ALC-Occupational Licensing Review Subcommittee

I don't see any questions. Senator garner did you have a question. You're recognized. Thank you so on the military port can you explain a little bit more detail on both sides you make remarks yes some kind what your procedure is for those who are active build military or who have been this charge and pursuant to the Arkansas code kind of what that Expedia process works like but you thank you. Thank you for the question my name is Gerry share I'm I'm the director for the department of Human Services division of provider services and quality assurance and at the center as you know there's a requirement state law to provide that Expedia process our rules for both of these licensure types for nursing home administrators and certified nursing assistants haven't been updated in quite awhile so our process is an informal one whereby if someone notifies us that they meet one of those criteria we then admittedly take action to get them get them going in this state A but there's not a formalized process is just seems we learned about it we get them going. Would it be any opposition to making that build more formalized see if the rules so that the military members could see that and I think that's what I notice is people who get all the military one going certain professions they're trying to look up with the rules and procedures maybe or talk to somebody and if they don't see that directly it might cause look absolutely will be in our newest revisions to the rules these have been updated since nineteen ninety eight and nineteen two thousand eight respectively so we will get those updated to reflect back to thank Mister. Thank you any other question or comment from members any recommendations. All right seeing none of thank you for your tennis today and thank you for the court to put all this together force thank you chairman thank you committee thanks. All right next up is a the Arkansas commission on law enforcement standards and training looks like we have miss Jamie cook miss your and bread keying in attendance if you all would please make your way to the table. Thank you for being here today would you mind introducing yourself and your affiliation. Certainly Amanda Yarborough counsel for the commission on law enforcement standards Jamie cook secretary department public safety DIV director of the division on law enforcement standards and training thank you thank you for being here again today did you have a statement or would you like to just kind of run run this through a summary of what you provided us I do not have a prepared statement what we provided you is the of rules that govern the certification and training and the certification a law enforcement officers in the state of Arkansas along with the Licensure for active military service members expedited process and procedures I'm glad to take any questions. My members to have any questions. Senate rest you're recognized. He Richard this while the other senators thing to be a Not a lot of questions. Is there anything that you all are receiving more input in to from the. lawn for center and trainings on the. Current Arkansas constitutional. Right to carry A under ACT seven forty six are you all doing any extra training on that when I continue to hear about law enforcement from across Arkansas. That is some seem to be confused on that the it is there any update on policy or anything that you all have anything that you could share today with us about that. Thank you senator we just go explain the law of to the best of our understanding and all the training academies and then we encourage the officers to go have that conversation with their chief sheriff in prosecuting attorney to determine exactly what the stance is an advert that specific jurisdiction of for those matters. And that's the problem because I believe that water governor did to the seed you need to check with your local prosecutor is either a law in Arkansas. Or it's not yes Sir can we have clear law. It needs to be taught at the academy. What the law is I believe in have you had any update our input lately that you know of. That is clarified any that because this is been going on now few years. Yes Sir I should not put our law officers in that kind of problem and there's not a problem with with. The most but we do have some pockets in the state that yes so it is there anything you all are doing or that you're familiar with that change as I just know that we teach the most current law and as those laws change we update the curriculum and teach that to all of the officers that come through our training academies. Okay. Thank you thank you. Thank you are there any other questions. Appreciate it. Alright we'll go into the next item on the agenda. Item number three Arkansas state board of pharmacy. Hi how are ya if you will just state your names for the record and you can proceed actually thank you madam chair my name is John clay currently on the director of the Arkansas state board of pharmacy. Brenda McRaney this is in there director of the Arkansas state were pharmacy lane with more it's the FO FOR the Arkansas state board of pharmacy right thank you. Go ahead but just as a quick overview the board of pharmacy does occupational and professional licensing for three different groups for pharmacists for student pharmacist while they're in school or up to six months afterward and then for support staff pharmacy technicians we've outlined kind of the the rules about the price of pharmacy and oversight of that we'd be happy to answer any questions you have about the occupational licensing authors all right great thank you members of the committee you have all of the information in your packets as far as the licenses the fees the different items. The senator I have a couple