BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 1165 Page 1 Date of Hearing: June 29, 2016 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Lorena Gonzalez, Chair SB 1165 (Cannella) - As Amended June 21, 2016 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Business and Professions |Vote:|16 - 0 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No SUMMARY: This bill extends the delinquent license reinstatement timeframe of a professional engineer and land surveyor's license from three to five years after the expiration of the license; prohibits the renewal, restoration, reinstatement, or reissuance of a professional engineer and land surveyor's license after the five-year delinquent licensee reinstatement timeframe; requires professional geologists and geophysicists to both sign and seal their final work product documents; requires professional geologists and geophysicists to obtain a seal; provides that the renewal fee for engineering and land surveyor licenses be no greater than $400, and contains other provisions. SB 1165 Page 2 FISCAL EFFECT: No state fiscal impact. COMMENTS: 1)Purpose and Background. This bill is sponsored by the Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists (BPELSG). According to the author, "this bill would provide for consistent operations among the Board's licensing programs by conforming the correlating laws. This bill would also provide the consumers of California with improved assurance that the documents of professional geologists and geophysicists reflect their final professional opinion." The BPELSG is a licensing board under the DCA and is charged with safeguarding the life, health, property, and public welfare by regulating the practices of professional engineering, land surveying, geology, and geophysics. The BPELSG qualifies and licenses individuals, establishes regulations, enforces laws and regulations, and provides information so that consumers can make informed decisions. a) Delinquent Reinstatement Rights. Under existing law, the renewal period for a license as a professional engineer or land surveyor is anytime within three years after expiration. After the three year period, the former license holder may reinstate the expired license by demonstrating to the BPELSG that they are still competent to practice without being required to take and pass the licensing exam. According to the author, the BPELSG has become concerned that allowing professional engineers and land surveyors to reinstate licenses that have been delinquent a significant amount of time without requiring demonstration of current minimum competency through taking SB 1165 Page 3 and passing the licensing examinations does not provide sufficient public protection. The BPELSG believes that the requirements for obtaining licensure after a lengthy period of delinquency should be standardized across all of the professions it regulates. This bill extends the renewal period to five years but also requires licensees to submit a new license application. b) Application and Renewal Fee. The Professional Engineers Act and the Professional Land Surveyors' Act contain language that ties the license renewal fee to the application fee in effect at the time of renewal. The Geologist and Geophysicist Act indicates that the application fee and the renewal fee cannot be set at more than $400, but the two fees are not tied together. The BPELSG, through two of its three licensing acts, is the only Board or Bureau under DCA in which the renewal fee must be based on the application fee. The application fee only covers expenses attributed to the workload of processing an application and developing state- mspecific exams. Renewal fees are the only form of revenue for the Board to sustain its overall operations. Requiring that the renewal fee be based on the application fee could lead to a situation where the application fee would need to be lowered based on the actual costs to process the applications, which would then require the renewal fee to also be lowered, even if doing so was not supported by the operational needs of the BPELSG. This bill specifies instead that the fee may be no more than $400 (which is the current statutory maximum for the application fee). This change will conform these provisions to those in the Geologist and Geophysicist Act. 1)Current Related Legislation. a) SB 1479 (Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development), also before this Committee today, among other SB 1165 Page 4 things, authorizes the BPELSG to make arrangements with a public or private organization to conduct the geology examination and to contract with a public or private organization for materials or services related to the examination, conforming the BPELSG's authority for geologists to its existing authority for professional engineers and land surveyors. b) SB 1085 (Roth) , pending referral to this Committee, requires, at the time of renewal, all licensees under the BPELSG to complete an assessment that includes questions to reinforce the licensees' knowledge of laws applicable to the specific practice area; makes the failure to complete the assessment within a specified period of time a cause for disciplinary action; and requires an applicant for a geophysicist license to complete an examination that tests knowledge of state laws, conforming to the requirement for professional engineers and land surveyors. Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081