SENATE LABOR AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE March 24, 1998 1:38 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT Senator Jerry Mackie, Vice Chairman Senator Tim Kelly Senator Mike Miller Senator Lyman Hoffman MEMBERS ABSENT Senator Loren Leman COMMITTEE CALENDAR CONFIRMATION HEARINGS: Alaska State board of public Accountancy Marjorie J. Kaiser, C.P.A. - Anchorage Appointed: 07/16/97 Expires 04/25/01 Steven R. Tarola, C.P.A. - Barrow Appointed: 07/16/97 Expires 04/25/01 Sandra R. Wilson - Fairbanks Appointed: 07/16/97 Expires: 04/25/01 Board of Barbers and Hairdressers Lawrence R. Krupa - North Pole Appointed: 04/08/94 Reappointed: 07/16/97 Expires: 07/25/01 SENATE BILL NO. 335 "An Act relating to barbers, hairdressers, and cosmetologists." - HEARD AND HELD SENATE BILL NO. 198 "An Act relating to partnerships; amending Rules 25(c), 79, and 82, Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure; and providing for an effective date." - PASSED CSSB198(L&C) OUT OF COMMITTEE PREVIOUS SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION SB 335 - No previous action to consider. SB 198 - See Labor and Commerce minutes dated 2/10/98 and 2/17/98. WITNESS REGISTER Mr. Robert Pearson, Intern Senator Loren Leman State Capitol Bldg. Juneau, AK 99811-1182 POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on SB 335. Ms. Cheryl Sutton, Chairperson Board of Barbers and Hairdressers The Sportsman 205 Seward St. Juneau, AK 99801 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 335. Ms. Catherine Reardon, Director Division of Occupational Licensing Department of Commerce P.O. Box 110806 Juneau, AK 99801-0806 POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on SB 335. Mr. Art Peterson Uniform Law Commissioner 350 N. Franklin Juneau, AK 99801 POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 198. ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 98-16, SIDE A Number 001 VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE called the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee meeting to order at 1:38 p.m. and announced that Ms. Kaiser, C.P.A. was not available today, but they could review her resume' and file. MS. SANDRA WILSON, Fairbanks, said she had been very involved in her professional activities as an accountant and will continue to do so. SENATOR KELLY said he didn't have any objections to the appointees and moved to send the standard letter to the Secretary of the Senate. There were no objections and it was so ordered. VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE asked if there were any comments regarding Mr. Lawrence Krupa. There were none. SENATOR KELLY moved to forward his name to the Joint Body of the Legislature with the standard letter. There were no objections and it was so ordered. SB 335 - LICENSING OF COSMETOLOGISTS VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE announced SB 335 to be up for consideration. MR. ROBERT PEARSON, Intern with Senator Leman, said he is also a public member of the Board of Barbers and Hairdressers. He said the main objective for SB 335 was to provide a temporary license for people who graduated from school in barbering and hairdressing and cosmetology. Because of the schedule of examinations in the State, many graduates have to wait for 90 days and sometimes more for the actual receipt of their professional license. The Board has heard testimony from owners of some schools that it would be a relief from hardship for the students to be able to earn some income and stay in practice while they await their Boards. The Board unanimously approved of a regulation change, but the statute does not authorize this temporary license. The bill makes a change in terminology. The word "cosmetologist" in Alaska is used for skin care of the head and face and in most of the other states it means almost the same as a hairdresser. So "cosmetologist" was changed to "esthetician" which more accurately informs the public of what the person is authorized to do. Another change from current use is "hairdresser" in statute which includes shaving. Right now shaving is not taught nor is there a test, so that word was eliminated. The Committee Substitute for SB 335 includes licensing of manicurists which was not a formal recommendation of the Board last year, but an area of concern. VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE asked what health/safety issue that a manicurist might find themselves in. MR. PEARSON said he didn't think it happened a great deal, but there are occasional cuts and bleeding during a manicure, and also making sure the instruments are properly sterilized. Number 168 SENATOR HOFFMAN asked if manicurists who currently practice would be required to get a license. MR. PEARSON answered there would be a transitional period of 180 days and the exemptions that currently apply to people in smaller communities also apply for manicurists. VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE asked what is involved in getting a license. MR. PEARSON said he thought the Board would have to adopt regulations and presently barbers and hairdressers are trained to a degree that would be sufficient for automatic licensing. Anyone else who could demonstrate adequate training would probably be licensed automatically. There would be a process for setting up instructors. Number 182 SENATOR KELLY said they had discussed the manicuring licensure