ALC-Occupational Licensing Review Subcommittee

Call the meeting to order. Thank you all for coming this afternoon Senator Clark do you have any comments. Well being here you're going to. Well I don't know about that but we're here. Having that. We're going to start with the review be one. So if we can have the presenters come up from the national resource division. And when you get to the table if you will please just introduce yourself for the records thank you for coming. I'm Chris call closure director the national Research Division of the Department of Arkansas agriculture Wade Hodge chief counsel for the department. Thank you so much for being here if you would like to start your presentation. Yes madam chair thank you thank you to the committee for having this today the the occupational licenses that we have before you today are really focused in three areas water quality with their nutrient management access to groundwater and making sure that our groundwater stay safe through our water will construction program and then protecting people from floodwaters through our floodplain management section all these licenses are backed up by statute administered by the natural resources commission so we do that and then all the fees that we receive we use for maintenance and operation of our programs with that I'll take questions I have staff here representing those programs if there are additional questions. Members have any questions. And we're talking about B. one. Look at the handout. I have a quick question my question is on these fees do can you tell us what your reserves are how much you have is there right next to reserve on the amount of fees money that we're collecting or is it not enough to run the program where we at and the fee structure well on the on the fees if you look at all these products together we're averaging about thirty to forty thousand a year so it's not a great deal of money laws funds if you look at we have to do some inspections we do training we have materials to me so the funds don't really. I wouldn't cover any of the programs but they do help. Thank you. Any questions members. And as a reminder to the members the way they were going to do this they're going to present and then we'll have the ability at the end of the meeting we can actually ask about you know possible changes of things that we might want to look at and you can present that to us and we can get those ready to discuss it the next meeting. So you can either do that in person while you're here or you can turn it into us after the meeting we can look at it. Seeing no questions Preciado you for coming thanks so much thank you. We're going to move on the end to be to. If the presenters for that would like to. Is anyone here from the. DHX eighty eight Arkansas department of health for athletic trainers. I was looking right at you. And if you will please just introduce yourself for the record. Madam chair Matt Gilmore I apologize we were thinking there is we mortgage and we were discussing something so I apologize. I'm Russell Barnes I'm the executive director for the Arkansas athletic training board. A job be in here would you just proceed with your presentation yes ma'am as I stated my name is Russell Barnes I am the director for the Arkansas Department of Health as lady training board the athletic training board forms occupational licensing for athletic trainers practicing in the state of Arkansas the board issues one top of the lessons and currently there are three hundred and twenty eight athletic training licenses active in this state. I will now do my best to answer any questions you might have about the board. The way I have any questions members. Representative Walker. Whitaker I took you out put yourself back in place of urea thank you madam chair of I'm looking at your the form is submitted as part of this process and I'm seeing that you have licensure by examination reciprocity of one hundred dollars once but then we go down a couple slots to temporary permit and it's three hundred dollars quarterly could you explain that the logic behind that yes Sir. The hundred dollars applications for what we call an active license that is one time licensure for an active license the temporary license is for someone that is passed all certifications accused has passed all of the requirements other than the board of certification exam you would probably equate the as to what we call an apprenticeship so generally what we see with a temporary license is these are folks that have completed the bite the bachelorette requirement that you've completed any of the other application requirements they just cannot pass the border certification exam so that's why you see that on a quarterly fee. What we do also there is if I pay for a quarter and let's say of we divide that into a monthly segment so they pay for a temporary license after one month they pass the board certification they have a two hundred dollar credit that goes towards the replication study and we do that to release any kind of strain on. Thank you. Senator Elliot you're recognized thank you madam chair I am I curious about the pass rate for the exams if if you if you know what that information is like what is the pass rate I am up apologize but I don't know that is left to the board of certification they administered the exam and they do it at their facilities according to their criteria so I'm I mean but they don't so they don't provide that information to you would have to just go to them to get is that what you're saying they do not provided for what US they don't provide what is the percentage of questions you have to get right no ma'am they don't but they do supplies with rather they have passed their criteria or not but I apologize I don't know criteria that's different from the test itself is not the same thing well the board of certifications both do pass the bill and then they also look at their on going education requirements and also their internship hours so I know those three segments they approach but once again as far as the individual criteria they give all the certain percentages on I don't know what it just to be clear now to make sure we're talking about the same thing we probably are I'm not asking about individual criteria