(page 17)
Item Number III Requiring Training/Experience Before
Licensing (i.e., Fumigation), Section 593.5(b)1.
Just a minimum of background on that, we, this is the item selected
by the Board last time in our potential new agenda item discussion,
and it comes about because of what we've just heard, and that
is the potential risk to the public and to the fumigators themselves
from the products that they use, and how to balance that off with
the needs for additional training and/or experience either before
or after a license is gained. And the problem in the past has
been exactly what our I tried to clarify a while ago and that
is how do we require additional training and/or experience of
people without keeping them out of the business all together which
I don’t think it's something that this Board would have
an objection to doing. I, when we brought this up, I thought it
would go fairly quickly and it would be fairly simple and things
would go smoothly and based on the information that I've gotten,
we asked the staff to provide us with information for this Board
meeting so that we could discuss the whole topic. That information
has become voluminous, and I wonder if we are even at a point
right now to propose a regulation. I'd like for us to take today
at least to learn and maybe give an opportunity in the next few
weeks for those of you who are fumigators to communicate in writing
more of your, of the great information that you've provided this
morning to us on a solutions to some of these things. But first
I guess we need to identify if a problem exists at all. I hear
this morning from fumigators that we may want to limit either
increase the educational requirements before licensing or increase
the training after licensing or both. And before we propose a
regulation, I'd like for us to discuss in the future as a Board
whether or not existing regulations through better enforcement
might be able to solve some of these things that we've talked
about this morning or is a new regulation warranted? We asked
the staff to prepare the information for us, and I know that Mike
Buchanan who is the most knowledgeable person in fumigation that
we have on the Board has prepared quite a lot of material for
us. A lot of that is included in your Board book, the green sheets,
and once again we're really not going to have time to absorb all
of that during this Board meeting, but maybe between now and the
next one. But I'd like to turn it over to Dale at this point to
talk with Mike.
(page 18)
Mr. Burnett: I have a few comments. As Dr. Stone has brought
to your remembrance, you did ask the staff to prepare some documents.
We sent the Board five or six pages two weeks ago and as you might
guess we didn't stop working. We continue to gather information
so you have several documents that are green. As you start gathering
information, you start talking to pest control operators, as that
dialogue has increased as we've mirrored this as information continued
to flow. I think it will continue to flow, so my recommendation
to this Board is to proceed cautiously. Take, I think it would
be good to deliberate on the things that were said this morning.
I wanted to listen to the comments myself, and I will be going
back over the comments that were said this morning in the minutes.
I want to be able to collate and dissect, and I suggest that the
Board consider that also. There's been much said. I appreciate
the eight people who have spoken this morning. They, you took
the time to travel from Corpus and from southeast Texas, from
Dallas, and I very much appreciate you taking the time to do so.
But, I think there was some consensus but yet there was not exactly
one accord, and I think why we don’t have enforcement listed
on our topic today it may be something you want to consider next
time. As we try to identify a problem it's best to be sure we
identify the problem in its entirety or to its limited scope before
we decide on a solution, so I appreciate you doing that. Mike
is going to make a presentation this morning. Mike if you would
as you come to various sheets of paper that you have given to
the Board, either today or in recent weeks, you may need to be
sure to clarify the time periods. I don't know that was totally
captured in the statistics that were given.
As we prepared for this and started looking over the material,
I probably had as many questions come up as questions that were
answered, and I think that will still be the case after Mike makes
his presentation. With that we'll turn it to Mike. Is that okay?
Chairman Stone: You bet.
Mr. Buchanan: Thank you Dale. If the Board doesn't mind, I'm
going to stand, I talk a lot better when I stand up. I get bogged
down when I sit down, I might go to sleep. I usually start off
pretty slow when I'm giving any type of presentation, but as I
give it, I get excited so I'll probably end up going faster and
faster, so if I get too fast please stop me and ask me any questions
that you have. Helping me put some of this information and statistics
together was Murray Walton from our office in Austin. He is a
Project Manager there in Austin so he helped me with quite a few
of the statistics. What I'd like to do first of all, and I know
from most of the audience here today what I'm going to talk about
first, is very, very preliminary. It's probably below Fumigation
101. But I know that a lot of the Board Members sitting here today
really don't have much knowledge about fumigation at all because
they're either not involved in it or never have been involved
in any type of poisonous gas that's been applied. What is a fumigation…
See Mike's presentation attached.
Mr. Burnett: Thank you Mike, appreciate it, I know the Board
may have questions, or the audience, or for themselves. Dr. Stone
that's our report, we'll be glad to bring, we'll try to answer
questions from the Board, and we'll be glad to bring the Board
information back. Once he got on a roll, he found a wealth of
information out there, so we can bring back more if that's the
pleasure of the Board.
SU: Can I make a comment about what the industry is doing that
we haven't discussed, quickly just a real short one? As a distributor,
what Dow has done this year and 2001, is they've gone to all fumigators,
everybody who's doing structural fumigation and hiring an independent
contractor with a list and he goes out and individually call on
the fumigator, goes to a fumigation site, and critiques his fumigation,
and that's turned over to Dow. Last year it was not mandatory,
2002, it's
(page 19)
going to be mandatory. So those things are also (unclear), along
with the stewardship program, so there is a level that's it's
going up. It is just a small handful of people who are doing fumigations
and for the most part they should be qualified fumigators.
Chairman Stone: Phil, we can now start your question that you
asked for.
Mr. Tham: I think everybody nodded their head that it was going
up.
Ms. Aguirre: I'll disagree with that. There's a lot more limited
treatments going on with the use of borates, which is another
issue. Dr. Gold, and in the past I brought to the Board's attention
that, we were hoping at one point in time in the future would
get resolved. But I think that the trend in fumigation is going
down. It's a costly way to rid a structure with destroying insects,
and you see a lot of people looking at alternatives from spraying.
As Bryan was saying, aluminum siding with borates which isn't
going to do anything to rid the structure of the insects. But
your seeing a lot more of that going on, and I just wanted to
come back on Bill's remark there are stewardship program does
require QARs which are quality assurance reviews for fumigators.
Unfortunately, what happens if for example when they called our
company, we invited them and said when can we do it and we made
everything possible to accommodate Dow's representative and the
industry person that they hired was exceptional. He really, really
knew his stuff. Unfortunately, a lot of my competitors fled the
country that week. They were (coughing) all of a sudden, they
had no business when they were doing two or three a day, which
is a little bit startling because all of a sudden they're busy
and the next day Dow's in town to do QAR's and they're not there.
So hopefully, one of my biggest problems has been through Dow
is to insure that it is being mandatory, and then taking enforcement
action by not selling the product if their not going to follow
through on the stewardship policy and in turn making that information
available to (unclear) what good is it to do a QAR if the enforcement
agency that enforces the regs doesn't have privileged information
to it. They should be able, the investigator should be able to
look and review that documentation and know who's not following
the rules, who's not following stewardship. So going back on that
Chairman Stone: Let me make a point here. I've been reminded
by our legal authority that if you're going to ask a question
that involves the audience, you need to address them specifically
by name for the legal record.
From here forward, speakers were unknown since they did
not address themselves and hard to pick up due to not being in
front of the microphone.
Chairman Stone: Mike, have we ever had a death in Texas?
Mr. Buchanan: Yes.
Chairman Stone: Under a licensee?
Mr. Buchanan: One of our licensee's? I don't believe so.
Mr. Walton: There have been several deaths in the past from private
applicator use but there was some other wrongdoing involved other
than just fumigation.
Mr. Buchanan: And there has been some incidents with sickness
from fumigants in Texas. We have found a lot of this stuff if
it's not detectable(unclear) it does not get reported because
it was wrong.
