Legislature(1997 - 1998)
03/19/1997 03:27 PM House L&C
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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HB 133 - ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS & SURVEYORS Number 2364 CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG announced the committee would address HB 133, "An Act relating to regulation of architects, engineers, and land surveyors; extending the termination date of the State Board of Registration for Architects, Engineers, and Land Surveyors; and providing for an effective date." Chairman Rokeberg informed the committee there is a proposed committee substitute, 0-LS0545\B, Lauterbach, dated 3/17/97. Number 2420 REPRESENTATIVE COWDERY made a motion to adopt CSHB 133(L&C). Hearing no objection, it was so ordered. RANDY WELKER, Legislative Auditor, Legislative Audit Division, Legislative Affairs Agency, came before the committee to discuss HB 133. He said he would comment on a few of the sections he feels comfortable with and then he will let others testify on other changes. Mr. Welker referred to Section 1 and said it extends the State Board of Registration for Architects, Engineers and Land Surveyors from 1997 to 2001. MR. WELKER referred to Section 2 and said it makes changes to the composition of the board. TAPE 97-25, SIDE B Number 001 MR. WELKER said, "...that is sort of a generic - one engineer from another branch of the engineering profession. So what we've done here is we've taken sort of a broad seat and we've converted into a specific land surveyor seat, and we have increased the board by one member in that action." REPRESENTATIVE RYAN said it has been the policy of most boards to have an odd number of people because of tie votes. He asked if that has been considered. MR. WELKER said that section wasn't amended according to the Legislative Audit Division's recommendation. It was a change in the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee. He said the division's recommendation was to keep the number at nine members. Mr. Welker said the problem the division was trying to address was the statutes provided for a mining engineer to be a member of the board and there is a very small number of mining engineers which makes it difficult to find someone who is willing to serve in that capacity. He said the division has suggested changing the board make up to have three engineers from any other field other than a civil engineer. It would still allow a mining engineer to serve, but it wouldn't be a requirement and keep the board at the same size. The Senate Labor and Commerce added a land surveyor and kept the mining engineer. Number 090 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN asked if there are any engineers on the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee. Number 096 ANNETTE KREITZER, Legislative Assistant to Senator Loren Leman, Alaska State Legislature, indicated there is. CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG noted this is the third year that this issue has come before the House Labor and Commerce Committee. Number 214 MR. WELKER said another section the division dealt with in the original version of the bill shows up as Section 8 of the committee substitute. It is a repealer section. He explained that the Board of Architects, Engineers and Land Surveyors is the only board that has specific language that requires it to produce a report on expenditures and revenues. The Division of Occupational Licensing, as a matter of course each year, produces an annual report on all boards and commissions. In that report, they present revenue and expenditure information. Mr. Welker said it appeared duplicative to have the requirement that the board do it when the division is producing the information anyway. He said, "So we're recommending that the responsibility that's now in statute that the board do it, be repealed and let it as that overall general Occupational Licensing function that they're serving in preparing that information. Let that suffice for the language that is being deleted here." MR. WELKER said they had tried to, through the original bill, limit the number of times an applicant could take the examination without further satisfying some additional training or education. He said he believes that is now reflected in Section 4. Instead of putting those provisions in statute, it appears that they will be given authority to do those type of changes, through regulation, by the language added at the end of Section 4. Number 194 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN referred to examinations and asked Mr. Welker if there is a national engineering organization that has a standardized examination to demonstrate competency by the members being issued a (indisc.). He asked if that is recognized in all the states. MR. WELKER said those are standardized national exams. REPRESENTATIVE RYAN asked if the exams are updated from time to time. MR. WELKER responded that he would assume they relate to the current topics. REPRESENTATIVE RYAN said it would seem to him that if they were using a criteria and everybody had reciprocity among the states, perhaps we should standardize all the people in the professions and facilitate the movement of people from community to community. MR. WELKER said, "I believe that is where we're headed. What you have now though is you have a lot of people out there with licenses