Massage therapists complained to state regulators on Monday that a hold on new Arizona massage licenses is keeping them from working.
“I’ve already lost a job because of this,” said Janet Cuppage, who said she graduated in January but doesn’t have her massage therapy license yet.
She told the Arizona State Board of Massage Therapy that nobody wants to hire recent graduates because of pending issues with licenses.
The hold on new licenses comes because of a new state law that requires massage therapists to obtain fingerprint clearance cards as of January 1. But those cards are still not being issued to therapists through the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
State officials said they are still waiting for the FBI to approve the process.
As a result, state regulators have put applications for new licenses on hold. That means applications are still being processed but licenses won’t be issued until fingerprint clearance cards are able to be issued. Only license renewals are able to be granted.
ABC15 asked the FBI multiple times why there is a delay and when the FBI is expected to approve the process but did not get answers.
Michelle Cordero, the director of education at ASIS Massage Education, asked the Massage Board on Monday to issue provisional licenses – which are licenses with special conditions – to new applicants to remove barriers to work.
But the board has maintained that provisional licenses can only be granted to people who are renewing, not new licensees.
“The board can’t speed up the process with these initial licenses. We want to, of course,” said Angela Reiter, the board’s chair.
She recommended that applicants check the state Massage Board website periodically for updates.
Once implemented, the fingerprint-clearance cards will provide for more thorough criminal background checks of massage therapists.
Certain criminal convictions make a person ineligible to get a fingerprint clearance card. Massage therapists are required to have a Level 1 fingerprint clearance card, which is harder to get than a standard fingerprint clearance card.
DPS also is notified when someone with a fingerprint clearance card is arrested in Arizona. If the arrest is listed as a “precluding offense,” DPS then suspends the person’s clearance card and notifies the state agency where the person is licensed.
This change means the Massage Board can step in sooner and potentially revoke or suspend the person’s license if the board believes public safety is at risk. Currently, therapists are required to self-report an arrest to the Massage Board, but this rarely happens. The board sometimes finds out about arrests for sexual abuse only by watching or reading the news.