(page 20)
Mr. Burnett: For the record, Dale Burnett, I was reflecting back
just this past week. I think I was on the phone with Vern, and
I reflected back to my early days at TDA in the 70's, and I didn't
report my sickness. But again that was a TDA application that
made several of us ill when we were checking grain warehouses.
In the 70's we had a different mentality than we do today. We
were going to tough it out, while we threw-up yet I got sick,
I didn't report it. My supervisor didn't follow up, so I'm adding
that as an example what Mike's talking to. I think we have some
statistics. A lot are unreported, so it's a guess as to how many
people get ill, whether it be TDA's licensees or our own.
Chairman Stone: Phil is it legal, we talked about while ago a
man that was injured by a TDA licensee. Is it legal for a TDA
licensee to do structural fumigation?
Mr. Tham: (Shakes his head no.)
Chairman Stone: Okay.
Mr. Tham: No, unless the structure is associated with producing
an Ag commodity.
Chairman Stone: Okay. Mike how do other states, Mike or Murray,
how do other states handle the issue that we're dealing with right
now in cross-licensing and/or required training
Mr. Buchanan: I'll speak to that, and I'll let Murray finish
up where I miss out. There is different ways, different states
and some handle it one way and some handle it the other. Some
of the states have a split license where you have a selling license
and an applicator license. Some states require to even be in that
business to be associated with or to have a business that is licensed.
You have to have so much experience before you can even have you
own licensed business. Some have the experience, qualifications.
We did not have enough time to dig into other state regulations
to give a good comparison on how different states did this. We
have some of the regs from some of the other states but have not
had time to dive into that and come up with some comparisons,
and plus, we really didn't know exactly what comparisons the Board
may want. We didn't want to bring a lot of data that the Board
would not be interested in specific areas of that.
Mr. Walton: The majority of states have all their pesticide regulations
at one agency. So we're somewhat unique in being one of the few
states that's different along with California, Arizona, Florida
has a separation for their structural as well, and Florida is
probably the most stringent in their requirements until a certified
applicator and they require a certain number of fumigation jobs
in Florida to qualify to take the test to become a certified applicator.
But we're probably one of the more stringent states now, and we
do have a line of demarcation between us and the Department of
Agriculture. Their's is raw agricultural commodities and ours
is any other commodities. So we do have a demarcation under which
one license should apply to the other, plus the cases that have
in fatalities in some cases a private applicator was working as
a noncommercial applicator but they generally involved smuggling
people from Mexico and putting them into a boxcar that was fumigated
rather than ?? and if you want some information, we've got some
information on this.
Chairman Stone: The information your summarizing in the near
future would be available to mail to the Board.
Dr. Gold: Mr. Chairman how do we do business with this issue?
What are we allowed to do today?
(page 21)
Chairman Stone: To me we are just in the learning process Roger.
I think we have all this expertise out here. That's an incredible
amount of expertise to have in one room, and I would hope this
Board that we could learn with them what questions come to our
mind. The basic question that we're attacking is how do we, or
do we require additional training and/or experience, or either
existing licensee's or new licensee's, and I had hoped that we
could get a lot of information.
Dr. Gold: Dale, if we were to deal with this situation of eliminating
everyone that doesn't do an active fumigation within the three
year period, they lose their license, would that, what impact
would that have on our income to the Board and/or our general
operation?
Mr. Burnett: Well from the testimony I've heard today, I think
I heard twenty to thirty people certainly less than fifty active
people, and I had a number of people that were licensed. My guess
is that it wouldn't have as big an impact as we might fear because
as Vern said a lot of 'um , a lot of people this is an add on
category. So my guess is it would have minimal impact on our budget.
But a very good question, and one I need to follow-up more to
get comfortable with that. But I doubt, as I did I too was licensed
in fumigation. And never did one hands on because I was wanting
to be tested and licensed in all categories because that in itself
seemed to be a worthy thing. So to use my own example, it was
an add on, and I think that's the case with many people.
Dr. Gold: I would also think that we may want to look at the
situation of being able to market a fumigation service versus
to perform it, separating them out. That might also take care
of part of these problems.
Chairman Stone: I was going to ask Mr. Walter if during your
year as Chairman of the Board and all that, did ya'll ever discuss
splitting the fumigation into a selling versus an actual fumigation
type license?
Mr. Walter: No, we felt that if you're going to sell it you need
almost as much knowledge or probably as much knowledge as the
person applying it otherwise you may sell it inappropriately and
possibly in a dangerous field and selling a fumigation next to
a school is an example or something like that. So, no, we actually
did look at putting it into several categories, ship fumigation
and fumigation and food (unclear) two other categories that we
did consider at one time.
Chairman Stone: One other question of you Mr. Walter. We struggled
with the problem of pretreats for a lot of years and during your
presentation I wondered too if we reached a point where we required
Board notification (coughing) fumigations, just like we do for
pretreats, would that help in our regulatory capacity?
Mr. Walter: I think it would help in the regulatory capacity,
and Bill, do you see that that would be a problem for the fumigator?
Mr. Cohen: We're having to notify the authorities already so
it's not.
Chairman Stone: We have it set it where there's an 800 number
for the Board that they call. A person doing a pretreat calls
and says we're going to be doing a pretreat at a certain time,
which gives the Board the option to say we have the manpower available
we're going to go watch this thing which means the sheriff is
at the gate of any pretreat, and I wondered it that type impression.
(page 22)
Mr. Walter(?): I would certainly recommend it. I can think of
one fumigation that's coming up that is a very large fumigation,
and Bill, I know is going to go personally down to take a look
at it just because he feels there's a certain amount of risk involved.
And I think, if the Board was notified ahead of time, that would
be red flagged immediately. It was such a large fumigation there
is so much gas present the chance of leakage is severe (paper
shuffling) in a public area and (cannot pick up for paper shuffling).
Chairman Stone: Other Board? Madeline do you have questions?
Would you have an estimate Mr. Walter of, we've been friends for
so long I hate to call you Mr. Walter. A number of total fumigations
per year in Texas?
Mr. Walter: No I don't, Bill or somebody like that would have
a better hold on them then I would.
Chairman Stone: Bill
Mr. Cohen: We have distributors. We have to each month, we have
to notify Dow, we've sold for that particular month, so those
number are on file with Dow.
Chairman Stone: But that's not necessarily the number of jobs.
Mr. Cohen(?): You could divide it and figure it out.
Mr. Burnett: I think what our interest is, I know my interest
in having talked to Dr. Stone some last night, is a ballpark.
We're not looking to see if there's 342. We want to know is it
if there's a way, maybe Debbie or someone else depending who you
want to call upon, is it 1,000, or is it 10,000? Because as we
start looking at remedies for what we may perceive as a problem
or problems, if sending in faxes, or emails, or whatever the mechanism
is, if that is something of choice that the Board chooses to impose.
We need to know volume, and I don't have an idea.
SU: As I recall.
SU: We can get pretty exact. Just I can get the Dow rep (name
unclear) to look it up and give you the last couple of years what
the total
Chairman Stone: Okay surely your experience gives you an impression
though Bill. Is it 500 a year?
Mr. Cohen(?): It's probably more.
Chairman Stone: Is it 2,000 a year?
SU: Yes.
Mr. Cohen: (unclear).
Chairman Stone: You don't think it's 2,000. 1500?
Mr. Cohen(?): Probably 1,200 or so.
(page 23)
Chairman Stone: 1,000 to 1,500 in that range then.
Mr. Cohen: Possibly.
Dr. Gold: That's a number when we did a survey a few years ago.
That's a number I think we were around 1,500 back then. That's
been eight years ago.
Mr. Burnett: For structural?
Mr. Cohen(?): In California, they do more in one month than we
do in two weeks than we do all year long
SU: Sure.
Mr. Burnett: Mr. Chairman, may I ask Otis a question?
Chairman Stone: Sure.
