HF2666: Professional Licensing Reform

Overhauls the administration and regulation of licensed professions in Iowa. It centralizes licensing, renewal, fee setting, and disciplinary authority under the Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing (DIAL), replaces detailed statutory provisions for numerous professions with uniform, department-driven procedures, and modernizes terms and requirements across many codes. The bill adds new processes for temporary and reciprocal licenses, expands definitions, removes outdated requirements, and repeals numerous sections to streamline governance. Appropriations and fee retention are consolidated into a single licensing and regulation fund.

Key Points & Impacts:

• Transfers authority for setting license terms, renewals, fees, and many disciplinary actions from individual professional boards to DIAL, standardizing processes across all licensed professions.

• Authorizes DIAL and boards to issue temporary licenses, establish rules for licensure by reciprocity, and accept voluntary license surrenders with the force of revocation.

• Centralizes fee collection and appropriations by requiring all professional licensing fees to be deposited in the licensing and regulation fund, and requires DIAL to annually review and adjust fees as necessary.

• Standardizes definitions such as 'quorum' (majority of current members) and 'apprentice,' and updates references to training programs registered by the Iowa Office of Apprenticeship.

• Removes or consolidates numerous board-specific requirements, such as confidentiality of licensee home addresses, application forms, and board composition details, in favor of general DIAL rules.

• Expands enforcement and disciplinary provisions, including allowing DIAL to employ investigators with peace officer status, issue cease-and-desist orders, and impose civil penalties for unlicensed practice.

• Replaces 'peer review' with 'attest and compilation services review' for public accountancy, aligning terminology and confidentiality provisions, and repeals outdated board and examination procedures for multiple professions.

• Repeals and strikes large numbers of obsolete or duplicative statutory sections across a broad range of professions (medicine, engineering, real estate, architecture, etc.), consolidating governance under DIAL rules.