| At the request
of the Missouri Commission for the Deaf (MCD), Senator Betty Sims
has introduced a Senate Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 882 (SCS/SB
882) which basically does four things:
(1) Changes the name of the
Missouri Commission for the Deaf to the Missouri Commission for the
Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
(2) Creates the Missouri
Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Fund, which would allow
the Commission to accept gifts, contributions, bequests and grants
from federal, private, or other sources, as well as allow the
Commission to enter into contracts with any governmental or private
entity.
(3) Enables the Commission
to pay MICS evaluators for their services.
(4) Provides that RID and
NAD certifications would be recognized for licensure concurrent with
the Missouri Interpreter Certification System.
It should be noted that the
first three features of this bill were requested by MCD and are on
our list of 2002 Legislative Priorities. The fourth feature of the
bill, recognition of RID and NAD certifications concurrent with the
MICS, was added by Senator Sims without MCD’s knowledge. MCD fully
supports the first three features of the bill, but does not view the
fourth part as either necessary or desirable at this time.
Concurrent recognition of RID/NAD certifications is not necessary
because the new MICS rules will allow for automatic conversion of
both RID and NAD certifications to MICS certifications, and those
new rules become effective on March 31. It is undesirable because it
would necessitate even further changes in the MICS rules, and we
have just spent over a year in completely re-doing those rules.
Licensure would also have to begin a major revision of their rules,
as there are all kinds of issues that this would bring up.
For example, how would the
licensure renewal date and RID/NAD certifications interface?
How would licensure handle
the CEU requirements in their rules?
How would RID/NAD
certifications fit with the newly created RCED(K-6), RCED(7-12) and
RCED (General) certifications. Exactly where would an interpreter
holding only a CI certification from RID or a level 3 certification
from NAD be allowed to work starting in 2003? In general, there are
a great many unanswered questions that this statutory change would
bring up, and a tremendous amount of work would be required to
develop answers to those questions.
SCS/SB 882 will have a
public hearing before the Senate Pensions and General Laws Committee
on Wednesday, January 30 at 3:00 p.m. in the Senate Committee Room #
2. Supporters of any part, or all, of this bill are invited to
testify before that committee, and if they can't testify then they
can show support or opposition to any parts of the bill by writing
or calling the members of that committee. Those committee members
are:
Senate
Committee: PENSIONS AND GENERAL LAWS |