Mr. Burnett: Otis, you had mentioned you
"lost a guy". He is deceased?
Mr. Woods: Yes.
Mr. Burnett: If I could ask some follow-up
questions to you with that. What kind of training had the deceased
received?
Mr. Woods: Really the training that he
had was just for putting the tarps up. Knowing how to roll the
tarps, you know, and sealing the house. He didn't deal with the
gases at all.
Mr. Burnett: Okay, and how long had this
person been on this type of work?
Mr. Woods: Couple of years.
Mr. Burnett: Couple of years.
Mr. Woods: About two years I believe.
Mr. Burnett: Among the things that have been suggested today,
they've ranged from, you've heard'em. Are any of these remedies
do you think that would've prevented that?
Mr. Woods: I think the inspections, if there was a way that we
could do that, the Board could be notified of when the fumigation
was and be able to be there. I think that would be a start because
it puts the person on guard that someone will be there, and you
don't know when, but someone may be there.
Mr. Burnett: Okay. I don't have any other questions for Otis,
thank you.
Chairman Stone: Mr. Walter another question for you. The comment
was made by a couple of people that there are very few new people
coming in to fumigation. Is that your impression as well?
Mr. Walter: That's my impression, yes.
(page 24)
Chairman Stone: So our, the task that we originally started off
on. Which was to identify additional or possible additional training
needs for new fumigators may not necessarily be the problem we
should be looking at?
Dr. Gold(?): No that's just the point I'm trying to bring out.
I think your aiming at the wrong thing. The majority of your headache
is in the people that already have a license, and even if some
other people do come in, if we work on having good training and
good enforcement that the (place to go? someone sneezing)
Chairman Stone: A few years ago, when I first came into the pest
control business, we had a requirement for all the people licensed
in termite control to go to special schools. We said we're going
to have to upgrade our termite people. Is that feasible with all
the fumigators to require that they go to some one day or two
day school in order to maintain their license?
SU: I think so. And I think the schools need to be specialized.
I think that a day or so just on fumigation (unclear) is going
to be warranted. With the fact that Sulphuric Borid will soon
be available, and it's a very different chemical same way even
people that's been doing tent fumigation with Sulphuric Borid
will find, it's a very different thing when they're working in
food (unclear) that Dow has found out.
Dr. Gold: Could I make a comment generally on that? I think industry
does a very good job in their stewardship program. We have two
companies that represented and spoke to that issue today. Three
with Bill obviously representing the Dow side. I have some concerns,
a little bit about the industry, the manufacturers getting in
the regulatory side of the business. They can begin to use, theoretically
they can begin to use those powers which they usurp from the Board
to collect bills and to punish and so forth. And so I really have
some concerns about that type of an issue. However, I think that
perhaps we could accept the Board may want to consider accepting
their certificate as proof of training toward this end with some
involvement from the Board in saying that there are specific standards
that have to be upheld, and one of them appears to be on the job
or actually hands on type training, more than just sitting. Dan
Ayers said for example their training goes from one hour. If they
get the time to three hours well that's not enough quite frankly.
So I think maybe we can come up with a standard of what the training
would entail and then they present, like you do when you renewal
your license with your insurance card saying, here's my card from
the fumigation stewardship program saying that I'm on record of
having completed this. For ten or twenty people, quite frankly,
Texas A&M University isn't going to set up a training, a fumigation
school, it's just not economically feasible. And it may not be
economically feasible, I don't know, to send people to Florida
to the existing ones. Although that would be a good thing to do,
and so I don't know what we're going to do for training in Texas.
Chairman Stone: Somebody mentioned Oklahoma. Is there a school
in Oklahoma?
Dr. Gold: No there's not.
SU: (Mr. Cohen?): Commodity schools, grain elevator fumigations,
I know that all the structural (unclear) Gulf Coast and Louisiana.
Chairman Stone: So, Bill tell me then, where are the training
school that would be more comprehensive? We were talking about
one.
SU: (unclear) or commodity or structural?
(page 25)
Mr. Cohen: The only school that Dow helps put on, and Browder
County Junior College puts on, is a four or five day course they
offer a couple times a year. California has the distributors do
their own training program so they have schools.
Chairman Stone: Dr. Gold don't you think if we require a school
like that to maintain license we would get more than the fifteen
or twenty that actually, if you threaten all the rest of' em with
the loss of their license, your probably going to increase your
attendance?
Dr. Gold: Well, and I'm not even implying that Texas A&M
has the experience, but certainly a faculty could be put together
from the industry to teach a school.
Chairman Stone: I would think so too.
Dr. Gold: But again we're learning from the termite school that's
it's very difficult to cover your cost and so forth. I'm just
saying I wish that there were another way to do this. In other
words as we consider it, we ought to consider that if they wanted
to send their people to Florida, we would accept that certificate.
Or if they wanted to do an on the job training, where they would
go out with a licensed fumigator for six months or something that
that would satisfy the requirement. I think we just have to have
a number of options that people can look at.
Chairman Stone: Les did you have questions?
Mr. Hoyt: No actually a couple of comments. I made a couple of
notes that weren’t mentioned and that was one on existing
licensees. I agree that looking at all those that are just holding
licenses limiting the time period you can hold that licensee without
having some kind of certification. And I like the notification
idea that was discussed to make the Board aware of when fumigation's
going to occur.
Chairman Stone: Tommy (unclear), Phil
SU: Do the manufacturers of these gases have the liability? And
they're conducting the schools and their programs. Would they
feel confident to sell to those people who are using it? And they're
refining their programs, and each year they refine a little bit
more, and it's sure extra added education would be great. I don't
know where we'll ask them to do something beyond over and beyond
what their already doing.
Dr. Gold: Mr. Chairman, one of the thing's I would like to have
the staff, if it's to your agreement, look at is our relationship
with TDA, and see if we need to be looking at this situation again.
I don't know that it's been visited for several years. Phil, I
don't know how meaneable people are to looking at that.
Mr. Tham: That's an option.
Dr. Gold: Okay, well, but this is a fairly important issue, and
I don't think ought be dissuaded by the amount of work that's
involved.
Mr. Tham: We sat down since the 911 incident. We've sat down
and gone though our regulations and the law and outlined some
things that should, tightening up of things that need to be done,
here's where the opportunities are. So we've gone though that,
or in the process of going through that exercise anyway. Some
of these issues have come up in that, in that realm.
(page 26)
Chairman Stone: Phil, tell me, not being in fumigation, this
is a new world for me. How did we wind up with a split in the
Structural Board? That seems to me, the logical split would be
TDA for commodities and in structural for structures?
Mr. Tham: That's basically the way the split is. The only, the
exceptions are structures that are associated with the ag stuff.
Which when folks around here in this building, in this room, think
about structural applications are structural applicators, they're
talking about folks that are going to residences and doing applications.
Which is not, not what we talk about when we talk about structure.
Mr. Burnett: Your talking grain bin itself?
Mr. Tham: Right. That's the difference between. And a lot of
it has to do with keeping agriculture as a business able to take
care of itself. And they've got a strong lobby to do that.
Chairman Stone: Are there a lot of licensees with the Board that
also are licensed in fumigation with TDA?
Mr. Tham: Now that I don't know. I don't know the answer to that
question.
Dr. Gold: Can a person who's licensed by this Board, can they
do on farm fumigation of grain vents with a commodity fumigation
license? I would think they can.
SU: Yeah.
SU: If you lump all fumigants together, 80% of them or more,
80% of the fumigants used in Texas are used with a TDA license.
Mr. Tham(?): Grain warehouse are probably the majority of the
use of methyl bromide.
SU: I'm a distributor of all those products and, by far, most
of my fumigants go to TDA.
Chairman Stone: Mr. Walter mentioned ship fumigation, does that
come under TDA or Structural?
