The Senate Republican Caucus has released a report on the Sunset Review Process that is a great overview and reminded me of my experience for 10 months as Secretary for State and Consumer Affairs last year. My conclusion regarding consumer licensing boards and bureaus would be to make the default choice of the review to be elimination of them all.
The state’s 38 licensing boards and bureaus give consumers a false confidence that every license holder will provide quality service while the truth is that the best the board can do is certify that the person passed a test or got a degree and that they have no criminal record. This is far from quality service. Worse yet, when a complaint is made against a license holder the accused has all of the same rights as in criminal court which creates a burden on the board staff to administer and unfairly pits the accuser against the professional. The result is often that the accuser’s personal life is on trial. If ever the accusation is found to be justified the licensee gets a restricted license or loses it for a period and most of the time the victim gets nothing. It is here I side with the trial lawyers in saying that a victim deserves to be compensated not only for their actual damages but even punitive damages to honor them for bringing the bad situation to the public eye. In fact the civil court would do a better job of keeping a profession clean than a licensing board.
All reviews should look at financing as these boards and bureaus are paid for by the license holders. License holders have used these fees and fee increases to keep competition in the industry down. The fee money is mostly spent on investigations and inspections. Unlike the police who respond when someone calls in a crime the board employees also inspect licensed establishments. This is like the cops going door to door looking for crime. It is unaffordable and ineffective.
One of the powers as Secretary was the power to reject or approve new regulations. I rejected proposed regulations to increase the minimum training requirement of manicurists (yes California licenses them also) by 25%. The added tuition burden would have prevented many people from entering this occupation. These regulations were adopted by the board with minimum proof that there is a problem and with no proof that lack of education is the cause of the problem. This is another barrier to entry.
As every license holder knows the entire industry of continuing education is a government mandated scam. Good professionals do not need a mandate to have them stay on top of changes in their profession. Learning new things related to your job is very useful. Having government mandate how many hours you have to spend doing it is another example of nanny government.
We should be encouraging job creation instead of using regulations to keep people from entering the workforce. Almost all of the work of this state department retards job growth.
The best way to protect yourself is not to call Consumer Affairs to see if the license is valid but to ask for references and to contact others who have used that professional.