House approves hours of training for notaries

House members Friday adopted HB172, a bill that would mandate four hours of official training in order to become or keep a notary public license in the state.

Sponsor Rep. Lou Shurtleff, D-Ogden, rattled off a long list of notary mistakes that have cost Utahns great suffering in recent years. Each month, she said, upwards of 60 problems with notaries are reported to state officials.

Rep. Todd Kiser, R-Sandy, tried to amend the training time down to two hours. But Shurtliff said a notary has four years to complete that four-hour testing.