SB 54-EXT ARCH, ENG, SURVEY BRD; REG INT DESIGN  2:34:09 PM CHAIR BJORKMAN reconvened the meeting and announced the consideration of SPONSOR SUBSTITUTE FOR SENATE BILL NO. 54 "An Act relating to registered interior designers and interior design; extending the termination date of the State Board of Registration for Architects, Engineers, and Land Surveyors; relating to the State Board of Registration for Architects, Engineers, and Land Surveyors; establishing requirements for the practice of registered interior design; relating to the practice of architecture, engineering, land surveying, landscape architecture, and registered interior design by partnerships; relating to the scope of the certification requirements for architects, engineers, land surveyors, landscape architects, and registered interior designers; relating to liens for labor or materials furnished; relating to the procurement of landscape architectural and interior design services; and providing for an effective date." 2:34:36 PM SENATOR MATT CLAMAN, District H, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, sponsor of SB 54 presented the following summary: [Original punctuation provided.] Senate Bill 54 will extend the statutory authorization for the Board of Architects, Engineers, and Land Surveyors (AELS Board), add Registered Interior Designers to the board's jurisdiction, and make statutory changes requested by the board. This bill will allow the AELS Board to continue the important work of regulating design professionals in Alaska and add a qualified interior designer to the board. The 2024 Sunset Audit of the AELS Board concluded that the board served the public's interest and recommended that it be extended for eight years. In this bill, the AELS Board is taking the opportunity to update outdated language based on their analysis since the last sunset audit. Another important part of SB 54 is the opportunity for qualified interior designers to register with the AELS Board. Those wishing to practice registered interior design in buildings of public occupancy within a regulated scope of services impacting public health, safety, or welfare will now have a pathway to registration. SB 54 will allow designers practicing in public occupancy buildings to be qualified to do so, providing another measure of public safety protection and risk-mitigation for commercial buildings. It will increase the amount of design professionals able to work independently within the commercial real estate industry. The NCIDQ is a three-part, 11-hour examination that was established to identify interior design professionals with the skills and experience to take on additional responsibility. This test is designed to assess the competency of candidates to protect the public through the practice of interior design, and covers subjects such as fire safety, ADA compliance, emergency egress, and material flammability. A candidate unable to prove their understanding of life safety, codes, and standards would be unlikely to pass the exam. 2:36:42 PM SENATOR CLAMAN continued with the summary of SB 54. The goal is not to measure Interior Designers by the standards used by architects. While there are shared skillsets between architects and interior designers, interior designers focus on a narrower scope of work. By comparison, there are different licensing requirements for nurse practitioners and doctors, even though they sometimes perform similar activities. Currently, there is no state licensing of the interior design profession in Alaska. One consequence of this licensing gap is that Registered Interior designers do not have access to a construction stamp that would allow them to submit their work for permitting. Passage of SB 54 will allow Alaska to join other forward-looking states in providing a construction document stamp to allow registered interior designers to submit their own work for permitting. SB 54 does not restrict the requirements or daily practice for any other professional in design or construction including architects, engineers, contractors, trades people, decorators, or residential designers. SB 54 is intended to be cost neutral to the State, as it is self-funded within the AELS Registration Board through application, registration, and renewal fees. As shown in the attached fiscal note, the passage of this bill would enable the AELS Registration Board to hire a much-needed additional Occupational Licensee Examiner, and the cost per licensee would only be an additional $50 every two years. We often talk of making Alaska open and ready for business. This bill turns those words into action and will make Alaska a better place to do business. Please join me in supporting SB 54. 