New data from licensing review coming online

New data from licensing review coming online

How are livestock dealers regulated in Nebraska? Do you need a license to be a private detective? And how many school principals have had their administrative certificates revoked?

Chances are you’ve never wondered any of these things before—but that’s OK, the point is, the answers are there now if you’re ever curious!

This information and much more data related to job licensing and regulation are now available on a new page in the reports section of the Nebraska Legislature website. The reports are divided by the responsible committees and the dates of submission.

The data is all part of the implementation of Nebraska’s new Occupational Board Reform Act, passed in 2018 as LB299. Under the new law, the Legislature must review 20% of the licensed occupations and licensing boards or authorities each year.

Boards and agencies selected for review this year are expected to have all their reports submitted to the Legislature by December. Then, senators will review these reports on their respective committees in order to identify areas where job licensing or regulation in Nebraska could possibly be made less restrictive.

Senators may then use that information to consider reform legislation that could reduce Nebraska’s job licensing burden with alternatives such as registration, certification, inspection, bonding, or potentially a repeal of licensing.

Every five years, each board and license on the books in Nebraska will be reviewed, providing a lot of data that our policymakers wouldn’t otherwise have easy access to. This can help policymakers learn more about the laws we have for getting a job or starting a business and how they can be improved.

It’s encouraging to see that the Occupational Board Reform Act, though still in its early phases, is already helping us have a more informed discussion about job licensing. It’s important for the public and policymakers to understand the thought process of regulators, and for those thoughts to be continually justified based on how these laws impact workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs in Nebraska.

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