questions from folks. Senator garner I believe. Yes madam chair. In general was the pharmacy techs How much they get paid on general six average salary just correct magnets for us well we here different salary ranges depend on exactly what their duties are and where they work it could range anywhere from minimum wage to we have some pharmacy technicians that have a somewhat advanced practice were there helping to prepare like a sterile products in hospitals that maybe even making fifteen dollars an hour or more that that's that's kind of the range I had my head so when I look to the fees obviously the pharmacy fees because you're expected for how salary it makes more sense to be that higher range but seventy dollars per year renewal fee for pharmacy tech when someone making minimum wage opinion dollars seems pretty excessive why is that right seventy dollars and what was that typically that feed go to that would be beneficial to the pharmacy techs in general so the two things that's actually a bi annual fee so seventy dollars every two years thirty five dollars a year by Sir and so what it does is for the the pharmacy specifically that they work at it's actually an ongoing check and balance to ensure that they should legally be able to work there's actually some odd things in and health care specifically such as our state a code of federal regulation I that the DA has that because we do criminal background checks and we ask for renewal information about criminal activities if you get a drug felony even if you have expunged for instance their issues with the aid that it is illegal for a D. E. A. registrarte to hire you without getting some federal paperwork so if we have someone that comes at with a drug felony the board often times you they can consider and may even grant you a permit but we we give you notification that you have to let employers no or else that pharmacy that hospital that doctor's office whoever it is you're working for could face hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars of monetary penalties as well as other is a drug diversion or anything else the other thing is it does show on our state system that you may have been checked by the board of pharmacy and have an act. Of license on going so it tells the pharmacy that they are able to perform the duties of a practicing in a pharmacy to actually handle those medications so thirty five dollars actually used to for lack of a better way to explain it for August of a dated background check to make sure they're compliant with that federal law that you said is that that's what the money directly goes to spending it with that's where we'd spend part of it it's I mean it goes into just the base funding for the board of pharmacy itself it also goes in the fact that we do inspect we are unique as a C. because we license businesses and individuals and a large part of our money is spent on not just cases but also doing we we try to do within every two years random inspections and pharmacies we actually try to target those is great teaching opportunities because you know we all know what we think we do right but sometimes we don't know where we might be able to tweak some things to get better so a lot of times we actually get good compliments on our inspectors that they actually helped identify an issue before was bigger before became a a law enforcement yeah I've heard similar stories I just whenever we have for people who are making that salary I like to make sure that these are use of the right way in our a revenue source that isn't going to help you to the industry or the individual thank you very much absolutely thank you. Representative Dotson. Thank you mentor where the right. My questions regarding the reinstatement fee on the pharmacy and. I was so you have a minimum maximum seventy five dollars to three hundred dollars three hundred seems kind of a really large amount what why the big range and why not once that seventy five dollar fee what we generally see is that people that reciprocate either have only been out a very short amount of time so there's really not much necessary as far as a eight a further background check on them where they've been out a really long time so I have seen reinstatement that someone let their license lapsing decided they wanted back within a year and I've seen people that have quite literally been out of the practice of pharmacy for twenty years some states will want every single year should be twenty years or so years ago decades ago for my knowledge the board set that cap at three hundred dollars which would be four years worth instead of trying to come after twenty for people that have been out of practice for that length of time they have some re introduction to practice that causes a a decent bit of time and effort on the board of pharmacy to track that you have been working with supervision that you're meeting the criteria that you should to re enter the the practice of pharmacy independently or we have people that have been pricing in other states which we work with our national organization to ensure that they're not running from state to state because of problems. So the the extra amount is for that that background. Do they have to pay some sort of additional costs like continuing education additional fees take tests do other things like that to get their license reinstate A do have to show Baxi E. but similar to to that we have a cap of sixty hours of CD that they would have to show us so every pharmacist license in the state has to get thirty hours of C. E. every two years so even if you are away from practice or out of practice for eight years you don't have to show for your support and we we haven't raised any fees since the late nineteen nineties with the board of pharmacy that was a fee that