Commenter:
Don Alexander
/ Southside Virginia Community College
18VAC160-20-109. Continuing professional education (CPE).
I would like to propose a wording change to section 109 which is shown below.
The intent of this proposal is allow licensees to carry up to 0.5 CPE over from the previous renewal cycle (i.e., from 2 to 4 years prior to renewal). The Virginia Community College system offers continuing professional education in 1 credit hour increments for less than $90 per credit hour. This is equivallent to 1.5 CPE and is an economical way to maintain competency.
There is no cost effective way given the current funding methods to offer 2.0 CPE. By allowing up to 5 hours (0.5 CPE) of continuing education to be carried over, the regulations would be encouraging the use of an accredited higher education system rather than non-accredited training. On average I believe this would lead to better trained licensees and would result in better trained individuals siting, designing, installing, and maintaining onsite treatment systems in the Commonwealth. This better serves the individual sewage system owner and the community at large by better protecting the environment and public health. The recommended change to the regulations would continue to assure the education was recently obtained and and cost effective for the licensee. Nothing would prevent a licensee from obtaining any or all of the training from other sources.
18VAC160-20-109. Continuing professional education (CPE).
A.Each licensee and provisional licensee shall have completed the following number of CPE contact hours of which not more than 5 hours of eductation was obtained during the two previous renewal cycles and the remainder obtained during the current renewal cycle:
….
H. The licensee or provisional licensee may petition the board for additional time to meet the CPE requirement. However, except as noted in subsection A, CPE hours earned during a license renewal cycle to satisfy the CPE requirement of the preceding license renewal cycle shall be valid only for that preceding license renewal cycle.
