SB 263-EXTEND BOARD OF PROFESSIONAL COUNSELORS  1:43:46 PM CHAIR PASKVAN announced that SB 263 was up for consideration. SENATOR MEYER joined the committee. 1:44:27 PM JOSH APPLEBEE, staff to Senator Meyer, sponsor of SB 263, said Legislative Audit recommended extending this board to 2018. Two additional recommendations related to increasing administrative support and addressing investigations in a timely manner. The department is upgrading its systems now, he reported, and should have them up and running within a month and that should help address the recommendations. 1:45:45 PM PAT DAVIDSON, Auditor, Division of Legislative Audit, said the objective of the audit was to determine if the board is operating in the public's interest and she found that was the case and that the termination date should be extended to June 30, 2018. She said the report included four recommendations, two of them were very common to the sunset reviews they will see this year. One is that the board needed additional administrative support and the second is that the Office of the Governor needs to appoint board members in a timelier manner. Two additional recommendations had to do with investigations. The first one was that overall the system doesn't highlight inactive cases. So, they sort of fall off of people's radar and nothing happens. So, if you're going to be diligent at deciding who you're going to license, you also need to be diligent in making sure they are upholding their professional responsibilities. The second recommendation had to do with dropped communications between the licensee, licensing examiner, the division investigators, and the board. It had to do with a particular complaint where the licensing examiner received some additional information from the licensee that clearly should have been passed along to the investigation section. This mistake was that the examiner believed that the investigation section already had the information; however, the board doesn't typically involve itself with the paperwork surrounding license renewals and it fell through the cracks. It shouldn't have. So, the recommendation is to have the licensing examiners be communicating with investigators even if they think the information is redundant. CHAIR PASKVAN asked if she was confident that they listened to that message. MS. DAVIDSON replied yes. 1:48:25 PM JENNIFER STRICKLER, Operations Manager, Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing, Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development (DCCED), said she supported SB 263. She reported that this board is also operating with a credit. Administrative improvements have been made as noted in the audit. Addressing recommendations two and three, she said the division is in the process of working with a contractor in securing a new case management system, so all those points would be satisfied. 1:50:29 PM EMILY ZIMBRICH, Vice Chair, Board of Professional Counselors, said they currently have 442 licensed professional counselors and the board is there for the safety of people who come in for counseling and therapy, and to keep the profession current on the different ethics laws, confidentiality, and other miscellaneous issues. They are a very viable board. 1:51:29 PM CHAIR PASKVAN closed public testimony. SENATOR BUNDE said this is the third or fourth time Ms. Davidson testified before the committee this year, and he wanted to take this opportunity to thank her for the good job she had done since she was appointed several years ago. 1:52:09 PM SENATOR MEYER moved to report SB 263 from committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note(s). There were no objections and it was so ordered. 1:52:33 PM CHAIR PASKVAN announced an at ease from 1:52 p.m. to 1:54 p.m.