I strongly support elim. the national exam and mandated time frames of experience.  A state exam is what is needed.  The unfortunate aspect is that some have taken or put time into the national exam.  Who pays for this?  I have a 70% AG home.  That is less than $36.00 a day per person.  To require the fees, exam fees, etc. only puts further strains on a strained system.  Virginia ranks lasts in what it pays Court appointed Counsel (I used to do this).  I would imagine that it is near the bottom in the AG rate of $1,075.00.  Instead of using resources to make sure there is "qualified staff" due to a few bad facilites (or homes) as reported in the Washington Post, why not spend that money on residents and the care being provided by the faciliities.  Any facility that cares about its imagine is not going to hire an administrator who cannot operate such.  The owner is more than competent to determine who is a "qualified administrator."  For those that are not qualified, the local DSS licensing specialist should be working with the facmility to correct the problems or seeking other alternative measures.  If only the Washington Post had focused on the many 100's of homes and facilities who were doing the right thing, we would be better allocating our resources in 2008.  Instead, a few places were written about and now, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands is being spent in studies, legislation, by faciliteis to comply with the legislation, when most of the problems were isolated to begin with.  A natonal exam is not the answer and neither is mandated time requirements that will prevent many qualified people in the future from obtaining these positions where good could be done.