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there while reading the order Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation electrical safety and licensing Advisory Board it is 102 call the rolls in the terminal we have a quorum Mike grimmy on present John Lewis president Stacy Malcolm Marcus Lundgren present John Sparrow present Gary Strauss David wittmeyer present troy webb present we have a quorum with that said I'm going to turn the meeting over to Doug Jennings legal counsel he's going to take his walk us through the Open Meetings Act we have a new member before you get started Troy I'm gonna give you a couple of minutes to tell us about yourself where are you from what do you do okay first of all pleasure to be here thank you doing ladies from the south side uses their pool mr. Webb man have you pleased to speak into the microphone sure thanks thank you how about now again pleasure to be here thank you everybody just about for outside Houston dear part in the trade for over 30 years doing that heavy electrical work for other industrial Midland heavy refining and everything all across North America for a company which I'll work for a company building a West canta now which oversee their department and that's it happy to join the team here on the board okay well that's it turn the meeting over to you for our our education on open meetings Thank You mr. chairman Oh Mike Oh Mike you this was going to seem very familiar because we did this training in September we have a new member mr. Webb welcome aboard and so I will try not to repeat the same jokes and I'll try to do this a little faster since it will be a refresher for most of you today we're going to be covering the Open Meetings Act the Administrative Procedure Act and the Public Information Act only spending the majority of the time on open meetings you're in an open meeting right now and the purpose of the open meetings act is essentially to make sure that government is conducted transparently and to make sure that when a government body meets that that meeting be open to the public and be preceded by public notice of the meeting and an agenda and the provisions of the Act are mandatory of course and are to be liberally construed in favor of open government therefore if we have a question about whether we're not sure whether a meeting should be open or not we are on the side of having an open meeting and there are a few key terms that we will use throughout this discussion and those familiar familiarize you with them the quorum is the most important I think a quorum is very simple it's the majority of the members of the board so this board has nine members a quorum is simply five of you I'm a couple notes about a quorum a quorum must be present in order to take official action if there were only four members here today we wouldn't be able to take an official vote on the rulemaking we'll be engaging in later deliberation is a fancy word for discussion simply means a verbal or written exchange among the members of a governmental body or between a quorum of the governmental body and another person and deliberation or discuss the liberation happens anytime a quorum of members of this board engages in discussion about matters electrical licensing matters a meeting a meeting is something that occurs anytime and anywhere a quorum of members of this body engages in deliberation and so a meeting could happen here a meeting could happen in the hallway at a party you name it and we'll kind of go into some of the exceptions in a minute and notice of course pretty obvious the Act requires advance written notice of the date time place and subject of the meeting and we distribute this in the format of a gent of an agenda which we post on our own website and file with the Secretary of State's office now there is a missing slide here I think one of the one of the key points I like to just just hit another time is that a meeting can happen anywhere I'm like we said you know if you're at a party and you in there as a quorum of members at the party and you start talking about you know we really need to engage in some rulemaking we really need to open up this license we need to change the continuing education requirements you're in a meeting and then you are in violation of the Open Meetings Act and so one of the kind of tricky aspects of this is well let's say that you are at a social function or a convention regarding the electrical industry and you look around and you see you may not may have more than a quorum of members do you need to walk out of the room because you're worried about violating the Open Meetings Act the answer is no not necessarily as long as you engage in kind of normal friendly conversation and things that aren't really involving board business you're fine that's the key takeaway and so we just ask you to be vigilant in those settings just to make sure you're not meeting in numbers that would constitute a quorum and talking about about board business I already said this one of the things do you really want to avoid is the walk in quorum and a walk in quorum is a little bit different so what happens in a walk in quorum is is let's say that two or three two or three of you get together in a workgroup and talk about board business well then maybe one of the two members of that workgroup communicate the discussions to other members and maybe all of a sudden effectively that discussion has has broadened and has maybe reached five or six members so at that point we have a violation of the Open Meetings Act so one of the things when we do form workgroups that we ask you to do is to keep those discussions work groups are typically two to three members to keep those discussions within the workgroup and only talk to the other members about your workgroup findings in a full meeting in a full noticed meeting like like we're in today one of the we've already already said that a meeting can happen anywhere anytime but it can also happen virtually I think it's very easy to imagine if if the chairman posts a story on Facebook and let's just say that you're all friends with the chairman on Facebook and everyone kind of weighs in on a story let's say it's about an electrical mater and everyone posts a comment about that about that electrical mater you can have a violation of the Open Meetings Act online on Facebook where it gets a little fuzzier is on Twitter or other kind of platforms where it's not obvious who's engaging in the discussion and so here is our here's our Twitter example I don't tweet I think I think I have tweeted I guess that's the past tense once it wasn't interesting chairman doe so we've got an example about kind of some of the problems that can arise chairman doe tweets so he's sharing a link to an online news article about a big issue facing the electrical industry board member Smith sees this link and retweets it so he's sharing that link along with a comment stating how vital it is that the board take up consideration of this matter so we've got an initial post and we have someone sharing that post next board member Jones sees that that shared post and comments saying we really need to look at rule 101 then board member