BSRB executive director reports operations updates: YouTube viewership, fee fund balance and licensing system migration

The Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board's executive director, David Vybe, told the board the agency is expanding outreach, modernizing licensing systems and managing a fee-funded budget as the Kansas legislative session begins.

Vybe highlighted the agency's YouTube channel for public meetings, noting the channel’s fourth anniversary and that "Those have been viewed, believe the number I saw today was 10,535 times." He said the channel has supported 187 broadcast or uploaded meetings and has helped increase transparency for licensees and the public.

On fiscal matters, Vybe said the BSRB operates as a fee-funded agency and provided a balance update for the fee fund: "the balance in our fee fund is now right around 1,900,000," down from a recent high of about $2.2 million. The board in a prior meeting voted to reduce initial licensing fees by $50; Vybe said staff hope regulatory steps will implement the cut this summer.

Vybe described technology and service projects underway: the board has rolled out CE Broker, a third‑party continuing‑education documentation system, in phases and received positive feedback. He said rollout dates included October 1 for social work and professional counseling and November 5 and January 7 for additional professions. Vybe also updated members on plans to convert the licensing platform to the Appello system, a two-year implementation he said will modernize application routing, reciprocity and fee payments.

Vybe touched on continuity-of-operations work completed in response to an executive order requiring agencies to plan for worst-case scenarios and described outreach to students and licensees, including surveys the advisory committees will launch to collect workforce and telehealth supervision feedback.

He told the board that while revenue has edged up relative to expenditures this year, some anticipated revenue effects from multistate compacts (for counseling and social work) remain uncertain because the compacts’ operations and timelines have not fully matured. The board's fee fund balance and compact timelines will be topics during upcoming budget hearings; Vybe said he will testify before the House higher education/budget committee as part of the state's committee review process.

The meeting packet also included human-resources and continuity planning work and a report on outreach and advisory-committee initiatives. Vybe asked board members to review draft regulatory language for a new program-review process (a paid service to evaluate out-of-state education programs) and said the board will tweak the draft to allow a two-year reassessment window rather than one year based on member input.