Keeping a Clean Table at the ADALB

Published in New England Automotive Report – Thomas Greco Publishing

Although the Auto Damage Appraiser Licensing Board (ADALB) entered its May meeting with a full agenda of items to discuss, votes to table topic after topic quickly cleared their plate.

The Board reviewed a request to approve a course of instruction for motor vehicle damage appraisals, which was submitted by AASP/MA Executive Director Lucky Papageorg and designed to prepare students to successfully complete the Part-I and Part-II portions of the examination for motor vehicle damage appraiser licensure. The proposed course was approved by the ADALB in January 2017 for Springfield Technical Community College and was most recently used as the basis for the MVDA course taught at Blue Hills Vocational and Technical High School.

At first, Board members Bill Johnson (Pleasant Street Auto; South Hadley/Belchertown) and Carl Garcia (Carl’s Collision Center; Fall River) argued that there was no need to approve the course since it had already been approved, but upon receiving clarification that the course was being renamed, they expressed a different opinion. “We’re going to need a syllabus, even though it’s an adopted syllabus,” Garcia acknowledged. 

Papageorg indicated that he had submitted an outline and the syllabus to Attorney Michael Powers via email, but Powers denied having received it. Garcia made a motion to table the discussion, allowing Papageorg to submit a syllabus and outline on behalf of AASP/MA to review at the next meeting. 

Moving on to the review of proposed amendments to the ADALB’s Regulation, 212 CMR 2.00 et seq., Board member Peter Smith (MAPFRE) indicated that he and Garcia have engaged in discussions around some housekeeping items, such as the process of applying for and renewing licenses as well as some of the language in the regulation that needs to be updated. “One of the things we agreed on is that we need to look at the definitions,” Smith said.

Garcia indicated that he and Smith plan to share a presentation on the definitions. He feels it’s imperative to start with the definitions first because “It falls right into good housekeeping. If the definitions don’t tie in, we’re going to be cleaning the house only to get it dirty again. Once we get through the definitions, we can move to the next step, but let’s not dirty the house until we at least get it organized first.”

With an unanimous vote, the ADALB agreed to table further discussion of the regulations until the next meeting when the Board can proceed with reviewing the definitions.

The ADALB was scheduled to reconvene on June 25. Don’t miss detailed coverage of the meeting, only available in the June issue of Damage Report, AASP/MA’s members-only newsletter.

AASP/MA members are strongly encouraged to listen to the recording of the May 14 meeting in the Members Only section of aaspma.org for a glimpse into the inner workings of the ADALB. View the meeting agenda at bit.ly/ADALB051424.