SU: A ship is considered a structure…..(Too many people
talking at the same time)
Dr. Gold: I guess after all of this, is this really an issue?
I mean your talking twenty companies, talking twenty-two violations
in seven years, is this a problem?
Chairman Stone: That's what I asked yesterday when Mike went
through some of this information. We had a grilling session yesterday,
and I came down with the same question, does the problem exist?
If we've never killed anybody, I know the potential exists to
kill somebody, but potential exists that you're going to die on
the way home in your car or a plane's going to fall out of the
air and hit you. What does the Board believe? How do the rest
of ya'll feel about this?
Mr. Tham: I see all things being equal given that we are have
the presence out there that we need to have where these things
are concerned, and the bad outcomes are the ones that nobody's
going to be able to hide. Those things we are going to find out
about. The statistics don't say there's a huge problem here in
my opinion.
(page 27)
Chairman Stone: When Mike and I were talking yesterday he showed
me a video tape that he was talking about showing this morning.
And we were of course discussing this additional training for
new licensees that was what we started out with anyway. After
I looked at the videotape of this really horrible thing that happened
with fumigation, my questions then were is this man licensed already?
How long has he been licensed? Has he met all of our Continuing
Education Unit (CEU) requirements? Turns out, this is a very long
experienced fumigator and he really blew it on this job, caused
a lot of problems. So all of our deliberations about additional
training for a new licensee were for naught. I mean we're not
dealing with a new licensee, and if we're hearing that there are
very few new licensees coming in the field then maybe we should
be looking more at current licensees.
Mr. Burnett: It's one thing. Add a caveat to that last statement.
It's the, it's not a lot of new businesses, but there is turnover
in their commercial applicators. So we do have new people, but
the companies are relatively the same. That's my understanding.
Dr. Gold: Now, there and then, I really promise to be quiet after
this. I kept a record of everyone that spoke here and the general
comment that they made and almost to a person with just one exception
everybody wanted a higher standard for licensing and continuing
education units and so I think we ought to hear that message that
the test ought to be more difficult. There ought to be a higher
standard for continuing education units, and I think maybe industry
that the suppliers are going to provide that if we would ask them
to do it, give them some ideas on what we want. The other thing
I hear is that we probably ought to be getting notification of
when the fumigations are done in advance and get our inspectors
more involved in this. And maybe that would help. And we need
to give them the equipment that they can go and independently
and monitor the amount of gas in the structure, and I think maybe
part of these problems might becoming, be handled by that.
Chairman Stone: That's what we talked about that a little bit
yesterday. That as long as we know the sheriff is at the gate,
as Dale's illustration, we are always going to be a little better
on the job that we do. And if the Board knows about those fumigations,
that would seem to me we have the capacity to be at the gate.
Dr. Gold: Right.
Chairman Stone: Any time.
Dr. Gold: Last comment then is my philosophically. I still don't
like the concept that you can sit for an examination and go on
the properties of another person without having had any practical
experience when you hang your shingle in any category, not just
fumigation, and I'd like to be on record for that. In other words,
we have to get your first license, you have to serve your time.
Well shouldn't that be the same for each subsequent license as
well? It just makes sense that you should demonstrate your ability
to do the work.
Chairman Stone: Okay. Madeline do you have a comment?
Ms. Gamble: Yeah. I was just going to say I like the idea of
having an investigator on site, but we also need numbers of the
fumigations because having an opportunity of seeing a fumigation
last year it's a time consuming process. I mean it's more than
just a day when it's done right, and that can take a considerable
amount of time of the investigators.
(page 28)
Mr. Tham: Just responding and keeping track of where their occurring
is going to take somebody's office time at the very least.
Chairman Stone: That comes in to the Board by fax or email or?
Mr. Burnett: It's by fax, right?
Mr. Crull: Fax or voice.
Chairman Stone: Fax or voice. (unclear) in line right?
Mr. Crull: Yes.
Chairman Stone: The Board can choose to do what they want to
with that information. So if they don't have the manpower all
the time, but anytime Debbie called in with a fumigation, she
would be on alert that he may show up.
Ms. Aguirre(?): Are you Okay?
Chairman Stone: No, no offense.
SU: Mr. Chairman are all the field investigators licensed in
all categories?
Mr. Burnett: I don't believe that's the case and of course common
sense would have us
SU: In trying to check levels of gas they're going to have to
know how to use the equipment?
Mr. Burnett: Agree, agreed. That we would, that would be a must.
Chairman Stone: Debbie.
Ms. Aguirre: Jay, I just have, one of the things that and I'm
going to use this as an example because I did this last week,
last Thursday. We had always been taught in the industry if we
want to keep regulations down we need to regulate our self. If
something is going wrong in the industry, then it's my responsibility
to pick up the phone and call the Board. If I know that somebody's
doing or making performing an illegal fumigation, it is my responsibility
to call the Board. You know, if I'm doing a fumigation and my
local investigator shows up, I hope and pray that he's knowledgeable
enough to know if it's being done incorrectly. You know, just
because the investigator shows up doesn’t' mean that he
knows what he's doing. I cannot reiterate how important it is
to train the personnel and insure that they carry the equipment
to be able to take out the hose, plug it into a monitoring device
and know how to work it and how to read it. He should also be
as familiar as the fumigator is in knowing how much gas he should
inject into that structure based on the humidity level, the wind
speed, the temperature, the average temperature. There are so
many variables that go into a fumigation including the type of
soil or the type of insect that your trying to remedy. So that's
where the investigators really, really need to be trained cause
if you were to get me one of those newer investigators, I could
tell them a thousand stories and he wouldn't know the difference,
you know (two people speaking at the same time).
For example, last week I called and I asked to have my local inspector
to call me back because I knew of something going on that shouldn't
be going on but I (unclear) and said go check it out. Unfortunately,
he was in Houston, I know manpower is shortage, but here we had
the perfect opportunity to finally catch a fumigator that had
repeatedly been doing things that he shouldn't be
(page 29)
doing, and the opportunity was lost because he was covering somebody's
else area, and I really don't know how to attack that because
they cover such a wide area that it's like they know when the
investigator's not in town, and doggone if that's not when most
of the fumigations are going on, it's like everybody tells everybody
else. Just like when everybody knows Mike's coming to town, all
of a sudden everybody's wearing the right equipment. You know
Chairman Stone: Debbie you pushed a button over here, I felt
the shifting in the seat.
Mr. Burnett: Well actually I totally agree with Debbie, everything
that she's said. But I wanted, I think it's important that you
know that we agree. I think it's important that we not agree and
walk away agreeing with no remedy. As a matter of fact, we'll
talk about it later in the program when we talk about Strategic
Plan. Strategic Plan reflects a 39% turnover rate, and so while
we can say we ought to do this and that, investigators ought to
be trained and our investigators ought to be this, I think the
problem doesn't lie in our efforts to train. I think it lies in
our effort to retain. And so we can agree I think to accomplish
a mutual goal which is a separate problem. We'll talk about that
later, but it's not that we don't agree with training, it's just
that Mike Buchanan is the exception to our retention so…
(Did not pick up.)
Mr. Burnett: I very much appreciate that comment. Might could
use you in a year from now Debbie as the Legislature convenes.
Ms. Aguirre: Been there, done that, and that's just as frustrating.
Chairman Stone: At this point, would, is the Board comfortable
with me trying to compile some or all of this testimony and the
information we have and come back next time with another set of
questions to you about existing regs or adding to the regs or
would you allow me to do that? I'm not sure we can solve anything
today. I'm not sure we want to solve anything today. But I'll
get the additional information from the staff that we requested
and try to get all that disseminated to you early enough that
you'll have a chance to go through it.
Dr. Gold: But that's two months away, and if this is an issue,
I'd like to see it addressed so that when we meet again we do
work.