actually has existed for over twenty years and that maximums only hit if they've been out for years or longer yes if it only been out two years cents just double of seventy five exactly okay thank you. Thank you on the pharmacy and and turns a lot of time army are those paid by individuals or are primarily mainly by the pharmacy itself they have an intern so almost all of our fees are generally paid by an employer for the pharmacy students a lot of them don't have an employer at that time so we actually reduce those fees even sets I was in pharmacy school so to a forty five dollar one time fee that will last you through six months past graduation contact okay thank you absent of Cozart. Thank you madam chair you talked about the felony the drug felony will go service or any point after a period of time that that goes away or can be they could be reinstated. So it's a it's a two fold issue the board of pharmacy can consider giving a waiver to that felony and and has given waivers to people with those felony convictions the problem with this is that if you really want to to nerd out on it you can go look at twenty one CFR thirteen a one point seven six and what it says is a registrant shall not employee without a waiver beforehand anyone that's met any of these criteria when we've talked with the federal government the past they don't care if it's expunge they don't care if it has been sealed they don't care if you have a a pardon from the governor or even they would say even a president if you had had entered a plea of guilty or found guilty of a certain number of things you have to apply to the D. E. A. to get a waiver in order to have access to controlled substances and it's mainly just their their fear of if you had a controlled substance violation previously they're going to make sure that you have to go through extra hoops federally before you work in the candy store so there is a waiver to go jump through hoops areas it's a very very difficult to get on the federal side but we've had pharmacist even in Arkansas and forms employees were able to do it and work in facilities where they were not around controlled substances good thank you. After thank you Representative Burch. Thank you madam chair. There's a hypothetical a military spouse graduate from pharmacy school here now merry to military member who is stationed in maybe. Maryland or DC area and I'm practicing in Maryland with my license when we moved back home. What will it cost me to to become licensed here and how much time before I can begin practicing. So Arkansas is fairly unique in the way that we do reciprocity I'm far fees and I would defer to our CFO on the fee itself but we actually even requested people let us know if you are military or a military spouse so we can tell you that the national association boards of pharmacy that helps with the reciprocity process they will waive fees or cut fees for military members or spouses now it's only armed forces for them we will expedite your application and whether you in an R. in an armed forces branch for a uniformed services branch such as United States public health service or no and I think the jury's out on space force if it is going to be declared armed or not but whatever it is. For us Arkansas is also unique that we give our own law test every state has a juris prudence exam to practice pharmacy and almost every state uses a multi state farm's teachers prince exempt you have to go to appear send you testing center to take their Covin nineteen those testing centers were shut down for about two months they're running about half capacity with about half their locations our office actually will schedule you for a test we had two people take it this morning I think we have two people doing their test right now in our office and we're also unique that we invite them in and either myself doctor McRae resources director one of our other pharmacist on staff tries even see do you have questions about our practice before you take this test we greater test right there you get to see what you made right there we will review it with you so the rate limiting step the the short answer your questions the rate limiting step for the turnaround is how long it takes us to get your state police criminal background check if we need to issue a temporary license what we can do that right in our office in a day or two now. Senate you could be in Iraq this in as little as you know a week easily. So what is my daughter not need to do to little notice she's coming back in four years she needs to the email us and tell us that you she is a eight either in the uniform service or the spouse of one she can set up to come back and she if she's taken our wall test before it's reinstatement so it's actually even send have take it again do we just start back we do do a criminal background check and we have some the reinstatement fees and make sure that she's had or C. units been in practice and that's reinstatement fees or how much and the reason I ask in a and let me just get she has been licensed and and this is real cheese cheese cheese my to military member right now but she's been licensed depending on where they are different states and it's an astronomical amount of money that she has paid to route to get the licensed in the states in one place she couldn't get license there for a whole year and he was sure he was going to be there for an entire year force orders for such so I'm and service about that the money and being really concerned about military spouse absolutely we would have to look at exactly how long she's been out to to see that but if she's been practicing we should not have to worry about the practice after active so we we'd be more than happy to pull her actual file of shoes license here before to get that specific