Posted on 06/26/2004 2:22:35 PM PDT by FairOpinion
Action Plan Critical to Eliminating Licensing Backlog
As part of his commitment to rid California government of gridlock and bureaucratic delays, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced that a significant backlog of professional license applications has been eliminated, allowing more than 18,000 waiting nurses, barbers, cosmetologists and contractors in the state to immediately seek jobs in their chosen profession.
"I am pleased that we have blown through regulatory gridlock and bureaucracy to bring thousands of Californians off the sidelines and into the professional workforce," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "Qualified nurses, contractors, barbers and cosmetologists who have been waiting to go to work can now get down to the business of providing services to the citizens of our state, making a better life for their families and paying taxes-all helping to bring California's economy back."
Beginning last year, a number of California's professional licensing boards began reporting long delays in the processing of license applications. In some cases, the delays were projected to be as long as 13 months. The situation has prevented the creation of new businesses and kept new businesses from hiring employees.
"We cut the red tape that was preventing construction contractors, cosmetologists and nurses from earning their licenses," said Charlene Zettel, director of the California Department of Consumer Affairs. "Now many people who dreamed of launching their own companies can see their dreams being fulfilled."
The effort to reduce license backlogs began in April after the Governor's California Performance Review, in conjunction with the State and Consumer Services Agency and the Department of Consumer Affairs, explored ways to address the bottleneck of pending applications.
The Administration deployed a temporary workforce dubbed the "A-Team." Through the use of mobile testing units and the hiring of additional temporary staff to process paperwork, the Contractors State License Board, Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, Board of Registered Nursing and the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians were able to process thousands of backlogged license applications.
"The California Performance Review has inspired innovative solutions enabling us to strategically direct additional resources to the most impacted areas and clean up the backlogs," said State and Consumer Services Agency Secretary Fred Aguiar.
LICENSING BACKLOG
The following state boards took these actions:
CONTRACTOR'S STATE LICENSING BOARD 7,000 applicants for contractor's licenses were waiting up to five months for their applications to be processed. Through the hiring of additional staff, and the use of a mobile training and testing vendor, the CSLB eliminated the backlog. Recent studies estimate that California is losing more than $6 billion a year in unpaid income taxes. Unlicensed building contractors constitute a significant part of this underground economy.
BOARD OF BARBERING AND COSMETOLOGY There were more than 5,000 applicants waiting to be examined for 8 to 10 months and approximately 3,000 businesses were waiting for up to 13 months for a license. The temporary staff alleviated the Board's backlogs by providing the ability to schedule examinations 7 days a week, offer examinations at two additional community college exam sites and administer more than 10,000 examinations in a four-month period.
BOARD OF REGISTERED NURSING More than 4,000 applicants were awaiting evaluation for registered nursing licensure. The Board hired one full-time and 11 part-time staff on a temporary basis to assist in the evaluation of applications. As of June, the Board has reduced its backlog of applications waiting to be processed, for more than 4 weeks, by 84 percent and is now able to achieve its processing goals. This effort will help hospitals and medical facilities fill the nursing shortage.
BOARD OF VOCATIONAL NURSING AND PSYCHIATRIC TECHNICIANS Because of a staff reduction of 20 percent due to past budget cuts and hiring freezes, nearly 2,100 pending applications were on hold for four months. The board hired six people on a temporary basis for two months to reduce the backlog by nearly 85 percent. As a result, there are more licensed vocational nurses available to assist with decreasing the nursing shortage in facilities where they are utilized.
Arnold is paying attention to everything -- cutting through bureaucracy and red tape to fix California and put more people to work.
Arnold is allowing more people to work, but eliminating licencing backlogs.
Excellent! Now Paco doesn't have to work for his brother-in-law, Julio, as he's free to become a "contractor" himself, putting to work those 13 family members he's boarding in his 2 bedroom apartment.
What great news!
Hey, no fair pointing out anything positive that Arnold has done. You need to now bring up something unrelated to this article, such as "illegal immigration" or any other intractable problem in order to make penance for your oversight!
I am afraid it appears you are being a bit sarcastic -- but licencing delays should not be what keeps people from going into business for themselves.
"BOARD OF BARBERING AND COSMETOLOGY There were more than 5,000 applicants waiting to be examined for 8 to 10 months and approximately 3,000 businesses were waiting for up to 13 months for a license."
This is just patently ridiculous.
More Arnold good news:
Schwarzenegger takes aim at red tape
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1160738/posts
"Observers expect the Republican governor to make the performance review the centrepiece of his first term in office. Plans already drafted, including disbanding some 200 state boards and commissions and sacking 1,500 political appointees, are likely to rouse strong opposition in Democrat ranks.
