On The Level: January 2022


On The Level new

Vol. 6     |  January 2022


A Note From Brian Francis: Farewell

Brian Francis color

Welcome to the sixth edition of TDLR On the Level, TDLR’s newsletter for our building trades community.

A new year always brings new challenges and opportunities, and 2022 will be no different: I will be retiring from TDLR as of January 31, 2022. It has been my honor to serve this agency and our licensees for nearly 22 years, first as a deputy executive director and these past five years as your executive director.

Thank you for the feedback and insight you have provided to me over the years. Your perspective on how TDLR can best serve our licensees has helped me do my job, and made us a better agency. I sincerely hope you will continue reaching out to my successor, Mike Arismendez, who's presently our Deputy Executive Director. I know that he will bring great energy and focus to this position. You will be in good hands.

I wish each of you a safe and happy holiday season, and a successful new year in 2022.

Yours in Service,

Brian E. Francis, Executive Director


Get Ready For New Web Links To Program Statutes And Rules

computers

We've made some changes to our program web pages that you may have noticed: all TDLR program statutes and rules now link to their official sources instead of being published directly on the TDLR website. (If your program hasn't made the transition yet, that should happen soon.) 

Statutes will link to the Texas Legislature online website, while rules will link to the Texas Administrative Code. This means that links to the laws and rules from the program web pages will update in real time.

In the past, at the end of each legislative session or rule adoption, TDLR staff would perform the time-consuming ritual of updating the rule and statute library, and then publishing the updates to the program web pages. Linking to the official sites instead of replicating them on the TDLR website will allow staff to devote limited resources to other projects.  


code enforcement 2

Code Enforcement Program: The Need For Code Enforcement Officers Continues To Grow

The Texas population continues to grow in the metropolitan areas as well as in rural areas, and that growth is leading to increased demand for additional housing -- and for Code Enforcement Officers (CEOs).

Even small communities are adding CEO programs. But Code Enforcement Officers in Training (CITs) must be supervised by a CEO, which can be a stumbling block to establishing a program.

There is a way to start a CEO program in rural areas: hire a prospective CEO and give them a different job title while they gain the one year of experience that's required to become a CEO. Once they've completed the required year, the City Manager can sign off on the experience requirements and the prospective CEO can apply to TDLR. Once TDLR has issued the CEO license, that person can become the supervising CEO and begin a training program to increase the number of officers.