amount but but we yep we make every effort to expedite those because we understand Transient is a a bad term but the just the feeling of trying to move constantly is very difficult and and we look very seriously at our fees that's what we haven't raised any years we're actually waiving fees for all the seniors right now because a Kobe so that they don't have application fees since they also are somewhat unable to test you know since they can't take their national board exam it puts them in a whole different mode where they have to pay your five hundred dollars to take a national board exam when they can't even hardly working can't get to their test so we are even waiting some of those things. Thank you. Yeah those are good questions may not the part of the resume that's the main reason actually it's the reason why we passed our bill this past session on military service members and south of because of exactly that and you know our state won awards through the military for for that legislation so Representative Bentley and I've brought that Ford but any other questions. It's good to note the different types of things that you're doing in response to coronavirus on that that's an issue kind of across the board west. Testing its general I mean in general at a daughter that you know takes her GRE online that. Still she was there with the proctor that told her she could newspaper or pencils for the math section but. See you know and you can do is you had a white board with the marketing having markers so see I mean well I believe also that challenging times as international accreditation board over all the college of pharmacy and we've seen it as a nation wide issue and I'm very thankful that in Arkansas are testing centers open back up were some states are still struggling with that yeah yeah that's good to know all right now the question thank you so much for coming here in preparing and presenting thank you for the work you do. All right next on the agenda is the. Arkansas state board of registration FOR professional soil classifiers Arkansas department of agriculture. Thank you feel just identify yourselves for the record then you may proceed. I'm Wade hajj chief counsel for the agriculture department. Amid rumors the US ski secretary treasurer of the state board for professional so classifiers. Thank you if you want to just briefly just tells a little bit about this and we'll see if I have any questions certainly the board came under the agriculture department just last year under the transformation ACT we're happy to have them with us the rules that I attached through the portal that you have in front of you those over the current rules that have been in place for a long time ask me again next week what the rules will look like and they'll have all the military licensure a temporary Ross approve reciprocity and criminal background checks in them hopefully because they're set to be reviewed by the rules review committee on Wednesday so just wanted to explain that for you be happy to answer any questions okay and as far as your soul classification and and this can you describe how a person works in that capacity. Sure that's a good question you know that so classifiers more of that what we call sole pet Allah just when everyone's talk is about describing schools and and helping people make good decisions about using them a lot of the people that will that work in this profession are working especially those that are consultants work as. Designated representatives of the health department designing septic systems that type of work also for a what when a hundred souls portion of the wetland determinations are medications also we have people working with engineering firms for highway type of our souls information compaction and so forth on that kind of thing the my work I work for the federal government I work as a soul scientists with the natural resources conservation service so we have that area of universities and so so that's kind of the area that we were. Okay and can you just describe the the year examination it says re examination or examination and. Part of your licensing is it. Testing your knowledge and making sure that you're qualified to thought basically the reason why we license to you and have a fee and those kinds of things correct yes good question the Registration procedure or testing procedure is that we have a in training license in this is a general school science carpet agree so if you look at any type of of discipline biology whatever was that encompasses quite a bit of school science area once through that in through a training period it depends on the training period if the person has ample experience then then we go ahead and go with the that peer can be quite short war so we go into the professional license that is more on describing in interpreting this oral so if you see a sorrel that's read you know why it's red if it's great we know otherwise grapefruits you between so that when we're giving information to the public we're giving them good information. Last question of mine but and so you know work we my husband we have cattle and so he he jokes about having the are these the folks that also give the classes for at the folks that are that need to have a license to be able to utilize certain pesticides and things like that on their properties he refers to it has as his license to kill his or for sure we. Absolutely no this would not be that that okay have a purse what we do is look at exactly what the school is showing us from description scribing its features you know whether it's holding water what if the death and all that this would be more of a sorrel science in the area of maybe fertility weed science type of thing okay got to thank you senator garner. The manager how many states require a