Williams sees that most recent post and agrees says I agree let's get this done and then board member Johnson gives the Smith's post a thumbs up oh man I I also had a funnier one last time I think I also included an animated jiff of the American flag that's a thing that you that that Johnson posted in the last scenario and so we we know that chairman doe chairman doe may or may not know that everyone on the board is going to comment in response to this article if chairman doe knows that everyone's going to engage in that discussion he's violated the Open Meetings Act and Same Same on down the line but let's just say for example the chairman doe doesn't anticipate that everyone on the board or a sorry a quorum of the board is going to comment on the story so let's just take a the size of this one nine so we've got one member tweeting we've got a second weighing in on the tweet we have a third so we're getting closer closer and closer closer to danger territory then we have a four for commenting on it and so remember quorum is five so Johnson may be violating the Open Meetings Act and one of the more complicated aspects is anyone along this line and this is why this is kind of a fuzzy and difficult issue anywhere along this line if someone knows or really intends that a quorum be involved in the discussion has violated the Open Meetings Act so you can see how particularly in platforms like Twitter you really need to be aware of what's happening and who's participating in the discussion now there are no easy answers here but I wanted to pose a scenario that that where the answers aren't immediately clear so you can be you can be wary and be cautious so some best practices to avoid a walk-in quorum if you meet in small groups to discuss board or committee business don't communicate those discussions to others don't send emails or text messages to a quorum of members regarding official business and be careful about creating posts on social media I don't think will go so far as to say don't but when you are engaging in discussions on social media be especially careful about violating the Open Meetings Act and we'll switch gears a little bit talking about guidelines for open sessions or open meetings we're in one today you have the agenda before you and the board is limited to discussing the specific items on the agenda one of the things that can happen during the public comment period for example a public commenter could weigh in on some topics that aren't on today's agenda you're very limited in in that discussion you can hear that person out but can't really engage the substance of substantive discussions one of the things you might want to do is suggest that at the next meeting of the board that topic be placed on the agenda for further analysis so to avoid violating the Act on the basis of insufficient notice you know you'll want to limit discussions to those items placed on the agenda and if you feel like a if you feel like a discussion is veering off-course from let's place on the agenda just be very wary usually miss Winston or the chair will kind of rein you in there if you have an item for a future agenda that you would like to discuss just communicate it to staff you can talk to me you can talk to any anyone in this in this room from TDLR we'll make sure it gets on the agenda and of course there are penalties for open meetings act violations or remedies I guess we'll start with any interested person including the media may petition the courts to stop an action taken in violation of the Open Meetings Act so in our hypothetical let's say a meeting accidentally happens in the hallway and and members decide to vote on a rulemaking and that rule is ultimately adopted a person could seek to invalidate that approval in the court and would win and there are also criminal penalties for violating the Open Meetings Act we're looking at misdemeanor misdemeanor which includes a fine of up to $500 and potential confinement in the county jail for up to six months I don't want to be there so we'll switch to the Administrative Procedure Act and this will be fairly short the the Administrative Procedure Act we also also call it the APA governs a lot of what state agencies do from rulemaking to to content the contested case process really will just focus on rulemaking today because we're going to do some of that a rule as you know carries the force of law it's a statement by an agency that implements or interprets law or policy and of course it's a statement of general applicability we have several sources for rulemaking one of the things we'll be talking about today is a rule that's required by statute so legislative changes well something like that we also get ideas for rules from advisory board work groups from TDLR staff sometimes our program specialists will clue us in to what's going on at the industry we also have a process for petitioning TDLR to adopt a particular rule and we have four year rule review rule petition we don't see that very often we do see it periodically but but not not terribly often a person may submit a petition TDLR asking for the adoption of a specific rule and a person who can do that who's a Texas resident a business entity in Texas or governmental subdivision in Texas now the APA also governs rulemaking processes and I will kind of guide you through the rulemaking process here you'll see the two blue rectangles and that is where the advisory board weighs in on a on a rulemaking so you typically in a rulemaking the advisory board will have two opportunities to vote and discuss or rulemaking so of course we have here in your first box you've got the idea for the rule which isn't translated usually by a general counsel attorney into a draft rule we then we'll just like we have today with rule 73 100 the draft rule will be sent to the advisory board for discussion so one of the GC attorneys will present the rule for consideration will engage in some discussion and the board will take a vote and typically that vote is to publish to approve to publish the the rule in the Texas register and that's simply a publication put out by the Texas Secretary of State so then the proposed rules are filed with the register which starts a 30-day public comment period people are given email addresses and phone numbers to submit comments or I guess just email addresses and physical addresses public has 30 days to comment on the proposed rules at which point the office of general counsel will collect those rules and then click those comments and then bring them back to the board a second time so the board will then review the comments and make a recommendation to the Commission that is our governing body typically will you make a recommendation to to adopt the rule so then our Commission will have a meeting and review the rule filing the comments and and the board recommendations and if they vote to adopt the rule the rule gets published in the register one more time and then the rule becomes effective 20 days after filing so you can see this takes a long time takes a long time so we are in the first we're in the first blue box today there's also a process called rule review and that happens on a four-year basis