Audio of Committe Hearing and Floor Debate

This link is to the Legislature page which has the links to the audio recordings of the Committee Hearing and the Floor Debate on HB 249.
http://le.utah.gov/~2009/htmdoc/hbillhtm/hb0249.htm

David L. Mefford

Find Your State Legislator

This link will take you to the State of Utah site where you can find your legislators.  Clicking on the Maps link is often the best way to find your district and then who your Legislators are.

http://le.utah.gov/Documents/find.htm

David L. Mefford

giefast

Our legislators are forcing us to do business with companies that have little incentive to provide information that might be useful. The approach of giving free reign to third party companies to develop programs and requirements is ridiculous. If we, as contractors, need information we are quite capable of finding the education that we need without the force of the legislature and their cronies.

Troy Council, Dr Woodgrain

A Line of Reasoning

I find it very disturbing that the people that we hire to work for us (our legislators) can force us to do business with companies that they have admitted are broken, (i.e., the education program promoted by the Home Builders Association.)

We are paying for useless material in the current education curriculum, causing wasted time and money . How would it be to have the government force every one to do business with your company whether it's useful to them or not.  When would there ever be any incentive to make your business useful, if people have to do business with you.

Troy Council, Dr Woodgrain

History and Synopsis of House Bill 249

This email is the first of its kind to update you on our battle to end mandatory continuing education for DOPL contractors. It is very important that we keep up the interest in this movement. Let it be known we are for education - just not forced, generic, mandated. We are professional enough to decide when we need to brush up on a new product or its application. We are not attorneys, thats why most of you hire your legal lien work out to a lien service company. You hire out your accountant work to an accountant, etc,etc.

Just to start with a bit of history/background. Last fall Mr. Troy Council answered a knock on his door from his elected state house representative, Ron Bigelow asking for his vote. Troy let him in and began to tell him of his biggest concern: Mandatory continuing education for DOPL Contractors. Ron Bigelow promised to draft a house bill to repeal the class A misdemeanor penalty ($1,000.00) for failing to take the classes every two years when licenses are renewed.

Ron made good on his promise to draft and submit House Bill 249 to the House Business and Labor Committee hearing which would repeal penalties for not taking continuing education. It went to committee meeting and passed with a vote of 8 to 5 in favor of the bill on Feb 13th.

On February 27th the bill went to the floor of the house for debate.

In between that time, the bill was hijacked by Representative James Dunnigan. He substituted the bill with huge changes that were totally opposite of the original intent of the bill. The major changes were:

• Re-instate penalties for not taking the 6 hours of continuing education.
• Creates a fund (most likely paid for in addition to our license fees), controlled by trade associations (not DOPL), with no dollar limit, and no specificity as to which associations get how much, to administer the continuing ed. program. I shudder to think of the back room dealing on this one!
• Allows trade associations to conduct audits of education compliance i.e. PDCA, Sheet Metal Associations, Home Builder Associations, etc. These associations will report their findings to DOPL to take enforcement action against a license holder.
• Allows trade associations of 300 members or more the power to investigate whether or not you have taken the classes.
• Allows DOPL to contract with a trade association to approve all continuing education and to conduct audits of compliance of classes.

As you can see it is not looking very pretty. Some of the comments from the discussion from the house floor were:

• From Representative Mascaro "Real Estate license holders have to do 15 hours every 2 years, why not contractors. I would like to see more hours required".
• From Representative Buskipski "This creates a fund controlled by trade accociations...it does not give DOPL complete control...this substitute bill is poorly crafted"..
• From Representative King "I am in favor of this substitute bill because DOPL is in favor".
• From Representative Fowlke (day job as an attorney) "The lien laws and construction registry changes every year...I am not sure 6 hours is enough". (As if all 6 hours are presently required learning only lien laws).
• From Representative Dunnigan "We in the insurance business have to do 24 hours every 2 years...I can't get too excited about you guys having to do six hours".
• From Representative Morley "Contractors need to know what they're doing rather than slapping a few boards together"

Contractors, your representatives are simply out of touch. They cannot and did not even know or discuss the difference from "core" education to "professional" education. One of the comments was simply "if you take the free 5 1/2 hours that DOPL presents, you'll "have 'er done". "If you don't like the class subject, you should have signed up for something different".

The Utah House passed the substituted, poisoned bill with a vote of 39 to 31.

Because Representative Bigelow was the original sponsor of the bill, he had the power to let this hijacked bill die. He did just that, thank goodness. We really had a close call. You can be assured that they will come at us with a vengeance next year with what sounds like more hours in class, money added to license fees for education and trade associations investigating your classroom attendance like they are the gestapo.

We are fighting against a strong organization of Home Builders Associations, trade organizations that stand to profit, the State Construction Services Commission, community colleges that profit from our class dollars, hotels and golf courses (if ya got the flier to go golfing in St. George). We are a much bigger organization if we are united and involved in this cause. There are more of us than there are of them if we are organized. The power of one Troy Council was able to get this discussion before the Utah House of Representatives. Think what we can do if all independant contractors work together!

Action requested..........

Please, print this email and spread it around to your associates and suppliers. Gather emails of like minded contractors that have had it with being walked on because we're not organized.

Send those email addresses of others to this email address by pressing the reply tab on this screen. By doing this we can keep them informed on the progress of eliminating forced continuing education requirements.

Call you representative and let them kow how you feel, especially if yours is listed above with a silly comment you don't agree with. By doing this, we can become a force to repeal the onslaught of attacks on our small contracting businesses.

If you have further questions, please feel free to email to noforcededucation@yahoo.com

Thank you very much

Norm Thomas

Troy Council