Chairman Stone: That would be my intention is to bring something
that we can actually begin to vote on or shoot down or support,
one or the other.
Mr. Burnett: I would hope the Board found the information we
brought useful.
Chairman Stone: It's exceptionally useful.
Mr. Burnett: and I believe that that's part of what I would call
work is being informed before we move forward. Is it the pleasure
of the Board that we add an enforcement component to the title
of this topic?
Chairman Stone: Yes. That would be my preference.
Mr. Burnett: I think, as we prepared, we saw that as a component,
but we didn't talk a lot about that. We just touched on it today,
but we will add that component. We will try to collate this Dr.
Stone with your assistance. There's been some of the same things
said which I think are quite
(page 30)
valuable. But we, I, like Dr. Stone, identified probably ten
themes that came up and we will certainly add those up.
Chairman Stone: Okay. Are there any other questions or comments
from the Board?
Mr. Cantu: I actually have a question for Dale, and or, maybe
Mike. How close are we, close to accomplishing what Debbie is
asking, and are we that far off. I understand there is somewhere
between twenty, twenty-five companies that operate on a regular
basis doing fumigation. Most of them along the coastal bend. So
it sounds to me that if we have work to do, it's with a handful
of inspectors to start off with, and we graduate further north
into the areas as needed. But, are we close where we can send
inspectors if we're going to add enforcement to this?
Mr. Burnett: It's my understanding that four out of your seven
have less than two years experience, is that correct?
Mr. Buchanan: Yes, and what has to be considered, I mean what
Debbie Aguirre had to say has a lot of truth in it, but you have
to break it down. There is knowledge in a different ? of doing
or performing an effective fumigation than something that isn't
dangerous or it's performed in a manner consistent with the label
so it would be safe and not a danger. Those are two different
items. To perform a really good effective fumigation, you need
a lot more training in some areas than you would on a safety end
of it. To perform one safely, the investigators do need to be
trained to recognize a lot of different things. But the main thing
is to recognize when a fumigation is not being performed in a
safe manner, or consistent with the label, where there is an endangerment.
That is a lot easier training to give an investigator than the
part if fumigation is an effective one. In other words, the consumer
is not getting ripped off because the fumigator is not applying
enough gas to things like that.
Mr. Burnett: I think to sum it up Tommy, is that I don't feel
like we have the people trained at this time to do it, Mike's
it. So the answer, so if you were to say implement notification
tomorrow, start putting your field inspectors to do more use observations
in this category, I'd say we're a long ways away from that.
Mr. Buchanan: I got one in Houston.
Mr. Burnett: So, we have one in Houston, and Mike. We're a long
ways away, months and months away from, maybe over a year, before
we have some level of confidence in being able to follow-up.
Dr. Gold: But we need to start that process I think.
Chairman Stone: Of course, if we don't have the notification
in place, if we put the notification in place then the fumigators
that are running for the hills that your talking about will not
be hidden anymore and it may be
Ms. Aguirre: If their calling in…..their required to calling
now and I feel they don't. They'll call two minutes before their
injecting the fumigant. That's always been a problem, and it'll
take the following day before the investigator knows that they
had a fumigation the day before. Some of us call a day before.
Those few that if they do call, are calling as they shot the gas,
if they shot gas.
(page 31)
Chairman Stone: Right now though we don't have a regulatory requirement
for them to call the Board, and if we had that in place, if Mike
was available, then at least we'd know where some of those guys
are going to be. Any other questions?
Mr. Tham: I just want to make one comment, and don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying that this is something that the Board shouldn't
do, but you start doing something, there's an expectation that
or you start gathering information, there's an expectation out
there that you're going to do something with that. So, if you
start having folks call in now and it's two years before you start
doing anything with that, somebody is likely to raise an eyebrow
between those two timeframes. It's just an observation.
Dr. Gold: We can obviously inspect some immediately, but there's
another issue related to fumigation that Debbie brought up, and
that was that we took action on heat and there are some of us
feel it probably goes under the fumigation category. So I need,
would ask, that staff take a look at how we're going to handle
another form of fumigation of heat.
Mr. Burnett: So you would like for me to add heat to this discussion
like we're adding enforcement, add heat?
Chairman Stone: What is the question about heat?
Dr. Gold: Well the heat is, heat is a commercial pest control
practice that this Board approved. And we didn't assign it to
a category that a person has to be licensed in. And the closest
one on record is fumigation because of the tarps and ceiling and
I don't care which category you put it in. But there are people
who want to use the technology, and they need to know what categories
they need to hold, and we need to know pretty soon.
Chairman Stone: Is that an item that needs to go on the agenda
or does it need to?
SU: It's being done in Texas right now.
Chairman Stone: Does it need to be interpreted legally or does
it need to go on the agenda?
Mr. Crull: Needs to be a Board item.
Chairman Stone: It needs to be a Board item, okay it'll be on
the next Board meeting. Any other comments by Board Members?
Mr. Burnett: Dr. Stone, I think that it would be wise if I called
or reiterated one thing, is that there has been an interest in
raising the categories or raising the bar in several categories.
There has been an interest expressed by several in past years
and since the last Board meeting. I think that as we look at fumigation
there might be some lessons learned about how that may or may
not apply to other categories. So I'm trying to not only look
at fumigation, but are there some lessons learned from this effort
that may apply to other categories.
Chairman Stone: Okay. Okay were going to move to item number
four, it being ten till twelve.
Agenda Item IV. Proposed Amendments to Change 591.21(9)
- Definitions.
Chairman Stone: This item comes on the agenda because we have
members of our industry who have decided that it is not illegal
to submit a disclosure document and/or other documents
(page 32)
completely blank because our regs do not specifically say that
the items within the document have to be filled out. It merely
says the document has to be presented. These companies are doing
this and saying they have a legal position to do this, and what
you see here is an attempt to close that loophole. I would never
of even thought of that myself but could of saved myself a lot
of time if I had. So the document that came under question was
the termite treatment disclosure document. Most commonly put,
in looking at this the recommendation from staff was that we try
to fill this perceived loophole in all of our documents at the
same time, and we can do that by changing the (unclear) of document.
So that is where this came from.
Mr. Burnett: Would it be okay with the Board if Frank said a
few words to this issue.
Chairman Stone: Yes, you bet.
Mr. Crull: I don't really have anything to add beyond what Dr.
Stone's added. I would point out that the situation that was occurring
was as Enforcement staff saw it. As a case of people following
the law, but clearly breaking the spirit by getting (unclear)
documents out and meeting the rule that that particular document.
Dr. Stone discussed at that point. We went back and examined our
documents and discovered that not all are completely defined as
the law would like them defined. This definition that we proposed
basically went to almost every document that the Board has and
indicates that this has to be filled out when it's presented to
either the consumer or to the Board in that regard. I've drafted
part of the definition based upon case law that's been provided
by the Texas Supreme Court in the later half of the definition.
Chairman Stone: I can argue either side of this issue. I just,
I have real reservations about us defining a document like this,
but I don't see how else we can close the loophole. Comments or
question from the Board?
Dr. Gold: Now there's a problem. I think your're creating another
set of problems when you write it down like this. What does the
word entirely mean? In other words, and does it have, I thought
the issue was more or less was really whether or not they were
signing the disclosure sheet?
Mr. Crull: No, that was not the issue on that particular one.
As I said, we didn't rely just on the one particular document.
I've gone back and started examining other cases that we had,
and it showed they were complying with the regulation, but they
were slipping through because in a similar manner. They were like
skirting the edge and not going over the line and that not being
a violation at that point. As for definition entirety, that's
a definition taken from Webster's Dictionary or legal definition
in that regard.