it's where the the statute tells us every four years you must look at your rules and determine if they are still necessary and typically the answer is yes we'll move on quickly the Public Information Act you hear this called the Open Records Act and it's simply to allow members of the public to have access to the decision decision-making processes and documents produced by government agencies and the Act makes all documents records and other information relating to official business open to the public upon request with some exceptions and for your purposes you'll want to keep in mind that public information could contain any any information on a personal or TDLR electronic device that is about state business so for example if staff emails you to a personal or a business email address about board business that's potentially subject to an open records request if we have someone who says I would like all a copy of all emails between the chair and staff regarding the January 8th meeting we have a team in General Counsel that will go in find those emails and forward them to the requester and withhold if there are any if there's any sensitive information that can be subject to withholding they will do that as well the key the key here is if you receive an email or any kind of communication and writing that is asking you or the you might you think is asking you for information either in your custody or in the custody of TDLR please get in touch with with us please get in touch with General Counsel immediately you can call me and I can instruct you on what to do basically we have a 10 day window to respond to these requests typically and timing is very important so if you get anything that you think might even be a request for documents just forward it to us forward it to staff or forward it to me and and we'll get it taken care of and you can you can rest assured that sensitive personal information if if for some reason that's contained in those emails or texts should be should be withheld any questions I promised to make it short but I think I made it longer thank you thank you very much thank you all right moving forward first of all welcome board members administration temperature staff and all of the guests who are here with us today obviously your your travels were safe coming we're hope there is this as safe going when you leave appreciate you taking the time to be here moving on to item D approval of the minutes of our September 26 2019 meeting board you have the you have the minutes in your packet if you give you a minute or two to to examine them if you haven't examined them yet and ask for any discussion there's any everybody had a chance to look at them mr. Chairman I approve moved to approve the minutes okay motion to approve they'll have a second mr. chairman a second okay state your names whenever you whenever you make your motion neurology John Lewis motion to approve David wittmeyer motion to second very good I have a motion in a second I'm gonna call the question all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries we've been going to item ii public comment is there do we have anybody that signed up for public comment nobody has signed up okay all right we'll move on to item F staff reports licensing division we will be reported to by lease holding I'm not pronouncing that right I'm Lisa hoviak the licensing manager and my record has fiscal year 2019 as well as the first quarter for fiscal year 2020 the numbers are somewhat consistent we did see as we always do an increase with the prentices or the first quarter we have just over 2,400 and in total population I expect that that will continue to rise because it usually does and also wanted to mention that we as I'm sure you know but we have a new reciprocity state with the journeyman licenses and that's Iowa and so Jerry may have a few more states to add to that I don't know yet that he'll probably bring that up in his presentation and overall the agency is hiring more people and I'm excited to beginning two more people I just hired one so that's going to help my team out quite a bit and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have any questions from the board thank you all right moving on to f2 customer service division darn Robinson good afternoon I'm advisory board members I'm Don Robinson customer service manager friend of you mean have the electricians customer service contacts we actually have fiscal year 2018 2019 and the most recent of 2020 year-to-date as of November we have total emails 1240 phone calls two thousand nine hundred and seventy one again like mr. deck expressed we are in the process of hiring anywhere from five to ten customer service reps to to increase our staff because we are seeing a increase if you have any questions any questions you the board thank you moving on to item f3 enforcement division mr. Robert Reyes Kevin noon mr. chairman board members Robert Reyes from the Enforcement Division I'm gonna review some cases of note with you all as well as some key statistics on our caseload first is the case of mr. Timothy D Reich he was a licensee with the department and he entered into an agreed order November 12 2019 with the department mr. Reich as a master electrician assigned his license to a national to an illegible contracting company with the effective date of June 14th of 2016 after that he allowed the initial contracting company to use his master electrician license number for the purpose of contracting non-exempt electro work mr. Reich admitted during the investigation that he rented out the use of his license and did not know what happened at any of the job sites to which he was connected as the master electrician of record there were three separate job sites that were alleged that were included where the violations were alleged to have occurred as the master electrician of record he also failed in his responsibility to supervise all licensees performing work on behalf of the contractor he also agreed that he evaded responsibility to clients at two of those job sites six violations were alleged and that resulted in an agreed penalty of $4,500 and the revocation of his master electrician license as of November 12 2019 he paid the administrative penalty in full and by statute mr. Reich is not eligible to apply reapply for his new license until November 12th of 2020 next series of cases involve pal local are say a commission order in this case was issued on October 1st 2019 and it was found by the Commission that mr. Geller's say on three separate occasions contracted to perform non-exempt alyttle contracting work without the proper license neither miss Galarza neither mr. Gilardi nor his company were licensed by the department in any capacity at the time of the violations in each instance he contracted to install solar panels and was paid in advance for the services to be provided a hearing was held March 5th 2019 at sowa and that produced and that produced a proposal for decision where it was established at three violations for unlicensed as well Contracting had taken place the proposal for decision was issued May 3rd of 2019 and recommended an administrative penalty of $12,000 the Commission