HB 135 - DENTISTS: LICENSING & EXTEND EXAMINING BD CHAIRMAN LEMAN called the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee meeting to order at 1:52 p.m. and announced HB 135 to be up for consideration. MR. DAN PITTS, Soldotna Dentist, supported HB 135. SENATOR KELLY moved to adopt the CS to HB 135. There were no objections and it was so ordered. MS. CATHERINE REARDON, Director, Division of Occupational Licensing, said she works with the Dental Board and expressed strong support for HB 135. They provide the expertise needed to make strong licensing decisions. She gave them credit for adopting credentialling regulations which achieve a lot of what the audit pointed out the need for, specifically they say that an applicant who took an exam that has six out of eight of the same items on the Alaskan exam requires is equivalent enough to be licensed. That greatly lessened the problem they had where people were taking exams in California without the endodontic section and were ineligible in Alaska. She also noted the fiscal note indicated that the Division spent $163,200 in FY 97 on the licensing and regulation of dentists and intends to continue with roughly that amount of expenditure. DR. TIM WOLLER, President, Alaska Dental Society, said that they are generally supportive of HB 135. DR. ART HANSEN, said he had been in Fairbanks for 30 years and had also been on the Board. He said that they do need a Board, but something has to be done to change the Administrative Procedures Act so the Board can act autonomously and not act under the jurisdiction of OCC licensing. Also, under the Attorney General's direction, he has seen investigators for OCC licensing bring in their opinions and state them as fact. When he was on the Board, they took those opinions and used them as the information they needed to take action. CHAIRMAN LEMAN responded that the title was too restrictive to deal with his concerns, too. MR. HANSEN said the Board is working under the guise of a figure- head and he didn't think that was the way it should work. SENATOR KELLY said that he is getting a little weary of these Boards that come into the legislature asking to be given a monopoly to practice a trade in the State and keep competitors out and complain when the legislature tries to protect the public's interest in this whole matter. SENATOR MACKIE moved SCSHB 135(L&C) from Committee with individual recommendations and a $0 fiscal note. There were no objections and it was so ordered.