My name is Knud E. Hermansen. I am currently a faculty member within the College of Engineering. I am a licensed professional engineer in Maine and other states. I am already required to meet mandatory continuing education in order to maintain my professional engineer's license in West Virginia. Consequently, the requirements imposed by the Maine Board will not impose any additional burdens upon me. On the contrary, as an educator and attorney, the adoption of these rules will more than likely be economically beneficial to me - I will make money when they are adopted. As both an educator and consultant, I fully realize the personal value and benefit to be derived from continuing education. With this introduction, it should be obvious that I am not against continuing education nor am I likely to suffer from any hardship with the adoption of these rules.
Why I stand here tonight is to speak out against MANDATORY continuing education. Please, let me emphasize and ask you not to misunderstand any of the statements I will make. As an educator, I understand the value of continuing education. Certainly as an attorney, I have learned to profit from additional regulations. What I will speak out against is the Board's apparent need to MANDATE that all engineers have a certain number of professional education hours My arguments against mandating continuing education are two-fold. First, there is no problem requiring a "fix." Second, assuming there is a problem, mandating continuing education in the form as written in these proposed rules will not solve the problem. In particular, I offer the following arguments and evidence:
1. There is not a demonstrable need for mandating continuing education. Justification for additional and burdensome regulations should be based on a need or problem that can only be addressed by regulatory edict. According to the Newsletter (Spring 1994) published by direction of this Board, only one professional engineer was disciplined in 1993. This hardly justifies a new set of burdensome regulations governing several hundred professional engineers.
Advancing the argument, assume the sixteen complaints cited in the Newsletter are justified. Of the sixteen complaints, my experience shows that typically seven are for unlicensed practice. These unlicensed individuals would not be affected or coerced by mandating continuing education requirements upon licensed engineers - a lack of a license does not appear to stop these individuals. Next, a proportionally equal number, in this case seven engineers, are ordinarily cited for unethical practice. Unethical engineers can hardly be expected to learn ethical behavior by taking courses on technical subjects. Consequently, continuing education required by the proposed rules cannot be expected to reduce the occurrences of unethical practice. Based upon my assumption, that leaves only two circumstances out of several thousand independent services performed each year by licensed engineers in Maine that could conceivably have been prevented by having mandated continuing education courses (but only in those subjects which these engineers were found to be deficient).
To summarize, is there a problem in Maine with licensed engineers that is out of proportion to the national average and other states - especially those states that have adopted mandatory continuing education?
2. The Board has failed to investigate and show that mandating continuing education is both necessary and there exists a rational basis sufficient to impose new rules on professional engineers in the State of Maine. There have been no studies conducted, no investigation made, or facts gathered to support the proposed rules. (Conversation with Mr. John K. Butts, 25 Oct. 1995, 1005 hours). Personally, I find this somewhat disconcerting when unsubstantiated rules come from a board composed of engineers who by training and experience should know how to follow the scientific method of problem solving. It is astounding that competent engineers who often perform meticulous studies and testing before accepting a product or announcing an opinion are so quick to announce support for a costly endeavor that lacks supporting data of its benefits.
Let me emphasize that the overall purpose of this board and other licensing boards is to protect the publics' health, safety, and welfare. At this time it appears to be only by pure conjecture that there is a problem with engineers in this state and that mandating continuing education will cure this great deficiency and protect the public's health, safety, and welfare. With "tongue in cheek to be sure," I am accusing the Board of a situation they would not hesitate to discipline an engineer for - the failure to adequately investigate a situation before proceeding with services and thereby causing their client false security and allowing others to profit by it.
3. Experience and studies suggest that mandating continuing education in the form the Board is proposing will not work - the rules are inappropriate at best and probably unnecessary. In the legislative analysis performed by the Office of Policy and Legal Analysis (Draft) in review of mandatory continuing education for surveyors, John B. Knox stated: "Continuing education seems like 'God and mother love.' However, the large majority of the literature on the subject says that continuing education does not improve competence." At least one Board with over ten years in mandating continuing education found mandating continuing education does not work.