moved to accept this order on October 1st 2019 and as of January 6 two days ago he had not remitted payment in any amount to to satisfy the penalty mr. Marcello Rey was found to have employed a person to contract I'm sorry was found to perform non-exempt alyttle contracting work without a literal contractor's license and ordered to pay an administrative penalty of four thousand dollars this default order was signed November 12 2019 the work occurred at a job site in El Paso Texas on or about February 11th 2019 the work was performed as alleged in the notice of alleged violation and mr. Rey has failed failed to respond to the nav which was dated and mailed June 10th 2019 to date mr. Rey has not paid anything on that penalty mr. Gutierrez in cause number ELC 2019 zero zero zero two two three - default order was signed in this case against mr. Gutierrez on October 21 2019 after it was found that he offered to perform perform non-exempt alyttle contracting work without a contractor license on October 11th 2018 he arrived at a job site in Brownsville Texas and offered to and actually offered a written bid for contracting work the job site was actually the site of one of our program stings mr. Harris was not licensed in any capacity by the apartment at the time that he offered the bid to our undercover investigators he did not answer the notice of alleged violation and was defaulted after being given notice he has not paid any of the $3500 penalty that was assessed through the default order finally in the case of mr. Lewis s Garcia jr. I'm sorry Garza jr. mr. Garza the department entered into an agreed order that was signed by the executive director on October 30 2019 he failed to ensure that all of the non-exempt work performed was done by licensed individual he did admit during the investigation that one unlicensed individual performed non-exempt alyttle contracting work during a job that he contracted in San Antonio Texas the violation resulted in a greed penalty of $3,000 which was paid in full by mr. Garza on September 11th of 2019 in regards to our key statistics for the fiscal year of 2019 there was the total amount of penalties assessed was six hundred and eighty four thousand three hundred and forty dollars of which 151 thousand seven hundred sixty seven dollars were collected by the department which is a 22% collection rate that the penalties assessed were twenty percent of the total that the department assessed to all of its licensees and of the penalties collected eight point seven six were collect eight point seven six percent was collected in the electricians program for the first quarter of the fiscal year to 2020 we've had twenty four thousand four hundred and seventy five dollars of penalty is collected of the two thousand four hundred dollars seven hundred and fifty that has been assessed so that is what we're looking at right now for the first quarter so it looks to be a little bit in line with what or maybe a little bit accelerated from the previous fiscal year of 2019 when you look at the numbers for the first quarter if anybody has any questions I'd be happy to answer them at this time the case is already filed it's basically two months of the fiscal year fiscal year as far as the case is opened that's what it looks like right now yes sir it could be it could be a multitude of factors right they're not exactly sure why but I know that working on the program we get a lot of a lot of complaints that are coming in well it was very very hot this summer all right any questions board very good luck thank you very much thank you sir moving on to F for education and examination division Rebecca Armour good afternoon chairman Roach advisory board members my name is Rebecca Abbas I'm with the education examination division welcome mr. Webb I look forward to working with you as we go through our report here mr. Webb I will explain the statistics that you're looking at how to read them as far as the understanding the way I know it's pretty overwhelming you're getting all these different reports they're not - but just to kind of give you an idea of what you'll be receiving from our division first thing I wanted to share is we have already begun the rear efference encoder that it'll be ready for September 2020 so that all the examinations starting September 1 2020 should be referenced to the new codebook we've already begun that process we have many many items to go through so our group has we've got many meetings planned to make sure that we're on task and get that ready so that first page that you'll see there is the total examination statistics so it's kind of the combined every single one of these electrical examinations that's what you're going to see on that first page on the second page you're going to see the breakdown and these are attempts it's not individuals it's not first-time these are actual attempts at the examination so you know as an example you'll see under master calculations there's there was a total of six hundred and two attempts that's where the math has done on that it's not you know one person sitting down on their first time these are all multiple attempts at the examination and then the third pages our continuing education course provider approvals and the electrician apprentice program approvals and renewals and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have another thing mr. Webb if you're ever interested in in coming in and observing one of our exam review sessions just let me know and I'll be sure to give you my information again okay thank you moving on to item five regulatory program management division Kari Daniel good afternoon chairman board members my name is Gerry Daniel I'm the chief electrical inspector if you look in front of you you'll have our report I will be giving it for the regulatory program management division the first one you see is the BPI and Lubbock Texas BP is for building professional Institute that's where we have training for all the construction trades building professionals Lubbock was the first time this year we had a very big turnout so it's good that we can get a quality education to quality people next month we'll be in Houston for VPI which they have every year basically they have it in Irving Austin Houston and now we have it in Lubbock so they're trying to spread throughout the state to help educate the state we usually give the presentation and education on the law and the rule sometimes will help out on the safety but we like to make sure that they get the word first and know what's going on you can see the other things we attended something very important to me and my deputy chief is the electrical shock drowning that's why we're on the code panel that we are 17 for the National Electric Code we do not feel that anybody should die from electric and water if we follow what's put in there we can keep people safe the problem is getting to it we have authority throughout the state of Texas but the truth is no body on the lakes and waterways are hardly inspecting these installations and we're having faulty installations that are causing electric shock drowning to our citizens right here in Texas something that we want to look at