Reasonable ideas from licensing panel
WE have written several times about the need to ease the burden created by requiring licenses for so many occupations in Oklahoma. A panel created by the state Labor Department has taken a step in that direction.
The Legislature this year created the Oklahoma Licensing Advisory Commission, which grew out of a task force ordered in 2017 by Gov. Mary Fallin. The task force had found, as the commission put it in a report last week, “a state of complete disarray in licensing review and administration.”
The commission is endeavoring to unclutter things a bit, and produced a handful of reasonable recommendations after reviewing 28 licenses under 15 boards.
The foremost recommendation is for all agencies, boards and commissions to consider exempting military members and their spouses from an initial license fee if they’re already licensed by another state in the same industry. This would be a generous change, if nothing else, given the nomadic nature of a service members’ life.
The commission notes some civilian careers can be out of reach for ex-military because “licensing regulations have been written to accept only specific types of nonmilitary education and training.” It encourages licensing boards to honor equivalent military training, education and experience.
The commission also recommends license reciprocity for military spouses. “The lack of license portability is a significant concern for our military members and their spouses who move an average of once every three years,” the report says.
Among the commission’s other recommendations:
• Allow criminal offenders to more easily obtain a license. (The inability to find work is a huge factor in ex-convicts winding up back in prison.)
• Consolidate the Oklahoma Motor Vehicle Commission and the Used Motor Vehicle and Parts Commission.
• Eliminate the licenses required for public accountants (not CPAs); managers and salespersons in alarms, locksmiths and fire sprinklers; and salespersons of motor vehicles and used motor vehicles. As to the latter category, the commission noted that half the states don’t license motor vehicle salespeople, and the $25 license doesn’t transfer from dealership to dealership.
This effort has been led by Melissa McLawhorn Houston, who made it a priority after being appointed state labor commissioner three years ago. A study last year by the Institute for Justice ranked Oklahoma as having the 18th-most burdensome licensing laws in the country.
These laws tend to have the greatest impact on lowincome Oklahomans. Of the 102 lower-income jobs examined by the Institute for Justice, our state licensed 41 of them, requiring an average of $234 in fees and 399 days of education and experience.
Houston was joined on the 12-member commission by six legislators, private-sector representatives and an official with the state’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services. Oklahomans should hope the panel’s first report, and those to follow, will be thoughtfully considered and produce meaningful changes.