Colorado' s RN Board Drops Continuing Education Requirement The nursing profession may be divided on the issue, but not the Colorado Board of Nursing. After hearing testimony from several nurse educators and others at a January 28 meeting, the board voted unanimously to repeal the requirement that registered nurses complete 20 hours of continuing education every two years to renew their licenses.
In place since 1981, the requirement has been a topic of board discussion over the last two years," said Linda Fleming, education consultant to the board. After auditing licenses throughout the entire period the requirement was in effect, the board found that at least 95% of RNs in Colorado were in compliance, but the number of complaints against nurses kept rising. "There was never any evidence that those with complaints against them hadn't done their continuing education," Fleming noted. She added that, among those testifying during the board's hearing, there were none who were unconnected with the continuing education industry. Initial reaction to the board's decision, though in some cases vehement, appeared evenly split pro and con and quickly died down, she said. In a statement released in February, the board also noted, "There is no research available either in Colorado or anywhere in the nation that shows any correlation between linking continuing education with license renewal and the continued competence of any licensed group." Board resources should be concentrated "in areas that are demonstrably related to public protection." Copied from Professional Licensing Report, Vol. 6, No. 8, p. 2, February 1994
As the quoted article suggests, there is no existing research to indicate that the rules proposed by the Maine Board are sufficient or necessary. More appropriate to the engineering profession is a summary of research performed for the engineering board within the Wisconsin regulatory department.
The [Engineering Board] Section has been reviewing CEU policies in other states and recently had a presentation by the Department's Education Coordinator. The presentation included information on research regarding effective continuing education. The research shows the need for the education to be related to current changes in the profession; and, that testing to prove competence is necessary to have the time, effort and money spent on continuing education prove its worth. [underline mine] The Section felt that it would be difficult to establish specific needs in this field because of the diversity of the types of engineering, thus will not pursue required continuing education at this time. The Section members value continuing education, however, and encourage credential holders to keep themselves abreast of the many changes in the field by taking advantage of educational opportunities. Comments from the Professional Engineer Section, Wisconsin Regulatory Digest, Vol. 4, No. 1, June 1995.
4. There are less intrusive and draconian measures that can be used other than forcing the entire engineering profession in Maine to comply with mandatory continuing education. To require 100% of the engineering population to be bound by rules that attempts to alleviate a possible problem that is caused by less then 1% of the engineering population is absurd. The Board has failed to investigate, theorize, and publish evidence that mandating continuing education as codified in the proposed rules is the best and least intrusive method of handling what to the Board is a real problem.
a. Has the Board looked at and seriously discussed other alternatives?
b. Where are the data to show that engineers being disciplined are not currently obtaining 15/30 PEHs per renewal period?
c. Is it more probable than not that by allowing engineers to obtain their PEHs in unspecified areas, the public is better protected from actual or perceived problems?
d. What less intrusive methods have been suggested to address perceived problems? (E.g., enforcing the existing ethical code, requiring continuing education for negligent engineers only, shifting the burden to engineers accused of violations but for their lack of continuing education the problem would not have arisen, increasing sanctions for engineers who have been disciplined and not found to have maintained a reasonable continuing education program, etc.)
5. Enforcement will be problematic or minimal. As a final argument, I note that continuing education will be documented by the engineer who will be responsible for record-keeping. My experience as an attorney leads me to believe that the worst engineers are the most likely to make false certification. It is my understanding that a recent opinion by the attorney general's office to the surveyor board indicate random checks are not proper or legally sound. I also know, as well as the Board must admit, that there is insufficient time and resources available to the Board to verify or check the accuracy of all licensed professional engineers to ensure compliance with these proposed rules. Consequently I can only surmise that the Board is proposing rules that the Board can not properly administer and will not be enforced. No rule or law should be enacted where the means or will to enforce the rule is lacking.
