Minnesota Board of Pharmacy - Minnesota State Legislature

A finding of the OLA report was that: “. . . we do not think Minnesota has a crisis in occupational
regulation. In our view, Minnesota today simply has many of the same occupational regulation issues
that have persisted here and in most other states for decades”. The OLA report also states that to: “be
regulated, an occupation ought to require knowledge, skills, or abilities that are teachable and testable;
the skills should be taught in accredited programs; these programs should be distinguishable from
related occupational or professional programs; and the occupation should have its own trade or
professional association”. The profession of pharmacy meets all of these criteria.
The OLA report further states (emphasis added):
‘Previous studies of occupational regulation have focused on the efficiency with which the
boards are administered and envisioned that large state agencies could provide administrative
services more efficiently than many small boards. The merit of this idea has been called into
question by the fact that over the years the health boards have distanced themselves from the
Department of Health and set up a joint administrative services unit, an arrangement that
appears to be working well in providing a limited number of services.
There are undoubtedly further opportunities for more collaboration among the boards and
improvements in efficiency, but our analysis does not conclude that administrative efficiency is
the primary problem with occupational regulation”.
Finally, the OLA report highlights that occupational regulation has been the subject of scrutiny in this
state for at least the past three decades. The Legislature created sunrise legislation in Chapter 214 back
in 1976. In 2001, the Legislature modified the sunrise provisions to allow the “chair of a standing
committee in either house of the legislature” to “request information from the Council of Health Boards
(CHB) on proposals relating to the regulation of health occupations”. The CHB has prepared many
reports concerning emerging health occupations since that time.
According to the OLA report, the Department of Administration conducted a major study of
occupational regulation in the mid-1970’s and recommended (emphasis added):
“replacing all autonomous regulatory boards with advisory boards housed in various state
departments. Following the study, a Senate Government Operations Committee task force on
occupational regulation was established to follow up on the report’s recommendations. The task
force did not agree with the suggestion that the independent boards be abolished, although it
recommended strengthening the relationship between boards and host departments that
provided administrative services. Over the years, however, the relationship between boards and
host agencies has become attenuated rather than strengthened, especially for the boards
affiliated with the Minnesota Department of Health. Copying and data processing, a major
concern in the Department of Administration report, have become less expensive in the last 20
years and the economies available from centralization of these services have greatly diminished
or vanished altogether”.
The OLA report also states the following:
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