer on or before the first day of January, April, July, and October.

Except on birth certificates issued under RCW 70.58.085, three dollars of each fee imposed for the issuance of certified copies at both the state and local levels shall be held by the state treasurer in the death investigations account established by RCW 43.79.445.