The Joint Committee on
Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review
Report # 468
A Review of the Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors
Executive Summary
Introduction
The PEER Committee reviewed the Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. PEER conducted the review pursuant to the authority granted by MISS. CODE ANN. Section 5-3-57 et seq. (1972). This review is a “cycle review,” which is not driven by specific complaints or allegations of misconduct.
In conducting this review, PEER sought to determine the effectiveness of the Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors by answering the following questions:
Does Mississippi need a Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors?
What are the board’s responsibilities in regulating the practice of engineering and land surveying?
Does the board’s licensing process provide assurance of competency of professionals?
Does the board fairly and consistently enforce regulatory requirements?
Background
All fifty states regulate the professions of engineering and land surveying. The Legislature established the Mississippi Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors in 1928. The board’s mission is to safeguard life, health, and property and to promote the public welfare by providing a complete and thorough registration process for professional engineers and land surveyors, ensuring that each is properly qualified to practice in the state of Mississippi (MISS. CODE ANN. Section 73-13-1 et seq. [1972]).
According to the FY 2003 Annual Report of the Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, the board has 7,165 professional engineers, 595 professional land surveyors, and 494 dual registrants (engineers who are also land surveyors) on the registry (i.e., licensed in Mississippi). Thus the board licenses and regulates 8,254 professional practitioners.
Conclusions
Does Mississippi need a Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors?
Risk factors associated with the engineering and land surveying professions create a need for state government to protect the public. Proper regulation by a competent board diminishes the professions’ potential risks to the public.
The nature of the practice of engineering and land surveying presents risks to the public if practitioners are not properly trained and regulated. Inadequate or erroneous engineering knowledge as the basis for constructing buildings or systems puts human life and health directly at risk. Widespread land surveying inaccuracies could engage enormous judicial resources and time to remedy. Thus state regulation of the engineering and land surveying professions is necessary to reduce or eliminate risks to the public.
What are the board’s responsibilities in regulating the practices of engineering and land surveying?
The board’s responsibilities in regulating the practices of engineering and land surveying consist of registering (licensing) professionals and enforcing applicable laws and regulations.
The state’s regulation of the engineering and land surveying professions should ensure that practitioners meet and maintain certain qualifications and competency requirements, act in a professional and competent manner, and comply with laws and regulations governing the professions.
Does the board’s licensing process provide assurance of competency of professionals?
The Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors provides assurance to the public of applicants’ competency to practice their profession by requiring passage of national licensure examinations that are developed and administered in accordance with accepted professional testing guidelines. The board also requires completion of continuing education requirements. However, the only examination developed by the board, the state examination for professional land surveyors, has not been developed or administered in accordance with accepted professional testing guidelines.
The national examinations that the board requires for licensing have been validated in regard to content, relevancy of problems, and scoring by the National Council of Examiners for Engineers and Land Surveyors. The board accepts passage of these examinations as assurance of knowledge of and competency in practicing their respective professions.
The state examination that the board requires for professional land surveyors has not been developed or administered in accordance with accepted professional testing guidelines. PEER determined that improvement is needed to meet professional testing standards in the elements of test development, test administration, and statistical analysis and research.
Does the Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors fairly and consistently enforce professional regulatory requirements?
The board fairly and consistently enforces professional regulatory requirements through a thorough, comprehensive complaint and disciplinary process. However, in using consent orders to settle disciplinary cases, the board should only use such to implement penalties authorized in state law. Also, the board’s current practice of not publicizing information on disciplinary sanctions limits the public’s and practitioners’ awareness of rules infractions and their consequences.
State law and the board’s rules and regulations have set up a comprehensive complaint and disciplinary process with appropriate penalties. The board deals with an average of twenty-eight investigations per year. Of those cases resulting in discipline, approximately one-third of the cases are settled by a consent order. By using consent orders, the board has used an administrative means to settle cases and avoid lengthy formal hearings or litigation. However, in at least one case in the last two years, the board used a consent order to implement a disciplinary action not given to the board by statute. The board does levy fines in some cases (a total of $4,810 in the last five years), usually waiving them if respondents agree to further education in the subject of the offense.
Until approximately five years ago, the board routinely included information on sanctions in disciplinary cases in the newsletter to registrants. The board dropped this information in response to concerns about the accuracy of case summaries and the resulting potential for defamation of character charges against the board. Lack of information regarding professional discipline limits the public’s and practitioners’ awareness of rules infractions and their consequences.
Recommendations
The Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors should ensure that the Mississippi Section examination for land surveyor candidates meets professional testing standards by:
establishing the equivalency of the three versions of the Mississippi Section examination or using one validated version of this examination;
periodically reviewing the Mississippi Section examination to determine needed updates;
posting information (now available in handout) about the content of the Mississippi Section examination to the board website; and,
analyzing Mississippi Section examination results to achieve full test validation and measure of test effectiveness.
In using consent orders for disciplinary cases, the Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors should use them to implement only those disciplinary remedies given to the board in state law.
The Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors should use its newsletter and website to publicize the results and sanctions invoked in disciplinary cases. The board’s staff should work with cooperating attorneys from the state Attorney General’s Office to assure accuracy of case summaries transmitted for public information.