{"id":3631,"date":"2011-02-28T16:44:18","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T22:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=3631"},"modified":"2013-03-11T15:28:50","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T21:28:50","slug":"bill-would-privatize-elevator-amusement-ride-inspections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=3631","title":{"rendered":"Bill would privatize elevator, amusement ride inspections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Business and Labor Committee heard testimony Feb. 28 on a bill that would makes changes to laws governing the inspection of amusement rides and elevators in Nebraska.<\/p>\n<p>LB594, introduced by Holdrege Sen. Tom Carlson, would privatize inspections under the Nebraska Amusement Ride Act and the Conveyance Act and would repeal both laws on Jan. 1, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Employees of the state Department of Labor currently conduct inspections of amusement rides and elevators in the state.<\/p>\n<p>Under LB594, the commissioner of labor would be required to develop regulations regarding annual certification of qualified inspectors of amusement rides including a fee schedule. Beginning July 1, 2011, inspections no longer would be performed by Department of Labor employees.<\/p>\n<p>The bill also would make changes to the Conveyance Act, which governs elevator inspections.<\/p>\n<p>Among other provisions, the bill would:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>require a permit to install an elevator;<\/li>\n<li>exempt elevators in private residences from inspection;<\/li>\n<li>place responsibility for inspection on the owner of the conveyance;<\/li>\n<li>increase penalties for violating the act from a class V to a class I misdemeanor; and<\/li>\n<li>allow the commissioner to contract with qualified elevator inspectors to perform inspections under the act.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Beginning July 1, 2011, elevator inspections would be performed by private inspectors licensed by the state. The Conveyance Act would be repealed on Jan. 1, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Carlson said the bill is the result of examining ways to ease the state\u2019s budget crisis and would both save money and reduce the size of government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re forced to consider options that, at other times, we maybe wouldn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Commissioner of Labor Catherine Lang testified in support of the bill, saying the current elevator inspection program is operating at a deficit and has a backlog of inspections. Fixing the existing program would require hiring more inspectors or increasing fees, Lang said, neither of which is a viable alternative in the state\u2019s current fiscal environment.<\/p>\n<p>Randy Johnson, an elevator inspector with the state Department of Labor, testified in opposition to the bill. He said private elevator inspections can cost as much as $600 and would be a burden to small business owners.<\/p>\n<p>The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Business and Labor Committee heard testimony Feb. 28 on a bill that would makes changes to laws governing the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-3631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-and-labor","tag-sen-tom-carlson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3631"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3634,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3631\/revisions\/3634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}