March is shaping up to be a pivotal month for state legislative activity. For the first time since January, less than 40 states – 37 to be exact – are in legislative session this week. We have also seen the first significant wave of 2018 legislative adjournments as between March 8 and 13 the following states have adjourned their regular legislative sessions sine die – Arkansas, Florida, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming. Louisiana however kicked off its legislative session on Monday – becoming the final state to do so in 2018.
The sine die adjournment of Florida’s legislature last Friday killed measures – HB 1041, HB 15 and SB 1114 – that would have reduced the number of hours of training for barbers and restricted barbers from 1,200 to 600 for barbers and from 1,200 to 325 for restricted barbers. As previously reported, they also contained language reducing the amount of training hours required for specialty registrations from: 240 hours to 150 hours for nail specialists; 260 hours to 165 hours for facial specialists; and 500 hours to 300 hours for full specialists.
Click here for more State Relations updates from Brian Newman.