that were licensed prior to us -- to the nation and the professions going more to national exams." Mr. Welker stated he believes the current trend is to nationalize the examination process for many professions. To a certain extent, the reciprocity statutes attempts to grandfather people in by saying that the requirements, when a person gets a license, have to be substantially similar to the requirements that we had in place at the time. There is some flexibility to allow that reciprocity to take place without unduly limiting entry into the professions. Number 320 BYRON HAYNES, Vice Chairman, Board of Registration for Architects, Engineers and Land Surveyors, testified via teleconference. He referred to Representative Ryan's question regarding written examinations of surveyors and said there is a national exam given each year by the National Council of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors. Mr. Haynes noted there is a also a state exam specific to Alaska. He referred to the increase of board members to ten and said the reason for the additional land surveyor is that the board consistently year after year deals with a considerable number of land surveyor issues and when a land surveyor's term expires and another is appointed, there is no transition period. The reason for having two land surveyors with staggered terms is to have a transition period. REPRESENTATIVE RYAN asked Mr. Haynes if he could address the reason for a ten member board. MR. HAYNES indicated he couldn't address the reason for a ten member board. He noted that in the past when there was an even number of members present at a board meeting, they never had a split decision. Number 430 CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG asked Mr. Haynes if could speak to the retention of the one mining engineer. MR. HAYNES said he believes it was brought up because of the few number of mining engineer registrants in the state and the limited number of people willing to serve on the board. Currently, the mining community isn't in favor of getting rid of that position. CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG asked if that could be because of the increase in the amount of mining activity in the state and because a larger pool of mining engineers is becoming available. MR. HAYNES said that assessment could be made CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG asked if there evidence to back it up. MR. HAYNES indicated he doesn't have any evidence in front of him. He said the Division of Occupational Licensing may have the numbers as far as the number of registrants. Number 494 CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG referred to the exemptions and asked if the language is all new language. He noted he isn't real familiar with the statute. MR. HAYNES said he believes Chairman Rokeberg is referring to AS 08.48.331 (9), which is the exemption for postsecondary education. Currently, there is an exemption for a person who is employed by a postsecondary institute to teach engineering, architecture or land surveying. What they are doing is striking the land surveying language. Number 554 PATRICK KALEN, Chairman, Alaska Section, American Congress on Surveying and Mapping, testified via teleconference from Fairbanks. He noted he is the land surveyor representative on the Board of Registration for Architects, Engineers and Land Surveyors. Mr. Kalen referred to the idea of an odd number of members on the board and said the board has had an even number of members in attendance at every board meeting he has attended over the last year. The idea of having an odd number means you have to have perfect attendance of all board members. He noted sometimes people can be absent for a good reason. Mr. Kalen referred to Section 2, where a land surveyor would be added to the board and said the committee has heard testimony that there has been unanimous agreement, on the part of the board, that were the number of land surveyors there are, the amount of business the board deals with and the problem of transition clearly justifies adding the land surveyor to the board. Mr. Kalen referred to the mining engineer position and said, "The board has taken a position of trying to eliminate the mining engineer position, but we also recognize the reality that there are friends and we're attempting to work with industry to get the mining community itself to say that they don't want to keep that position." Until that point is reached, he doesn't think it would be safe to take that position away. Mr. Kalen noted the member that is currently serving in that position is an excellent board member. He said there isn't currently a problem, but there could be the next time a mining engineer needs to be appointed. Number 693 MR. KALEN referred Sections 3 and 5 and said, "Those just basically just arose because of adding the one member to the board that meant that we had to repeal the part of statute that stated that we had five members to have a quorum." MR. KALEN said Section 4 relates to how often the exam is given. The problem is that Section 4 is archaic language that was left over from the time when virtually all the exams were prepared in the state. The architects are probably the most advanced as they have a new computerized type of examination that people take on demand rather than a time scheduled by the board. Mr. Kalen referred to the engineers and said, "All the