2:38:29 PM SARENA HACKENMILLER, Staff, Senator Matt Claman, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, summarized the sectional analysis for SB 54 as follows: [Original punctuation provided.] Section 1 extends the AELS Board's termination date by eight years to June 30, 2033, per audit recommendation. Sections 2 and 3 would add two seats to the board, one for a registered interior designer and an additional engineering seat, creating separate seats for electrical and mechanical engineering, which currently share a seat, and expanding the mining engineer seat so that three disciplines may be chosen to fill this seat. As we go into the remaining sections, please note that most of these sections are conforming changes to add "registered interior designer" or "registered interior design" to the list of professions regulated by the AELS Board. To save time, I will simply indicate that these are conforming changes and the section's general subject as we proceed. Section 4 Conforming change (related to records and reports) Section 5 This is a new subsection authorizing the AELS Board to adopt regulations establishing a definition of registered interior design and provides some of the practices that must be included in the definition. Section 6 conforming changes relating to suspension of license. This section also removes the requirement that the code of ethics be distributed in writing to every registrant and applicant. Sections 7-11 Conforming changes (related to qualifications and application for registration by examination or comity) 2:40:17 PM MS. HACKENMILLER continued with the summary of the sectional analysis for SB 54: Section 12 distinguishes that retirement status under this chapter is only available for those professions registered under a Practice Act, interior designers are excluded. Section 13 relates to a Title Act with Permitting Privileges, adds a new section specifying that unregistered interior designers may practice interior design but may not use the title "registered interior designer" Sections 14-20 conforming changes (related to seals and registration as a corp, LLC, or LLP) Section 21 relates to a Title Act with Permitting Privileges, adds a new subsection specifying that a person that is not registered with the board may not use the title "registered interior designer." Sections 22-24 conforming changes (related to violations and civil penalties) Section 25 relates to a Title Act with Permitting Privileges, adds a new subsection specifying that using the title "registered interior designer" implies that that person is registered with the board. Section 26 is unrelated to registered interior designers. In this section, two exemptions are updated at the request of the AELS Board. The first is under exemption 10, the industry exemption, which would require a professional license for the construction of natural gas pipelines. Secondly, exemption 15 would allow certain Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation employees to construct conventional onsite wastewater systems if the capacity is under 500 gallons of wastewater a day. Sections 27 and 28 conforming changes (related to definitions) 2:42:16 PM MS.HACKENMILLER continued with the summary of the sectional analysis for SB 54: Section 29 defines the practice of registered interior design and registered interior designer. Sections 30-34 conforming changes under other titles. Adds both landscape architects and registered interior designers and their respective professions under Workers' Comp, Property, Public Buildings, and Public Contracts. Section 35 adds only registered interior design to Title 36 Public Contracts. Section 36 repeals AS 08.48.011(c) which had listed the conditions for board seat engineering disciplines, the changes in Sections 2 and 3 of this bill make this section obsolete. And Sections 37-39 would establish the effective date and grace period for registration. 2:43:43 PM SENATOR DUNBAR asked to revisit Section 26 of the sectional analysis. He stated he wasn't sure why Section 26 was in SB 54. He asked what changes occurred for Section 26(a)(10) and who are the licensed employees mentioned in the exclusion. 2:44:06 PM SENATOR CLAMAN answered that [changes to] Section 26(a)(10) creates a new Section 26(a)(15). This change addresses federal concerns from past gas pipeline explosions. He said some pipeline designs now require approval by a licensed engineer with stamping authoritythese can't be done in-house. He said his office has received feedback, particularly from Enstar, asking to clarify the language. He stated that the goal is to distinguish between pipelines that must have stamped drawings and those that don't. The sponsor is working with the chair's staff to clean up that wording. He said the core intent remains- high-pressure gas pipelines must have engineer-stamped designs. 2:45:38 PM SENATOR DUNBAR stated that even though most of SB 54 focuses on architects and interior designers, it also involves the State Board of Registration for Engineers, and asked that's why it's relevant to SB 54. 2:45:56 PM SENATOR CLAMAN answered yes. 2:46:12 PM CHAIR BJORKMAN announced invited testimony for SB 54. 2:46:32 PM KRIS CURTIS, Legislative Auditor, Legislative Audit Division, Alaska State Legislature, Juneau, Alaska, presented the audit findings for SB 54. She stated that the audit report only covers the extension at the beginning of SB 54. The audit found the board is operating in the public interest and recommends the full eight-year extensionno improvements were suggested. She said on page 6 it states, as of January 2024, there were 6,628 active registrants, a 10 percent drop since 2016. Appendix B compares occupation data from 2016 to 2024. Page 8 shows the board had a $1.2 million surplus, and the commissioner and board chair both support the audit's findings, as noted in the response beginning on page 23. 