I received this email from a past Board Member of the Kansas Home Inspectors Registration Board (KHIRB) today. Its almost a joke, if it wasn’t real.
Since the **Kansas Association of Real Estate Inspectors (KAREI) **was formed about 2008-2009, they’ve done nothing except help push legislation onto home inspectors; until the last 9 months the KHIRB was in force until the governor dropped HI licensure last July the Board was run mostly by ASHI members, etc. Jeff Barnes ran it with Kerry Parham out of Wichita as the non-visible puppet master.
The KAREI officers have been straight ASHI members. Either Kerry Parham or Jeff Barnes have run KAREI from day 1. No real elections; no meetings; no educational events; NO nothing AND now the Kansas Legislature has given the $62,000 remaining in the Kansas Home Inspectors Board Treasury to the KAREI group out of Wichita … due to apparently lobbying of the KAREI group and Legislative Bills known to NONE of the rest of us home inspectors in Kansas.
On top of that imagine WHAT that allows the KAREI group to do with those funds to ADVERTISE their OWN members OR to hire / pay for future lobbying effects for licensure attacks again. AMAZING …
_Here is what I got today _____________________________
Dan … READ this
This is UNBELIEVABLE
-----Original Message-----
From: KAREI Membership Admin <members@karei.org>
Sent: Sat, May 17, 2014 2:12 pm
Subject: State grants unused KHIRB funds to KAREI
~~**On Friday the Governor signed the state budget that contains a $62,383 grant to the KAREI association**. These are the leftover funds from the KHIRB that remained because of the excellent and austere management practices of those home inspectors that ran the board, in no small part due to the efforts of our past president and original KHIRB president Jeff Barnes. As unfair as it sounds, we initially were told by the attorney general's office that this money would go into the state general fund. We complained loudly, and apparently some house members agreed this was unfair. Representative Pete Degraaf (Mulvane) introduced a bill titled *The Home Inspector Closure Fund *where they initially proposed returning these funds to the home inspectors that had paid in. We explained in our testimony to the committee that since the original regulatory bill’s implementation, about 10-15% of the registered home inspectors have left the business each year. In fact, the KAREI group found that when we used the most recent KHIRB registration list last October, just 4 months after the expiration of the legislation, we were unable to even locate about 10% of the registered inspectors. Therefore, it was impractical to equitably return those funds to all the formally registered inspectors. As the only IRS registered non-profit Kansas home inspector group, we requested that the funds be granted to the KAREI organization, and that is how the House passed their bill. Unfortunately, the Senate was heavily lobbied by the Real Estate Commission and they were granted these funds rather than the KAREI group. We then retained the services of our former lobbyist (Hein Law Firm) and worked with key committee members and leaders in the Senate to encourage them to concede their position and agree to the House's version of the bill. We explained that home inspectors have no representation on the Real Estate Commission board, and granting these funds to real estate salesman is akin to taxing a car wash and then giving the money to car salesmen because they sold the cars. Ultimately, a majority of the Senate saw it our way, however, it was touch and go for some time. **Your board will be meeting to discuss how we might best use these funds to support our members, and likely will be lowering your already modest annual dues. Certainly, some of these funds will be applied directly to Realtor advertising with the goal of making your phone ring. **
In the meantime, we have extended everyone's listing on the KAREI website (i.e., those who have not yet paid their dues) until at least September 30. The unique value and utilitarian advantage of the KAREI website is its comprehensive and inclusive nature. **No other home inspector national member organization or web presence provides prospective buyers and agents an all-inclusive list of Kansas home inspectors in their area. **We are truly a one-stop easy to use location, that is increasingly utilized by those searching for a home inspector. If you haven't already, please do your part by updating your member profile. The website and dues payment is now fully automated, however, If you have any problems or questions, just send me an email and I'll be happy to walk you through the process.
Thanks for your membership and past support,
**Kerry Parham, President
**