Legislature(2009 - 2010)BELTZ 105 (TSBldg)
02/09/2010 02:00 PM Senate LABOR & COMMERCE
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| SB247 | |
| SB248 | |
| SB117 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| *+ | SB 247 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | SB 248 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | SB 117 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
SB 248-EXTEND BD OF MARITAL & FAMILY THERAPY
2:41:44 PM
CHAIR PASKVAN announced SB 248 to be up for consideration.
2:41:49 PM
TIM BENINTENDI, staff to Senator Olson, sponsor of SB 248, said
the extension of the Board of Marriage and Family Therapy shows
June 30, 2015 in the bill, but the recommendation was for 2014.
He ordered up copies of the bill before doing the homework and
when he read the audit he found the recommendation was for 2014.
The sponsor supports the audit and has asked them to amend SB
248 to reflect its recommendation.
He said the board is composed of three therapists and two public
members; the cost of a license is currently at $775 and in FY09
had 84 licensees. According to the audit that figure may be
declining. Also according to the audit, the board's deficit has
gone down fairly dramatically from $75,400 in FY05 to $29,200 in
FY09. The deficit has existed for over 10 years.
MR. BENINTENDI said the board needs to make regulatory changes,
however preparations and processing for such are charged to it
and members want to eliminate its deficit before they move to
make significant regulatory changes. He said the legislative
audit recognizes this and further observed that the board
support from the department could be more substantial and that
the governor could be making appointments in a more timely
fashion.
CHAIR PASKVAN asked about the APOC issue if there is a concern
that either the applicant pool is extremely small or that the
appointments haven't been completed from the available
applicants.
MR. BENINTENDI answered that he didn't have any thoughts beyond
what has been stated in the audit. Frankly, he said, department
personnel may have more current figures, but a decline in
numbers seems to have been the trend for the last several years,
and it is a small pool of people from which to draw fees.
2:44:46 PM
CHAIR PASKVAN remarked that he has a draft committee substitute
(CS) that reflects the recommended-2014 sunset date that would
be brought up in the next meeting.
2:45:11 PM
PAT DAVIDSON, Division of Legislative Audit, Alaska State
Legislature, said the audit recommended extending the Board of
Marital and Family Therapy to June 30, 2014. She explained that
a four-year extension is half of what is allowed by statute, and
the reason for the four-year recommendation is because she found
the board is holding off on regulation projects because of the
estimated associated costs along with the fact that the board is
currently trying to work off its deficit.
She said that a main advantage to having professional boards is
they keep regulations up to date instead of the legislature or
an administrative body having to do it. However, if the board is
holding off on doing the regulatory changes that are necessary
to keep that professional occupation to its professional
standards, it isn't really aren't serving its licensing purpose.
This is why the audit recommended a limited extension. They also
found the same administrative difficulties with the board - lack
of timely appointments by the governor for new board members.
CHAIR PASKVAN said page 7, findings and recommendations,
references that chairs of both the boards objected to her
recommendation of combining them into one single board. What was
the basis for the objection?
2:48:06 PM
MS. DAVIDSON replied that the last time mental health
professionals were looked at - the Boards of Social Workers,
Marital and Family Therapists, Professional Counselors,
Psychologists, Psychological Associates, and one other group -
they were all up for sunset in the same year (by design). One of
the things she looked at is if they should be combined and her
recommendation is that they could be combined. But when it comes
down to it, the boards are financially self supporting and so is
each occupation. So there was no overriding budgetary need for
the combination; and probably the best way to create failure is
to try to "stick people together who do not want to be there."
Her office thought a combined board would be larger than any one
of the individual boards, but in total would be a little bit
smaller. Again, they had a real concern that if the boards
didn't want to join or there was more than an initial reluctance
to it, they would end up with a couple of very dysfunctional
boards. About four or five years ago the legislature decided to
individually license the boards.
MS. DAVIDSON said the Board of Marital and Family Therapists
thought combining would be okay, but it was in financial
difficulty and continuing to be challenged; and it has pretty
high fees. The only other board that has a small group with high
fees is the Board of Direct Entry Midwives. Their group is
relatively small; the fees go up and down and they never hear
complaints from the practitioners about getting rid of their
board.
CHAIR PASKVAN asked if given the objection to joining together,
would it be appropriate to do a two-year sunset to see how
successful their financial efforts are. Or are they forever
separated and not going to try to achieve those efficiencies?
