BILL ANALYSIS �
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1576|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 1576
Author: Senate Business, Professions & Economic
Development Committee
Amended: 4/12/12
Vote: 21
SENATE BUSINESS, PROF. & ECON. DEV. COMM. : 7-0, 4/23/12
AYES: Price, Emmerson, Corbett, Correa, Hernandez,
Strickland, Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Negrete McLeod, Vargas
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
SUBJECT : Professions and vocations
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill makes several non-controversial,
minor, nonsubstantive or technical changes to various
provisions within the Business and Professions Code
relating to the regulatory boards of the Department of
Consumer Affairs and to the weights and measures provisions
under the jurisdiction of the Department of Food and
Agriculture.
ANALYSIS : Existing law:
1. Provides for the licensing and regulation of various
professions and businesses by some 23 boards, four
committees, seven bureaus, and one commission within the
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Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) under various
licensing acts within the Business and Professions Code
(BPC).
2. Contains the following provisions relating to the
California Board of Accountancy (CBA):
A. Requires the CBA to print the adopted rules of
professional conduct on its applications. (BPC
Section 5019)
B. Establishes requirements for accountancy
partnerships, as specified. (BPC Section 5072)
C. Establishes peer review requirements of licensees,
and requires the CBA to adopt emergency regulations
implementing peer review. (BPC Section 5076)
D. Establishes the criteria for an applicant to
obtain a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license,
including specified ethic course requirements and
authorizes an Advisory Committee on Accounting Ethics
Curriculum to determine whether a course or portion
of a course satisfies the ethics requirement. (BPC
Section 5093)
E. Refers to a specified accounting report prepared
by the California Research Bureau. (BPC Section
5094.6)
F. Authorizes the CBA to conditionally renew or
reinstate a license for one year to allow time for a
license holder with a financial hardship to pay costs
under a disciplinary order. (BPC Section 5107)
G. Authorizes a licensee who is no longer actively
engaged in practice, upon application to the CBA and
meeting specified requirements, to have his or her
license placed on retired status. (BPC Section
5070.1)
3. Contains the following provisions relating to the
Contractors State License Board (CSLB):
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A. Provides that any person who files a false
complaint with the CSLB is guilty of an infraction
punishable by a fine of up to $1,000. (BPC Section
7011.8)
B. Provides for the cancellation of a contractor
license upon the death or disassociation of a partner
in a partnership, as specified. (BPC Section 7076)
4. Contains the following provisions relating to Board for
Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors and Geologists
(BPELSG):
A. Provides an exemption from the taking of the first
part of the land surveyor examination to applicants
who have passed the engineer-in-training examination,
or who hold a professional engineer registration.
(BPC Section 8741)
B. Makes references to a land surveyor manual
published by the federal Bureau of Land Management
(BLM). (BPC Sections 8741 and 8762)
C. Establishes criteria for a land surveyor to file a
record of survey. (BPC Section 8773)
5. Contains the following provisions relating to Weights
and Measures:
A. Makes numerous outdated references to the
"director" of the Department of Food and Agriculture
(DFA). Makes outdated references to the National
Bureau of Standards (NBS), American Society of
Testing and Materials (ASTM), Society of Automotive
Engineers (SAE). (BPC Section 12012 ff.)
B. Provides for the regulation of point of sale
systems. (BPC Section 12736)
C. Establishes administrative civil penalties which
duplicate provisions found in BPC Section 12015.3.
(BPC Section 13302)
This bill:
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1. Makes the following changes relating to the CBA:
A. Recasts the provision requiring the CBA to print
rules of professional conduct on applications, to
instead require an applicant to acknowledge he or she
has read and understands the rules of professional
conduct. (BPC Section 5019)
B. Makes technical and clarifying amendments. (BPC
Section 5072)
C. Deletes an obsolete reference to the CBA adopting
emergency regulations. (BPC Section 5076)
D. Deletes an obsolete reference to the Advisory
Committee on Accounting Ethics Curriculum determining
that a course satisfies the ethics study requirement.
(BPC Section 5093)
E. Deletes an obsolete reference to an accounting
report by the California Research Bureau and makes
conforming changes. (BPC Section 5094.6)
F. Authorizes the CBA to renew or reinstate for up to
three years the permit or certificate of a
disciplined licensee who has been ordered to pay cost
recovery to the CBA, and who demonstrates financial
hardship provided the licensee enters into a formal
agreement with the CBA to repay the costs within that
three year period. (BPC Section 5107)
G. Revises the retired status provisions enacted by
AB 431 (Ma), Chapter 395, Statutes of 2011, to allow
holders of canceled and delinquent licenses to apply
for retired status, and make other revisions. (BPC
Section 5070.1)
2. Makes the following changes relating to the CSLB:
A. Modifies the penalty for filing a false complaint
with the CSLB to authorize the registrar to take
administrative action against a person subject to
licensure who files a false complaint with the CSLB.
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(BPC Section 7011.8)
B. Makes a technical conforming change, by referring
to the "disassociation" rather than to the "death" of
a limited partner in a partnership. (BPC Section
7076)
3. Makes the following changes relating to the BPELSG:
A. Revises the exemption from the taking of the first
part of the land surveyor examination to only apply
to individuals who have taken the
engineer-in-training examination or to civil
engineers registered prior to January 1, 1982. (BPC
Section 8741)
B. Correct outdated references to correctly refer to
the "Manual of Surveying Instructions (2009)
published by the federal Bureau of Land Management."