Mr. Morrison: I have a question Mr. Chairman. Your interpretation
is to arrive from (unclear)
Chairman Stone: In talking with Dale, I told him that those of
us who work so hard to obey the law don't fear the Board. What
I fear is the attorney who has me on the stand and says Dr. Stone,
doesn't the law say that every part of this document has to be
filled out? Well, here's a blank space right here. Haven't you
disobeyed the law? You've violated the law. Well technically I
have violated the law, which really puts me in the dumps as far
the case goes that he's got against me. So I fear that this can
be, we're trying to take it to, we know what we want to do with
it, but the wording says it's going to be filled out IN IT'S ENTIRETY
which scares me as far as there are certain areas of these documents
that I don't fill out either because their not appropriate necessarily
for what I'm doing.
(page 33)
Mr. Burnett: Would it be better, is there a way Frank, to deal
with this issue when certainly there are times when there are
blanks on a form that are not applicable?
Mr. Crull: I think the legal definition entirety reflects that
concept.
Mr. Burnett: Okay.
Mr. Crull: If you're not supposed to check off a box, you're
certainly allowed to leave it blank and move on.
Mr. Burnett: If it's not applicable?
Mr. Crull: If it's not applicable.
Dr. Gold: The other question was, what about the signature? Do
we need to address that as a different issue or is that part of
the same issue?
Mr. Crull: I think signature is covered by this definition that's
proposed by the staff.
Dr. Gold: Okay.
Chairman Stone: Do we have a motion before us?
Mr. Hoyt: I move that this be proposed, 591.21(9) is that correct?
Mr. Crull: And renumbering.
Mr. Hoyt: and the renumbering.
Chairman Stone: Is there a second?
Ms. Gamble: I second.
Chairman Stone: Now it's legal for us to discuss it.
Dr. Gold: Yes, I'll second.
Chairman Stone: Any other observations, questions, (unclear).
In that case, then I guess we will call for a vote on this. All
in favor of making this proposal a go forward raise your right
hand. All opposed, no opposition so we'll proceed forward.
Dr. Gold: I just hope that this is inclusive. I mean we really
haven't spent a lot of time studying it, so
Mr. Crull: I've spent a lot of time.
Dr. Gold: Okay.
Mr. Crull: And I'm satisfied with the definition.
Dr. Gold: Then that's fine.
(page 34)
Chairman Stone: I'm going at the risk of offending ya'll, the
rest of you on the Board, I'm going to ask the staff to send a
blank copy of the disclosure document to each of you to see how
much time it takes to fill it out. I don't think we as a Board
pay any attention to that whatsoever, the amount of time that
we're imposing on people out there trying to do this work. You
can fill it out if you want to or not. But I'm going to ask the
staff to send it to you anyway. All right, we'll go forward with
that. The Strategic Plan is next are ya'll open to continuing?
Does anyone object to continuing through to get this done? First
of all, I want to thank Les and Phil and Lee for all their work
on this thing as well as extraordinary work by the staff, and
ask if the three of them have any comments that they want to make
about the Strategic Plan that's presented in this book?
Mr. Morrison: Mr. Chairman, I first of all I want to commend
Dale and Dianna and Murray for the work involved on some of the
revisions and some new ideas I want to really commend them all
the staff (cannot pick up his voice) really had a change couple
of occasions.
Mr. Hoyt: The only thing I would like to reiterate something
that Dale's already brought up, and that is as we were going through
this to note the turnover rate that we've been experiencing in
the agency. And I understand the impact that has on the industry
and our part of our responsibility to the consumer's out there
also . (unclear) in the future to be looking at that benefit all.
Chairman Stone: With that, Phil did you have any comments?
Mr. Tham: I just want to point out we do have an additional goal
in the document that you might want to pay attention to when you're
looking through there.
Chairman Stone: What we need is a motion to adopt this so that
we can discuss it.
Mr. Hoyt: I move for adoption.
Chairman Stone: Is there a second?
Ms. Gamble: I second.
Chairman Stone: Motion is second. One just bit of information
on this. We are, thanks to the hard work of this committee and
the subcommittee, we are well ahead of the curve on this since
in proof we don't even have the format from the LBB that this
is supposed to be in yet. So we're a little bit ahead of it, but
we still need to take, yeah this is last year's format Dale just
pointed out to me. But now is the time to make suggestions and
changes or ask the questions of the group or the staff.
Mr. Morrison: I have a comment on that Mr. Chairman. I certainly
concur with Les's concern about the turnover. We will continually
face issues that the public (unclear) is today in terms of enforcement
issues and just a myriad of other admin issues with the turnover
rate. I think we need, as a Board, we need to collectively look
at what we can do to minimize the turnover rate on that. To me,
as we went through this Strategic Plan, that was the most striking
main issue that really creates a problem for the operational side
of the Structural Pest Control Board, is the major amount of turnover.
Dr. Gold: Dale are we doing exit interviews with these people
to find out why they're leaving?
(page 35)
Mr. Burnett: Yes, we are now. We have not done so on a methodical
basis in years past. But we're doing so now.
Dr. Gold: Okay good.
Mr. Morrison: It's just really hard to operate (unclear) when
field investigator turnover rate 39%. The learning curve by training
someone to do that position, and the fact the turnover rate is
high is certainly a very tainted position to be in .
Mr. Burnett: As I said, currently Mike's four out of seven are
less than two years. He has one opening he needs to fill. We've
been hesitant to fill it because he's been so busy training the
first four and don't have time to train the fifth new one. But
when we do fill that one, hopefully this spring, he will have
five out of his eight with less than two years, and they take
high supervision so they don't get hurt.
Mr. Morrison: Part of that, I'd like to go on record, that on
the pay issue we need to break down the components of why the
turnover rate is so high, and I think whether or not reviewing
some of the pay structure on the investigators certainly would
lend itself towards being one of those issues.
Mr. Tham: I'd like to add just one thing to that given the turnover
rate and stuff that the Board is experiencing and the already
thinness of the staff. That's one thing that we as the Board need
to keep in the back of our mind where implementing new things
or things, new directions for the staff to be going in. But they
already are stretched pretty thin and we have a high turnover
rate so those play into the equation there, so.
Chairman Stone: Is our turnover greater in the investigators
or in the office?
Mr. Burnett: It's across the agency. It's pretty much, well we
don't have a nitch. It's between Licensing, Accounting and investigators
we've had in each area. So it's not like we have a nitch problem.
Chairman Stone: Is the rate similar now over the last six months?
Mr. Burnett: We've had four since August, so that would put us
at 10% for seven or eight months. Which is 10 and 12%. I based,
I'll base a comment on year old data. But year old data the average
turnover in private industry was around 12% in Texas. So you're
going to have some turnover between marriage and children and
various things that are unavoidable and people advancing their
careers. But I think the Legislature is recognizing that 30 &
40% is outside the real of normalcy.
Mr. Morrison: Yeah, if I'm not mistaken the state of Texas was
at 17% last year.
Mr. Burnett: The State of Texas year old data. Again, I'm referring
to year old data, was at 17%.
Mr. Morrison: And with the Structural Pest Control Board being
at 39% that's quite disturbing.
Chairman Stone: Are these people going to other agencies or private
business?
Mr. Burnett: Both.
(page 36)
Chairman Stone: Mainly?
Mr. Burnett: I can't tell you, Rita can you?
Ms. Martinez: Mainly other state agencies.
Chairman Stone: Mainly other agencies. So it's a matter of more
pay being offered in other agencies.
Mr. Burnett: We've lost several to TNRCC.
Chairman Stone: Those people over there (several people talking)
We got one from TNRCC. Other comments or questions about the plan?
Mr. Morrison: No. Yes sir, I, I've a comment I think we recognize
the problem as error and how can we break it down in components
to resolve that instead of one we recognize we have very high
turnover rate and versus the state being at 17. And the Structural
Pest Control Board being at 39%, how can we go about resolving
that?
