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Committee backs $200 cap on water-operator exam fees and creates advisory committee to address low pass rates
Summary
The Committee on Water voted to advance a bill that caps water-operator exam fees at $200 (or the exam cost, whichever is less), establishes an expanded advisory committee with annual reporting requirements, and removes a statutory requirement to accept correspondence courses in lieu of classroom instruction.
The Committee on Water approved amendments and reported a bill favorably that sets a limit on water-operator exam fees and adds a mandatory advisory committee to advise state regulators and report annually to the Legislature.
Representative Vaughn introduced an amendment to cap the examination fee at $200 to provide room for future inflation while limiting costs for individual examinees. Vaughn said the cap would allow use of a nationally certified exam or higher-quality in-person testing with proctoring where necessary.
Representative Vaughn: “This amendment is very similar to what I brought up in the last meeting. ... $200 was a reasonable amount, in terms of the current exam fees, which we heard, can go up to $104 I wanted to leave a little bit of room so that if those fees increase with inflation, into the future, that there's a little bit of flexibility there.”
Representative Pickert offered a…
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