Contractors board needs some teeth

Contractors board needs some teeth: "Contractors board needs some teeth
It's too easy to get a contracting license in Oregon, and the industry-dominated regulatory system is too lax
Tuesday, December 06, 2005

I n Oregon, it's far easier to get a license to build homes than to cut hair.

Getting a barber's license requires 1,100 hours of training; getting a contractor's license requires only 16 hours of classes, followed by a test.

And that's just the least of Oregon's problem with its alarmingly lax system of qualifying and policing its building contractors. In a front-page report Sunday, Jeff Manning of The Oregonian described how the industry-dominated Oregon Construction Contractors Board oversees a regulatory operation in which:

Contractors skate by without paying millions of dollars in board-ordered damages to aggrieved homeowners.

Consumers using the board's Web site get incomplete, often deceptive information about contractors' past performance.

Troubled contractors can elude board sanction.

Weak licensing and bonding standards lag behind those of other states."