Chairman Stone: Is this legislative?
Mr. Burnett: Partly. If I may go ahead and make a short presentation,
is that okay with ya'll?
Chairman Stone: You bet.
Mr. Burnett: Okay. We've actually talked about one piece of the
Strategic Plan, and for the audience hearing that term, if I were
in your shoes, I would start glossing over real fast, because
that sounds like a very boring term. But actually when you realize,
and I think the Board does, the Strategic Plan is our blueprint,
and we don't get to order our building materials without a blueprint.
So we're anxious I think sometimes to beat ourselves up, or beat
the legislature up about we want more money, more money, and more
money. But without a plan you have zero chance, with a plan 50-50.
So, we go about looking at the Strategic Plan in a very serious
manner. And I want to compliment the committee members who had
to pour over page after page, after page with us. I began the
process with members of the staff, Murray, and Rita, and Frank,
and others, and we ask ourselves a very basic question: why are
we here? I started reading the law book again one night, and I
found out why we are here. It's pretty obvious. We're here to
license people. That's our first reason for existing. We're not
here to give people raises, we are not here to make their lives
perfect, among the staff. We are here to license people. Now part
of accomplishing licensing people may include that secondary part,
but our first part is to license. So as we looked at that, I asked
myself and the staff: how are we doing? And broke it down, not
just into noncommercial, commercial, or weed versus fumigation
or weed versus termites, broke it down into how do people come
to us? And most of the answer I was delighted to say I'd say give
ourselves an "A". But not in everything, and not an
"A+", but an "A". When I looked at commercial
people who voluntarily came forward and wanted to license with
this agency were we making ourselves available? Did we have a
process in place by which to license those people? And given our
past, we used to only test in Austin four times a year. Now we
do it a couple dozen times across the state. I would say, good
improvement. So if the people voluntarily come forward commercially,
we're there. Good job. Now when we start using TDA facilities,
but they have said they would allow us to use their electronic
mechanism where you could test in Corpus whenever your ready Debbie.
And we can scramble those tests and make them what they ought
to be, we can go to "A+". But we're not there yet, but
we want to go there.
(page 37)
That's not in the plans for next week or next month, but an "A".
We'll look at the noncommercial people that want to come forward
voluntarily, same thing. When I look at either commercial, or
noncommercial who involuntarily come forward, they don't want
to come forward early. But someone calls and complains, we're
out there in one to five, six, seven days. We're trying to hunt
the people down. And I would say we do a pretty good job at that.
So for the people that are first go around involuntary, we do
pretty good because once we catch'em, we put'em back in the first
system I talked about. Then those that continue to be recalcitrant,
I'd probably give ourselves a "C", or Frank may argue
a "B-" . Those who continually don't want to come in,
after we catch'em, and catch'em, and catch'em, Frank has utilized
many tools that he's had available to him, and would also include
referring them to the Attorney General's Office where you try
to collect a fine and require them to be present and if they don't
you get a default order, not bad, good job. Is there something
else we can do with that small number? Yeah, we can take those
people criminally, and we're doing so. We have two active cases
right now. That's a small volume, so we're not going to, it's
not a huge volume. We're not looking at thousands of licensee's.
So we want to improve on that. We don't, I don't believe we need
to have a whole ten people working on that, but we can do more.
What I saw, and I think the committee members agreed, where I
saw a real weakness was when Murray ran some numbers for us in
the noncommercial arena. So it's not when we started looking at
the noncommercials, it wasn't the people who were voluntarily
coming forward, it wasn't the people who were involuntarily coming
forward, it was the people who we didn't even know about. It's
an unknown universe. And so we looked at the seven types of. Murray
ran some of our numbers. And the audience I know can't see all
of this, but most important for the Board but I think the audience
can follow. In the mid 90's, I want to say '95, the legislature
said if you’re a warehouse, an apartment complex, hotel/motel,
or lodge, food processor, nursing home, day care, or hospital,
you either have to contract with a pest control operator to do
your pest control work, or you have to be a noncommercial applicator.
Well, as we ran the numbers of the non-government, non-licensed
people we had less than three hundred. Flags went off, and a hundred
questions flowed. We don't know what this universe should be.
We may not know next month, or in six months, but we want to know
more than what we know today. There is all sorts of opinions about
this, but as we looked at this, we saw this as a potential weakness.
These people have not, have they come forward? We couldn't answer
that question. Have these voluntarily come forward, or contacted
you members that are pest control operators? Have they contacted
you so you could send a technician to go do that work? How many
fall into that category? Our hunch is, nursing homes, day cares,
hospitals or at least nursing homes, and hospitals, have contacted
you from a liability issue. Nursing homes, and day cares were
probably first in line of those that contacted you, and probably
were doing so before the laws changed. Many more questions came
up as we looked at warehouses, and apartments, and perhaps some
of the smaller motels, and lodges. What does all of this mean?
Well, we're in the Strategic Planning process. We have to say
this is a potential weakness. Maybe it's not a weakness. But it's
at least one we don't know enough about to because we typically
have not spent time inspecting this group of potential noncommercial
licensee's. We have spent our time trying to play catch-up with
School IPM because it was given to us without a lot more resources.
We spent time trying to get around to every commercial applicator
twice a year. But I think the information, well the information
I get from our field staff or the reports I see, is we're inspecting
many commercial applicators more than the minimum, and we're inspecting
these often times. So rather than visiting Debbie, or Bryan, or
Ron, or others in this room twice a year, now if it's not complaint
driven, if it's complaint driven, we'll see you, we'll be there,
but if it's not complaint driven, why should I inspect many of
the pest control operators that are commercially licensed two
or four times in a two year period and some of these zero? It
makes sense, from a planning side, to inspect some of these, redirect
some of those resources to check some of this unknown universe.
If they're not inspected, certainly that would raise the risk.
Now, having looked at that, we did it, I think, I did it from
a pure standpoint. And
(page 38)
I think the Board did too. As we said we shouldn't separate this
out as a separate goal. To make sure that we look at this universe
and to answer these questions, but by default, by doing what I
think is right. And what I propose to you as part of a good plan,
by default, we may answer another need and that's what we've just
talked about. It could be that there's universe of licensees out
there that we need to bring in, either as noncommercials, or by
them calling the pest control operators you add technicians. Either
way licenses should go up some. If that is the case, and if we
can define this range over time, we might be able to go to the
legislature and say: We think we're going to be able to raise
another five hundred, or another thousand licenses, and that could
in turn be applied to our career ladder. And maybe we solve by
doing the right thing, maybe we're going to get to do another
right thing. How to define the universe is not going to be a one
month project. It's going to be a tough project even under the
best of circumstances with a year. We won't have solved all that
we would like to know, we won't have learned all. But I would
suggest that when we put someone on this task, or more than one
person on this task, we start with the universe, look at the state
Comptroller's Office. They have a code for everybody if you're
in business, they give you a code. Well then they say there's
ten thousand warehouses, that's probably not our universe though.
If you store bricks, you probably don't do a lot of pest control
work. So we start working with the associations and doing surveys,
talking to our field people, talking to pest control operators
and try to whittle down these universe's into what might be in
our universe. This will take time. Again, this is not an easy
project but what I would suggest in leading into the next into
May's agenda, which we may bring you a legislative appropriation
request draft. I hope over the next eight weeks we can start at
least getting a range, our best guess. Because as we move into
the summer time, our legislative appropriations request should
follow what this range is. And we are going to have to continue
to find this universe all the way through next year at this time.