the gentleman that came down to Galveston actually came from Minnesota he's so passionate about stopping this and trying to get it changed and anyway we can advocate this and help we're going to as you seem gave a presentation to sunset I do have one cop of the presentation if anybody wants to take a look at it that was given more than happy to mr. Reichel can bring it up to you again you see BPI in Austin if you look at that little week right there that was a crazy week we had BPI we had exam development had to go down to Corpus for board meeting there's only one of me I almost need cardboard cutouts to put places so we can do this but between me and my deputy chief we make it work and try to get everything done one thing I would like to touch on the exam development that a lot of questions here people come in and they've actually thought the exams unfair mr. roat you were at that exam could you give an overview of your thought and what you thought of that exam development I didn't for many years November November and I was beyond depressed I was completely blown away at the caliber of gentlemen that were sitting in that room oh sure in that room with it was just absolutely incredible process and when it was all said and done I had I had fashioned the words my response to anybody who complained to me about the electrical exams and that would be that there are only two types of candidates who take the electricals exam for for the state of Texas those who have studied and those who have not and if you have not studied you probably won't pass that's simple it's about that was a great experience welcome to see you I'd put my SES Emmys up against anybody in this United States I think we have the best group we've had some of the top people there are and we still do it is a fair process that we go through every code cycle we will have applications out from March 1st till May 31st for the new exam board to served for the your code cycle so anybody that's interested on this board please I look forward to seeing your application we would like to have that continuity between both of the board's so you know exactly what's going on but remember we can't have too many because we can't put a crier I'm here to tell you the the intellectual level was beyond imagination it really was and not an ego thank you Corpus Christi is probably near and dear to you because that's where you're from we had some issues down there that we went to their board meeting cleared up made sure understood what their rights were and what we do and explained to them and I think we're going to have a better working relationship and time to come because that's what we try to do at least with the electrical program every city we try to work with them help them out any way that we possibly can we don't go into cities and tell people this is what you got to do we ask them to ask us to come to them and help them and that's exactly what we did you'll see the last one that's going to be a big project this year we will be hosting the near meeting which is the national electrician reciprocity alliance will have at least 16 or 17 states there that'll represent we're gonna do it this year if any of y'all would like to attend maybe everyone would and we'll have to make one day two or three year ten so we don't meet that quorum but you're more than welcome if you let me know I will tell you it is going to be at the mind dude ranch and Bandera Texas probably and why is that well first of all we want to show them Texas and it really shows the Texas Flair very good meeting facility cabins gives them a choice if they want a cabin or stay in a hotel room however they want to do it it's going to give them that ability this group is very adamant about having the meeting and staying at the same place they don't like to travel we held he meeting in 2014 brought them down to Texas we had to shuttle them all around we got my bus is a hundred and seven degrees in the air-conditioning went out so now I'm accused of trying to kill them every time we talk about bringing them to Texas so it's going to be a big deal we're going to have a lot of good meat on there we're going to really go over the bylaws of what Nair is so if you want to really see what we're doing it's a good thing not only is it good for the reciprocity that we build but we have a database when something comes up that's a very contentious electrical issue I can send out to the other Chiefs me and Larry and we can see what they're doing in their state and kind of see what's happening and come up with a consensus that yeah this is what it says so it's a good outlet for the state of Texas to be part of I look forward to it in the future of course they made me the chairman or president of the board this year put it together and that's a good thing being in Texas so that's what we have their course remind you the 2020 we're fixing to talk about that so I'm not going to go under that right here yes yes sir John Lewis so right now on the reciprocity how many other states recognize Texas license off the top of my head were somewhere between 10 or 11 we just got one reciprocity in with Iowa we're in the middle of a conference with Minnesota next week we have a conference at nine o'clock with Minnesota's electrical board I have talked to Colorado I've talked to Wisconsin they're both on board with getting the rest prosti so we're getting near to where there's only a few states in that group that we don't have and I think we'll break that ice in the near future is there somewhere we can find that list yes it's actually on our website under our FAQ if you take a look at it now I can't promise you I was been put on there yet but it will be very soon okay doc Jennings assistant general counsel I can read out the states if you cared it - here we have 12 okay okay okay Alaska Arkansas Idaho Iowa Louisiana Montana Nebraska New Mexico Oklahoma South Dakota and Wyoming now most of those are for journeyman the journeyman license and there are a couple that are master electrician license and that is Louisiana and I think North Carolina is correct and we're always in the process of trying to add more States Marcus Linda green I have a question on that does the master I've had several people ask me does the master reciprocate in place of the journeyman license with the other states so in other words if an individual holds a Texas master's license does it reciprocate as the journeyman license with the other states part of the nearer agreement that are as in our bylaws that if we have a reciprocity agreement with one of the nearer states and a master comes in yes we will reciprocity a journeyman license but we have to look at it because not everybody is called a master all over the United States we have qualifying party supervising party different names that they name an electrical contract or unlimited electrical contractor but yes if that is their top dog like our master we have a reciprocity agreement for journeyman the bylaw says we will grant them a journeyman license so we do have that in place through the near agreement as long as they've took the state electrical exam yes they do it works the same way the reciprocity works