Bill Enrollment and Agency Request System (BEARS)
The Bill Enrollment and Agency Request System (BEARS) is utilized by agencies, the Office of Financial Management (OFM), and the Governor’s Office to create and analyze agency request legislation. BEARS is also used by Agencies, OFM, and the Governor’s Office to make recommendations and decisions on enrolled bills.
Agency Bill Analyses
Agencies can utilize the Agency Bill Analyses section within BEARS to analyze bills working their way through the legislature, with the ability for users to create their own custom lists of bills with filters, sorting and specified columns for each custom view.
The agency administrator and/or coordinator can:
- Create and assign an analysis or multiple analyses of any given prefiled bill to be prepared by another user within their agency
- Manage (create, edit, delete and review) agency bill analyses for their agency
The agency analyst can:
- Review and edit agency bill analyses once they are created by their agency administrator/coordinator
The agency user can:
- Review agency bill analyses for their agency
Agency Request Legislation
The owner of Agency Request Legislation can:
- Create and assign a request to an Agency Analyst, as well as withdraw a request from the system.
- Manage and control access to information for the purposes of managing, viewing, or updating agency requests.
- Submit agency requests to OFM for recommendations and decisions.
The Office of Financial Management can:
- Review and ask for an agency to revise or withdraw a request.
- Provide information on policy and budget impacts.
- Submit the completed Agency Request to the Governor’s office for review and approval.
Enrolled Bills
Through BEARS, OFM and the Governor’s Office can analyze bills enrolled by the Legislature:
- OFM analyzes the enrolled bills and makes recommendations to the Governor’s Office.
- The Governor’s Office can check-in bills, view OFM recommendations, manage bill actions, vetoes, talking points, and decisions made by the Governor.
Frequently Asked Questions
- If the status of the Agency Request is "OFM Review" and not "Decision Made", "Revision Requested”, or Withdrawn
- Create a document with a file name indicating a new Z-Draft Number
- Navigate to the Attachments Screen
- Select the Upload button
- Wait for the file to be successfully uploaded
- Navigate to the Review Screen
- Select the Resubmit button - This will inform OFM that you have made an update
- If the status is “Revision Requested”, then delete and updated the Z-Draft Number on the Required Elements page before Resubmitting
- If the status is “Decision Made”, you will need to coordinate with OFM Budget Operations Analyst to provide them with the updated Z-Draft information
- If the status is “Withdrawn” the analysis is read only and cannot be edited
Note: Attachments can be added, deleted, or replaced for any reason after an analysis is submitted, but the analysis will need to be resubmitted to notify OFM of the update.
- Required Elements Checklist
- Requirement for Equity Considerations (Included in the Required Elements Questions Section of the Agency Request for Legislation in BEARS)
BEARS Job Aids:
If your agency uses the Washington State Learning Center:
- BEARS Agency Bill Analysis eLearning (LMS version)
- BEARS Create Agency Request Legislation eLearning (LMS version)
If you are a Higher Education employee or if your agency does not use the Washington State Learning Center, use the link below. Note that this version will not be recorded in your LMS learner transcript.
- BEARS Agency Bill Analysis eLearning (Web version)
- BEARS Create Agency Request Legislation eLearning (Web version)
If you process analyses on behalf of OFM for submitted Agency Request Legislation then use the link below to review a presentation of the new BEARS system performing this process.
- OFM ARL Analysis (Assignee Process) (45 minutes)
