Oh how I wish.
As I have gotten older I have come to believe that there is little to no real purpose in the state licensing requirements for many of the so called "licensed professions" and all they are is a money grab by the states. I have been licensed in 3 states and still current in 2 and I resent the very idea of having to take yet another test and be treated as child and made to fill out the same bloody ridiculous forms asking me for all my survey work history from when I started this adventure. And getting endorsement forms from other surveyors attesting to my experience or trying to chase down a long since retired surveyor al so I can take another test and be allowed to sit for a test. Stupid BS.
Our licenses should be far more portable, I get it that each state has slightly different land laws and they all have their quirks but the stupid licensing requirements are nothing more than a ball and chain that does more to tie us to a particular geographic are than anything else.
And the guy who is always complaining about too many cheap surveyors wants to make it easier to get into the business?
Not at all.
But if a person is already licensed in one of the states or territories and has passed the tests then why in gods name do we have to fill out all the endorsement forms and experience all the way back to when we started Surveying and trying to chase down people who are retired and explain why I cannot obtain any info from someone who has died or a company that has went out of business OR any number of other things that serve no real purpose other than to make things difficult.
If someone is already licensed in one state they should not be required to jump through all the hoops and do that stupid crap.
Fill out a basic simple 1 page application without all the work history and without the ridiculous endorsement form BS and take the state test.
We should not have to send forms to the state board when everything is online. They can look up online if we have any board orders or infractions. They can see if a licensed has every been revoked and if that license was granted by a test.
Fill out a basic simple 1 page application without all the work history and without the ridiculous endorsement form BS and take the state test.
That's how it works in Delaware.?ÿ Fill out personal info, have your state verify your examination, send a check, take a test.?ÿ?ÿ
Not so in Georgia, Alabama. And I am learning that it is not that way in Virginia.
Mother may I please sit for test in Virginia?
No you may not. You must to fill out the work history and get other surveyors to attest to your experience and you have to get transcripts sent from a college that is now closed and I have to send a request to the states that I am currently licensed in and have them send a copy of my test results to Richmond and on and on and on and on.
I can see where this might seem contradictory in that a lot of my past posts have been about surveyors in my area working for peanuts but this should not be associated with that argument. This is about the portability of a professional registration and how the lack of portability ties us to a area.
Nurses, doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc have far more portability than we do.
Most, if not all of the western (PLSS) states extend reciprocity to surveyors.?ÿ A state specific exam is usually required but the application process is usually streamlined.?ÿ
Not much "mother may I" going on out here.?ÿ I know that's got to be a pain.
I have no problem with a state specific exam and agree with it.
I do have a problem with the ridiculous work history requirements, endorsement forms, having to send requests to the state boards I am currently licensed in to get them to forward my tests information to the new state, trying to find who hold the archives for the closed college I went to back in 1992 so the transcripts can be sent (because my certified transcripts obviously cannot be trusted), and on and on and on.
For heaven's sake if you have been licensed in another state (or multiple states) for longer than the experience requirement why in gods name do they still require that crap?
have to get transcripts sent from a college that is now closed
Yeah... Virginia and Pennsylvania were a hassle
I have done the dance 5 times in 20 years. Every time the process improved. My first license required over eight years of time cards and three submittals. That was after passing all three exams. My last was two pages, all supporting documents digital. The fact that I stuck with NCEES member PLSS states helped a lot.
I cannot speak to the origins of the hoops you are jumping through. There are 57 US jurisdictions, most of which cannot share data outside of narrow limits. Forcing some universal acceptance of a license takes licensing to the lowest common denominator. It does not allow the licensing authority to determine if the experience remotely relates to practice in the accepting jurisdiction. I wouldn't want a Carolina storm drain surveyor winging in section corners and they don't need us proportioning in curb inlets.
I can also say with certainty that if it's to make money, those folks are seriously math challenged. Licensing Boards rarely contribute measurable amounts to state general funds. The employees usually make 30 to 50 percent less than private sector. Where's the money?
The NCEES and/or NSPS could actually step up and help out with this if they were so inclined. Currently the NCEES Records account is the best way to navigate multi-state licensure.
But in order to get an account, you have to be licensed. Which means duplicating all of the same information you sent to that state, but possibly written in a different way depending on what that state wants to see on the application. Not to mention by the time someone gets licensed they may have many years of experience and it can be difficult to keep on getting employers to go back and fill out more forms.
There really should be a records/experience service for anyone wishing to pursue licensure, available as soon as you start working or obtain a degree. The account info could be sent to any state in lieu of the paper forms that we had to print up, pre-address and stamp, package together, and send to every one of our employers...sometimes multiple times if they were not responsive.
I know that myself and all of my employers/mentors would much prefer the paperless method. Plus it is less work for the states.
Whoever would run such a service could actually make a profit on this, considering how cheap web services are these days, especially for simple databases. I would have paid $50-100 per year to maintain an account when I started working. Heck, a majority of the companies I have worked for would have paid that fee for me.
The only major problem with something like this is getting all of the states to do the smart thing and adopt the NCEES Model Law, or at least some standard for "minimally qualified" to sit for the state-specific. That's the critical piece - getting states to acknowledge that there is in fact a body of knowledge that should allow someone to learn the applicable statutes and sit for the state exam, instead of continuing the "my state is more special than the others" mentality.
Maybe one day it will happen...
NY is the absolute worst about this.?ÿ Glad I almost never work there.
As a response to the link you provided, California has the least stringent requirements in the nation for land surveyors and we don't exactly have applicants banging down our doors looking for a license.?ÿ Reciprocity attempts on the federal level won't all of a sudden mean that we will be inundated with applications for licensure.
As for your experiences with those three states, I get some of you concerns.?ÿ Comity applicants applying in California only need to provide evidence for the most recent six years of surveying experience and prove they already passed the national exam.?ÿ And the four references just have to be familiar with your work experience and be licensed to practice surveying.
NCEES allows candidates to build a record before obtaining an initial license. The hangup is that some states wont accept the NCEES record for anything other than comity applicants.
NCEES only allows you to build a record once you have passed the PS exam, which requires the full application process for at least one state, and then repeating the process again with the NCEES. Admittedly the NCEES process was fairly simple. I think I had the Model Law designation within a week of submitting.
It is true that the inconsistency of state boards are more of a problem than the NCEES Records.
However, I had 12 years of experience at six different organizations, under as many PLS, by the time I could apply for the Records account. It would have been much simpler to have an existing account to which I could have added experience as soon as I moved to a different organization, and once verified, that experience would be on my permanent record. Then when it came time to apply for licensure it would have been as simple as clicking a "submit" button.
At least three of the states I am licensed in are 'decoupled'. You take the exams before you apply. Again it is the state that limits access, not NCEES...