in Reverse any other questions John Lewis I'm the sign guy right so we have we hold the sign master electrician so my question would be is it is it the same list of states for that or is it different believe it or not a lot of states they don't have a signed license they expect the electrical contractor to do it or they just don't even regulate it but if that's something you would like to look into I'll start talking to the near members and see which one of actually have a signed license and if they would be interested in entertaining some reciprocity with some so I can do that mr. Wilson thank you you're more than welcome thank you so Jerry a troll way up on that question again just for electricians that we have for Texas are they able to reciprocate with those dates I know it's kind of right now it's just a journeyman and it's the same answer with a sign a lot of these states up there they don't have an industrial journeyman it's just a journeyman and then some of them have an unlimited journeyman and then a limited journeyman they different things so you know we have to put the apples to apples together we can't have the apples and peaches real quick feedback Christy before you got down there they were in their angry mode and talking in their outside voices well it was definitely a team effort because it wasn't just me we had an enforcement prosecutor mr. Medlock and we also had our government liaison mr. Bruno so it was a team effort going down there getting everything straightened out I think when we were through that they were very happy they understood what we could do for them what they needed to do for their self and they have my card so if they want us to come down help them about how to do sweeps how to check for the license we offered that up too so I left there feeling like they were very happy they were very very pleased cannot marry can I go back to item four real quick under examination education and examination and ask ray for a little insight then I think I picked up on it the review meeting if that's gonna be part of sure call ray back up there it can give you some updates kind of kind of an accolade for Texas I understand in our our meeting I think I picked up on the fact that other states are starting to recognize the great job that you and the team in Texas is doing and the examination process in our asking y'all for playbook ray Pizarro director of education examination I guess those are accurate words yes you want me to elaborate her rate does si this answer the question David Gonzalez yeah yeah as Jerry said and Rebecca the the team has done an outstanding job and this is for those of you haven't been here since he has inception of The Electrician program back in 2003 we had nothing we really had nothing we started from scratch and it was pulling teeth just to try to get something together and the guys worked extremely hard you're talking about folks not agreeing in the room and it was a it was a fight really it really was and we've come a long way that's been almost 17 years and we we have we have a product now and an examination of this state that is is assessing those mentally competent person and as you said there are other states recognizing that we do have some good some good tools and a good exam thank you marry Winston TDLR now mr. Roche you know ray wanted to come and sit there and take those accolades thank you I was not near the smartest guy I would say I was the figuratively speaking the elementary school dropout in a room full of geniuses it was f6 moving on an item f6 the Executive Office presented by Christina Kaiser good afternoon chairman Roach and members I'm Christina Kaiser deputy executive director for TDLR for regulatory affairs and I'm going to be offering you the executive office staff report today I want to start with the update about the sunset review process TDLR is currently under review by the sunset commission our review began in October and it will run through about May of this year the project manager on the sunset staff is Miss Emily Johnson and I wanted to acknowledge that the sunset staff folks who are conducting the review are actually here today observing your meeting so thank you for being here a few things that have happened so far up to the holidays agency staff have participated in about 27 meetings with the sunset staff in January and beyond we already have another 13 meetings on the calendar for them to meet with smaller groups of agency staff the sunset review is still in the confidential data gathering stage and so at this point if you would like to offer input about TDLR s performance to sunset you are still able to do that by visiting sunsets website and your input at this point would be confidential input after the confidential data gathering is complete the sunset staff will issue a report of their findings and recommendations it is expected that the sunset staff report will be published in May of this year after publication you can still provide input to the sunset Commission at that time but it will not be considered confidential any longer it would be considered a response to that sunset staff report and it would actually be published as a response to the report the next steps that follow after the publication of the sunset staff report are first there is a public hearing of the sunset Commission that is expected to happen about two months after the staff report is published so we're around July at that point at the public hearing of the sunset Commission the sunset staff will make a presentation of their findings and recommendations agency staff from TDLR will also speak and answer questions and probably some of our commissioners as well and then there is an opportunity at that public hearing for public testimony to be given so any any member of the public that wants to speak about the agency can provide testimony at that time after the public hearing is concluded about one month later there will be a decision meeting of the sunset Commission so at that that's we're expecting that around August of this year at the decision meeting there is no public testimony taken the sunset Commission at that time will actually be considering the recommendations made by the sunset staff in their report and ultimately the sunset Commission may accept the recommendations not accept them or modify them also at that time sunset Commission members may bring up their own recommendations independent of anything that the staff recommended ultimately the the process the outcomes of this process are primarily two things there are well first we're hoping that there will be a finding that the agency should continue in exist that's an important step but ultimately there are typically statutory change recommendations and if those are accepted by the sunset Commission then those are taken up in the next legislative session in the form of a bill that would modify or propose to modify statutes there also may be management actions that are recommended by the sunset commission that don't require a law change but they would just be changes in something that TDLR does as a procedural or policy thing so the sunset Commission's website is not surprising sunset ww sunset