I'm just talking about pass fail rate that's all I'm asking about if you don't know it that that's fine but shall Senator Elliot you're asking about what the pass rate is yes we can we can probably reach out to the US to the information board to see if we can get that information for you at I think we look at basically the pastor failed but we can see we get them from all right so be good you. thank you I appreciate that. Senator Clark. Thank you madam chair. The I received an email I would assume I'm not the only one. Of from the Arkansas center for research in economics university of central Arkansas that says that. We in Arkansas I have Require twice the continuing education hours wrestler trainers is in the other state in the south of. The bill is or justification for the. Sir I believe that they could doing continuing education requirements are set by the board of certification I don't believe that we do that that is done by the board of certification which is a national entity. When I try to familiarize myself tremendously with the act as well as the rules and I did not see where it had a specific number of continuing educations it refers to that the board certification such that criteria and authorizes whether they have made it or not. Okay well I'm certainly not an expert on the subject I'm just going off of what they have to say maybe we need to have them in here of the saying that we are requiring twice the hours we couldn't be required cost hours of it was a national. Yeah that we can look into that center I'm I'm not aware of that and they haven't reached out to us about that so we can we can definitely get into that kitchen for more information on the thank you would you get that information if you don't mind and just submitted to staff so we can get it to all the members this section we will. Represent Payton you're recognized for a question. Thank you madam chair so kind of following up on that line there. if you could refresh my memory there was some legislation filed in this last session I don't know if it passed or not that would have changed the scope I don't know if it broadened it or narrowed it on athletic trainers I'm kind of thinking it would have broadened it. I don't know if that passed with no words. If if we're different from our neighbors on the amount of C. E. that we're requiring could it be that our scope is different and so that may need to be part of what you inform us about you know going forward is. Not just the required C. but the weather our scope of practice is a little different than than what we're comparing to another okay go ahead I apologize unamended reject just wanna dress that what you're speaking of it I know that we're going to the rules promulgation right now and to the best of my knowledge we're we have not approached scope there's been no change in scope from reason let alone for my memory I think that bill is filed but did you go anywhere I can it was the bill that I think representative Johnson ran about the physician having some oversight what we're going to physician so that is a part of that is part of the rule making process but it is a scope issues other and so when you. Bring us the informational requesting regarding how we compare on the C. E. I think I've seen several instances in Arkansas Code where we. Pass of language it says up to six hours or up to ten hours or up to twenty hours so if you could make sure you tell us whether or not. What part of it is required by the board or what is actually stay set in code. Thank you will do thank you madam chair. Members any other questions. CNN thank you all for coming thank you thank you we'll get back. Thank you. All right members we're going to proceed down to be three this is the elevator safety division if you could come forward. And please introduce yourself for the record. Ralph Hudson director of the division of labor. I'm Denise Oxley general counsel for the department of labor licensing. Thank you all for being here if you would like to proceed with your presentation thank you for having us we're here on behalf of the elevator safety board of that board with the elevator safety law that established that board was passed in nineteen sixty three. It is not primarily an occupational licensing board it primarily deals with required inspections of elevators in their conveyances which should be elevators dumb waiters escalators moving sidewalks in those kinds of things so it primarily focuses on inspections and permitting of the conveyance is. As a. Part of that law however we have been licensing private sector elevator inspection services since for at least thirty five years in addition to that we since two thousand and five have been licensing of elevator mechanics and elevator contractors prior to two thousand and five elevator contracts were not locked contractors were not license they were actually just registered with the board and now it's a licensing requirement. To give you a little where we are of the board had income in fiscal year twenty twenty one of three hundred fifty three thousand dollars. Approximately and revenue. Expenditures of about two hundred seventy three thousand so income exceeded expenditures by about eighty thousand dollars that year and that is been pretty standard for the past few years there are four employees one chief elevator inspector to whether inspectors and an administrative office person who handles mostly the processing of the licensure is in the paper work. There are six members of the board five appointed by the governor for a term of four years of the six member is Mister Hudson by virtue of his office. And I think the number of licensees are in our report that we provided for you online. But there are a couple things I want to know about that report one is it says we the board in the in the it is true the board's current rules at the time this was a bill that does not recognize automatic licensure for military it was an expedited process the board just approved proposed rules that will be going to the governor and the secretary for approval that would provide for automatic licensure for those military as a result of ACT one thirty five of twenty twenty one so I wanted to point that out. Other statistic she may be interested in and