before and he's nervous about it. There are certain entry level positions out there, and while he recognized some health hazards, he was not sure he wanted to institutionalize manicurists. He thought they were asking them to go to school and the schools would charge them money and then they would have to pay for a license and he just didn't know if it was all that necessary. SENATOR MILLER moved to adopt the CS to SB 335 for working purposes. SENATOR KELLY objected. SENATOR MILLER withdrew his motion. Number 227 MS. CHERYL SUTTON, Chairman, Board of Barbers and Hairdressers, said she wants manicurists to be licensed because of the health issue. She said she had recently had fake nails applied. Manicurists have to grind the nail bed down so they can attach the nails. There have been times when they have drawn blood. She also felt that a manicurist uses files and tools that could draw blood, although it typically didn't happen. HIV and Aids is a big issue when you do anything that draws blood. SENATOR HOFFMAN asked if people who just do nails would have to be licensed. MS. SUTTON answered yes. VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE asked if she had an idea what it would do to people who are currently practicing manicuring. Would they have to go to school? MS. SUTTON said she thought it would be a hardship for people who are currently doing it, but she thought they needed to change today, because there would be more problems in the future. SENATOR KELLY said his concern was for the manicurist who would be required to have 350 hours of instruction or have to go to schools set up with elaborate courses with large apprentice programs for entry level positions. He thought some hygiene instruction would be useful, but he didn't know how to get there without a full blown course. He thought a manicuring permit for six - 10 hours might work. MS. SUTTON explained that people have decided to break away from the many things they were trained to do as a hairdresser and specialize in one thing, like face care. That was unlicensed, so other people would jump in and start doing face care without any training. Finally, they made a permit and licensing system for people who just want to be an esthetician. Number 346 MS. CATHERINE REARDON, Director, Division of Occupational Licensing, said she had prepared a $0 fiscal note for the original bill and that the new temporary licenses could be absorbed within their current staff level. She said she would refer to a bill from last session regarding licensing of manicurists to see how it would compare. She had no problems with the original bill and the new terms and shaving. She has some concerns with the draft CS and the licensing of manicurists. VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE said they would hold the bill for further work. MS. REARDON said the transition section on page 9, line 28 doesn't grandfather in current businesses, but instead gives them 180 days to get licenses. Exemptions for communities of smaller size is under 1,000 in population. SENATOR KELLY asked if they have a problem with that size or does it work well. MS. REARDON said it seems to work in that people don't have to get licensed and they don't hear any complaints. Because the enforcement for unlicensed activity is a class B misdemeanor, it's unlikely that there will be rigorous enforcement. This year they used an investigator to go around in Anchorage to do compliance checks which was successful. They hadn't been to visit areas with under 1,000 people to make compliance checks while she had been here, so she didn't know if they were complying or ignoring them. SENATOR KELLY said they send their unlicensed people home until her people leave. MS. REARDON responded that they found some people who didn't have licenses and she thought surprise visits encouraged compliance. She added that requirements for the professions under this Board leave training requirements up to the Board. She has some concern for the trade offs and the effects on small business versus the public health and safety risk. There are quite a few activities out there that aren't licensed like piercing and tattoos and she looks for consistency in degrees of risk. She also noted that DEC has the responsibility for checking out the health, safety, and sanitation aspects (page 7, line 20) of shops and schools and they would be taking on the responsibility for manicurists shops, too, any they might anticipate a fiscal note from them. Several years ago, DEC didn't have the resources to check barber and hairdresser shops when they change hands, so they went to checking just one time when a shop opens. Never again in the future, as much as she understands, do they get checked because of the lack of resources. SENATOR HOFFMAN asked how many businesses do tattoos and piercing. MS. REARDON said she didn't know. SENATOR HOFFMAN said he thought that might be more serious than manicuring. VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE asked her to let the Committee know what types of things aren't being licensed right now. SENATOR KELLY said there was another issue of an instructor having to buy both an instructor's permit and a beautician's permit. MS. REARDON added that they charge $100 for a two-year instructor license and $100 for a two-year hairdresser or barber license. The reason they offer separate licenses is because the statute refers in a half dozen