It Makes No Difference

Red or Blue, Wrong is Wrong

The recent appointment by Governor Steve Beshear of Jerry Lundergan to the post of Director of the Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction is ludicrous to say the least.  I am intimately aware of this department because it is the one that issues the licenses for me to do business.  I have been a long-term supporter of regulation and licensing in the workplace and I feel it contributes to a better product and workman.

The first trade that I became licensed in was plumbing.  It was one of the first to require statewide licensing and I knew many of the first inspectors and administrators in that department.  My father was one of the first inspectors to enforce the new plumbing law in Eastern Kentucky, a task not without its own hazards.  One of the things I recall from that time was that there was very little political interference in the department.  The director was Mr. Perkins (I don’t think I ever knew his first name).  He was an autocratic director and ran the department the way he saw fit through several administrations both Republican and Democratic.

One of the things that always stuck with me was how the licensing and inspection fees were handled.  In those days the money received all stayed within the department.  If the department ever ran a surplus, which it did and still does, it was returned to the licensees in the form of lower permit fees for a time.  These days that is not the case.  Every year by executive order the department is told to hand over the surplus to the General Fund for use in the budget.  This department is totally self-sustaining and receives no funds from the taxpayer at all.  What does happen is that the skilled tradesmen who are licensed by this department are forced to pay higher than necessary fees, the excess of which is turned over to the General Fund.  In this day of anti-tax fervor it is amazing to me that someone has not accused this of being an illegal tax foisted on the tradesmen without consent or representation.  We hear cries of taxes driving up costs but no one is saying a word about this one.  Why?  I think it is because most of us just want to play by the rules and be allowed to make a living.  We understand that it costs money to do business.  What we don’t understand is how this department can continue to wrest money from us and give us very little in return.

Fifteen or so years ago the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning trades became subject to licensing and inspection by the Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction.  Each year we were required to acquire continuing education credits and maintain liability insurance as a condition of license renewal.  For fifteen years we were promised that inspections were just around the corner and that would drive the fly-by-night operations out of business which would protect us.  We were promised enforcement would create a level playing field to protect the honest tradesmen from low bidders who do shoddy work.  Last year we got our first local inspectors but a lot of us are curious where all that money we spent on licensing fees went and for what.

Just a few years ago this department required us to become licensed to do business in the electrical trades.  The same things were promised but we did get inspections for some work.  It is performed by a hodgepodge of utility company inspectors and local building inspectors and has all kinds of loopholes for different organizations or people to do inspections.  It seems that here we are just paying our money again, doing continuing education classes and maintaining insurance so that the department can hand over money to the General Fund.  We pay inspection fees to whatever body we are responsible to whoever that might be.  The only reason we do not have state inspectors is that it would cost the department more money to fill those positions.  Money that has already been taken from the tradesmen.  Generally, I have to say that the inspectors are competent and impartial but the potential is there for misuse of funds and favoritism.  Also, it makes the licensee answerable to an entity other than the one that licenses him or her.  It is not a good situation.

The problem is this.  If the surplus money from fees and licensing are going to be turned over to the General Fund why is this not a tax?  And an illegal one at that.  Since this department is supposed to be run without political interference why is the money being used to fund government instead of just this department.

I pay about a thousand dollars a year for licenses.  A sizable amount for liability insurance and continuing education both of which are useful and necessary.  When you figure in the lost time and wages for time spent in class there is a pretty good amount of money wrapped up in maintaining the proper licenses.

Back to the original point.  Governor Beshear says that Mr. Lundergan is imminently qualified to take the job of director due to his experience in the building field.  Nonsense!  Jerry Lundergan has been a caterer (to many political functions), a political operative serving at one time as Director of the Kentucky Democratic Party and is a prodigious fund-raiser for Democratic causes.  When the Clintons come to Kentucky they see Jerry Lundergan.  Now, I’m OK with Mr. Lundergan participating in these activities and even appreciate them but that seems to be a primo disqualifier for holding the Director’s spot in a department that is supposed to be free from political interference.  As for building experience, Mr. Lundergan has had some properties built and developed, some in conjunction with former Lt. Governor Mongiardo but is hardly experienced in the building trades which include both private and public buildings.

My take is that by those standards I am at least as qualified for that job and probably know a bit more about the trades than Mr. Lundergan.