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Committee adopts substitute, unanimously advances bill to verify English proficiency at CDL schools
Summary
A committee adopted a first substitute and unanimously recommended HB 535, which requires CDL training schools to collect a student attestation of English proficiency and shifts certain enforcement steps away from the testing providers to reduce the bill's fiscal note.
A House committee on March 3 adopted a first substitute and unanimously recommended House Bill 535, a measure that changes oversight of commercial driver license (CDL) training and testing by requiring training schools to collect student attestations about English proficiency and by narrowing the division’s auditing scope.
Representative Perucci, the sponsor, said the substitute removes the large fiscal note in the original bill by limiting the division’s monitoring duties and by using a complaint-driven approach to identify “bad actors” among training schools. “The substitute will largely take care of that massive fiscal note on the original version of the bill,” Perucci said.
The bill requires students to sign an attestation that they meet existing federal English-proficiency requirements for a CDL — ability to understand traffic signs and signals, converse with the public and respond to official inquiries — and that training providers forward information to the Department of Public Safety (DPS) when a tester determines a language barrier prevented a candidate from being appropriately tested.
Chris Karas, director of the DPS Driver License Division, told the committee the original fiscal note assumed the agency would need to audit thousands of training entities. With the first substitute, Karas said, the agency’s IT and workload estimates were still being finalized but the fiscal impact could fall to zero or near zero. “With the first substitute that's before you ... there's the likelihood it could go to 0 or very close to that,” Karas said.
Representatives and industry stakeholders raised concerns about regulation and fairness. Rick with the Utah Trucking Association said some third-party providers both train and test CDL applicants and worried about creating an additional licensing requirement. Perucci and supporters said the policy is focused on protecting students from paying for training that will not lead to a license and on pushing schools to inform applicants up front about federally required English proficiency.
Action and vote: The committee adopted the first substitute for HB 535 and then voted 10–0 to favorably recommend the bill to the full House.
Why it matters: The substitute changes who bears responsibility for initial verification of English proficiency and uses a complaint/reporting mechanism to identify problematic schools. Supporters say the change protects consumers from costly, ineffective training; opponents warned of additional regulation for schools that already comply.
What’s next: HB 535, as amended by the first substitute, moves to the House floor with a unanimous committee recommendation.