places to instructor licenses. In looking at the financial self-sufficiency statute, it says each occupation within a Board will cover its own costs. This is where they get the idea that the fee needs to cover any costs of instructor regulation versus hairdresser regulation. Personally, it doesn't bother her if it becomes an endorsement on a regular license. She thought the issue would be the self-sufficiency mandate; if the legislature doesn't want them to track separate instructor costs, but to collectivize the costs. It would not be difficult to do, but she would need a statute change. She explained that Legislative Budget and Audit took her to task for not rigidly applying that statute last year. SENATOR KELLY asked how many instructors there are. MS. REARDON said the problem with rigidly applying the self- sufficiency mandate will be that there are very few, 181 instructors, compared to 2,300 hairdressers, 288 barbers, and 507 cosmetologists (to be called estheticians). SENATOR KELLY said he knew of two licensed instructors who weren't making any money off of being an instructor; they were making it off of straight beautician work. He wondered why they had to pay $100 if they weren't making any money. MS. REARDON responded that the principal of having a license is that it costs the same whether you use it or not. If an engineer, for example, decides to work less one year, they don't make his license less expensive. So, it kind of comes down to the question of whether an instructor is a separate profession. If it were not, she wouldn't need to have a separate fee. VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE asked if there was any more testimony. SENATOR KELLY remarked that he would like it to go in the direction of a manicurist's permit that requires a certain amount of health care training as opposed to a license with a large number of hours and an apprenticeship. He thought you have to leave people who really need a job to be able to do this without making it too difficult. A lot of them simply don't have the time or money to do it. VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE said he agreed and said he would hold the bill for further work. SB 198 - UNIFORM PARTNERSHIP ACT VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE announced SB 198 to be up for consideration. MS. ANNETTE KREITZER, Staff to Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, said there was a proposed CS to SB 198, 0LS0613\F by Bannister, dated 3/23/98, and she explained the changes. "In the ordinary course of business" is a phrase that was used on page 36. On page 42, in the applicability section, Ms. Bannister pointed out a possible constitutional problem with the way it was worded in the old bill. Her concern was that the partnership could make the elections after January 1, 1998, immediately notify a third party and change the partner's liability on the contract going back to one year before the election. It would seem to violate the prohibition against the impairment of contracts under Article 1, Section 15 of the State Constitution. She suggested to just delete the language which the CS does. The other change in the CS is using bi-annual reports where it is appropriate, rather than annual reports because this is what the Division of Banking and Securities uses. MS. KREITZER said there were additional amendments that hadn't been included in the CS and that it had taken a long time to get back from the drafter, and suggested that those could be addressed in the Senate Judiciary Committee. TAPE 98-16, SIDE B VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE asked her if she had read over the CS. MS. KREITZER said she normally goes over a CS word-for-word, but she hadn't done that yet. MR. ART PETERSON, Uniform Law Commissioner, agreed with Ms. Kreitzer's recommendation that they accept the CS and move it on to the Judiciary Committee where further amendments could be addressed. The two amendments proposed by Senator Kelly's constituents were on other types of entities that aren't even dealt with in this bill and recommended that they not be incorporated in this bill. SENATOR KELLY asked if this bill was a recommendation from the Uniform Law Commission. MR. PETERSON said it was. SENATOR KELLY asked how much of the CS he agreed with. MR. PETERSON replied that he agreed with all of it. SENATOR KELLY said once they get away from his recommendations, they are getting away from the Uniform Code which makes it difficult to do business. The whole idea of the Uniform Code is that all 50 states would eventually agree with each other. MR. PETERSON said that was an invaluable point; to facilitate the business in Alaska by Alaskans with those outside and those outside who want to do business in Alaska is exactly the value of the Uniform Act system. Changing annual reports to bi-annual reports should not cause a problem. There is no problem conforming with other states. Number 544 SENATOR HOFFMAN asked if there was a short test the Committee could take, so they know what they are passing out. MR. PETERSON said he could provide them with a short summary. SENATOR KELLY moved to adopt the CS to SB 198. There were no objections and it was so ordered. SENATOR KELLY moved to pass CSSB 198(L&C) from Committee with individual recommendations. There were no objections and it was so ordered. Number 527 VICE CHAIRMAN MACKIE adjourned the meeting at 2:30 p.m.