Licensing Advisor Weekly Newsletter
April 21, 2006
Article 8-Exceptional Needs Licensure
Earlier this week, I met with representatives from the Governor's Office who expressed comfort with our proposed rule change to 515 IAC 8-1-21. This is the rule that eliminates the requirement of Mild Disabilities prior to obtaining the other three exceptional needs areas on the license. In other words, one may obtain Intense Intervention without first establishing Mild Intervention on the license. In addition, this rule change calls for a change in licensing titles for Visually Impaired and Hearing Impaired to Blind and Low Vision and Deaf and Hard of Hearing, respectively.
It is important to note that the Governor's Office merely blessed the rule to move forward through the rest of the promulgation process and gave the ok to the Budget Office to forward an approval letter to me. The rule will now move to the Attorney General's Office and then back to the Governor's Office for final signature. The rule would go into effect 30 days after the signature of the Governor.
While this most recent approval of the Governor's Office is not the final approval, it is a major step toward approval of the rule. I would anticipate that the rule will go into effect around the first week in September.
Article 9-July 1, 2006, Deadline for Additions and Professionalization
Earlier this week, I met with representatives from the Governor's Office who expressed comfort with our proposed rule change to 515 IAC 9-1-2. This is the rule that eliminates the July 1, 2006, deadline for additions to licenses under previous rules and for professionalization of licenses under previous rules. Please note that the new rule would still require all original licenses to be issued under Rules 2002 after July 1, 2006 (see third section).
It is important to note that the Governor's Office merely blessed the rule to move forward through the rest of the promulgation process and gave the ok to the Budget Office to forward an approval letter to me. The rule will now move to the Attorney General's Office and then back to the Governor's Office for final signature. The rule would go into effect 30 days after the signature of the Governor.
While this most recent approval of the Governor's Office is not the final approval, it is a major step toward approval of the rule. I would anticipate that the rule will go into effect around the first week in September. The division understands that this may cause some hardship for applicants between July 1, 2006, and the date the rule goes into effect. We are currently working on a short-term plan to help these applicants and will release this plan sometime in mid-May.
*In conclusion, I cannot say with 100% certainty that both Article 8 and Article 9 will pass, but I am confident in saying with 98.9% certainty that they both will pass.
July 1, 2006, Deadline for Applications for Original Licenses
It is essential for you to know that any applicant who wishes to have an original license issued under Rules 46-47 MUST have their application packet postmarked June 30, 2006, or before. If applications are hand-delivered, they must be in our office no later than 4:30 p.m. E.S.T. on Friday, June 30, 2006. Any application requesting an original Rules 46-47 (or Bulletin 400 or Bulletin 192) license received after this date/time, will be returned and the applicant will be required to be re-evaluated by your institution for a Rules 2002 license. There will be no exceptions.
Please note that the last Licensing Advisor Weekly News E-mail was sent on April 7, 2006. I did not send one out last week. I will also note that there will not be a weekly news e-mail next week either. The next weekly news e-mail will most likely occur on Friday, March 5, 2006.