2:48:13 PM COLIN MAYNARD, Chair, State Board of Registration for Architect, Engineers and Land Surveyors (AELS), Legislative Liaison Committee, Anchorage, Alaska, testified by invitation on SB 54 as follows: [Original punctuation provided.] At our February 2025 meeting, the AELS Board voted to support this bill. I would like to address a few provisions in which we have particular interest and suggest a couple of amendments: • Section 1 we are proud to see that the Legislative Audit found that the Board has been complying with the relevant statutes and regulations and is performing its duty to protect the public safety, health, and welfare. We believe that an extension of eight years is warranted. • Section 2 Board makeup -Adding petroleum and chemical engineering disciplines to the mining engineering seat as an option, instead of a fallback position, expands the pool of possible volunteers from 36 to 148 while keeping the seat in the resource extraction industry. 2:49:09 PM MR. MAYNARD continued with his testimony of SB 54: -Breaking the current mechanical/electrical engineering seat into two seats recognizes that they are the two most common disciplines after civil engineering, even more than architects or land surveyors. It also recognizes that these disciplines are different from each other and expecting one person to have expertise in both is asking a bit much. -could understand that we are already one of the largest State licensing Boards, but we regulate eighteen different disciplines with more registrants than all but two Boards. The cost of the Board is borne by those registrants, not by the public. • Section 26 Exemptions on page 13 of the bill -Item 10 (B) In 2018, a natural gas pipeline explosion in Massachusetts resulted on the destruction of 40 residences. The National Transportation Safety Board attributed design by unlicensed engineers as part of the cause. They wrote all 50 state governors and copied their respective licensing boards in 2019 asking for removal of the industrial exemption for natural gas pipelines where public safety is an issue. The AELS Board wrote a letter to the Governor indicating support for this request. The NTSB wrote an additional letter in 2022 asking for an update. The AELS Board again wrote a letter to the Governor indicating support and stated that they would address it during the sunset process, had it not been addressed earlier. That is the genesis of this language. At our February meeting, we determined that the language you see before you is too extensive and should be limited to pipelines where public safety is an issue. We are interested in licensed engineers designing pipelines in communities and not necessarily on the North Slope or Beluga. We suggest the following language for this exception to the exemption: (B) natural gas distribution systems that  could pose a threat to public safety;  "natural gas pipeline" has the meaning given  in AS31.25.390;  2:50:50 PM MR. MAYNARD continued with his testimony of SB 54: -Item 15 during a discussion with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regarding regulations that they had adopted that required engineers to perform tasks that violate licensing law, DEC requested that an exemption be granted for small commercial domestic wastewater systems, so that they could be designed by DEC certified contractors instead of licensed engineers. The Board agreed to that request. However, this exemption should not be applicable to industrial wastewater, just wastewater from kitchens and bathrooms. Thus, we suggest one small change to the current language modify 'conventional onsite wastewater system' to "conventional onsite commercial domestic wastewater system" in both locations it occurs. There is one other provision that the Board would like to have added to the bill. The Board has been having problems retaining our Executive Administrator. We have been working with the Division and Department to get an Office of Management and Budget class evaluation for years. The fact that it is a class of one has not made that very easy and it has dragged out for years. The evaluation finally started last fall, still has several steps to go, and may not have a conclusion with which the Board agrees. Before the evaluation started, the Board decided to request that our statute specify that the AELS Executive Administrator has a salary in Range 23. Other Boards that have a similar number of registrants have a similar provision. 2:52:36 PM MATT BARUSCH, Director, Council for Interior Design Qualification (CIDQ), Government Affairs and Advocacy, testified by invitation on SB 54. He stated that the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) along with its members, supports SB 54 which aims to create reasonable regulations for certifying interior designers. SB 54 would allow designers to fully practice based on their education, experience, and examination. This policy is already implemented in 29 states, along with D.C. and Puerto Rico. 2:54:38 PM SENATOR CLAMAN stated that his office is willing to work with the suggestions made. [CHAIR BJORKMAN held SB 54 in committee.]