Texas gov if anyone is interesting in providing input that would be the place to go to do that at this point part of the executive offices report is also we always want to provide information about the traffic on the electricians portion of TDL ours website so I have a little bit of information about that so over the past six months so specifically from July 1 to December 31 of 2019 the electricians website has had two hundred and seventy seven thousand seven hundred and thirty nine views or an average of 1509 per day 39% of those who were visits through a desktop computer 58 percent were from a smartphone and it looks like three percent were from a tablet and top reasons for folks visiting the electricians website to look at forms to look at frequently asked questions to look at information about apprentice programs to look at exam information and then number five is to look at agency administrative rules and then the last thing that I would like to mention today are a few personnel changes the fact that I'm sitting here represents a personnel change you may remember our previous deputy executive director of Carla James she retired from the agency on November 30th and so our executive director Brian decided that because of growth and responsibilities he needed to hire two people to take Carlos place and so he hired the two of us David Gonzalez sitting here next to me and myself Cristina Kaiser were promoted effective December 1 to serve as deputy executive directors along with Mike Arras Mendes who was already a deputy executive director so now there are three of us David and I were previously in director positions and so the folk that we have already hired the folks to take our place in those director positions so I'd like to acknowledge Charlotte melter was promoted to the Director position in regulatory program management David's former division and Ron Foster was promoted to director enforcement to fill my former position and I look forward to those two doing a great job in their two new positions I am happy to answer any questions that you may have about these materials or anything else for executive lieutenant mark Roach can you give just a real brief overview of just who is the sunset Commission who makes up the sun case one guy is the ten guys kind of kind of explain it to the group here I I would hate to speak wrong the sunset come I can tell you in general the sunset Commission is made up of members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate and they are [Music] specifically let me if and so specifically the sunset Commission consists of five senators five representatives and two members of the public and they are appointed by the lieutenant governor and the Speaker of the House and they are an actual agency of the state of Texas and their responsibility is to review agencies and determine and that's done on a periodic basis typically it's done every 12 years but that date for an agency's review is set in in each agency statute and the point of the review as I said is ultimately to determine if the agency should continue to exist if they still add some value for the state of Texas and then if the answer is yes then should there be changes made to their statute or their operations to create additional efficiency or additional other value of some sort thank you the reason I wanted you to explain that is so that everybody would understand that all the exchange is is essentially going straight to the top there's no in-between where there's a failure to communicate you know the intentions and whatnot they're hearing it straight up so okay okay any questions on behalf of the board congratulations for all the promotions okay moving on to item G on the agenda discussion and possible recommendation on proposed amendments to existing rule at the 16th Texas Administrative Code THC chapter 73 local seventy three point one zero zero regarding the electricians program the proposed amendments are necessary to adopt the 2020 National Electric Code as required by the Texas Electrical Safety and Licensing Act occupations code in 1305 point 101 eight and we'll turn it over to Deb Jennings and Jerry Daniel for the simple presentation Thank You chairman Roach thank you board members as you may know and I'm sure you do by law we are required TDLR is required to adopt the new version of the National Electrical Code the NEC every three years after its adoption the 2020 NEC was approved last August August 25th and it has become clear to us the industry expects us to to have that have the the new code in place by September 1st I think three years ago we missed that deadline by two weeks it took effect September 15th we're back on track and we want to make it September 1st this year if you'll recall my presentation about the Administrative Procedure Act this will be your first look at these proposed amendment that would implement the 2020 NEC and so and we'll talk about the details in a minute but ultimately the action I'm asking you to take today is to approve publication of this proposed rule so that we may publish the rule in the Texas Register and begin the 30-day comment period we will come back to the board in mid-may and present you with the comments that we've received on this on this rule proposal and move on from there hopefully to adoption I will defer to our chief electrical inspector Jerry Daniel here on on the highlights of the NEC he's obviously conversin tin this in a way that I certainly am not so I'll just kick it over to him and keep the technical legal questions at this side technical questions that side please and we'll keep everybody happy board Jerry Daniel if you take a look this will be the first co e that Texas has ever had that has our input specifically on code panel 17 you'll see that I'm in there and mr. Reichel that's a big thing that we have input on the code now we're trying to work with our other departments that are in construction and get some of them on the board like elevators there's an elevator section in there could really use some help one thing that's been identified on the code it's very heavy on the manufacturers side we don't have a enforcement as they call it technical like an inspector we don't have that many on there and we need more right now I think some of you that are first very proficient with the code I think you see some things in there that you question why was this put in where's the substantiation that's one of the reasons we're there is because we want to see things that have substantiation that there's a need for this safety or people actually getting electrocuted why are we just doing this are we doing this because the manufacturer wants to sell a product no we don't do that if it's a safety need then we need to have it so it's a big thing to have it in there there's always changes as each of you know that come into a new code change probably the biggest that the firefighters have been fighting for for the last three cycles is the disconnect outside now we can't put the meter on the house and run through to the garage and put our main disconnect in over current devices in the garage we can still put our over current devices and panels in the