But we could be coming back to you in May and say there's a potential
that five hundred more licenses, or a thousand more licenses,
or there is some amount. If it's a thousand, that's 80 grand,
just for not counting the test, so eighty grand could go a long
ways to some of our other needs. There are other things in this
document, and we could spend hours on it if you chose. This is
probably the biggest thing that jumped out at me. And I think
it, and also if it's a large number, they could reduce our dependency
on the EPA Discretionary Grants. Thank you
Chairman Stone: Do you want to discuss that a little more later
on?
Mr. Burnett: Yes, I will. But that's my summary.
Chairman Stone: Excellent. Comments from the Board? Are we ready
for a vote? What are we proposing this to do? We're bring the
draft forward to adopt…
Mr. Burnett: Since this is just a draft, I had a question to
Frank and to Rita. Since it's just a draft, and there may still
be some reformatting, I wasn't real clear that, is it okay, to
approve the draft? Is that legally necessary?
Mr. Crull: Where is the timetable?
Mr. Burnett: Actually, the what throw's us a curve is that between
now and the next Board Meeting, we're going to have to submit
something that may change only slightly, or not at all from this.
So the reformatting itself may require that I put the new goal
back together or the comments we get back from the Legislative
Budget Board may say: No don't split this, yeah you can achieve
what your going after here, but put the goal together.
Mr. Crull: Well that is the answer to your question.
(page 39)
Mr. Burnett: Go ahead and say it out loud.
Mr. Crull: This notes here, the Board is going to review it,
and approve it at this time this initial draft. It'll be forwarded
on to the LBB, and we'll begin to work on the LAR at that point.
Mr. Burnett: So, I guess.
Chairman Stone: We need to approve the draft.
Mr. Burnett: You can approve the draft, but I think that you
should have a caveat that says you know there may be minor changes.
Dr. Gold: I would note that we accept the report in principle
and that it be submitted.
Chairman Stone: We have a motion already on the table (lots of
voices at once)
Mr. Hoyt: I wasn't sure the motion, how it needed to be worded.
Chairman Stone: Word it for us now.
Mr. Hoyt: Well I would move, my motion to move approval of this
draft Strategic Plan.
(talking could not pick up)
Mr. Burnett: Is that a friendly amendment?
Dr. Gold(?): I'm not sure you need the amendment. You need the
principle I think in there, so you have some legal (unclear)
Chairman Stone: Can we not now word his conventional motion?
Mr. Crull: (unclear) He can make a friendly amendment at that
point, but he can't change his motion.
Chairman Stone: No I'm not talking about amending his motion.
I'm talking about rewording his original motion.
Mr. Crull: Yes.
Chairman Stone: To include this caveat.
Mr. Crull: Yes, anybody can do it but Les.
Dr. Gold: Well yeah it's an amended motion. So, I will amend
the motion, that we accept the plan in principle and that it be
submitted.
Chairman Stone: Okay so we will vote on the amendment first.
Dr. Gold: It if gets a second.
(page 40)
(talking could not pick up)
Mr. Cantu: Second.
Chairman Stone: Tommy is a second. All in favor of the amendment?
Dr. Gold: No. No. You have to accept the amendment first and
then it's the motion as amended.
Chairman Stone: That's what I said, all in favor of that amendment
Mr. Hoyt: And I accepted it.
Dr. Gold: Okay.
Chairman Stone: All in favor of the amendments say "aye".
Everyone: "aye".
Chairman Stone: Opposed? (No opposition.) And we go to the motion.
All in favor of the motion as amended say "aye". Everyone
"aye". Opposed? (no opposition) The next agenda item
is hopefully a simple discussion of whether or not you want this
on a future agenda. As you may or may not remember, legalities
have resulted in us coming down to this proposal for future agenda
topics which, as Frank will remind us, if we violate this, we're
not allowed to discuss remedy's or solutions. Simply whether or
not we wish to address this topic in a future agenda. This comes
from a discussion that Dale and I were having once upon a time
about proof of financial responsibility and insurance and whether
or not there were less expensive alternatives to the insurance
that we currently require that might fulfill the same financial
responsibility obligations.
Dr. Gold: Well, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Stone: Roger.
Dr. Gold: I think that I would like to see that discussion. But
I would also like to have us look at the extent of the insurances
that are required by the Board, both in terms of limits and types
such as liability versus errors and omissions. And I'd like to
open that up when we have this as an item.
Chairman Stone: I'm sure if we adopt this as our, or want to
have this as an agenda topic, there will be a lot of background
accumulated.
Mr. Morrison: I would be in favor of not (unclear) nor discussing
the other financial responsibilities.
Chairman Stone: So you don't want it on the agenda?
Mr. Morrison: No sir.
Chairman Stone: Okay, anyone else, Tommy?
(page 41)
Mr. Cantu: I don't. Well let me ask a question. Has it become
an issue where operators that carry insurance have fallen in a
spot where it's an insufficient amount?
Chairman Stone: No it is not.
Dr. Gold: Ahh, Mr. Chairman that's not exactly true.
Chairman Stone: Well that's not what brought this issue forward
at least. It may be an issue out there then that we can talk about
if it's on the agenda. That's not what originated this coming
up. Madeline.
Mr. Gamble: Can we say what originated this?
Chairman Stone: We were just talking. A simple discussion that
Dale and I were having about the nature of responsibility and
the insurance that we require of the industry which is certainly
not required in many industries. So how do we meet? The legislature
tells us we have to have proof of financial responsibility. We
were discussing what options there are for meeting proof of financial
responsibility and decided the Board may want to look at this
or other alternatives that would save the operators money and
yet provide the same proof. If ya'll don't want to deal with this,
not a problem.
Dr. Gold: I would like to deal with it because I get a number
of calls from consumers that are alarmed to find out that their
person that they have hired to do the job really doesn't have
the insurances that they need to cover them. For example, errors
and omissions is not held by the majority of companies operating
in Texas, and so therefore, they really don't have insurance.
Mr. Morrison(?): Let me rephrase that then. On the reinforcement
of the insurance, I would agree with Dr. Gold on discussing that
topic. To make sure that with the insurance that is in place making
sure that there's mechanisms to assure that PCOs are in compliance
with it. I'm opposed to discussing other financial responsibilities
means. I think that, I certainly, there is a lot of other hybrids
that I think really gets confusing other than insurance policies.
Mr. Burnett: We, just as information, not for decision making
as to the where this solves a problem or doesn't solve it, but
just information you, say you want to have a longer discussion.
I've made contact with the Department of Insurance, and made calls
to one of the attorney's I know there with regard to the errors
and omissions topic. And we're going to pursue that with the staff
level at a minimum so that is ongoing now. Because I think we
need to know more than we do. So we're going to do that with or
without the Board because we need to know more about what we're
receiving, so I thought I would add that in.
Chairman Stone: For ? again.
Ms. Gamble: I'm for having it on a future agenda.
Chairman Stone: Speaking for Elias.
Mr. Johnson: Sure.
Chairman Stone: Okay we'll put it on there. We'll ask the staff
to begin the background preparation and background material that
we would need.
(page 42)
Mr. Burnett: And the topic should read as it's written? Okay.
Thank you.
Chairman Stone: Okay, move from that to the next agenda item.
If ya'll are content with going on? The next agenda item is the
enforcement report, which I can turn over to Dale.
Agenda Item VII. Enforcement Report.
Mr. Burnett: I will turn it over to Frank.
Mr. Crull: Mr. Chairman, going to the State Office of Administrative
Hearings, you need to ask if Dennis Lary is present here today.
Chairman Stone: Okay, is Dennis Lary present in the room? No.
Mr. Crull: At this time you may go ahead and sign the order presented
by the State Office of Administrative Hearings
Chairman Stone: Okay, I will handle that part. Proceed
Mr. Crull: (unclear) Most of the fairly winter months…only
about twelve in here…(too much paper shuffling to pick up
Frank clearly)
Below is the summary of the administrative penalties and consent
agreements reviewed by the Board