BILL ANALYSIS
AB 645
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Date of Hearing: April 29, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 645 (Niello) - As Introduced: February 25, 2009
Policy Committee: Business and
Professions Vote: 9 - 0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill extends the licensure renewal period for professional
engineers and land surveyors from two hears to four years and
doubles the licensure fees commensurate with the doubling of the
licensure period.
FISCAL EFFECT
There are no significant costs associated with this legislation
nor are there increased revenues. The licensing fees, though
doubled, would be paid by a licensee every four years, rather
than every two. Therefore, total licensing revenue in the
program would be unaffected by this legislation.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to the author's office, the extended length
of today's project delivery timelines means that design
professionals and surveyors may need to be re-licensed during
the middle of a project approval process. Re-licensing in the
middle of a project requires the duplication, re-stamping and
re-certification of hundreds or thousands of pages of design
documents and subdivision maps, among others. This is an
unnecessary duplication that adds time and expense to the
delivery of projects in California.
In response to this problem, this bill extends the licensure
period from two to four years and doubles the licensure fee
from $400 to $800 for engineers and surveyors in order to keep
the licensing revenue at the same level.
AB 645
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2)Related Legislation . This bill partially undoes legislation
from 2001, SB 136 (Figueroa; Chapter 495, Statutes of 2001)
which, among other things increased the application-filing fee
for registration and application for authority level
designation as a professional engineer to $400 every two years
(instead of $175 every four years), increased the fee for
certification as an engineer-in-training to be not more than
$100 (instead of $60), increased the application-filing fee
for licensure as a land surveyor to be not more than $400
(instead of $175), and increased the fee for certification as
a land surveyor-in-training to be not more than $100 (instead
of $60).
That bill was the result of recommendations made by the Joint
Legislative Sunset Review Committee and the Department of
Consumer Affairs.
Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916)
319-2081