Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors meets; board adopts rule changes, licensing conditions and several consent orders

The Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors met in public session to consider licensing, rulemaking and enforcement matters and to review agency operations and budget projections.

The board heard a public comment from Holt Carson, a land professional who said a complaint he filed in January 2024 remained unresolved. “Here we sit now 16 months on and counting,” Carson said, adding the case involved what he described as “a series of surveys that were riddled [with] violations.” Chair and staff said they would have staff follow up. “I would make sure that one of our staff would get in touch with you very quickly and update you on your complaint,” a board member told Carson.

In financial and administrative reports, the board received a second‑quarter budget update showing positive variances in both revenue and expenses and a projected agency fund balance of roughly $3,000,000 by the end of the fiscal year. The finance presentation noted work to implement a two‑year renewal cycle required by recently proposed legislation; staff said they would return with rule and operational models and a detailed draft budget at the August meeting.

On licensing matters, the board accepted the Licensing and Registration Committee’s recommendations to grant two applicants conditional licensure pending specified ethics coursework. The committee recommended licensing Jason Michael Hickel upon completion of a 30‑hour basic ethics course from Texas Tech. The committee recommended licensing Robert Villalpando upon completion of a 60‑hour intermediate ethics course from the Texas Tech Murdough Center for Engineering; both committee motions were moved and seconded and carried with the board saying “Aye.”

The board adopted final rule amendments to 22 Texas Administrative Code (TAC) Chapter 131 (scope and definitions, including 131.2) and Chapter 133 (professional engineer license application requirements, including 133.27 on temporary license applications). Committee staff said the two rule amendments were the final pieces of a previously proposed rule package; no public comments had been received since the proposals were published.

The board also adopted the Policy Advisory Opinion Committee’s recommended response to Policy Advisory Request No. 72. Staff summarized that the board’s response states current rules do not distinguish the location of an engineering firm: a foreign‑based company may offer engineering services in Texas so long as it is registered here and employs Texas PEs on staff; staff said outsourcing questions were also addressed in the drafted response.

On enforcement matters, the board considered an agreed order arising from an informal conference and voted to stop a recommended reprimand (the board motioned to stop the reprimand recommendation and the motion carried). The board adopted a slate of consent orders presented that included eight engineering‑related agreed orders and three surveying agreed orders.

Staff reports described operational work: ongoing staffing recruitment (licensing and investigator vacancies), continued mutual recognition processing for international mobility applications (four approvals completed), exam scheduling (next TSSE exam noted for June 13), and continuing efforts on IT security and business systems (Windows 11 rollout, consolidation of off‑site backups to Microsoft Azure, and a forthcoming payment processor migration). Staff also warned of an uptick in cases where license seals appear to have been compromised through online freelance marketplaces; investigators and the attorney general’s office are involved where feasible, and staff said longer‑term options to make seals more secure are under discussion.

The meeting concluded after adoption of the consent agenda and routine committee reports. A motion to adjourn carried.