MS. DAVIDSON said the legislature could designate whatever
extension it would like. Since the statute requires each
occupation to be self sufficient, combining the boards would
make any economies of financial scale. Choosing to make a two-
year extension to drive the point home is up to the legislature.
CHAIR PASKVAN found no further questions on recommendation 1 and
went on to recommendation 2, the issue of unqualified staff and
lack of documented procedures.
SENATOR THOMAS interrupted to say he had trouble understanding
how delaying regulations has an impact on revenue.
MS. DAVIDSON answered that regulation projects involve the
Department of Law (DOL) and it bills the board for its services.
If they start to incur legal and regulation specialist costs,
then the costs would go up and then the fees have to go up. This
board is already seeing a decline in the number of people who
are seeking licensure. She reminded them that this is one of the
boards that has a title restriction. You cannot call yourself a
licensed marital and family therapist unless you are licensed by
the state, but it doesn't really prohibit one from offering
those services in a different name. So, while practitioners find
value in licensing, by being able to bill insurance companies
for instance, it's a title restriction, not a practice
restriction. If the fees get to be too much to bear, people
could decide to just not be licensed.
2:55:01 PM
CHAIR PASKVAN asked if the state has a minimum qualification
standard for someone calling himself a counselor or a therapist.
MS. DAVIDSON replied yes; there are Boards of Professional
Counselors, Social Work Examiners, and Psychologist and
Psychological Associates. Each of those boards are going to have
educational requirements associated with them - possibly a
certain level of experience requirements and clinical or non
clinical settings to meet licensure.
CHAIR PASKVAN asked if that included the Board of Marital and
Family Therapy.
MS. DAVIDSON replied "yes."
2:56:18 PM
CHAIR PASKVAN went on to recommendation 2 on the unqualified
staff and lack of documented procedures.
MS. DAVIDSON said those are the same issues as with the previous
bill.
CHAIR PASKVAN went to recommendation 3.
MS. DAVIDSON said that is the same as the previous bill.
CHAIR PASKVAN found no further questions on any of the
recommendations.
2:57:00 PM
JENNIFER STRICKLER, Operations Manager, Division of
Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing, Department of
Commerce, Community and Economic Development (DCCED), reported
that the Board of Marital and Family Therapy is about $2000 shy
of making up its deficit. The division's fee analysis is based
on a two-year period and as with the other board, they had gone
back and corrected its figures.
CHAIR PASKVAN asked her "gut feeling" about combining this board
with other boards once their monetary deficiency is brought up
to date.
MS. STRICKLER answered that her gut feeling is that the
potential would be there if they were all operating in the
positive, but she didn't necessarily see any huge benefits. For
example, the Board of Architects, Engineers, Surveyors, and
Landscape Architects has 11 or 12 members. Central licensing has
a law that says for whatever reason, they all pay the same
amount of fees. The same thing could happen here, but if the
Board of Marital and Family Therapy currently has 84 licensees
and if they are added to a larger group, like the Board of
Psychologists and Psychological Associates, even if they all pay
the same fees, a majority of the revenue would be coming from
the psychology area. The boards might not consider that "equal."
2:59:56 PM
PATRICIA WHITE, Chair, Board of Marriage and Family Therapists,
introduced herself.
CHAIR PASKVAN asked her thoughts regarding the audit's findings
and recommendations and sunset extension.
MS. WHITE said she wrote a letter in response to the audit and
it said that the responsibility spread over three sections was
fair and not just all the board's fault. The deficit has been a
problem, but it happened earlier on in the board's creation
around 1992. The board has made changes in the way
investigations are carried out before passing them on to the
DOL, which eliminates the problem that happened many years ago.
The investigation centered on actions on the part of a licensed
marriage and family therapist who is no longer in the
profession. It was a good thing, but procedures have been
changes so that these kinds of costs won't happen to the board
again.
MS. WHITE stated that the audit said their main function is
protecting the public interest and that their inability to look
at changing regulations was challenging in that light. While
that is true in theory, after the audit came out the board
decided to review all of its minutes to see if it should have
gone ahead with regulations but were thwarted because of
associated costs. She didn't think they would find that any
public interest had been challenged, but they were going to make
sure.
3:03:18 PM
CHAIR PASKVAN asked if she found the APOC reporting requirements
of board members was unduly limiting the field of potential
applicants.
MS. WHITE answered that she didn't realize there was an APOC
reporting requirement.
CHAIR PASKVAN asked if anyone else wanted to comment on the APOC
issue. Finding no further questions, he said SB 248 would be
held for further work.
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