Hog fans probably won't spend much time re-watching the 2018 football season. However, coaches and returning players who want to win will because understanding their own failures and learning from them is how you win next time.
We can all learn from this example, including state legislators. Arkansas has thousands of regulations that restrict consumers, workers, business owners, and entrepreneurs. If we don't regularly "watch the tape," we risk becoming economic losers who don't learn from our past successes and failures.
Sunset reviews are regular evaluations of a program or agency. To help Arkansas legislators watch our red tape, sunset reviews of licensing boards should occur regularly. These reviews should evaluate whether the standards are appropriate. If they are, they should be left alone. If not, they should be changed. Changes may be small, like improving the efficiency of license applications, or large, like eliminating a requirement that is no longer necessary.
Occupational licensing regulations are government-mandated requirements that individuals must comply with in order to legally work. These range from small fees and background checks to years of education and passing multiple exams. They are often costly and time-consuming burdens for someone just trying to earn a honest living.
The title of a recent New York Times article, "A $21,000 Cosmetology School Debt, and a $9-an-Hour Job," shows how disconnected regulations can be. The average tuition cost of the top nine cosmetology schools in Arkansas is around $15,234, and there are many Arkansas cosmetologists making the minimum wage of $9.25 an hour. This impacts more than just the practitioners. As stated in University of Central Arkansas Associate Professor in Economics Tom Snyder's "The Effects of Arkansas' Occupational Licensure Regulations," reducing stringent requirements will lower prices and decrease poverty.
State requirements can and should be more tightly tailored to our needs.
Sunset reviews are one way to try. According to the Council for Licensure Enforcement and Regulation, 24 states had sunset reviews in 2018. At least two more states have enacted sunset commissions this year. For example, the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission has saved nearly $981 million for the state by pushing for the removal of low-risk licenses and the combination of similar licensing boards to reduce overhead costs and increase effectiveness.
Arkansas is already looking in the right direction; now we need to start moving. Arkansas' Red Tape Reduction Working Group released recommendations for the Legislature which included implementing a sunset-review process. The working group set up the game plan. Now it's up to the legislators to execute.
Football coaches, like Coach Chad Morris, work hard to improve every year. His job depends on it. A sunset review for a board is like a performance review for a team. Hard, but necessary.
Some critics fear that sunset reviews could be set up such that a requirement or a board might be carelessly eliminated. Legislators should be careful to set up the reviews so that this doesn't happen.
In 2017, the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission suggested that the nursing board re-evaluate its criminal background restrictions for getting a license. It also recommended limiting disciplinary actions to crimes directly related to the practice of nursing. In other words, a prospective nurse who committed a property-crime felony as a teenager wouldn't automatically be denied her license. She would have a chance to show she had changed and matured. Regular reviews can be designed to find beneficial changes.
Texas isn't the only state that benefited from sunset reviews. Arkansas Center for Research in Economics (ACRE) affiliated scholar Marc Kilmer wrote about other state reforms in "A Look at Occupational Licensing Reform Across the United States." Many of these reforms included sunset commissions, such as Indiana's Job Creation Committee.
Sunset reviews are not magic. They must be carefully set up and should also be subject to review. But Arkansas has some of the most burdensome licensing laws in the country and there are successful models of reform that we can emulate.
Our neighbors, friends, and families deserve better.
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Alex Kanode is a policy analyst with the Arkansas Center for Research in Economics (ACRE) at the University of Central Arkansas. He co-authored The Costs of Occupational Licensing in Alabama, published by the Alabama Policy Institute. The views expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of UCA.
Editorial on 03/07/2019