I'm trying to be brief. There are thirty seven states with similar licensing requirements we currently have over six thousand law permitted conveyances in Arkansas. Of last fiscal year we had ten accident investigations seven variances were granted by the board from the code compliance issues and the number of complaints were fifteen. Are no looking at the statistics it looks like we'll this is a small number of licensees so it may not be very important because there are only twenty three licensed inspectors in the state of Arkansas but those are private sector companies. They are bottles to the inspection program itself. We do not have the staff nor do we in we just could not handle. Periodic elevator inspections which are required on an annual basis. As well as every three to five years witnessing an elevator safety test a full life safety test without those private inspectors that are licensed by our office we just do not have the staff or the money for the staff to do that kind of work this state inspectors focus on a number of things which are new terminal and new construction the very first time before elevators put into operation it gets a state inspector they focus on accident investigations complaint investigations and those owner operators who either refused to get their annual inspection or who have their the inspection report by the private inspection service reflexive Bhavesh and that they have failed to correct and then a state inspector gets involved in may right take the elevator or protect whatever other action is necessary to ensure code compliance so those those inspector license while it's a small number it's a very critical number. we also thank the licensing of elevator mechanics is dressed is essential to functionality and safety of elevators in Arkansas they are the folks that do the maintenance I do the routine repair work they're the first person an owner operator will call if there is a problem with an elevator they see that elevator and know that elevator more than anyone else and it is critical that they have a basic level of competence and we are sure that they have that basic level of confidence most elevator mechanics are been license for a long time there employed by one of the big one that one of the big elevator contractors to sing crop Otis Schindler. I can't name there's four five a. A and they have gone through their apprenticeship training program and are very very well qualified and they take a national exam But that kind of gives you an idea of overall how we operate and what are licensure IOUs but I'll be more than happy to answer any questions. Okay I have a question so you were talking about your revenue did I hear you say it was like three hundred thousand. Yes for fiscal year twenty twenty one okay. Can you tell me where that revenues coming from a break down between fees and fines. There's very few fines so most of it is coming through fees whether it is for inspection fees permitting fees some license fees but very little from licensing fees and fees for things like variances. Can you please give the committee a break down of that revenue based upon each one of the fees I cannot write it now but I'll be happy to provide that to the committee yes if you'll provide that the staff or get it out to every sure Senator Hester you're recognized for a question thank you on a reported under talking about. Let you finish your notes I just don't want to forget you know it's important. Yes Sir a Swedish peer you said your budget has an excess of eight or eighty thousand the last two years well it's it's approximately eighty thousand revenues exceeding expenditures by about eighty thousand so what your what your overall like your your fund balance then is that mean it's a hundred sixty thousand over two years in excess. Probably I do not have that figure in front of me from our finance department I've got a finance report that was given to the last board meeting but I can sure no that's okay I just want to as been and so there you he said there for office employees but there's only like fifty six licenses in the state. Of. Well. No there are six thousand one hundred fifty four permitted permits permit issued so they do the permitting as well as the licensee there are as far as licensing there are forty eight elevator contractors twenty three inspectors three hundred and nineteen elevator mechanics ten temporary mechanics and eight excess ability technicians which is a sub class of an elevator mechanic sure the only I know that you changed and went to allowing private inspector several years ago there was a lot of problems of my area when you did that yes Sir the complaints like. Yes I really appreciate your willingness to use outside help on that we appreciate your assistance because we cannot do this job without those private licensed inspectors in listing is may not be anything you would know or not know but you know you mentioned is only really for five companies that do this do you know if there are any companies that are not unionized. Yes a lot of the smaller mom and pops are not unionized and they might be specialty companies for example there may be some licensed elevator contractor that only does excess ability to work and focuses on providing limited use limited access elevators for disabled individuals or chair lifts and those kinds of things very few of those companies would be unionized I think most of the big ones that do the high rise commercial worker all the Hey thank you so much yes Sir. Any other questions members. CNN appreciate you coming and doing your presentation for us thank you very much. Members were down. The end of the agenda so we're at the point now that if anybody would like to make a recommendation for us to discuss at the next meeting. This is the time that you can either say it now or you can present it to us in writing at the end of the meeting so that we can we have about a week before the next meeting for you to turn those in in writing so that we can discuss them at the next meeting the next meeting is going to be December the sixteenth. So you're gonna be looking around the not for you to be able to turn those in for us to be able discuss some at the next meeting. Seeing none and no other business we are adjourned.