Kansas set to significantly expand, speed up out-of-state occupational licensing recognition

Kansas is on the verge of putting into law major changes speeding up and expanding the process of granting occupational licenses to those already holding licenses from out of state ― not just for military folks, but also everybody else.

A few people were concerned about situations where other states' standards may not hold up to Kansas' standards, and that having a "similar scope of practice" was not enough to ensure the best therapists, doctors or whoever else coming into Kansas were indeed qualified.

But a few other professions, notably architects, opposed the bill and were clamoring for the ability to still license applicants by the "equivalent" standard, too. They feared anything less could hurt the consumer.

"There have not been any public safety issues, and certainly not the type or the scale that opponents had feared. This isn’t surprising to me, though," said senior research fellow Stephen Slivinski, of Arizona State University's Center for the Study of Economic Liberty. "We’re seeing what we’ve seen for a long time: the presence of an occupational license isn’t a significant indicator of quality or public safety variance between states."