Last year, there was proposed legislation introduced in the Kentucky House to lower the educational requirements to allow an associate's degree pathway. The majority decision of the Kentucky Association of Professional Surveyors (KAPS) was to oppose the bill. With a letter of opposition sent off, the bill did not make it out of the Committee on Committees.
Just recently, during the 2023 legislative session, a different representative sponsors the same bill and does not pre-file it, so we (KAPS) have short notice to oppose it. Many calls and emails to representatives across the state from several KAPS members and the bill was withdrawn.
While the conversation will probably head back to the old degree/no degree discussion, what was more interesting this go around to me was:
1. A private party was able to get a lobbyist to work on preparing a bill and getting it sponsored when it would impact a currently existing profession with a state licensing board and at no time did any of the representatives seem to even be concerned if the people actually within the key group representing the profession or even the board of licensure for that profession were asked for any input (which we were not). That is until they were inundated with opposition.
It seems to me that question one should be who are the main people this affects and what is their view on the proposed language.
2. There are actually some elected officials who responded and asked questions. There are some who even want to follow-up after the legislative session to gain more insight or see what can be done to address the concerns of the party that suggested the bill.
3. Finally, it was surprising to me how poorly worded a bill can be made, yet people not in the know about what the bill applies to can not distinguish the problems with the language used. For example, the proposed bill would have allowed for 2 years of unsupervised practice to count within the experience needed (but only for those with an associate's degree) and would have removed the board of licensure's ability to determine if the experience being reported was of a character to show professional growth.
