The General Assembly’s Joint Blue Ribbon Committee plans to hear public comments on licensing issues with the state.
MACON, Ga. — Professionally licensed workers hope the state board will find a way to make it easier to renew their licenses.
In October, the Secretary of State’s Professional Licensing Board transitioned to a new software system that is supposed to make the renewal and application process for its professional licenses easier.
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Gabriel Sterling is the director of operations for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. He says the main thing they will discuss Wednesday is the laws covering professional licensing.
On Wednesday, the Blue-Ribbon Joint Committee on Licensing Issues, co-chaired by State Representative Matt Hatchett and State Senator Blake Tillery, will investigate licensing issues at Middle Georgia State University at 9 a.m.
Their old system is 20 years old and Sterling says the new system should give much more transparency to license holders and applicants, but it took a while for people to get used to it. He says the Secretary of State and lawmakers will discuss the need to update the laws.
“The main problem is that (the laws) are intended for human beings to make subjective decisions about people’s licenses. What is some kind of two-story vertical thing to build for someone who is trying to get a license? general hiring? “That’s subjective. What we’re trying to get at is basically: did you pass your exam? Yes. Are you a criminal? No. Do you have continuing education? Yeah.
Bridgette Carswell is the CEO of Great Clips in Central Georgia and Macon. She says she has to supervise more than 50 licensed cosmetology employees. She says she has seen some cosmetologists get their licenses easily and others who have trouble getting the state’s seal of approval.
“They have to get a PIN, which has been a little annoying because they say to call the Georgia State Board but no one answers the phone,” Carswell said.
Sterling says Wednesday’s meeting will focus on changing old laws to align with the new software system.
“There’s a certain section of our health care applications that, even for those that are incomplete applications, the board starts looking at them because that’s what the law says, so we have these really outdated laws and the legislature has taken a lot of action about it. We have two really great bills this year that almost made it to the last day. But, you know, licensing is not a hot topic for a lot of people, but it’s really important,” Sterling said.
Sterling says they are approving many licensed professionals.
“We are at about 80% of complete applications that have been converted to licenses in an average of 17 to 28 days. It’s working very well.”
He says staff are working as hard as they can to get people their licenses.
“The budget we had in 2010 was almost the same as what we had last year. Now they gave us $1.4 million for this next fiscal year. We started July 1 and that will really help us get more agencies to help drive some of the these things because as we were doing this new launch in this new pilot of the new system, we couldn’t add staff, so they had to work on this and get people licensed for that type of thing and these are dedicated people to care about the people of. Georgia and get them to work, but we have asked a lot of them, so we are very grateful to receive this relief from the legislature, we may need more progress, but the hope is one day to have, you know, a small staff, they. “They can do this administratively and let the boards focus on complaints and compliance,” Sterling said.
The meeting will be held in room PSC 211 of the Robert F. Hatcher Conference Center at 100 University Parkway, Macon, GA 31206.
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