Florida Board of Professional Engineers

[Guest]

I received an e-mail from an engineering education provider (NOT FBPE) that indicated:

The Board voted in support of a proposed rule change by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to create a “Fee Holiday” for the 2007-2009 renewal, meaning that the usual $125 fee will be waived and there will be no fee to renew the license of a professional engineer for the next biennium. The rule is scheduled for adoption in early 2008 and is pursuant to a DBPR policy to provide protection to the public in the most cost efficient basis and will apply to the FBPE and several other regulatory boards that have accrued trust fund balances that are sufficient to operate the regulatory board for the next biennium. The fee holiday will not apply to the statutorily required $5.00 unlicensed activity fee or the renewal fee for certificates of authorization.

I reviewed the December 2007 agenda (minutes do not appear to be included yet) but don't see any reference to the action.

Anyone else hear about this?

JR

 

[Dleg]

What's a biennium? 2,000 years? That's awesome!

 

[TouchDown]

JR - same thing happened in Missouri. They knocked down the annual renewal to every 2 years or something of that nature because expenditures were down.

 

[snickerd3]

Bonus! Not having to pay is always good. Although in Illinois they would still make you pay and then the Govenor would fly in and sweep away any extra funding and put it in the general fund to pay for his latest scatter brained Idea that was doomed to to fail before it started.

Wow, $125 for 2 years. In Illinois it is $60 for 2 years.

 

[Guest]

It looks like there is actually some truth to the fee holiday. Posted at http://www.fbpe.org:

Renewal Fee Holiday
At the December 5, 2007 meeting in Tallahassee, out-going Board Chairman Henn Rebane announced a ‘FEE HOLIDAY” for the 2009 renewal cycle. The waived renewal fee is for the 2009 renewal cycle for all professional engineers for the next biennium. A statutorily required fee of $5.00 for unlicensed activity will not apply to the Fee Holiday or the renewal of any Certificate of Authorization. The fee holiday will reduce the trust fund balance for FBPE in conjunction with DBPR’s policy to provide protection to the public in the most cost efficient way.The eight hours of Continuing Education is still required to renew all Florida PE licenses.

JR