The Wise Report
Henry M. Wise, P.G.
August 22, 2010
Lynn Clark, member of the Texas Board of Professional Geoscientists wrote to me a response to the previous Wise Report. He states:
I attended the Legislative Committee also, and I offer my personal observations to augment Mr. Mikel’s comments.
Statement 1: I believe the Legislative Committee members were receptive, not luke-warm, to the idea of increasing the ceiling on administrative penalties to $3,000 or some comparable amount.
Statement 4: I don’t believe there is any desire among the majority of Board members to remove all future Board flexibility to accept experience in lieu of specific educational training in exceptional instances. I believe this was a suggestion sent to the Legislative Committee for consideration from a person or persons in an outside entity.
Statement 5: The bill to amend the Professional Services Procurement Act passed during the last session, but was vetoed by the Governor. (Do not forget that the bill was unexpectedly amended in legislative committee to include landscape architects along with geoscientists.) We may never know if that unwelcome amendment was the death blow that resulted in a veto from the Governor. I believe the majority of the Board still feels that adding PGs and geoscience to the list of “professional” professions for qualification based selection (QBS) is in the best interest of the state, public and the geoscience profession. It will be important to determine in the next few months if the Governor remains philosophically opposed to QBS for all professions, as some legislative aides have indicated. If that is indeed the case, then freezing the current “list” of professions would certainly be a useful step towards eventually repealing the Professional Services Procurement Act. The introduction of another bill to add PGs and professional geoscience to “the list” would not be unwelcome.
Henry M. Wise, P.G.
The Wise Report
8/22/2010