Kansas Scrap Metal Database Nearer

UPDATED: Kansas scrap yards could have to report purchases to a new state database within a year from now.

Recently enacted House Bill No. 2248 requires the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to create a database by July 1, 2020.

Kansas scrap metal dealers will have to report to the state database information about materials purchased from individuals, including customer identification details and transaction data. HB 2248 shifted the responsibility for creating and administering the database from the state’s attorney general to the KBI. In March, though previously enacted legislation had required his office to run the database, Attorney General Derek Schmidt told the Senate Judiciary Committee that there hadn’t been sufficient funds to do so, according to a Pratt Tribune article on shifting the Kansas scrap-metal database to the KBI.

Senators had proposed taxing scrap metal purchases to help fund the database. But they removed the taxing provisions before approving SB 219 on March 27.

SB 219 also reduced the maximum annual state licensing fee for scrap metal dealers to $500 from $1,500. Provisions that would have required criminal background checks and fingerprinting of scrap metal dealers were removed as well, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported in an article on the Kansas scrap-metal dealer database.

However, SB 219 did not advance in the state’s House of Representatives. HB 2248, which kept the maximum licensing fee at $1,500 and allowed for criminal background checks and fingerprinting of scrap metal dealers, was later approved by both representatives and senators. Gov. Eric Holcomb signed HB 2248 on May 29. It took effect on July 1.