(BPC Sections 8741, 8762)
C. Clarifies the requirement for a land surveyor to
file a record of survey by expanding the definition
of "establish" to include "location, relocation,
reestablishment or retracement." (BPC Section 8773)
4. Makes the following changes relating to Weights and
Measures:
A. Makes updating changes to correctly refer to the
"secretary" for the DFA, and to the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and to
ASTM International, and to SAE International. (BPC
Section 12012 ff.)
B. Relocates and renumbers BPC Section 12736
pertaining to point of sale systems to BPC Section
13303.
C. Repeals a duplicative provision of law. (BPC
Section 13302)
Background
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The following is background and reasons for the more
significant and substantive provisions in this bill:
1. California Board of Accountancy
According to the CBA, since 1957, existing law has
required the CBA to print the adopted rules of
professional conduct on its applications. However the
provision has never been implemented. This bill
requires the applicant to confirm on the application
that he or she has read and understands the rules of
professional conduct.
Existing law allows persons to form accountancy
partnerships registered by the CBA. However, the
provision that a partner be "personally engaged" in the
partnership has caused confusion as to whether two
corporations may form a partnership. This bill deletes
the word "personally" to clarify that a partner must be
engaged in the partnership.
Existing law makes several outdated references to the
CBA adopting emergency regulations implementing peer
review; an Advisory Committee on Accounting Ethics
Curriculum; and a specified report by the CRB which is
no longer necessary due to the enactment of SB 773
(Negrete McLeod), Chapter 344, Statutes of 2011. This
bill repeals those obsolete provisions.
Existing law allows the CBA to conditionally renew or
reinstate a license for one year to allow time for a
license holder with a financial hardship to pay costs
under a disciplinary order. The CBA, by historical
practice, has allowed such cases to have up to three
years to pay these costs. The CBA has found that
allowing this extra time has proven to be a key factor
in settling some cases, thereby saving the costs of
prosecuting the case.
In 1993, SB 839 (Ayala), Chapter 262, Statutes of 1993,
created a "retired seal" program that allowed California
licensed CPAs to call themselves "retired CPAs." There
were no requirements for this seal, and following
implementation, it was discovered that it could be used
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to avoid paying fees and avoiding discipline. Later, SB
2239 (Senate Business and Professions Committee),
Chapter 878, Statutes of 1989, repealed the program.
All the licensees who had taken advantage of the program
who did not renew their license eventually had their
license canceled. In 2011, AB 431 (Ma), Chapter 395,
Statutes of 2011, authorized the CBA to establish a
retired status for its licensees. However it did not
provide for the CBA to issue a retired license to a
licensee who previously had a retired seal. This bill
revises the retired status provisions and authorizes a
licensee who is no longer actively engaged in practice,
or who previously held a retired seal, upon application
to the CBA and meeting specified requirements, to obtain
a retired status license.
2. Contractors State License Board
According to the CSLB, the contractor law provides that
a person who files a false complaint with the CSLB is
guilty of an infraction, and further provides that CSLB
may notify the appropriate district or city attorney
that a false report has been filed. Since enacted in
1992, a violation of these provisions has never been
pursued. This bill recasts these provisions to instead
provide that the registrar may issue a citation to a
person who files a false complaint with the CSLB. CSLB
further indicates that the law incorrectly refers to the
"death" of a partner rather than to the "disassociation"
of the partner.
3. Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors and
Geologists
According to the California Land Surveyors Association
(CLSA), when the existing engineer exemption language in
BPC Section 8741 (a) was adopted in 1979, the
educational curriculum requirements for engineers
generally included courses that taught a fundamental
knowledge of surveying, mathematics, and basic science.
At the time, it was justified to exclude an engineer
with a postsecondary degree from the first division of
the land surveyor examination because it was assumed
that the postsecondary curriculum adequately taught and
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tested this knowledge. In recent years these provisions
have been found to be so vague that any professional
engineer licensed by the BPELSG would arguably be exempt
from the first division of the land surveyor
examination. This bill instead, provides an exemption
from the taking the first part of the land surveyor
examination to applicants who have passed the
engineer-in-training examination, or who hold a
professional engineer registration.
CLSA states that existing law refers to an outdated
document published by the BLM that could potentially
mislead applicants preparing for the land surveyor exam
and practicing land surveyors when identifying a "lost
corner" in preparation of a corner record. This bill
corrects the reference to the Manual of Surveying
Instructions (2009), published by the federal BLM.
According to CLSA, the word "establishment" creates
confusion for practicing land surveyors because of the
multiple interpretations of the word and thereby impacts
decisions regarding when to file a record of survey.
Therefore, this bill clarifies the statutory criteria
for a land surveyor requirement to file a record of
survey by expanding the definition of "establish" to
include the terms "location, relocation, reestablishment
or retracement."
4. Weights and Measures
According to the DFA, there are many references in the
BPC to the "director" of the DFA. This Governor's
Cabinet level position was reclassified to "Secretary"
for the DFA a number of years ago and the BPC has never
been updated. There are other references that are no
longer current, i.e., NBS is now NIST, ASTM is now ASTM
International, SAE is now SAE International.
DFA states that BPC Section 12736 should be moved and
renumbered as BPC Section 13303. This section pertains
to scanners and point of sale systems (not weighmasters)
and properly belongs in Chapter 13 of the BPC which
references automatic checkout systems and point of sale
displays.
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DFA states that the language in BPC Section 13302 is
identical to the language in BPC Section 12015.3 and,
therefore, unnecessary and often creates confusion among
county sealers of weights and measures when trying to
apply the administrative civil penalty.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 5/9/12)
California Board of Accountancy
JJA:kcm 5/9/12 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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