Virginia Regulatory Town Hall

Periodic Review of Regulations

Executive Order 36 (2006) requires that all regulations be reviewed at least once every four years. This means that, in the last four years, if a regulation has not been either (1) subject to a regulatory action, or (2) comprehensively reviewed by the agency/board, it is appropriate to publish a Notice of Periodic Review in the Register. The Notice of Periodic Review invites comments on the entire regulation.
The Town Hall facilitates the periodic review process by (1)helping you determine when it is time to conduct a periodic review, (2) notifying the Registrar who will publish the Notice of your periodic review, (3) notifying users who have signed up for e-mail notification and (4) automatically opening the public forum to receive comments.
Although the process is transparent to the public, the following instructions are aimed at state users.
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How to determine if a periodic review is necessary

Step 1: You can use the "My Agency Boards" option on your "Agency Functions" menu to locate the desired board
Step 2: While on the Chapters tab for the selected board, you will notice the two columns named "Last Activity" and "Last Review". Last Activity will show the last time the chapter had an action published in the Virginia Register. The Last Review column will show the last time a periodic review was conducted on the chapter. If no activity has occurred in the last 4 years, a periodic review should be conducted as soon as possible.

How to begin your periodic review

Step 1: Click on the desired chapter from the list under your board and go to the Periodic Reviews tab. You can see any dates for previous periodic reviews. Click on the link to Start/Announce a New Review page.
Step 2: Type in the announcement text. This text will be published in the Virginia Register and sent out in an email to any public users who selected this chapter in their preferences. For the public comment period, the beginning date should correspond to the publication date for the Virginia Register.
Step 3: Click on Save. The Registrar's office will be notified.

How to review comments received in the public comment forum

See the section of this manual on public comment forums.

How to complete your review once the comment period is over

After the public comment period is complete and no later than 90 days after your notice of periodic review is published in the Register, you must complete your review.
Step 1: Locate the chapter in question by either selecting "My Agency Boards" from the Agency Functions menu or by using the search box.
Step 2: From the View Chapter page select the "Periodic Review" tab and then choose the "Edit Review" link.
Step 3: Select one of the three choices for the review result (Retain / Amend / Terminate).
Step 4 (option 1): If you selected to retain the regulation, you should upload the "Periodic Review / Retain Regulation" form which can be found on the Town Hall forms page.
Step 4 (option 2): If you selected to amend or terminate the regulation, you should specify in the pull down list which action will affect this change. Your review is not complete until you create an action to affect the change and upload your agency statement document.