1. AEA Legislative Committee Meets monthly, generally 3 rd Wednesday Dennis Palmer, Chair Bruce Smith, Vice Chair Staff support: Peggy Gallos and Karen Burris

2. Committee Members Margaret CarmeliGary Nucera Pam CarolanBruce Smith (Vice Chair) Chris LanghartGary Vaccaro Bruce MillerSid Weiss Fletcher PlattJohn Napolitano Dennis PalmerFrank Hartman Scott Conklin

3. A Brief History of Collaboration

4. Dear Senator X, I am writing to you to express opposition… Dear Assemblywoman Y, I am writing to you to express support …. AEA represents publicly owned clean water and solid waste utilities. Our members provide service to approximately 8 million New Jerseyans….

6. NJWEA Legislative Update Retired Operator Status: Licensing regulations Expire in 2015 Key Item we have been working on is to establish the Retired Operator Status as a new classification.

7. Committee Formed NJWEA has a committee working on proposed wording and working with the NJDEP. It consist of : Jill Plesnarski, Joe Bonaccorso, Rocco Maiellano, Rick Eustace and Dennis Palmer

8. Meeting at NJDEP Aug 15, 2013 Meeting held w/NJWEA representatives and Michele Siekerka, NJDEP Deputy Commissioner and Michele Putnam. Overall positive meeting on the idea of creating a retired operator status. Help develop a “Bench” of retired operators to come back into the work force if needed.

9. Why? Water and wastewater operators are very proud of their licenses, but at times find it difficult to maintain the educational hours after retirement. Without question there is a present and future need for succession planning at water and wastewater facilities. This especially true for facilities which do not provided incentives or promote skill set building and certification among staff members at the positions other than the Operator of Record. This will be exacerbated as baby boomers leave the work force for retirement. Our longstanding proposal to help this situation is to use a sports analogy and develop a “bench of substitute players” with the implementation of “Retired License Operator” class of license holder

10. What is it? Retired Operator would not need TCH’s but would retain their license as inactive (retired). Still need to pay the annual fee Can not practice as a license operator. Request retired status after age 62 and being licensed for 25 years. However if an operator wished to “come off the bench” and become employed as a licensed operator, the operator would have to demonstrate one cycle of hours either 12, 18 or 36 hours prior to employment.

11. Future The NJWEA committee looks forward to working with NJDEP over the next year to adopt a change in the Licensed Operator Regulations when they are proposed for readoption. We have been invited to a follow up meeting w/NJDEP on work force development for operators.

12. AEA Legislative Committee is a resource for members.