license to be a professional so classifier I've counted of. Thirty four thirty four across the country and I don't know I don't have a list that's what I with the into submitted question but I can name the ones that are close to us of that help sure Texas Oklahoma and Kansas is of course us Lewis eight unit does not quite yet Mississippi Alabama Tennessee. Kentucky Alabama Georgia North Carolina and Florida kind in the south area so I know I'm missing quite a few but there's some in the northeast also there quite to have their licenses state is required to have his license in order to do profession correct if I read the law correctly. Yes of we do give a waiver for those that are in a state agency or a federal agency. And that's that's what we have in our our law. In the dozen or so states that do not have a official requirement for licensing is there any examples of. Ramp it fraud or. Issues that would come to require professional license I don't know about ramp it it the I don't I don't know of any no example you can come off top your nose dental that I could come up with. Thank you madam chair. Thank you senator rice. Does your division US supply information to the assessment coordination division in the something came up two years ago about where they re assessed people because of the Quality of top so. That they had do you do you dizzy then you do where they can do this stuff evidently I don't really do it by satellite or what now we're shows say river bottoms got to different depths of soul and they actually up that you also providing that information. You know that information not necessarily from the licensing board of but maybe in the you know our federal agency does do some of that top were. But that's not anything through the Arkansas division that is correct okay thank you. Thank you Representative Cozart. Did you thank you madam chair did you mention that this of license also dealt with septic tanks are sold in the septic tank area. Million have to do with park test AS A our people perform solo valuations Ford sizing septic system so it is kind of like a perk test yes please okay so if they didn't have a license and they were doing the C. legally than I could probably make a mistake on a septic tank because that kind of why they would have that. It is now in the law for the health department you know that is one of the qualifiers or one of the people that can do that so you know it would be is something the state agency that state agency would regulate but the so classifiers one of those listed yeah because I know in in the county where there's not a sewer system we have to park test we can build a house or put in a system so right we have to do with us all classifications of thank you your manager thank you are there any other questions. Absent from thank you Mr up on the scope of practice of first thing there was plotting the boundaries what can you put that into context but look in daily practice what plotting what boundaries do you. What. Right. Thank you do have downed trees Yes it's been boundaries of soils so mapping soil so you'd go out and and look at the differences on landscape and and so show wear those areas are so that's what we would that's that's the explanation of that drawing a map basically of the difference or that's what I would guess this one entirely clear there so appreciate that clarification yes Sir. Thank you thank you so much for coming here we have no other questions appreciate the review appreciate the information you submitted thank you thank you madam chair thanks right next on the agenda state board of nursing. Hi thank you hello if you'll just. Your name for the record you make for state say Tedford the director of the board of nursing. Good afternoon David Dawson general council board of nursing greats okay and we have the information in front of you S. that we submit it was that easy to cement and then about smiling question it really was our staff is just done a tremendous job I think of sending this whole thing up in the portal so kudos to miss area over here and to everybody because we wanted to make sure it was simple and easy to navigate so I appreciate that if you just want to give us a brief overview that would be great and then if we have any questions will go from there thanks okay the board of nursing was created in nineteen thirteen in order to regulate the practice of registered nurses and nineteen forty eight the regulation of bill peons was included and in nineteen ninety five regulation of advanced practice nurses began of the board regulates currently a little over sixty three thousand licensees we have eight types of nursing licenses and one level of certification nurses are regulated in license in every state in the United States in most countries across the world. Happy happy answering questions. All right one quick question so radiology technicians that's a whole different that's a difference that's a that's not assessment and then Assistance that two I cannot remember their name but do blood draws the bottom bottom miss that service they're they're not you either okay just wanted to make that clarification all right are there any questions. I don't see any questions thank you madam chair in committee thank you. And I want to say one thing before you leave really appreciates the collaboration and the work we've been able to do on the phone calls and at with on the different policies to get things in place I really appreciate that very much and I think that's really key that collaboration and also appreciate the different efforts that are being made. I know you do so thank you very much all right that we appreciate you being here today but that. There's no other business to come before the committee then we are adjourned thank you members for your work.