This year the construction inspection community was disturbed by the introduction of two legislative bills, AB 2995 and AB 2966 that proposed to permanently alter the construction inspection of California public schools and hospitals. On February 22nd, these two bills sponsored by the Professional Engineers in California Government also known as PECG were introduced to the California State Assembly. Many theories were presented as to the necessity of the bills but the simple fact is that questions of integrity and alleged conflict of interest were the reasons presented by the bills sponsors.

 

Many inspectors who attended the first few hearings at the Capital placed the responsibility on DSA and OSHPD citing that the agencies did not providing enough training which might have prevented this. The real truth is that the responsibility lays within ourselves the inspectors not the agencies with whom we are certified. For years the DSA Academy has been successfully training hundreds of inspectors in subjects that address the very issues alleged in both bills. OSHPD also provides continuing education training that inspectors can benefit from. However it is the low number of participants from the inspection community that affords legislators the opportunity to present a weakness in our system.   

 

There are claims made by some that AB 2995 and AB 2966 have been defeated which is less than accurate. AB 2995 was canceled at the request of its author, Assembly Member Mike Davis on April 15th.  AB 2966 was reduced to a study bill on June 25th by its author, Assembly Member Sally Lieber. On August 4, this study bill was pushed through the Senate Appropriations Committee under Senate Rule 28.8 and soon afterward the sponsor decided to withdraw. By the end of August a motion by Senator Don Perata sent it to the inactive file where it remained past the Governor’s signing deadline of September 30th. This is not the same as defeated.

 

Because this isn’t the first time legislation of this nature was introduced it is inevitable that bills such as these will reappear in the future. What can be done in the meantime to prepare? We inspectors are solely responsible for the direction our industry will take in the future. Of course we can be complacent and wait for this to happen again or we can take responsibility for ourselves now and actively participate in the continuing education training made available to us. We should not wait for the legislators to decide on our future. Instead we need to take advantage of programs like those the DSA Academy, OSHPD, ACIA, AIA, CSI and many other industry related organizations provide. 

ACIA’s 48th Annual Conference and Trade Expo* scheduled for November 7-8 will feature training seminars by DSA, OSHPD, OES and Public Works that address the concerns of public safety expressed by policy makers in Sacramento. All of us who are affected by this type of legislation can secure our future by participating and demonstrating to the legislators that they would be wasting their time because we get the message and are responding with education and training. We can take responsibility for ourselves with education now or wish we had later. 

For now the fight may be over, the sponsors have indicated “they’ll be back”.

*Please visit www.acia-rci.org for registration information for the ACIA 48th Annual Conference.