The Arkansas Legislative Council’s Administrative Rules and Regulations Committee gave its OK to more than a dozen rules Wednesday including rules governing new licenses for interpreters for the deaf and hearing impaired and rules about feral hogs.
Representatives from the state Department of Health spoke about the licensing rules and requirements for interpreters. The licensing requirement was created by Act 1314 of 2013, and the department along with an advisory committee wrote the specific rules and qualifications for interpreters.
The rules will go back before the department’s board later this month for final approval, and they will go into effect 30 days later.
But department officials were notified last month that federal law gives the state’s educational authority - the state Board of Education or Department of Education - the right to determine standards and qualifications for interpreters in classroom settings.
The act was passed after a 2012 dispute over interpreter standards at the Department of Career Education, where department Director Bill Walker hired a woman for a position with the Arkansas Rehabilitation Services, despite her not having any certifications from a national interpreting organization. Walker defended the hire, which caused an uproar among interpreters and advocates for the hearing impaired, by saying that the qualifications outlined by the Department of Education were “preferred” but not mandatory.
The rules reviewed Wednesday don’t set the qualifications for interpreters in classroom settings, but they do still require classroom interpreters to be licensed through the state like all other interpreters who are paid for their services.
Robert Brech, chief fiscal officer for the Health Department, said the department removed all language about qualifications for educational interpreters from the rules after they discovered the federal law that gives the state Board of Education the power to set standards for interpreters in classrooms.
“Nothing in this rule would mandate anything in the schools. It would require [interpreters] to go to the Board of Education to get what their qualifications are,” Brech said. “There may be some confusion about whether there is a 2000 or 2007 version in place. To be honest, I don’t know. It’s up to the Board of Education to make those qualifications.”
The committee also reviewed the new rules about feral hogs - restrictions on who can trap or transport them and when, limiting any new hog-hunting facilities from opening, and adding stricter fencing and containment requirements for trappers and hunting facilities - with very little discussion.
Rep. Lane Jean, R-Magnolia, said the rules created by Act 1104 of 2013 were discussed at great length during the last meeting of the Senate and House Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development committees.
Hunters have been at odds over the rules with members of the agricultural and conservation communities and water utilities interested in protecting watersheds and drinking water quality.
Preston Scroggin, director of the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission, said most people involved in that hearing at least felt comfortable with the rules after it was over.
“We’re going to work as well as we can to ease forward with this,” Scroggin said Wednesday. “I understand this is something that may be revisited in the next session [of the General Assembly], but it was a good discussion and we’re going to work together [to implement the rules].”
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 04/11/2014