garage but we've got to have a way on the outside to shut it off so the firefighters can fight that fire apparently we've lost a lot of firefighters in the past from electrocution and that why that is why they had been fighting for this for three cycles they finally made it my hat's off to them a lot of people are saying it's gonna cost more money it's really not gonna cost any more money it's just a matter of the change of how I do that house when I wire that service now on all new construction when it goes into effect they'll have to have it any time we have a service change out they're gonna have to actually have it if you read it we have some guidelines that we can go by so there's a few other things that can be done there that the cities can look at doing talk to a few of them like the smart meters everybody knows smart meters are coming smart leaders can be turned on or off at any time any given point I've done contacted by Bryan and College Station asking me hey if we give the firefighters the ability to cut off the meter would this meet it I think it does with those pieces in there that allow it so that's gonna be a big one another big one that's gonna be that I don't see that they could substantiate it not my code panel but now every outlet outside the house 250 volt and lower is gonna have to be GFCI what does that mean that means the air conditioning your air conditioning unit I am typically I am very concerned in the southern parts of the states are we gonna have more danger if that GFCI trips on that breaker with heat related deaths and we are the one person that they substantiated this for I'm not really sure but it is what it is we as the state do not have the ability to admit the code we only have the ability to move forward with the code now the municipalities and regions out there they do have the ability to amend the state code if they want problem with amending the code is we have to go back to ninety point four which tells us very very clearly that yes you as an HJ authority having jurisdiction can amend this code but if you add mend this code you must prove that what you took out or amended is more stringent than what was in there that becomes very hard especially a lot of people like to admit and take out the arc faults how am I going to prove that it's safer so those are really some of them we've expanded the tamper proof doing a fiscal impact I do not see that it's going to be more than two hundred dollar cost in a residential setting you have any other questions I'm more than happy to answer any questions John sparger II knew ya on the disconnects and the exterior is it kind of the red handle disconnect or is that gonna be still able to use it with just the main breaker though they'll be able to use it with the main breaker if that main breaker is within 50 foot insight if it is not then we're gonna have to have a way to disconnect that service because we don't want the panel around the backside of the house technician working on the air conditioning somebody says hey why is my breaker off flips it on sudden we have did harm to that technician so we've got to be in 50-footer site or we've got to have a means of locking out to be able to service that yes portion can be back at that absolutely and that's where I expect it to be inside the panel I don't see that it's gonna be cost effective to buy a single enclosure breaker to put at your air conditioning unit the way I would do it was just like you said I'd put the GFCI back in the panel I'd still have my disconnect right there for the service technician yeah I think the concern that concern that the residential in particular have is when we used to use pedestals they would have a shutoff handle on it and the kids would run down the street said everybody's power off to the houses so right on with the water yeah yeah we don't want to get back to the pedestal and we're not recommending that either course it'll be up to the contractor how he decides he wants to but the home builders will be able to work well and tell them hey we don't want this pedestal situation here because just like you said but very little effect the cost on there for that breaker is gonna probably be between 30 and 50 dollars for that GFCI breaker mark probably well aware of this but there's a large number of small communities who have volunteer fire departments who have adopted their municipal code and their municipal compliant electrical compliance that it means a disconnect we provided outdoors because they don't have the expertise to go into a building and find the find the disconnect to get the power shut off they don't and they don't want to endangering the firefighters so they require a means of disconnect on the outside of the house that concept is not new right and by the law of 1305 point 201 the municipalities have the right to do that by ordinance and that sounded been going the municipalities have been getting hit by the firefighters they've been changing it some of the municipalities but now we have an overall change nationally which is what we needed to protect our firefighters I just wanted to reiterate Jerry already hit on this we asked our our p.m. division to do a fiscal analysis of the of the rule update we found no anticipated decrease in revenues for licensees we found no adverse financial impact on licensees any costs as Jerry alluded to were fairly negligible and if there no more questions we would just ask ask that you recommend you approve the proposed rule for publication in the Texas Register David thank you thank you I'm moving on to item H recommendations for the agenda items for the next board meeting are there any members of the board who would like to have an item put on the next agenda for discussion any members of the administration they would like us to have something next agenda Mary Winston TDLR as always we'll have our staff reports with Jerry and Larry we always have things that us normal people don't understand but we know that the professionals are right on target with everything that they just reported we will have any updates I don't know that general counsel has anything set at this time no but that's going to kind of drive the next day do we have on any dates yes we are we're looking at Doug Jennings assistant general counsel we're looking at mid to late May that's in our rulemaking timeline that's when we will bring the comments on this on this published rule to you and see and seek your approval to recommend adoption of that of that rule is it okay for administration to move forward with the final two weeks of May does anybody have anything on their schedule we actually if Mary Winston we could try to schedule a date today or we could pull the board in the future but it looks like everyone's kind of open everybody scheduling some two weeks of May okay I think we have actual dates the 20th or the 27th of May that's a Wednesday [Music] these are those dates those days okay so I'm saying y'all pick your pick 2003 my crummy on I would prefer to 20 settles oh good alright alright with that complete then is there anything else for the good of the of the industry if not it is is that to 10 to 12 I'll call the meeting adjourned