At their regular monthly meeting, held online, Friday, March 26, the Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists passed a motion to proceed to file a reduced version of their legislation.
Discussion by board member Chance McNeely indicated that the board is reducing it’s 29-page bill and submitting a smaller, four to six-page document, with Senator Luneau.
The reduction in bulk of items included in the originally proposed legislation may have been due to opposition voiced by the Louisiana Psychological Association.
Dr. Greg Gormanous put forth a motion that Mr. McNeely work on the bill with Executive Director Jaime Monic and the chair, Dr. Amy Henke, and then submit the legislation to be filed.
The motion passed unanimously.
Mr. McNeely, is the consumer member of the board and also a political consultant. Mr. McNeely said to those attending that the legislation was a fiscal bill and not a policy bill. He indicated that the bill would be immune to amendments, which has been a concern to many in the psychology community.
The language, presented by Ms. Monic on her screen, includes the registration of assistants.
“…the board shall charge an application fee for initial registration of each assistant to a psychologist not to exceed $50. The board shall adopt rules conformity with the provisions of the administrative procedure act, R.S. 49:950 et seq to implement the Provisions of this paragraph.”
The board, through their newest draft legislation, also appears to seek to place into the statutes a right for the board to provide commercial continuing education.
“The board may collect reasonable admission fees from any person or licensee who elects to attend a continuing professional development activity offered, sponsored or cosponsored by the board. Activities offered, sponsored or cosponsored by the board shall be elective for a licensee, and the board shall be prohibited from requiring attendance for any activity that is
offered, sponsored or cosponsored by the board.”
The new legislation also includes a provision so that, “The board shall assess an application and renewal fee to a sponsor of a continuing education activity who seeks review and preapproval of a continuing education course her activity. Such application and renewal fees shall not exceed $250.
“The board shall assess an application fee to an individual license he who seeks review and Preapproval of a course or activity of continuing education in an amount not to exceed twenty-five dollars.”
The legislation also provides for fees to be assessed and collected by the board such as fees for applications for the authority to conduct telesupervision, applications for inactive status or renewal, applications for Emeritus status, and fees for other special services.
Fees for other special services authorized by rulemaking appear to be included, such as fees for computer generated license verification, certified board actions, a duplicate license, a duplicate renewal certificate, mailing lists, and so forth.
The draft bill may have been provided to the Executive Council of the Louisiana Psychological Association (LPA), this based on a comment made by Dr. Michelle Moore, posting in her role as an LSBEP board member on the communications list for LPA. However, regular members of LPA have not received a copy of the draft nor has the State Board distributed IT on their email list of
licensees.
The Times requested the current version of the bill and was instructed to file a formal public records request to the official office address of the Board at S. Sherwood Forest Boulevard, in Baton Rouge, and include payment.