As a result of making my position known, I have heard two arguments that supposedly justify continuing education. One argument is that attendance at seminars dramatically increases with mandatory continuing education. However this is not an appropriate justification. Similar (albeit illogical) justification can be made that requiring more bridges means more bridges will be built - yet this does not justify the benefits from building more bridges. Another argument is that the burden of meeting the requirements is minimal and as a consequence I or any other engineer for that matter should not complain. I counter that this is not true and challenge the Board to do a cost benefit analysis as any engineer should before preceding with action. Not having the data the Board is privy to, I shall make a conservative estimate. Assuming that every engineer will spend a mere 10 minutes filing the necessary information and that there are 1,000 engineers, the result is that over 160 hours will be devoted to meeting the proposed rules. Assuming a cost of $50 per hour (conservative to be sure) the cost foisted upon the profession will be at least $8,000 per renewal period. This sum will filter its way to the public resulting in the public picking up the additional cost without receiving any tangible benefit from adoption of these rules. Furthermore I should make clear my analysis does not attempt to measure the following:
a. The cost of lost production time resulting from engineering personnel attending courses on topics that may not be needed or necessarily relevant yet undertaken to meet the mandatory PEHs.
b. The loss of billable hours because of personnel meeting the mandate.
c. The cost of formal classroom courses or seminars (at least $100 a day per person).
d. The fee inflation of formal courses or seminars caused by an increased demand for them.
e. The cost and expense incurred by the Board to monitor compliance or answer questions regarding compliance.
It is my opinion that if the Board enacts mandatory continuing education without sufficient investigation, information, and analysis, it does so simply because mandatory continuing education is public relations - fluff without substance. This reasoning would make the Board no different from politicians and bureaucrats who are often accused of passing unneeded and unenforceable regulations that burden the many in order to aid a few. This is the very mindset coming from politicians that so repels the public these days. Every day engineers and other professionals must deal with countless paperwork requirements enacted to insure the environment, minorities, disadvantaged, employees, public, etc. are protected, preferred, or compensated before others. Unquestionably some of the regulations are good and are well worth the time and effort to comply. Yet, admittedly, there are numerous regulations that are counter-productive and enacted on a whim, without careful study, for political gain, or without a proper cost-benefit analysis. It is disheartening to learn that some engineers endorse mandatory continuing education simply because the regulation "will make engineers look good or other professions have it."
(Without intending to advance or detract from my arguments, I note that this repulsion for questionable rules is finding its way into the professions themselves. In the last three years, sampling by professional societies has indicated there are now a majority of members rejecting mandatory continuing education. Again, I want to emphasize the word "mandatory," since no profession or person, particularly myself, wishes to state that continuing education is not desirable or beneficial when left voluntarily to the individual. To substantiate my position, I would refer the Board to the recent ASCE poll of its members, a poll taken of Maine attorneys (see Maine State Bar Association records), and poll of professions in other states (see e.g., Pennsylvania Surveyor, Vol. 9, No. 5, p. 9). In the poll conducted by ASCE of its members, approximately 2,500 members responded. Of that number 630 voted in support while 1,753 voted in opposition giving almost a three to one majority against mandating continuing education. (conversation with Sharon Newman, ASCE, 30 Oct. 1995, 800-548-2723 x. 8441)
In closing my statement, I realize that the arguments I have just made and the position I have taken is not a popular position among some members of the profession and certain members of this Board that I have and continue to both respect and admire. Nevertheless, I am obligated to challenge any client who asks that I perform services without adequate facts and information - I can do no less for my profession. I would challenge this Board to address the question of mandating continuing education like engineers - investigate and get the facts before reacting. Delay implementing mandatory continuing education until the facts are gathered and an informed analysis is made. Charge a committee composed of members of the profession and public to investigate whether: 1) there is a problem and 2) these proposed rules are necessary or the best solution to the problem. If any statistically valid study shows that these rules as written will prevent a problem from arising that would otherwise have occurred, then I would readily endorse the rules and would in fact encourage the adoption of these rules. The analysis has not been done and I, in good conscience, must call the Board and its members to task for their failure to do so.