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House · Introduced · 2025-2026 Regular Session

HB 1428: Georgia Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors Board; retain certain incidental funds generated by certain fees; authorize

Last action March 3, 2026 · House Committee Favorably Reported

House Bill 1428 would let the Georgia Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors Board keep certain small fees it collects, such as charges for license verifications and collection costs, instead of sending all of it to the state treasury.

Read the full bill text

These buttons carry the bill's own text, not the summaries below. Copy for LLM, View as markdown, and Send to AI use the Markdown version: the text as filed, then the summaries under a heading that names them as ours. View raw is the text alone.

The summaries below were written by an AI model (claude-sonnet-5) from the text of the bill and are not part of it. Quote the text, not the summary. The stored text is the Introduced version, the latest the General Assembly's website lists.

In plain language

Under current Georgia law, the Georgia Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors Board collects fees like examination, license, and license renewal fees, and all of that money goes into the state treasury to fund the board's operations. This bill amends O.C.G.A. § 43-15-6.1 to create a new category of incidental fees, covering things like license verifications, certificates, plaques, identification cards, and collection costs, that the board can charge separately from its main fees. The bill authorizes the board to retain these incidental fees rather than deposit them into the state treasury, relying on an existing state law (O.C.G.A. § 45-12-92.1) that governs how agencies can keep certain revenues. It also makes a small wording change clarifying that the fee-deposit rule applies specifically to fees collected under subsection (a) of the Code section. The bill repeals any conflicting laws and does not list a separate effective date beyond standard enactment.

What the bill does

  • Adds a new subsection (c) to O.C.G.A. § 43-15-6.1 letting the board charge fees for license verifications, certificates, plaques, and identification cards.
  • Allows the board to keep collection fees it charges to cover the cost of collecting fees required under the chapter, rather than depositing all of it into the state treasury.
  • Authorizes the board to retain these incidental revenues under the process set out in O.C.G.A. § 45-12-92.1, a separate state law on agency fund retention.
  • Narrows the existing rule requiring fees to be deposited into the state treasury so it applies specifically to fees collected under subsection (a), the main examination and licensing fees.

Who it affects

The Georgia Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors Board, which gains more control over incidental fee revenue, and the licensed professional engineers and land surveyors in Georgia who pay fees for license verifications, certificates, plaques, and identification cards.

Why it matters

The change affects how the board funds its administrative work: instead of all fee revenue passing through the state treasury, some incidental fees would stay with the board directly, which could affect how quickly the board can cover costs tied to services like license verification and fee collection.

Key provisions

  • Section 1 revises O.C.G.A. § 43-15-6.1 to clarify that the treasury deposit requirement applies to fees collected under subsection (a), the board's examination, license, and renewal fees.
  • Section 1 adds subsection (c), authorizing the board to charge fees for license verifications, certificates, plaques, and identification cards.
  • Subsection (c) lets the board retain collection fees to help cover the cost of collecting fees required under the chapter.
  • Subsection (c) ties this retention authority to O.C.G.A. § 45-12-92.1, an existing statute governing how state agencies may retain certain incidental revenues.
  • Section 2 repeals any laws that conflict with the bill.

From the bill

“The board is also authorized to retain funds received as collection fees for use in defraying the cost of collection of fees required under this chapter.”

This lets the board keep certain collection fees instead of sending them to the state treasury.

“the board is authorized to charge and collect fees to defray costs associated with providing license verifications, certificates, plaques, and identification cards.”

This creates a new category of fees the board can charge for administrative services.

Discussed in meetings (7)

The House and Senate meetings that took this bill up, from their machine transcripts. Each account was written by Georgia Commons with AI and is not part of the record; the video is what was said.

  1. House Regulated Industries Committee, March 2, 2026

    From 0:43:34 · Watch on the General Assembly's Vimeo channel

    Summary by Georgia Commons: The sponsor described HB 1428 as correcting an omission from the professional engineers and land surveyors board's move out of the Secretary of State's office in 2022. According to the sponsor, the law did not authorize the independent board to retain incidental revenue associated with licensing and issuing license documents. The sponsor said a little over $300,000 had remained with the Secretary of State's office during the transition and that this board was the only licensing agency without such revenue-retention authority. The chair asked how much a license costs, but the sponsor did not provide an amount. The committee approved the bill by voice vote, with no count stated.

  2. House Rules Committee, March 4, 2026

    From 1:05:40 · Watch on the General Assembly's Vimeo channel

    Summary by Georgia Commons: The sponsor said HB 1428 would let the Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors Board retain incidental fees after its separation from the secretary of state's office. The sponsor said the board had left $300,000 behind during that separation and faced a $120,000 human resources charge. The sponsor said fee revenue would help cover expenses such as legal services. No questions or decision followed.

  3. House Health Committee, March 23, 2026

    From 0:25:05 · Watch on the General Assembly's Vimeo channel

    Summary by Georgia Commons: The sponsor identified provisions from HB 1428 as section 5 of SB 411. An ACEC Georgia witness said the provisions would clarify that the Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors licensing board may retain incidental revenue, including license-verification and credit-card fees. The witness said the Office of Planning and Budget had found the board’s authority ambiguous following its transition to independence. No questions were asked about these provisions. The committee approved them as part of SB 411 as amended, rather than through a separate vote.

  4. House Rules Committee, April 2, 2026

    From 0:24:17 · Watch on the General Assembly's Vimeo channel

    Summary by Georgia Commons: The presenter said this bill was incorporated into the second section of the substitute for SB 51. The presenter described it as allowing fees to be retained to cover expenses under a different part of state law, without further explanation. The committee did not take a separate vote on this bill.

Status timeline

  1. 2026-03-03House Committee Favorably Reported (House)
  2. 2026-02-26House Second Readers (House)
  3. 2026-02-25House First Readers (House)
  4. 2026-02-24House Hopper (House)

Sponsors

  • Lauren McDonald III (R, HD-26)Primary sponsor
  • Matt Reeves (R, HD-99)
  • Brad Thomas (R, HD-21)
  • Gabe Okoye (D, HD-102)
  • Holt Persinger (R, HD-119)
  • Victor Anderson (R, HD-10)

Topics

  • professional licensing
  • engineering regulation
  • land surveyors
  • state agency fees
  • state treasury funds

Ask about this bill

Answers come from this document. Not legal advice.

Machine-readable https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026/hb1428.md · https://georgiacommons.org/bills/index.md · MCP https://mcp.georgiacommons.org/mcp