LOCKE VS. SHORE has risen again! We need your help!

The Department of Business and Professional Regulations has placed 29 professions and vocations on their list for deregulation. Interior Design is one.

Being a Registered Interior Designer allows you to:

• Work in your business, in other businesses , or as a consultant to others on projects that are non-residential in use, or also residential in use;
• Be identified by your Professional License for pursuit of local, state and Federally-funded projects, with your own business , as a collaborator with other design professionals or as a recognized design professional team member employed within a professional practice firm;
• Prepare documents for submission for permitting;
• Also do “interior decoration” since while it is exempt for licensure there is an EXCEPTION where codes apply, and those codes or requirements by the Building Code, Accessibility Code, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Administration for Healthcare, the Hotel and Restaurant Commission or a myriad of other agency or code requirements that relate to specific- use projects. Florida considers that when codes apply to these items in their application in specific project types, the selection and design work must be by Florida design professionals, including painting specifications, wall coverings, floor covering, and surface mounted lighting, and artwork, since there are codes or requirements of some type relating to all these items;
• Select and prepare plans for all furnishings including non- movable furnishings such as filing systems, work stations and systems, whether the project work requires permitting or not.

Not having registration as a Registered Interior Designer would mean you:

• Could NOT do any of the items above;
• Could be employed by architects to work on non-residential use projects OR
• Could do residential–use projects only;
• Could sell furnishings, or products as part of ‘furthering a retail sale” as long as you did NOT provide plans with that sale that included installation of non-movable furnishings (file or shelving systems fall in here) or work stations/systems;
• Could NOT provide any selections for projects that are not residential-use only if any code applies to that product for its specific project-use, and that includes offices, healthcare facilities, gyms, schools, hotels, restaurants, etc.

Think about all this. Let me know if your State’s identification of you as a design profession is meaningful to you. This is YOUR profession and title and recognition as a design professional at stake, and all that means in terms of business, opportunity and project work. Today and for the future.

And what can you do first? We need you to WRITE a letter within the next 5 days, and it must be in Tallahassee by March 11--regarding the importance of the continuation of the regulation of interior design as a design profession in Florida. Write to:

House Business and Consumer Affairs Subcommittee, Attention: Rep. Esteban L. Bovo, Jr., Chair, 204 House Office Building, 402 South Monroe Street, Tallahassee, Fl 32399-1300.

IF one of these subcommittee members is also your House Representative, please write to them also, at the same address with the subcommittee name below their names:

Rep. Kenneth L. Roberson, Vice Chair
Rep. Joseph Abruzzo
Rep. Larry Ahern
Rep. Frank Artiles
Rep. Steve Crisafulli
Rep. Eric Eisnaugle
Rep. Tom Goodson
Rep. Mia Jones
Rep. Jeannette M. Nunez
Rep. Jimmie Patronis
Rep. Darryl Ervin Rouson
Rep. Irvin Slosberg
Rep. Cynthia Stafford
Rep Dana D. Young

I am including the document we used and left behind with the representatives which provides some points you can use in your letter as to what interior design regulation in Florida means. An important part includes education and that there are more than 1200 students in interior design programs now in Florida who expect to be able to graduate and once they satisfy the State’s requirements, become DESIGN PROFESSIONALS IN FLORIDA. There are at least another 1200 or more who have graduated and in the process with the same expectations…expectations that started with their paying for an education in Florida in an interior design program. And others also who moved here from other places who were not in Florida schools. A lot of very concerned students and former students, and parents, and spouses, etc. who have expectations about careers that de-regulation would totally change.

And URGENTLY NEEDED: While in past times you may have considered that, as a member of a professional interior design organization, contributions were being made on your behalf to support IDAF and its mission to monitor and protect regulations, and to fund its most important expense, our excellent lobbyist, Ron Book and his team. That is not necessarily true now and we ask you now to become a member of IDAF, and provide the urgently needed support at this critical time. Please go today and send a check to IDAF, 2106 St. Johns Avenue, Jacksonville, FL 32204, or go to www.idaf-fl.org, to “Membership and Support” and the left side of the home page.

This subcommittee will hold a hearing MARCH 15 Tuesday (time unknown now) and we need everyone who can be there to be there. Please put this on your calendar and let me know if you will be attending---so important, and it is not necessary for you to speak, but to be counted and stand up in support of continued Interior Design regulation in Florida.

When we have significant issues such as this to combat, our costs will be greater and we need you efforts and your financial support more than ever and NOW!

If you have any questions, please let me know, or a member of the IDAF board. We need you!

Janice R. Young FASID, FIIDA ,RID, FL #000229
IDAF Past President 2011, 2012 , and Legislative Liaison

2106 St. Johns Avenue
Jacksonville Florida 32204-4419
T 904-384-0018 F 904-389-5152
E janice@janiceyoung.com