Although some elements will require approval by the legislature, others may be implemented by decree. Mr Schwarzenegger's draft law containing the main elements of reform is expected to be presented later this year in an unusual form that means the assembly and senate may approve or reject the plans, but not change them."
Yes, it's really terrible. Arnold only repealed the licenses for illegal immigrants, is reforming the government, making California business friendly, didn't raise taxes, eliminating bureaucracy and red tape, but he didn't get around to going out and personally shooting or rounding up and tossing across the border all the thousands of illegal aliens who came to California the past twenty years. It's really terrible, isn't it. Arnold is jut a terrible governor.
(/sarcasm)
Hope they are all legal!
But will Ahnold campaign for Bush? Or will his wife (the Chappaquidic Kid's neice) prohibit such a thing? My take is that if Ahnold were to appear with Bush and support him openly the Pubbies might win in CA.
It stands to reason that more like them will be approved now that the process is being mainlined.
Barbering wanna-be's can only give you a bad haircut.
Contractors who don't know what they are doing can cause you your life.
But, hey, it's a good thing, really. :-)
If you think ILLEGAL immigration is unrelated to the construction industry, "contractors", cheap Mexican labor and those who hire them, you are woefully uninformed.
Article. I said unrelated to this *article*.This is an article about Arnold cleaning up the illegal government employee slowdown that was being employed to deliberately hurt the California economy once Arnold became Governor.
But to you, as the one holding an immigration hammer, every article must look like an illegal nail.
My take is that if Ahnold were to appear with Bush and support him openly the Pubbies might win in CA.That will help GWB, but Kerry's lead in CA is mostly chimerical. Gore didn't even campaign much in 2000. Kerry will *have* to in order to have a prayer of winning the election. GWB already has Florida (as he did last time) and Texas, and probably hasn't much chance of winning the other Big State (NY). When the election is over, it's possible that GWB's victory will show the NorthEast vs the Riffraff political breakdown.
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
Like it or not, ramrodding contractor wanna-bes through the process of obtaining a contractor's license is related to ILLEGAL immigration.
Have you been on a construction project in Southern California lately? I am nearly every day. I have a crew on a project going now that's using blueprints printed in Spanish. That was done because, as English speaking Americans, I/we are the exception. Nearly every sub is Spanish speaking, Mexican hiring aliens who hire ILLEGAL aliens and/or Tijuana residents who cross the border to work each day. There is a connection.
And I no longer hold an "immigration hammer", though I often times wish I did.
Do be a dear and show me a single quote in the entire article about illegal immigration. I'm always happy to be corrected.
The Blind Man And The Whelp
A BLIND MAN was accustomed to distinguishing different animals by touching them with his hands. The whelp of a Wolf was brought him, with a request that he would feel it, and say what it was.
He felt it, and being in doubt, said: "I do not quite know whether it is the cub of a Fox, or the whelp of a Wolf, but this I know full well. It would not be safe to admit him to the flock."
Ram-rodding these "contractors" through the system would not be safe for the flock.
Live and learn, my friend. Live and learn.
So there's absolutely nothing in the article about illegal immigation, but that didn't slow you down from drawing some arcane, Rube Goldberg reference to illegal immigration, anyway. Nice.Not.
Like I said, every problem looks like a nail to the man who only owns a hammer. You only own an anti-illegal-immigration view, so every article, regardless of what it is about, looks like illegal immigration to you.
That you don't live here speaks volumes to your lack of understanding on the issue.
Realizing that, I know you'll never understand. So be it.
Go ahead and get the last word if you want or need...but I won't waste any more of my time reading or responding to it.
Bye.
Oh, don't go away all mad. I'm just mocking the highly predictable Arnold-bashers for trying to hi-jack every pro-Arnold thread onto the subject of illegal immigration.It could be a thread about Arnold saving puppies and some yo-yo is going to come along and gripe about illegal immigration.
You people simply can't stay on the topic of the posted article...and that's just too juicy of a target for me to leave alone.
The humor in being able to predict, and mock, such people is simply too tempting for me to turn down very often.
If you started staying on topic, I'd lose a fair amount of my targets to mock.
I apparently missed that part. Can you point out to me where employees willfully slowed down the process to the hurt the economy or were found doing something illegal?
From what I read of this *Media Release* from the Governor's office (not an article), people weren't getting the job done. Arnold et.al. hired more people and opened more offices and eliminated the backlog. That is a good thing.
But, if, as you claim, people broke laws, were they prosecuted? Were they fired?
And who was held accountable for not getting the job done? This cost taxpayers more money to have to pay for additional resources to eliminate the backlog.
Arnold said he'll speak at the Republican Conventiona and he'll campaign for Bush in CA.
I agree with you, Arnold may help Bush carry California -- wouldn't that be just fantastic?
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