Licensing boards may set continuing education rules for renewal, and licensees can be treated as compliant during certain approved absences or service periods.
1. Each licensing board may require and issue rules for continuing education requirements as a condition to license renewal. 2. The rules may create continuing education requirements at a minimum level prescribed by each licensing board. These boards may also establish continuing education programs to assist a licensee in meeting such continuing education requirements. If adopted, such rules shall also: a. Give due attention to the effect of continuing education requirements on interstate and international practice. b. Place the responsibility for arrangement of financing of continuing education on the licensee, while allowing the board to receive any other available funds or resources that aid in supporting a continuing education program. c. Attempt to express continuing education requirements in terms of uniform and widely recognized measurement units. d. Establish guidelines, including guidelines in regard to the monitoring of licensee participation, for the approval of continuing education programs that qualify under the continuing education requirements prescribed. e. Not be implemented for the purpose of limiting the size of the profession or occupation. f. Define the status of active and inactive licensure and establish appropriate guidelines for inactive licensee reentry. g. Be promulgated solely for the purpose of assuring a continued maintenance of skills and knowledge by a professional or occupational licensee directly related and commensurate with the current level of competency of the licensee’s profession or occupation. h. Allow a licensee to apply continuing education credit obtained in excess of the requirements for a renewal period to the continuing education requirements for the following renewal period in an amount not to exceed fifty percent of the continuing education credits required for a renewal period. A licensing board may adopt rules specifying types of continuing education credits earned in a renewal period that cannot be applied to the continuing education requirements for the following renewal period. 3. The state board of engineering and land surveyors, the board of architectural examiners, the board of landscape architectural examiners, and the economic development authority shall cooperate with each other and with persons who typically offer continuing education courses for design professionals to make available energy efficiency related continuing education courses, and to encourage interdisciplinary cooperation and education concerning available energy efficiency strategies for employment in the state’s construction industry. 4. A person licensed to practice an occupation or profession in this state shall be deemed to have complied with the continuing education requirements of this state during periods that the person serves honorably on active duty in the military services, or for periods that the person is a resident of another state or district having a continuing education requirement for the occupation or profession and meets all requirements of that state or district for practice therein, or for periods that the person is a government employee working in the person’s licensed specialty and assigned to duty outside of the United States, or for other periods of active practice and absence from the state approved by the appropriate licensing board. 5. A person licensed to sell real estate in this state shall be deemed to have complied with the continuing education requirements of this state during periods that the person serves honorably on active duty in the military services, or for periods that the person is a resident of another state or district having a continuing education requirement for the occupation or profession and meets all requirements of that state or district for practice therein, if the state or district accords the same privilege to Iowa residents, or for periods that the person is a government employee working in the person’s licensed specialty and assigned to duty outside of the United States, or for other periods of active practice and absence from the state approved by the appropriate licensing board. [C79, 81, §258A.2] 89 Acts, ch 292, §5; 90 Acts, ch 1252, §16 C93, §272C.2 2007 Acts, ch 10, §172; 2009 Acts, ch 108, §13, 41; 2011 Acts, ch 118, §50, 89; 2024 Acts, ch 1169, §29, 30; 2024 Acts, ch 1182, §13 Referred to in §153.36, 155A.7, 543D.16