engineer exams are now national exams and so are most of the surveyor exams, which would make them -- so that the language wouldn't apply to them." Mr. Kalen said we have a peculiar situation where the statutes singles out the Alaska land surveyors examination. It's a state specific examination and it forces the board to offer it twice a year. We do not have enough land surveyor applicants for the Alaska examination to justify giving it twice a year. He noted they will probably vote to not give it in the fall unless they have ten or more applicants. The Alaska land surveyors examination would probably last for sometime. All 50 states have specific examinations because the field requires extensive knowledge of local law and local customs. Number 816 MR. KALEN referred to Sections 6 and 7 and said these are exemptions in existing statute. He informed the committee that a few years ago, a group of engineers representing the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, pushed very hard to get an exemption for teaching, citing recruiting problems. A lot of their beginning teachers are (indisc.) Ph.Ds that have difficulties strictly obtaining registration. He said, "At the time, we did not want or need registration, do not have Ph.D programs in the field of land surveying, land surveyors that kind of expect their license to be their evidence of practice." Mr. Kalen referred to Section 7 and said the teaching of land surveying was not included within the practice of land surveying because 20 years ago when that statute was drafted, there were not four degree programs for surveying. Most states now have four degree programs and Alaska has a very strong one. CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG asked how many available mining engineers are in Alaska. MR. KALEN said there are currently about 44 mining engineers and about half of them reside out of state. There are about 20 that are available in the pool of applicants when they look for a mining engineer for the board. CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG asked what the board's opinion is regarding the mining engineer. MR. KALEN responded that the board has voted and gone on record in favor of eliminating the mining engineer over the stringent objection of one of the members of the board who holds that seat. Mr. Kalen said, "There are strong and clear (indisc.) that miners have friends in the legislature and we would expect to have trouble with this bill as we try to delete the mining engineer position at this time. I would like to add that me and Merle Jantz, chairman of the board, have had several meetings with the mining industry and have had surprisingly positive attitude come out of that, but we don't think we're done yet." Number 894 CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG referred to occupational licensing and said the statute requires that a majority of membership of a board constitutes a quorum. He asked if six people would make a quorum. MR. WELKER responded it would be six members. Number 1020 CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG closed the public hearing on HB 133. He informed the committee he has a serious problem with the mining situation. He said this situation has previously been before the committee and he would like to get it resolved one way or another. Number 1050 ANNETTE KREITZER, Legislative Assistant to Senator Loren Leman, Alaska State Legislature, came before the committee to address HB 133. She said this has been a very contentious issue. When the bill was introduced, the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee was aware that various elements of the bill were going to be very controversial. The mining engineer position and the land surveyor amendments in Sections 6 and 7 were expected to be controversial because of the different groups that have been involved. The board members were asked to work very closely with the Teamsters. She noted there is a letter in the committee file from the Teamsters Union. The Teamsters have members who work as land surveyors and Mr. Kalen can speak to that relationship. In the past, not all of the groups have talked about what is best for the board and the professions. Ms. Kreitzer explained the committee substitute is a consensus of the Alaska Professional Design Council, the Architects, Engineers and Land Surveyors Board and the Teamsters. They all worked together and will continue discussions with the mining engineers in the state to talk about whether or not, at some point in the future, it makes sense to replace that mining engineer position. Everyone has agreed to continue talking. Ms. Kreitzer said she agrees that when you have 20 engineers in one specific profession it creates a problem, but when they all live in one area of the state it also creates some problems in trying to possibly change the make up of the board. Number 1155 CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG questioned what area of the state they live in. MS. KREITZER responded Fairbanks. Number 1186 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN made a motion to pass HB 133 out of committee with the accompanying fiscal notes and individual recommendations. CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG asked if there is an objection. Hearing none, HB 133 moved out of the House Labor and Commerce Committee.
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