Legislature(2001 - 2002)
02/02/2001 03:20 PM House L&C
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 70-EXTENDING BOARD OF PHYSICAL/OCC THERAPY CHAIR MURKOWSKI said the committee would begin by taking up HOUSE BILL NO. 70, "An Act extending the termination date of the State Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy Board." Number 0146 REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD, sponsor of HB 70, stated the bill is designed to extend the sunset date for [the board of] physical and occupational therapists until 2005. He said there is broad support for extending the board and there is no known protest. REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD said the bill amends Section 1 of AS 08.03.010, subsection (c) (16), and extends the date from the year 2001 to 2005. He asked for the committee's support. CHAIR MURKOWSKI said the [legislative] audit report made a recommendation to extend the board for a six-year period. She asked if there was a reason it was only extended to 2005 instead of 2007. REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD said four years was the standard time and he didn't want to change what had been done before. REPRESENTATIVE KOTT mentioned that a few years back, the committee made a conscientious decision to start looking at extending the sunset boards to six years. He said that might be the reason the audit report reflects six years. He said it causes a headache to have to revisit these [boards] every four years so they made it six years. Number 0400 KAREN GRAFTON, President, Alaska Physical Therapy Association (APTA), thanked Representative Crawford for issuing the legislation and said APTA supports the bill as it's written. She added that she would support extending the sunset date for six years instead of just the four [years]. Number 0439 MARY VEAL, Physical Therapist, Alaska Chapter of the American Physical Therapy Association, thanked the committee for supporting the bill and mentioned they too would support extending the bill for six years. Number 0474 CATHERINE REARDON, Director, Division of Occupational Licensing, Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), said her division staffs the various licensing boards that the committee will hear about today. She said the division supports the continuation of the board for as long as the committee feels comfortable. MS. REARDON said it was probably [on] her advice that the sponsor of the bill went with four years. She said two years ago, the Division of Legislative Audit ("Legislative Audit") recommended durations ranging from four to eight years for different boards. This was an attempt to spread out the sunset audit work. She said a couple [of boards] made it through [the House] with longer durations between sunset reviews, and a couple of Senators responded with frustration in receiving the bills, not because they had problems with the particular boards, but because it was an established principle - that a board should be continued for four years. MS. REARDON said the view may have changed but in responding to that experience, with this one exception, all of the Legislative Audit recommendations have been for four years. She said "they" became more conservative and decided not to ask for more. She said she thought Legislative Audit would be happy to have longer extensions for some of these board, and "they" would too. CHAIR MURKOWSKI asked Ms. Reardon if she thought this profession generates concerns or investigations that would necessitate being audited on a more frequent basis, more than the four-year rotation. MS. REARDON said she is comfortable as long as the [sunset] date does not interfere with ultimate passage, and as long as the sunset audit reflects few concerns from the Division of Legislative Audit. MS. REARDON said she believes this is the only board, before the committee, where the Legislative Audit has recommended a longer extension. She said she didn't know why that happened. CHAIR MURKOWSKI asked if the boards would ask Legislative Audit to consider them for longer periods of time before sunset review - whether it is [considered] typical. Number 0759 MS. REARDON said the division and the boards have never had to and never felt it was their place to ask. However, she said, if the length of time [between sunset audits] were less than four years, "they" would probably ask Legislative Audit what they were worried about. REPRESENTATIVE HALCRO explained that when the committee gets an audit from Legislative Audit stating deficiencies in a department, the committee works with the department to correct them. He said he is not sure why the committee wouldn't accept their recommendation to extend the sunset to 2007. REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD said he feels comfortable extending the sunset audit to 2007 now that he has heard from Ms. Reardon; there seemed to be some adversity before. He said he would be glad to amend the bill. Number 0889 REPRESENTATIVE KOTT concurred with Representative Crawford. He made a motion to conceptually amend the bill to extend the sunset review for the Board of Physical and Occupational Therapy to 2007. CHAIR MURKOWSKI stated that there being no objection, the conceptual amendment was adopted. Number 1016 REPRESENTATIVE KOTT made a motion to move HB 70, as amended, out of committee with individual recommendations and attached zero fiscal note. There being no objection, CSHB 70(L&C) was reported out of the House Labor and Commerce Standing Committee.
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