Continuing Education Update
(March 2008)
Many members have asked me, “When will I need continuing education (CE) for my license?”
On November 29, 2006, Governor Rendell signed Senate Bill 655 into law. Although the original bill had a detailed plan for the implementation of continuing education, the House stripped that language out of the bill and set some general parameters for writing regulations. The regulations are required to include a start date for continuing education. The law also gives the State Registration Board 18 months to write regulations, which means they must be completed by the end of July 2008.
Many professional groups in Pennsylvania realized that if the regulations are not done until summer, it would be next to impossible to have CE for the 2009 license renewal. An agreement was struck with the Board to hold off implementation until 2011 renewal.
Of greater concern are the proposed regulations themselves, put forth by the Board. These would be overly burdensome on the licensee. They would require all courses to be preapproved and would allow only “courses” to count towards CE. While the NCEES model recognizes credit for participation in professional organizations or writing articles, the proposed regulations do not allow for such credit.
By requiring that courses be preapproved, the Board would disallow most courses not offered in Pennsylvania. This requirement would also burden smaller providers who do not have enough staff to dedicate to the approval process for classes they offer.
Because of the issues associated with these new regulations, we, along with other professional groups, met with the Board to see if the regulations could be less of a burden on everyone. While the Board does not like the regulations they’re proposing, they feel their hands are tied by the language of the current law.
As a result of this meeting, we decided to introduce legislation to repeal the current law and re-introduce the original bill. Senator Lisa Boscola is the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 1264, which would repeal the current CE portion of the registration law and replace it with the language from the Senate-passed version of SB 655. At the time of this writing, the bill is moving through the Senate.
View a copy of SB 655.
Contact Andy Hilt at (717) 540-6811 with questions or concerns.
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